Posted November 4th, 2023 | 3 Comments »The Cowboys and Eagles might be the best rivalry in the NFL. Some might argue for Steelers and Ravens, but they play some ugly games. When Dallas and Philly meet, there will be some wild things happening. Sunday should be an entertaining big game, not a 13-10 slugfest.
Jalen Hurts and Dak Prescott each went 1-0 in this rivalry last year, because they each missed a game. They are both healthy now. It should be fun to watch them battle it out. Due to injuries and meaningless games, they have only faced each other once (2021).
The Eagles are 7-1. The Cowboys are 5-2. The Eagles have been more consistent. Dallas has shown more dominant potential. They have won four games by 20 or more points. They won two of those by 35 or more. That’s dominance. The Eagles biggest win is 14 points. When Dallas rolls, they really roll. They love to be bullies. If you challenge them, they don’t always handle that well.
Let’s start with the Eagles offense. They average 28 points a game this year, but this will be the best defense they’ve faced. Brian Johnson will have to come up with a really good gameplan and the players will need to execute at a high level. You aren’t going to make plays on Dallas based purely on talent. The key will be neutralizing their pass rush as much as possible.
Micah Parsons might be the best defensive player in the NFL. You don’t shut him down with one guy. It will take good blocking from the OL, the TEs and the RBs. The Eagles have also had success in slowing him down schematically. They like to attack him with runs and plays that require him to read. Make him think rather than just attack. We’ll see if Brian Johnson can come up with plays that affect Parsons.
As for the OL, there could be a change at RG. Cam Jurgens isn’t healthy yet and Sua Opeta is banged up. We could see rookie Tyler Steen get his first NFL start. He played a few snaps last week and looked solid.
The Eagles have been incredibly sloppy this year at protecting the ball. That has to change against Dallas. The Cowboys thrive on turnovers. They really want to get offenses into 3rd & long situations where they can go with a bunch of pass rushers and some exotic looks. They love to run stunts. Those can be deadly in passing situations.
If they run the stunt on a run down, you can burn that defense. People aren’t in the right gap and that can make them vulnerable. This would be a great week for D’Andre Swift to have a big game. Boston Scott is out (personal matter) so Rashaad Penny should be active. Maybe he’ll finally get a chance to show what he can do.
Can AJ Brown keep his historic streak going? He’s got six straight games with 125 or more yards. Dallas doesn’t have a shutdown corner, but I’m sure they’ll do what they can to slow him down.
As long as the Eagles protect the ball, they should be able to move it and score some points. Dallas is vulnerable when they face a balanced offense. Arizona beat them by being creative and balanced. SF beat them by being physical and balanced.
The bigger question to me is whether the Eagles have an answer for Dak Prescott. He’s owned the Eagles for most of his career. A lot of that is because Dallas had a good run game and could also throw the ball well. They had the x-factor of Dak being able to run when things broke down. That’s a lot to stop. The Cowboys run game is mediocre this year. That puts more pressure on Dak. That could help the Eagles to slow him down.
Sean Desai had a terrific gameplan for Miami, but it only worked because the players executed it so well. I didn’t love his plan last week, but the execution was the biggest problem. Blown coverages. Missed tackles. Erratic pass rush. You aren’t going to stop anyone if you don’t execute. We’ll see if Desai can get his guys to play with more urgency on Sunday. This will be a big test for them.
Dallas doesn’t have a great OL so the pass rush should have chances to make plays. That only happens if the back seven can cover well enough. It will be interesting to see what Desai does at the nickel. That was a weak spot in the loss to Dallas last year. I’m sure they will also try to get the ball to their TEs, another area where the Eagles can struggle.
This is interesting.
Could he be a secret weapon on defense?
No. More like an athlete to add to STs. Grant Calcaterra is out so Ben could take his place on STs. They play different positions, but have similar size and both are good athletes.
If the Eagles play smart and execute well, they will win this game. If they have a slopfest like last week in Washington, they will make Yankees/Lakers/Cowboys fans happy people. The Eagles are the better team, but their sloppiness has kept games closer than they should have been. Dallas feasts on mistakes. You could look at it this way…the Eagles are due to play a complete game. If they do that, Sunday will be a lot of fun.
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Posted November 3rd, 2023 | 4 Comments »Weird things happen when the Eagles play Washington. You may remember the Body Bag Game. There was the wild 1989 game where the Eagles trailed 37-28 late. I got so mad that I stormed out of my dorm room and went for food. I got back as the Eagles were wrapping up at 42-37 win. There was a 2002 game that was delayed after police used pepper spray to break up a fight in the stands and the spray drifted onto the sidelines. There was the Michael Vick 59-28 game in 2010.
Weird stuff happened last week.
The Eagles fumbled twice inside the 3-yard line. I can’t remember the last time an NFL team did that. After falling behind 14-3, the Eagles went on a 35-10 run to take control of the game. Sam Howell started 16 for 17, with his only incompletion being a deep ball. Washington had two TD drives that were 54 seconds or less.
Weird stuff.
Thankfully the Eagles were able to overcome a sloppy performance and win the game.
COACHING
Nick Sirianni didn’t have to make many strategic decisions. The Eagles went for it once on fourth down. He opted for the only FG attempt on 4th & 8 from the 33. That was a smart decision. If you want to appreciate Sirianni, just look at how bad Ron Rivera was. He failed to challenge on a 4th down play where DeVonta trapped the ball. Rivera said he hadn’t seen a good replay. That was an important enough moment that you take the risk and challenge. Rivera failed to go for 2 when his team scored late. That didn’t end up making a difference, but it could have been important.
Brian Johnson had some good moments. He dialed up the play that resulted in Julio Jones first TD catch as an Eagle. He called an RPO where Dallas Goedert had a catch and run on 3rd & 2 that went for 16 yards. He called the play where Hurts throws the ball to AJ 8 times for 130 yards and 2 TDs. I like that play. The Eagles were 8 of 13 on 3rd downs, 1 for 1 on 4th down and 3 for 5 in the red zone. The failures were due to turnovers, not scheme.
Sean Desai didn’t have his greatest game. I fault the players for most of the issues, but there were some things I didn’t like. I do give Desai credit for making changes. He tried blitzing early on and that didn’t work so he went away from it. He used different combinations of players, trying to find one that would work consistently. That didn’t happen.
OFFENSE
Jalen Hurts started a bit slow and then got hot. He ended up 29-38-319 with 4 TDs. No INTs, but he did fumble once on a push play at the goal line. Hurts made some good throws. I liked how he spread the ball around.
AJ – 8 catches
DeVonta – 7 catches
Gainwell – 5 catches
Goedert – 4 catches
Swift – 2 catches
Hurts performance was even better when you consider he was playing on a sore knee (bruise). You could see how he was affected when Casey Toohill chased him down from behind. That doesn’t happen to a healthy Hurts.
D’Andre Swift was 16-57-1. His long run was only 9 yards. He had some good short runs, but just couldn’t get free at the second level. The blocking wasn’t great and also give the Washington defense some credit. They played the run well. Kenny Gainwell was 2 for -4 on the ground, and with a fumble. That was bad. He did catch 5 passes for 30 yards.
AJ Brown was awesome.
https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1718693627776364613
Are you tired of seeing that yet? AJ made the same catch in practice on Friday so Hurts was confident when he threw the pass to him. AJ finished 8-130-2. He made plays all over the field. Both TDs were on the left side. He just missed on on the right side. He was a force over the middle as well.
DeVonta was 7-99-1. His TD came on a blown coverage. Hurts made it seem like there was something the Eagles wanted to exploit, which is exactly what they did.
There was one bad moment for him. Swift caught a quick screen out left. DeVonta missed his block and the play was stopped for a short gain. If he makes that block, Swift might have had a TD. Johnson made a really good call there, but they just didn’t get it blocked right.
Julio finished 1-8-1. Oz was 1-5.
Watching live I thought Goedert caught more than 4 passes. He finished 4-36. I didn’t think Jack Stoll blocked well in this game.
The OL was up and down. Sua Opeta once again struggled at times. He isn’t a good run blocker. He doesn’t get movement at the LOS. He also isn’t good at the second level. He’s normally solid in pass pro, but gave up some key pressures in this game. Lane Johnson still wasn’t 100 percent and was sloppy a couple of times. He still had some great plays.
Landon Dickerson had some struggles in pass pro. He was too grabby with his hands. Jason Kelce and Jordan Mailata played pretty well.
DEFENSE
Washington made a concerted effort to get the ball out as quickly as possible. They allowed almost 6 sacks a game coming into this contest. The Eagles finished with 1 sack and 4 QB hits. Howell got the ball out super quick and also used his feet well.
Haason Reddick got the sack on a 4th down late in the game. We can start calling him The Closer. He’s at his best late in the game.
Reddick should have had a sack earlier in the game but Howell threw the ball into an OL as he was going down. Josh Sweat was only credited with 1 QB hit, but I felt like he got the most consistent pressure.
Fletcher Cox played a lot of snaps and played hard. He made a hustle play to stop a screen. He chased the ball. He broke up a pass at the line. Very active game for the old man. Jalen Carter had 1 QB hit, but was quieter than expected. Marlon Tuipulotu had 3 tackles and played with good energy. He chased the ball out wide a few times. Milton Williams was disruptive and finished with 2 QB hits.
Zach Cunningham looked like the best LB to me. He had 5 tackles and 2 PDs. He had really good coverage down the right sideline. It took a perfect pass to beat him. Cunnigham still almost broke that up. Nakobe Dean led the team with with 12 tackles and 2 TFLs.
Reed Blankenship came back from injury, but didn’t have his best game. He struggled early on. I don’t know if he was trying too hard, but he was out of position multiple times. Reed settled down. He finished with 8 tackles and made the defensive play of the game when he picked off Howell and returned the ball deep. Kevin Byard made his Eagles debut and finished with 7 tackles. He didn’t stand out, good or bad. He did seem comfortable all over and got more aggressive as the game went on.
Sidney Brown played a lot in the slot. He had 8 tackles and 2 early TFLs. He also had the hit of the game.
Boom. Brown is meant to play safety. He is a hitter and tackler, not a cover guy. Eli Ricks also saw time in the slot. I thought he was good in there. He did get called for an early PI that was ticky-tack.
Darius Slay didn’t make any big plays. He did finish with 3 tackles. He was beaten deep, but Howell was off-target because of pressure. James Bradberry struggled. He did break up a pass, but was beaten for a TD and just didn’t look great in coverage. He also didn’t tackle well.
ST
Jake Elliott was 1 for 1 on FG.
Braden Mann averaged 58.5 yards per punt. Maybe the Eagles have found a punter.
Britain Covey had a PR for 25 yards. He ran into Nolan Smith or he might have gotten more.
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