Iggles Blitz

by Tommy Lawlor

Game Review – PHI 22, CAR 16

Posted December 12th, 2024 | 2 Comments »

The blowout that wasn’t. The Eagles were big favorites over the Panthers. As the old saying goes, that’s why they play the games. Carolina was tough and competitive. The Eagles were sloppy. There were five lead changes and the game went down to the final minute. This wasn’t what anyone had in mind.

The Panthers are playing their best football of the season at this point. Bryce Young made some terrific plays and gave the Eagles defense fits with his mobility. The pass rush got pressure on a regular basis, but only sacked him once. RB Chuba Hubbard really impressed me. His final numbers were good, not great, 26-92-1. But he got every inch possible. If there was one yard available, he got two. He broke tackle after tackle. These weren’t highlight runs, but rather the kind of plays that coaches will love. If you remember the days of Miles Sanders leaving yards on the field, Hubbard was the opposite of that.

The Eagles ran the ball well and the defense was effective. The passing game was the big issue. There is no way a team with Jalen Hurts, AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, Miles Sanders and a good OL should pass for 98 net yards for an entire game. Carolina covered better than I thought, but Hurts had issues. He was hesitant to pull the trigger on several plays. He was errant with some throws. This was not a good performance for him. The passing game struggles led to several days of dumb drama.

If a couple of plays had gone differently, the Eagles might have won in a more comfortable fashion. The flip side is that the Eagles might have lost if one key play had gone the other way. While this was a flawed performance, the Eagles made enough plays to win the game and that does matter.

COACHING

Nick Sirianni has drawn criticism for one key decision. Facing 4th & 8 from the CAR 36 with 3:05 left, Sirianni had three choices. He could have opted to try a FG, gone for it or punted. He punted (after taking a penalty to back up 5 yards). Some critics thought he should have gone for it. If you get the first down, you have a great chance to close out the game. Not many wanted the FG, since Jake Elliott hasn’t hit a kick from 50+ all season.

I was okay with the punt. Carolina’s longest drive to that point was 69 yards. If the Eagles could pin the Panthers deep, they had a good chance to keep them from scoring a TD. The Eagles pinned them at the 2 and the strategy did work. Some will point out that it only worked because Xavier Legette dropped a TD pass. But that’s part of the idea. Carolina is a team that makes mistakes. If you force them to drive the long field, chances are they are going to come up short at some point.

Every game is different. Sirianni has made plenty of aggressive decisions. He went conservative in this instance. I don’t think he’s going to suddenly become a passive coach.

Kellen Moore had a terrific plan for the run game. They were creative and it worked well. The Eagles ran for 209 yards and averaged 6.7 yards per carry. The passing game was less impressive. Hurts performance made it tough to judge, but there weren’t many plays with Eagles receivers running open. The red zone offense was good, with the Eagles going 3 for 3. Moore called good plays down there.

The defense only allowed 16 points, but didn’t play as well as they could have. They should have done a better job against the run. They were a bit sloppy with the pass rush. Mobile QBs require a really disciplined rush. Vic Fangio said the Eagles didn’t do a good job on the TD pass they gave up.

OFFENSE

Jalen Hurts was 14-21-108 with 2 TDs. I wish this was one of those games where the film looked better than the numbers. Nope. Hurts was hesitant on multiple plays, not throwing to open receivers. He failed to see a wide open AJ Brown on the first series of the game. He was too high on a throw Johnny Wilson, the tallest receiver in the league. Hurts was late on a couple of throws.

Hurts didn’t have a good game, but he did make the plays necessary to win. He was good in the red zone. Both TD passes were good throws/plays. Hurts had a couple of great scrambles. He fought off tacklers and took off up the middle for big gains. He was 8-59-1 on the ground.

There were some bad decisions on the final drive. Hurts took a sack instead of throwing the ball away. He was able to overcome that with a good throw to AJ. He then had a delay of game penalty that led to Sirianni’s punt decision. You can argue that Sirianni is more at fault for the penalty.

Saquon Barkley had another impressive showing, going 20-124. He didn’t have the long TD run in this game. He came close a couple of times, but got tripped up by the last defender.

On a day when the passing game struggled, Barkley showed just how valuable he is. Kenny Gainwell was 3-26, including a 20-yard run.

AJ Brown went 4-43. He had a couple of key catches. DeVonta Smith had a catch along the sideline on 3rd down that went for 27 yards and he also caught a TD. Grant Calcaterra had his first NFL TD. He got open across the middle. He finished 3-16.

The OL had a good day. They gave Hurts plenty of time to throw on most dropbacks, which is part of what made his performance so frustrating. Hurts was sacked 4 times, usually on well-timed blitzes.

The OL did a lot of pulling and moving in the run game. I don’t recall seeing OTs pull that much in a long time.

Mekhi Becton had some really impressive blocks in this game.

That is good stuff.

There were some missed blocks by the OL, but they played a strong game overall.

DEFENSE

The front did a solid job against the run, but failed to make plays often enough. Give Hubbard credit for some of that. He broke a lot of arm tackles and fought for every yard he could. It felt like Jordan Davis slanted and moved more than most games. He was disruptive at times, but only had 1 tackle. Jalen Carter had another good game. He had a pair of TFLs and 3 QB hits. Milton Williams got into the backfield multiple times, but couldn’t make any plays. He had a crucial offside penalty that helped keep a drive alive. Give Moro Ojomo credit for hustle. He had 2 tackles and 2 QB hits. There were multiple that he chased Young out wide and kept him from getting loose.

Josh Sweat, Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt combined for 1 QB hit. They got pressures, but struggled to get to Young cleanly. Sweat had a chance to sack Young in the end zone on the final drive, but just couldn’t get him down. Smith played hard and pursued well. Hunt had one really impressive play when he dropped into coverage. Young started to run and Hunt chased him down and made the tackle.

Zack Baun had another terrific showing. He had 11 tackles, a sack, 3 TFLs and 2 QB hits. He blitzed a few times and was disruptive. Baun also lined up on the edge a few times to give CAR a different look. Nakobe Dean led the team with 12 tackles. Several of them were downfield, after the runner had already gained a few yards. Baun had a chance to tackle Young on a scramble and whiffed.

CJGJ made a key play on the initial 3rd down.

I hoped that might set the tone for the game, but CAR never backed down. CJGJ left the game a couple of times after big collisions, but came back both times. He finished with 6 tackles and 2 PDs. It looked like he might have been at fault on the late play where Legette got open deep. CJGJ and Slay were the DBs in the area.

Tristin McCollum got his first start. He finished with 4 tackles and a PD. McCollum was okay, but missed a couple of tackles and was a little off in coverage. He looked at his best when playing in the box.

Darius Slay had 6 tackles and a couple of PDs. He made some big plays on the final drive. Slay got burned a couple of times earlier in the game. Quinyon Mitchell gave up a couple of short catches. Cooper DeJean got an education, courtesy of Adam Thielen. DeJean covered him a lot and gave up several catches. Thielen is a great route-runner so there is no shame in getting beaten by him. DeJean had 5 tackles and a TFL.

ST

Braden Mann did a great job on the late punt. He put it inside the 5 and Avonte Maddox caught the ball at the 2. That was great execution by the two of them. Maddox and Kelee Ringo did a good job in punt coverage throughout the game.

Jake Elliott missed another long FG. Wind was an issue, but this is a troubling issue. Those three points would have been huge.

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State of Mind

Posted December 10th, 2024 | 3 Comments »

The best football coaches are also good psychologists. They have a feel for what their team needs to hear and then they deliver the right message in the right way.

The best example I can think of came back in 1993. Dallas was the reigning Super Bowl champs and was about to play the Niners in the NFC title game. Coach Jimmy Johnson sensed that his team was nervous. He called a local radio station the day before the big game and did an impromptu interview where he guaranteed a win.

“We will win the ballgame, and you can put it in three-inch headlines. We will win the ballgame.”

Unfortunately, he was right. Dallas built a 21-point halftime lead and won the game 38-21. I know that it seems hard to believe that Dallas won big games in the postseason, but there was a dark time in our nation’s history when that did happen.

Nick Sirianni is trying to figure out the right message for the Eagles. They’re 11-2, which is really good. They have won nine games in a row, which is great. The team played sloppy on Sunday and almost blew the game. That’s bad. The X-factor to all of this is that the Eagles have four more regular season games to go so Sirianni can’t focus on just one game. He’s got to keep his team living in the moment, but also understanding that there is a lot of the journey left. That’s tricky.

I thought Sirianni had a good message on Sunday, telling the team “not to be prisoners of expectations”. The Eagles were big favorites over the Panthers, but the game came down to the final moment. Sirianni wanted his players to celebrate the win and not feel bad that it wasn’t a blowout. He could probably sense angst in the stadium and wanted to address that right away.

One of the reasons this was important is that Sirianni knows his players weren’t satisfied with the performance. That game should not have come down to the final minute. The Eagles were way too sloppy. If Sirianni senses the players frustration, he doesn’t want to harp on negatives and get them too down. That isn’t to say you ignore problems, but you craft the message to be a bit more positive.

Eagles players who spoke to the media after the game expressed their frustration with the offense. They know Sunday’s showing wasn’t good enough. You want players to have high standards and to be self-critical.

Sirianni is lucky that the Eagles opponent this week is the 10-3 Steelers. If the Eagles play well, he can feel good about the team. If they struggle, he knows something is off and needs to be worked on. This is the time to figure that out. January football is right around the corner.

Sirianni is a huge believer in living in the moment and I’m sure that will be his focus when he talks to the team. He will talk to the players about areas that need to improve. He will focus more on solutions than problems. Acknowledge what is wrong and then talk about how to fix it. That sounds easy, but this is pro sports. It can take time to get something fixed. There is a combination of classroom time, practice reps and game reps. There is no Easy Button to push and magically fix things. That’s not how football works.

The Eagles have lofty goals. They won the Super Bowl in 2017. They made it back in 2022. This organization isn’t satisfied with having a good year. They want to go get another Lombardi for the trophy case. Sirianni can peak ahead, but must keep his players focused and going with a day-by-day mentality. His messages worked in 2022. That team got off to a fast start and only slowed down when Gardner Minshew had to start a couple of games at the end of the year. I don’t know what Sirianni said last year, but he probably ought to burn those speeches. That team melted down in spectacular fashion.

This is a different team and Sirianni is somewhat of a different coach. Let’s hope he can find the right words to keep his team confident and aggressive, but also realistic enough to focus on mistakes and fixing them. That can be a delicate balance.

*****

Things got a bit weird on Monday.

Everyone started to have flashbacks to 2004. But then…

I’m sure BG got an earful from Sirianni or Howie or someone. Players love to throw things out there and don’t realize the power their observations can have, whether accurate or not. AJ was frustrated after the Panthers game, but I don’t think there was anything more than that. I guess we’ll find out in the coming days/weeks.

No matter what, I don’t think this is the kind of distraction anyone in the organization wanted.

*****

Twitter talked a lot about the Eagles game on Monday. Most of the focus from non-Eagles people was on Bryce Young and how well he played.

When you look at some of those plays, he was incredibly impressive. The Eagles defense did good things, but Young was better. He was a great QB at Alabama and was the #1 pick for a reason. His pro career got off to a terrible start, but the light has gone on for him and you can see his ability.

You can be disappointed in the Eagles, but make sure to give Young a lot of credit. This isn’t the guy from the first month of the season.

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