The Lions just upset the Chiefs 21-20 in the NFL’s season opener. That was a fun game for those of us who didn’t have a rooting interest. The game went right down to the wire and there were some dramatic moments along the way.
Good start to the season.
The Lions will be ecstatic about the win. They’re 1-0, which is big for a team that started 0-10-1 in 2021 and 1-6 last year. Beating the Chiefs in KC isn’t easy. Detroit made critical plays and did enough to win. Their rookie class looked good and free agentc CJ Gardner-Johnson had a strong game. Lots to be happy about.
At the same time, they beat a KC team without Chris Jones and Travis Kelce. They needed Kadarius Toney to drop multiple passes, including one that led to an easy pick-six. Detroit benefited from some questionable coaching decisions by Andy Reid and his staff. I have no idea why they used trick plays on 4th and short or went for it on 4th and 25. That decision felt oddly desperate.
The Chiefs won the Super Bowl last year despite losing Tyreek Hill. Patrick Mahomes is the ultimate cheat code in today’s league. But he can’t do it all. The Chiefs receivers did not have a good night. Getting Kelce back will change a lot, but the Chiefs are still counting on young guys to step up. That worked last year, but there will come a time when the young guys don’t get the job done. Maybe this was just one game. Or maybe this is going to be a more challenging season than anyone expected.
It was easy to see which team came up big in crunch time. Felt weird to see the Chiefs struggle down the stretch while the Lions made big plays.
This game made me feel better about the Eagles.
Better QB than Detroit.
Better OL than both KC and Detroit.
Better DL than both teams.
Better skill players than both teams.
Better CBs than both teams.
That doesn’t mean the Eagles are going undefeated or anything crazy, but this is a loaded roster with a good coaching staff. And they are hungry after finishing last year on a sour note.
I’m starting to get more and more excited about this Eagles team. We could be in for a great season.
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We probably don’t talk enough about how good Josh Sweat is.
For context, among players with at least 100 pass rushes last year the top four players were:
That is a lot of burst for a guy with good size. Sweat had a great year for the Eagles, finishing second in sacks, first in TFLs and second in QB hits, despite going against LTs all year long. He was facing the best blocker and still made a lot of plays. It will be fun to see if he can build off that and have an even better year.
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Patriots CB Jack Jones is expected to miss some time with the hamstring injury that he suffered yesterday in practice, according to a source. @TheAthletic
The Pats secondary will have some new faces on Sunday. I’m guessing the Eagles come out throwing the ball and trying to build a lead. DeVonta Smitha and AJ Brown could have big games.
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This is wild.
Fun fact: Former #Eagles WR Todd Pinkston will be making his debut as KC’s RB coach.
The Eagles last played the Patriots in 2019, losing 17-10 in an ugly defensive battle. The Eagles have a lot of new faces since then, but the Patriots are almost completely different. Heck, a lot has changed for the Patriots since last year. This is a bit of a mystery team.
The Pats are coming off an 8-9 season when they had a good defense and mediocre offense. Mac Jones is back for his third season as the starting QB. But which version of Jones? There was the promsing rookie from 2021 who threw 22 TDs and had a passer rating of 92.5. Last year Jones struggled, throwing only 14 TDs and finishing with a rating of 84.8.
One of the big reasons Jones struggled is poor coaching. We can argue just how good of a defensive coach Matt Patricia is, but he was a bad offensive coordinator. In all honesty, it was a job he should have never had so in a way it’s hard to blame him. As Bill Belichick has gotten older, he’s made some odd decisions. There is no questioning his ability to build a brilliant gameplan or to teach players, but it is more than fair to question his roster building and staff decisions.
Belichick brought back Bill O’Brien to run the Pats offense. That does seem like a prudent decision, but O’Brien hasn’t had a top flight offense in the NFL since 2011. He did good things with Alabama the past two years so maybe he’ll have fresh ideas that can reinvigorate the Pats attack.
We don’t know if O’Brien will do a great job, but Jones will have better coaching and that should help him. Coaching is only part of the equation. QBs have two other key needs: protection and weapons. New England isn’t great in either area.
The OL is a real mystery due to injuries.
The Patriots have placed OL Riley Reiff on injured reserve, meaning he is out a minimum of 4 games.
Jones is a pocket passer. He needs good protection. He’s not the kind of QB who can make plays with his legs. He’ll be missing his RT (Reiff) and possibly another starter. Multiple OL have been banged up this summer so even if they play, it might not be a smooth performance.
That’s bad news when going against the Eagles. They will have one of the best pass rush units in the league. There is also a good chance the Eagles score a decent amount of points so New England can’t just run the ball and be conservative.
The Pats weapons are more of the ball control variety.
RB Rhamondre Stevenson
RB Ezekiel Elliott
TE Hunter Henry
TE Mike Gesicki
WR JuJu Smith-Schuster
That’s not exactly the ’99 Rams. Jones can move the ball with them, but big plays won’t come easily. Some teams were able to play small-ball effectively against the Eagles last year. Jonathan Gannon is gone so this will be a good test for Sean Desai. How will he try to stop the Pats?
The Pats defense does return a lot of talent and experience. They were 8th in yards allowed and 11th in points allowed last year. As good as they were, NE gave up 30 or more points in five games last year. They are vulnerable.
Belichick has had all offseason to figure out how to deal with Jalen Hurts and the Eagles offense. You know he’s going to have some creative looks and ideas for how to handle the Eagles.
Not suggesting that it will be apples-to-apples to how the Patriots handle the Eagles offense on 1st & 2nd downs or that it’ll work, because they’re a completely different beast now than they were in 2021, but to start out, I suspect Belichick looks to the way Todd Bowles went… https://t.co/CKW8Jx2IT7pic.twitter.com/oMOHPHYwci
Nick Sirianni, Brian Johnson, Kevin Patullo and Jeff Stoutland have had all offseason to figure out to attack the Pats. This will be an interesting battle schematically.
Bonus matchup: Pats undersized edge rusher Josh Uche (6’1, 245, 11.5 sacks in 2022) is the type of player who tends to give Jordan Mailata problems. I’d be less concerned about Lane Johnson working against underrated star player Matthew Judon (15.5 sacks in 2022), because, well, Johnson pretty much erases everyone he faces.
Remember the Houston game? Jerry Hughes gave Mailata fits. Sirianni took some of the blame for that, but small rushers give the big guy a hard time. He’s got a tall build and that makes it tough to bend and get his hands on them while moving back in pass pro.
The Pats have a rookie CB in Christian Gonzalez. You can bet the Eagles will test him with DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown, a pair of kinda decent receivers.
Devin McCourty retired and is no longer running their secondary so it will be interesting to see if that causes any issues.
One area where the Patriots might have an advantage is STs. That is normally a strength for them and it was an inconsistent group for the Eagles last year. Several of the top STers from that unit are gone so it will be interesting to see how they perform on Sunday.
This is the first time the Eagles have faced the Pats without Tom Brady since 1999. The Pats were a juggernaut in the meetings that followed that year. We have to re-wire our brains. The Pats are no longer an elite team with a Hall of Fame QB and lots of big time talent. We’ll see how things play out on Sunday, but this is the first time the Eagles go into a PHI-NE game as the clear favorite.