Posted October 8th, 2023 | Comments Off on Game Preview – PHI at LARThe Rams and Eagles had an interesting rivalry when it was Jared Goff against Carson Wentz. Those days are gone and now we have the old gunslinger against the young playmaker, Matthew Stafford vs Jalen Hurts.
The Rams were expected to be bad, maybe awful. Instead, they are 2-2. They have an outstanding passing attack and a serious rookie of the year candidate. The defense is overachieving and this team is finding ways to win.
It is hard to get a feel for the Rams. There is no question that they are much better than I anticipated. They beat Seattle by 17 points. They had a lead late in the 2nd quarter against the Niners. At the same time, it is hard for me to buy into the idea of this as a good team. I just don’t see enough talent. There is also a weird feel to this team. Look at Matthew Stafford. He’s third in the league in passing yards, but has a passer rating of 78.1. He’s thrown 3 TDs and 5 INTs.
Stafford still has an elite arm. He is tough as nails. Last week he took some big hits and struggled to get up at times, but stayed in the game. You could see he was hurting. He wasn’t going to leave that field, though. He desperately wanted to win.
The run game isn’t anything special. Kyren Williams is an instinctive runner, but lacks the athleticism to be a big play threat. He does have 5 TDs this season. Watch for the Rams to run the ball when they’re in the red zone.
Stafford has some talented receivers. Rookie Puka Nacua is having an amazing season, going 39-501-1. That’s an insane amount of catches for anyone, let alone a rookie. Nacua can work the slot or outside. He is fearless over the middle. He will extend for the ball and isn’t worried about getting hit. Nacua does a great job of locating the ball and adjusting to it. He has excellent hands. This isn’t a fluke. He is a legit talent who came to the perfect team for him.
Cooper Kupp will be making his season debut. You may remember that he’s kinda decent as well. Tutu Atwell stepped up in his absence and has 22 catches this year, a career high. They also have Van Jefferson in the mix. If Stafford prefers a TE, Tyler Higbee is an athletic pass catcher with 16 receptions on the year.
The OL is banged up and not great. It sounds like Alaric Jackson will be able to play at LT, but he’s not 100 percent. RG Joe Noteboom has mainly played RG this year, but was at LT last week. He’s out today.
The Rams defense is highlighted by Aaron Donald. He’s not the overwhelming force he was a couple of years ago, but he is still a highly disruptive force. They moved him around a lot last week. That makes it tough for the offense to focus on him at one spot. He leads the team with 2.5 sacks. Edge Byron Young leads the team with 8 QB hits.
LB Ernest Jones is the leading tackler. He is a solid defender over the middle. He isn’t anything special, but can make some plays. He’s got 5 TFLs, 1 sack and 1 PD.
Nobody in the Rams secondary stood out when I watched them. Safety Jordan Fuller leads the team with 2 FF. Those are the team’s only FFs. They have 1 INT. The Rams don’t feast on takeaways.
PK Brett Maher is 12 for 16 on FGs this year. He has a strong leg, but missed a pair of FGs last week.
*****
The Rams are one of those teams where “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”. At least for now. Give Sean McVay and his coaching staff credit for getting this group to play together and winning. One of the keys is being good at situational football.
- 8th in 3rd down percentage on offense
- 4th in 4th down percentage on offense
- 9th in red zone percentage on offense
- 2nd in 3rd down percentage on defense
That will help you win games.
The LA offense isn’t a good matchup for Sean Desai’s defense. The Rams love to throw the ball over the middle. Stafford has the arm strength and touch to put the ball in some tough spots. You can have pretty good coverage and he’ll still burn you. Kupp and Nacua are outstanding over the middle. They are also great route-runners and can give the secondary fits.
We don’t know if Roby will start, but he will certainly play. If you go with him in the slot and Slay/Bradberry outside, that is a good trio of veteran DBs who should be able to handle some of what the Rams throw at them.
Getting Justin Evans back at safety is big. Terrell Edmunds really struggled last week.
LBs Zach Cunningham and Nick Morrow aren’t good in coverage. With that in mind, I wonder if Desai will blitz them more this week. The Rams didn’t seem to handle the blitz well last week.
The real key to this game is for the Eagles pass rush to affect Stafford. He doesn’t want to dink and dunk. That means the rushers should have a chance to get to him. Fletcher Cox will miss the game, but the Eagles have enough depth to make up for that. Jalen Carter and Milton Williams will get a lot of playing time. Rookie Moro Ojomo should make his NFL debut. Josh Sweat needs to come up big since he’s going against a hurt LT.
I fully expect the Eagles offense to score points. Sua Opeta will be the RG and I’m sure Donald will test him a lot. Opeta has been solid when he’s played over the years. The Eagles will help him out.
The Rams are vulnerable to the run. I think this would be a good week to feed the ball to D’Andre Swift and Kenny Gainwell on a regular basis. At the same time, the LA corners aren’t great so there will be plays to be made in the passing game. Last week the Colts had 3 different TEs with a catch of at least 17 yards. Two of the TEs had TD catches. This could be the week that Dallas Goedert is the featured receiver in the passing game. Get him the ball down the field.
Byron Young is the kind of small rusher that has given Jordan Mailata fits in the past. Mailata will need to do a good job against him.
*****
I think the real key in this game is for the Eagles defense to come up with some key stops. I think the offense will score points. The pass rush has to win and the DBs have to make a few plays in coverage.
This should be something like Eagles 31, Rams 23.
_
Posted October 6th, 2023 | 5 Comments »What a frustrating game. I felt that way on Sunday while watching the game and again this week while checking out the all-22. This game should not have been this close. The Eagles were sloppy. And Washington had a chance to win if Ron Rivera went for 2 at the end of regulation. Thanks Riverboat Ron.
Washington played their butts off on Sunday. They were embarrassed by Buffalo (40-3) the previous week. The players and coaches came out fired up and ready to roll. They played their best game of the year. In a way, this was their Super Bowl. They had a chance to knock off the undefeated Eagles and improve their record to 3-1. They would flush away the bad loss and show the world they were for real.
Nice try.
Sam Howell played really well and did everything he could. The OL battled. Brian Robinson broke tackles and fought for every yard possible. DE Chase Young played his best game in a couple of years. And that still wasn’t enough to beat the Eagles on a day when they were sloppy.
COACHING
The Eagles were at home in a 1pm game against a division rival. Washington got the jump on them and went up 17-7. Nick Sirianni didn’t panic and the Eagles dominated the third quarter to take control of the game. That was a great response to a slow start. You just wish they didn’t have the slow start.
Sirianni made some odd choices in this game. He failed to call a timeout after a long completion late in the half. I thought they did this because there was a question of whether DeVonta made the catch. Sirianni said this was his idea of good clock management. I would strongly disagree. The Eagles were still able to get a FG out of the drive, but had no real shot at a TD. On another drive, the Eagles faced 3rd/11 in the red zone. Apparently Brian Johnson called a pass, but Sirianni overruled him and asked for a draw play. It went nowhere and they settled for a FG. The draw has worked in similar situations, but WAS wasn’t giving up long runs in that game.
I thought Johnson did some good things with the offense. He called for a run inside the 10 that worked for a TD where D’Andre Swift was untouched. That was a beautiful play design. They used a fake WR screen to get AJ wide open down the field. I liked the way the Eagles attacked down the field in this game. They didn’t run as much (27-104), but it wasn’t working as well this week. Give the WAS DL some credit for that.
Sean Desai bothered me in a couple of ways. There were too many plays where WAS got a receiver wide open easily. They used motion and bunch sets and the Eagles DBs were too passive and didn’t always communicate well. On the final drive, WAS had 4th/2. Darius Slay was 10 yards off his receiver. The ball went to that guy and no Eagle was within 10 yards. That is mind-boggling to me. Part of that was Slay getting caught looking elsewhere, but have him tighter than that. Ugh.
I also didn’t like the fact the Eagles seemed caught off-guard by Howell as a runner. He was 6-40 in this game and that doesn’t count the times he ran out of the pocket and threw the ball away. Howell ran 183 times as a senior in college. His mobility is not a secret. The Eagles would collapse the pocket only to see him take off for a good gain. Either spy him or rush a bit more under control.
OFFENSE
Jalen Hurts had a good game. He went 25-37-319 with a pair of TDs. He was 9-34 as a runner. There were some absolutely great throws in this game. A couple of the sideline passes to AJ were pinpoint passes. Hurts made a great throw to Dallas Goedert on an over route. Perfect placement. He hit Oz with a terrific throw over the middle on a key third down late in the game.
Hurts had his best run of the year.
More of that, please.
Hurts wasn’t all good. He forced the ball downfield too much. There were multiple throws to AJ where there was no chance for it to be completed. I like giving your guy a chance, but those were wasted plays. Hurts was off-target with a deep throw to DeVonta. He had a chance for a big play to Swift and was just a bit too long. There was a throw to Goedert that was off the mark. You expect some misses to be sure, but these felt like poor decisions or sloppy throws.
His running was awkward. The Eagles ran a designed draw for Hurts. WAS ran a stunt and that killed the play. The outside was wide open. Hurts stayed inside and got nothing. He kept the ball on an RPO where he should have given it to Swift. There were times when Hurts got into space and went down quickly. I’m in favor of that when big guys are chasing him, but at least once it was a DB. That’s a situation where I’d like him to try to get by that guy.
Overall, a good game. He was great at times and that’s what we want. That’s what he wants. He did look more like the 2022 QB than any other game this year.
Swift was 14-56 on the ground and 4-23 as a receiver. He wasn’t able to break out a long play. His long run was 8 yards. He did have 11 yards on a pass play and got an important first down. I didn’t think he had room to do much, but he got down the sideline and stayed in. Big time play. Kenny Gainwell was 4-14 on the ground. He did have a 13-yard run.
AJ Brown had a monster game, going 9-175-2. Remember when he was off to a quiet start? Brown went against rookie Emmanuel Forbes and gave the kid fits. Brown’s highlight was his long TD catch.
https://twitter.com/NFLFilms/status/1710327807211978798
You have to love his RAC ability. Brown is at his best after the catch. He got help from DeVonta and Oz as they hustled downfield to block for him. Great effort all around resulted in a huge play.
DeVonta was 7-78. His highlight was a 37-yard catch late in the half that led to a FG. DeVonta’s ability to go up and make high-point catches is special. It’s also crazy for a guy his size. Normally it is big guys who specialize in those plays. Oz was 1-11, but that was an important catch late in the game. I thought he played well overall. He does a good job of doing the little things well, something Sirianni is a big believer in.
Dallas Goedert was 2-25. He had a 17-yard catch that was really impressive. Great throw and great catch. He had to fully extend for the ball and snare it with his hands. The other TEs didn’t play much.
The OL was up and down. Jordan Mailata had his hands full with Chase Young. Normally smaller guys can give Mailata issues. Young used bull-rushes to move Mailata back in the pocket multiple times. Mailata pulled on a run play and didn’t block the DE in front of him. He did have some good run blocks.
Landon Dickerson had some really good plays. He exploded off the ball on the push plays and got real movement. He was called offside on one in a bizarre moment. The DTs were in the neutral zone. Heck, one looked to be touching the ball. Just weird. Cam Jurgens was up and down. The play that really frustrated me was a screen to his side. Jurgens failed to seal the DL by him and that player got to Swift. With a good block, that might have been a TD. Jurgens got hurt and Sua Opeta took his place. Sirianni said Opeta was outstanding. I thought he played well. My favorite moment came on a pass when he didn’t get the DT blocked. Opeta didn’t panic. He turned and got a hand on the DT and kept him away from Hurts.
DEFENSE
I didn’t think Jalen Carter had a great game when watching live. Boy was I wrong. The stat sheet shows 3 assists and that’s it. Carter easily could have had 3 sacks. He created 2 of the sacks that Nick Morrow had. Very disruptive. On another plays, Carter had a shot at Howell, but he ducked and Carter couldn’t get control of him.
If you want to know about Fletcher Cox, listen to Mr. Duffy.
https://twitter.com/EaglesXOs/status/1709276013446697357
Jordan Davis was strong in the middle. He was in on a couple of tackles, but made his presence felt. Milton Williams chased Howell out wide on a pass play. Great hustle. Made sure not to hit him and draw a penalty, though. Love his motor. Kentavius Street and Tui both played.
Haason Reddick had his best game of the year. He had his first sack and got a couple of tackles, but his impact went beyond that. He set the edge well on run plays. He just missed another sack when Morrow beat him to the QB. Reddick used a power rush move to drive the RT backward on multiple plays. Strong showing.
Josh Sweat had a sack and was in on 5 tackles. He rushed out wide, over the LG and sometimes looped up the middle. Brandon Graham was credited with a QB hit and a pass deflection. He was disruptive on multiple rushes. Nolan Smith played, but was quiet.
Nick Morrow had his breakout game. He had 3 sacks, a FF and 11 total tackles (10 solo). He wasn’t perfect to be sure, but made big plays. The FF game on a run play by the goal line. Morrow is at his best attacking. He is less effective when he’s got to drop into coverage or read plays. Zach Cunningham had a strong showing of his own. He was in on 13 total tackles. No highlight plays, but he was good against the run.
Reed Blankenship had a solid showing. He was in on 8 tackles and was credited with 3 PDs. His highlight moment came when he sacrificed his forearm to prevent a catch.
Blankenship was good on downfield coverage and just missed an INT on a deep ball.
Terrell Edmunds was bad. He was slow and passive in coverage. There was a play where he blitzed and should have had an easy sack, but Howell went right around him. Howell got hit on a play near the goal line and the ball floated to Edmunds. He didn’t catch it. That was a 7-point drop. It was so frustrating to watch him play. Can’t wait to get Justin Evans and Sydney Brown back.
Darius Slay had a pretty good game. He was in on 11 tackles. He was solid in coverage. My only big complaint came on 4th/2 when he played soft and started looking at the middle of the field instead of his receiver. The ball came to his guy for a good gain and a first down. Ugh. Josh Jobe played a solid game. They went after him several times. Jobe had 2 tackles and a PD. He is physical and will battle. James Bradberry spent the day in the slot. That is not his specialty and it showed. He was in on 5 tackles.
LBs that can’t cover very well.
Safety that struggled mightily.
Slot that isn’t ideal for that role.
That led to some wide open receivers over the middle and on short routes.
ST
Jake Elliott is a stud. He was 4 for 4 on FGs and nailed a 54-yarder in OT to win the game.
Braden Mann averaged 43 yards a punt. He hasn’t set the world on fire in his time as an Eagle. His long was 48.
Britain Covey is becoming a weapon as a PR. He averaged 12.7 yards per return and had one go for 20 yards.
Jordan Davis did a good job of getting penetration on a FG attempt and an extra point. That could be something to watch for the future.
_