Nice Defense

Posted: December 3rd, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 63 Comments »

The Eagles scored 33 points.  And it wasn’t enough.

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I know the loss benefits the team in terms of draft position and winning would have meant nothing, but this was Dallas.  I never want to lose to these guys.  The loss drops us to 3-9 and assures Andy Reid of his first losing season since 2005.  I am really starting to wonder if this team will win again.  3-13 will not shock me.

There are plenty of things to be happy about tonight.  Nick Foles had his first flat out good start.  He was sharp tonight.  Bryce Brown ran for 169 yards.  Riley Cooper had a terrific TD catch.  Brandon Graham had 1.5 sacks.  Damaris Johnson had a 98-yard PR for a TD.  Yes, that does sound weird.  I didn’t pay much attention to Dennis Kelly, but that also works as a compliment since he wasn’t getting beaten over and over.

The defense stunk in the 2nd half.  Romo had a rating of 95 at halftime.  Went 10-10 with 3 TDs in the 2nd half and finished the game with a rating of 150.  The secondary was just awful.  At this point, I’m open to the new coach getting rid of all of them.  The tackling is terrible.  Sometimes it is technique.  Sometimes it is effort.  Sometimes it is both.

I’m happy that the young players played well.  I’m heartbroken on losing to Dallas.

And I’m starting to seriously think we aren’t going to win the Super Bowl.

_

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=565087931 Jeppe Elmelund van Ee

    Tommy,
    It makes me so frustrated to think that we’ve spend two 2nd round picks on safeties in the past couple of years, and we could almost just as well have flushed those picks down the toilet.
    Will we ever know who made the scouting/was advocating for those players? I still have hopes that Allen can thrive under a different scheme, but he does test my faith in him.

    • BobSmith77

      Allen’s a lost cause. He might just be back by default next year but it is really hard to believe they won’t bring in a pick/FA to at least seriously challenge him.

      • Anders

        Its not Allen there is the problem, its the scheme. Remember how good he looked his rookie year?

  • http://twitter.com/EaglesPride_ Aleandro green

    first game i decide to skip all season and turns out to be the night the offense shows up smh
    Just happy they didnt win

    • BlindChow

      You also missed the 98-yard Damaris Johnson punt return!

  • http://twitter.com/ashleyleask Ashley Leask

    Was thinking the same thing during the game on the secondary. A month ago I wanted to keep DRC but I’ve seen enough of him now as well. I can’t remember seeing a backfield perform this badly in my 20 years of football watching.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=565087931 Jeppe Elmelund van Ee

    I am by no means a good evaluator of players, but I kept an eye on Kelly for most of the game, and I think he did really well. Especially in the run game. At the least we’ve got our new swing-tackle when King is let go.

    • austinfan

      Kelly needs work, but even when he was beat in pass protection, he was never beat cleanly, fights through the block and rides his guy. Like I’ve said, reminds me a lot of Runyan with that big body and some attitude, can really crush his side on runs. His biggest problems is he’s not natural in Mudd’s scheme, he’ll extend and hit the defender, then loses contact and looks a bit lost. In a more conventional blocking scheme, the focus on punching will help him, he just has to learn to sustain, especially in pass protection.

  • http://twitter.com/Dan_Koller Dan Koller

    We have a secondary? I thought we voluntarily surrendered our backfield and have tried to win with the first 7-man defense in history.

    • TommyLawlor

      Sure feels that away.

    • Ark87

      Ah yes, the empty net defense. A truly desperate move.

  • Eric Dein

    Aw, Tommy. “The loss drops us to 7-9?” Optimism. Just kidding, looking for humor after a Cowboys loss.

    • TommyLawlor

      I’m drunk on depression. Thanks for the heads up. Fixed it.

      • Ark87

        Thought you were joking like, whelp looks like we will only close out the season with a 4 game winning streak

  • Ark87

    So guys…….are the linebackers the least disappointing unit on the defense this season? HAH!

  • Ark87

    Press has Andy on the Ropes.
    “So uhhhh andy do you think you have a job tomorrow…aaaand you’re fat”

  • holeplug

    So since Bowles took over QBs are completing 76.3% – 16 TD – 0 INT. Under Castillo they were at 52% with 7 TD – 7 INT.

  • xeynon

    I don’t want any of these secondary players back. Asomugha is over the hill. Rodgers-Cromartie is talented but has trouble focusing or putting out consistent effort and you don’t want to sink big free agent money into guys like that. That pathetic effort he gave just letting Bryant shove him backwards on his second touchdown sealed his fate AFAIC. Allen doesn’t make any plays, and he doesn’t make up for it by being reliable either. I’m not sure he’s a starting NFL safety. And Kurt Coleman, if he is an NFL player, is a fringe roster guy, not a starter. He tries hard, but he just isn’t very talented.

    The secondary is endemic of where it all went wrong for Andy Reid. As a personnel guy he started going for big names over solid performers, ignoring problem areas, and drafting questionable prospects like Jarrett. And as a head coach, he’s lost most of his best assistants and failed to find quality replacements for them, and he no longer has the willingness to wield the iron rod the way he once did when guys get sloppy. Some of these players may have talent, but we need someone who will come in and George Hegamin them if they’re going to live up to it.

  • Iskar36

    Our secondary is unbelievably bad right now. I don’t see how you can possibly extend DRC next season with the way he is playing. Nnamdi would absolutely need a pay cut to stay, and you can argue even that is not worth keeping him. Coleman simply is not a starting caliber safety, period. Allen has been a bust as a 2nd round pick so far. Allen may be the one guy you could consider to have a chance to bounce back, and you may have to because replacing 3 starters in the secondary is going to be unbelievably difficult to begin with.

    • Ark87

      Andy was about to get honest about how he felt about all the blown coverages and caught himself. From there the blood was in the water and the press got rough.

      • Iskar36

        I wanted to see ARs press conference (I know, I’m basically going to get the same thing as after any other game), but PE.com did not have it up after the game. Hopefully they will make it available at some point, but I found that odd.

        • Ark87

          It was late, eventually they got it on the postgame show, but it was very delayed. He basically said something to the tune of “I tell ya what………………………………” like 3 straight minutes of sounds, not quite sure how to get out of the statement he was about to make then went with “young guy mistakes” and coaches need to coach better players need to play better etc. It was close haha.

    • Anders

      Problem with DRC is inconsitency. Remember how he played the first month? I really think Bowles becoming DC hurt him alot. It remember DRC talking very good about Juan and how he had taught him alot of things.

  • ACViking

    Re: Brown’s fumbles

    If the Eagles defense generated ANY turnovers and ANY pass-defense, then Brown’s fumbles wouldn’t stand out like the game-turning plays they are.

    At this point, the Eagles offense has absolutely no margin for anything less than a TD on nearly every possession.

    When that happens, when the Eagles start playing defense again, then Brown’s fumbles won’t be the so damned game-changing.

    That kid is special. He has no tread. And he runs like a locomotive.

    Maybe he can tackle, too

    • TommyLawlor

      Good job of putting the fumbles in perspective.

    • Iskar36

      Game-changing, probably not, but I don’t think you can diminish the importance of protecting the football. Brown absolutely has to keep hold of the ball. He has fumbled with WAAAAAAY to much regularity for the amount of touches he has had.

      • JulzPE

        I don’t want to spend a lot of time defending fumbles, but I’m willing to cut the guy a break for the moment. Can’t expect him to play his first proper, regular football since High School and not screw up a bit. It’s disappointing to see fumbles are outweighing the fact that he is absolutely crushing it in the NFL.

        The way he’s carrying the ball can be fixed with time, I’m sure he understands that fumbles won’t cut it. Will be a good test of his character to see how hard he works to correct the issue.

        The guy has serious potential, it could be worse, he could be coughing up the ball in losses that mean us making the playoffs or not… :/

        • Iskar36

          Don’t get me wrong. Brown has a lot of promise as a RB and the positives are absolutely amazing to watch. However, if he does not learn how to protect the football better, all that talent will be wasted. I would rather him learn these lessons now than start developing bad habits. By not holding him accountable for those mistakes, you risk him not taking them as seriously as he should.

          Don’t get me wrong, I think he understands the importance of protecting the ball. But I think it would be a much more powerful message if he was benched after that fumble than continuing to feed him the ball, especially considering that they have tried the latter and it failed. On top of that, I also think we could have gotten a bit of a glimpse on Lewis that way.

          • BlindChow

            I’m torn about what to do about the fumbles. Best to let him work through it during a lost season than when the Eagles have a chance at the playoffs, but you also want to see him learn sooner rather than later, and continuing to give him the ball is clearly not working. (Though Adrian Peterson had a fumbling problem for a long time, and he was not considered a wasted talent during those years.)

            I also think the fact he knew the defense was completely incompetent may have driven him to try too much in order to gain yards. Its easier to gain leverage and break tackles when you have a free arm and are not concentrating on hugging the ball.

        • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

          Right now, he seems to learn from his mistakes about as well as Michael Vick does. :(

    • T_S_O_P

      If you look at 2 of our 3 wins this season it was indeed the defense causing turnovers that gave us any chance in those games. Unfortunately they melted against the Lions in 1 quarter and Reid sacked the wrong coordinator.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=548999324 Matt Hoover

    At this point start Hughes and Marsh, I don’t care that Reid thinks there not ready and he gets to stand up there and say he will make the evaluations not the media. Your 3-9! Obviously your evaluations of the secondary thus far are bad. Id also start Sims for Coleman. You have nothing to lose, if your worried about getting a reputation for disrespecting veterans around the league(which reid may very well be worried about) then start Drc and Na and do a rotation with Marsh and Hughes. At this point the secondary is the worst in Eagles history, we have always had good cbs and s, this is pathetic. Give us 1 good corner and 1 good safety we probably win tonight and last week. And all of a sudden were 5-7…no wait lets not draft earl thomas and lets sign Samuel instead of Dunta Robinson

    • Iskar36

      What confused me today was the fact that when Coleman went down, instead of playing Sims, he played Colt Anderson. I don’t understand that move. Are you rewarding a guy for playing STs? Anderson is clearly a great STer, but we have seen repeatedly that he is a liability on defense. Sims should have been given that playing time.

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=548999324 Matt Hoover

        according to reids after game press conference, sims didn’t play as well as the media and fans thought against No…same with hughes and marsh…what a moron

        • Iskar36

          I actually don’t necessarily disagree with him about that, but it hasn’t been like Coleman, Allen, DRC, and Nnamdi have played well either.

          • A_T_G

            Oh, come on. Let’s not get hyperbolic. They almost broke up that one pass in the second half…

            and, Nate flew by Austin really, really fast on Austin’s TD…

            and, Coleman was late enough that he didn’t clobber DRC until AFTER Bryant was going down…

            and, … wow, they are terrible.

          • Iskar36

            Haha. I saw the same thing on the Coleman hit. He almost blew up DRC and took him out of the play. If Coleman was a step faster, he may have done just that. So I guess that’s one positive of being slow.

      • Ark87

        That actually came up in the press conference. Reid got pretty defensive about it. “You assume that they (Sims) played well in the New Orleans game.” went on to talk about how they evaluated that NO performance and they decided to keep their starters. It was so strong, you wonder if from their coaching perspective, having known their playcalls, feel like Sims got away with a lot? Was lucky not to get exposed? It’s hard to imagine him being any more lost out there than the rest of those clowns though. Anyway it sounds like he’s in the dog house.

  • SteveH

    By the QB rating metric we are now in the midst of the worst 6 game run of pass defense in the entire history of the NFL. THE ENTIRE FUCKING HISTORY OF THE NFL! We are HISTORICALLY BAD on pass defense. Since the bye, this may be the worst secondary that has ever played the game… EVER. I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around how awful this pass D is. This is one of the most complete collapses I think there could possibly be, considering how solid we were against the pass to start the season.

    I can’t talk enough about how miserable the secondary is. Seriously, I could just stay up all night trying to find fail pictures that can at least begin to convey the level of terribleness that we’re playing at right now.

    • TommyLawlor

      You need to be more clear. Can’t understand if you like them or not.

    • A_T_G

      Luckily, when the world ends before the end of the season we will have a solid argument to put an asterisk next to it in the record books.

      Unless, is it possible that the holes in our secondary continue to grow, creating a rift in the Earth’s crust and cause the Mayan Apocalypse?

      • SteveH

        I suspect Nnamdi Asomugha and Kurt Coleman will actually fuse together and become the antichrist, laying waste to the world in the form of a seven headed dragon. Truly these are the endtimes.

        • GFF

          They clearly have “MISSED TACKLE” written on their foreheads…

  • OffTheLows

    Chiefs win, Jags looking better with Henne… Eagles could have #1 pick, though there is no RG3 or Luck this time around and having the top pick isn’t as important. One figures KC would pick Geno, not sure about the other teams.

  • NoDecaf

    (Insert Shirley Temple vid singing “On the Good Ship Lollipop.”)

  • Anders

    I think the most positive from this game was that the OL seemed to play better as of late and Foles showed promise, yes he might never be an elite QB, but its clear that he got all the tools to be one.

  • JJ_Cake

    I want to bring up Foles. Is he getting better? Does it seem like he can be a starting caliber NFL QB? I’m a U of A grad and would love nothing better than to see Nick be our guy. That being said, he looked a little shell shocked out there. He seems to read the line of scrimmage well, but doesn’t see the field well because he stares down his primary targets, and misses guys wide open in front of him like Brown on the 2pt conversion. More over, if he was more accurate he could’ve actually made that play to Avant but the ball seemed to get away from him. Dallas should have gotten at least two ints.

    • Anders

      Its clear that Foles improved from the last 2 weeks. Yes he still made rookie mistakes, but remember he wasnt the talent that Luck was and he was the 3rd QB trough TC. The last 4 games none of the teams we play of a great defense, so Foles should be abit up and down, but hopefully still show flashes.

      We should be able to win games next year with Foles at QB and a running game featuring McCoy and Brown IF the secondary plays better next year.

      • shah8

        Not very many. Pared down offenses will always wind up finding that they have to do more. And I have little confidence in Foles being able to run any sort of full offense.

        • Anders

          How many rookie QBs have you seen make an audible at the LOS in the RZ because the coverage was wrong and then adjust it perfectly?

  • Concussed FB

    See ya later Wash!

  • Julescat

    why would the Eagles be firing coaches this late into the season?

    Could this be part of a plan to bring Andy Reid back next season and blame the injuries and assistant coaches?

    • Anders

      It seems that Washburn was mad they cut Babin and the other DL wasnt fond of the way Washburn loved Babin no matter what he did.

    • Ark87

      You’re right, it’s too late for this firing to mean anything, and the interim DL coach will likely make things even worse. Maybe it’s all masterful scapegoating in the interest of self preservation.

      But my speculation is some relatively dramatic happenings went on. Basically the team got off the plane and said adios Wash. Probably some sort of explosive argument . Wash pissed about losing Babin, Reid pissed about the D line sucking and most recently disappearing in the second half. All speculation, but something tells me Wash isn’t heartbroken to be leaving Philly.

  • Eric Weaver

    Foles showed that if you commit to the run, he can be effective off play action and moving outside the pocket.

    • ddubya

      and why not commit with BB and Shady, absolutely loving this combo for the next few years. Running behind a (hopefully) healthy Jason Peters, come on, any football coach in the world would be drooling to run this offense.

  • http://www.facebook.com/hesselfitness Ben Hessel

    It’s nice to see players like BGraham playing with all his heart. He was a first round pick with a great college career and almost had it all taken away from him in one play (and right as he was expected to break out during his rookie campaign).

    It’s important to see which players haven’t checked out mentally when all is essentially lost.

    Let’s clone Bryce Brown.

  • austinfan

    Nice to see y’all coming around to my position. It’s partially talent, but a lot is fit, Aso and DRC are just not good man cover guys anymore, we don’t have a safety with the speed for cover 1, no one can tackle, the wide 9 run support responsibilities have both safeties playing back on their heels (which guarantees failure).

    Eagles could have fielded a much better secondary just by keeping Sheldon and Patterson in a cover two shell, neither can cover in man downfield, but both would tackle and make plays on balls in front of them.

    I think straight man coverage is dead in the NFL for a number of reasons:
    1) too hard to find 2 solid cover guys like Aso four years ago or Revis
    2) if one goes down to injury, well . . .

    3) multiple WR formations still force bad matchups
    4) vulnerable to the run and QB scrambles
    5) requires really athletic safeties

    What top defense other than the Jets (and when Revis went down . . . ) still employ a man press scheme as their base defense?

    It’s not just the Eagles, Cowboys use high pick on Claiborne and sign Carr to a $10M a year deal, did you see a great secondary out there last night?

    • Anders

      Man coverage works if the DL can get pressure. Problem is that the lack of pressure is exposing the secondary.

  • http://www.facebook.com/hesselfitness Ben Hessel

    Wow, Washburn… Looking forward to hearing this post later…

  • The_People’s_Champ

    “And I’m starting to seriously think we aren’t going to win the Super Bowl.”

    Tommy, don’t lose your resolve. A lot of season left.

  • http://twitter.com/alex_karklins Alex Karklins

    The defensive line’s performance this season is the biggest shock for
    me. I had visions of toppling the single season sack record in my head
    during the preseason. Remember when it looked like Philip Hunt was going
    to be unstoppable? The rest of the defense is based upon great
    production from the d-line, so when you give the opposing QB all day,
    even a good secondary will look god awful. Washburn was given everything
    on his wish list this offseason and couldn’t deliver. Mudd, on the
    other hand, has worked miracles with a depleted offensive line. Scott
    and Kelly were terrific last night. It makes sense to cut ties with
    Washburn now and evaluate the current talent in a different system.

  • Kevin_aka_RC

    Sad Eagles fans in December means, happy Eagle fans in March-April. Of course, we’ll be drafting in the top 3 in a year without a Suh/Megatron/Von Miller, etc.