Big Time Statement Win!!!!!
Posted September 10th, 2017 | 258 Comments »Just having a little fun with that title. It was great to see the Eagles win in Washington today, but there’s no need to try to make it into some franchise defining moment. It was a good win, on the road, against a division rival.
Here are some things that stood out to me.
Injuries – Ronald Darby is out for a while, if not the season. His ankle was not a pretty sight. It’s not something you can rest for a month and get back to playing shape. The Eagles overcame the situation by using a variety of players in a variety of ways. Give Patrick Robinson a lot of credity. He struggled this spring and early in the summer, but moving to the slot got his confidence back and he played well inside and outside today. My guess is Robinson stays outside with Dexter McDougle taking over in the slot. Jason Peters left with a groin injury. Big V took over at LT and did a good job.
Jason Peters says he'll play in Kansas City.
— Tim McManus (@Tim_McManus) September 10, 2017
That’s good news.
Caleb Sturgis got hurt on a kickoff late in the game. We have to wait and see what his condition is.
You don’t like injuries, but it was good to see the Eagles overcome them.
Defense – Kirk Cousins has a lifetime QB rating of more than 100 against the Eagles. The Skins averaged 28 points in their 5-game win streak. Put simply, their offense dominated the Eagles defense for 2 1/2 years. That changed today.
The Skins got 264 yards. They scored 10 points on offense. The Eagles defense had 4 sacks, 3 takeaways, scored a TD and one of the takeaways came in the Red Zone, preventing sure points. Skins RBs were 13-34 on the ground. Cousins ran for 30 yards himself, but you’ll never complain when he leads that team’s ground attack.
Nelson Friggin’ Agholor – Best game of his NFL career. Agholor hauled in a 58-yard TD to open the scoring. Carson Wentz did the hard work, but Agholor got open and caught the ball. He wasn’t doing that stuff last year. Agholor was open a lot in the game and caught 6 of 8 passes thrown his way. He finished 6-86-1. He was open for another deep ball, but Wentz was off-target. I loved the fact Agholor played with confidence. He wasn’t hoping to be good, he expected to have success.
Those Plays – If you watched the game, you know what I mean. The Eagles were in scoring position with a promising drive when Wentz threw a lateral to Agholor. The ball was off-target and the Skins recovered it. The Eagles later faked this play and threw a screen off it. Didn’t work well. They had some other WR screen passes that didn’t work well.
Pederson has two choices. Either coach the absolute hell out of those plays so that they are executed flawlessly 99 out of 100 times or quit calling them. My vote is to quit calling them, but that doesn’t seem likely. The timing on the plays wasn’t good. The throws weren’t good. The blocking was awful. I’m sure the plays make sense in theory, but if your players can’t execute them consistently, get rid of them.
One side note…I was happy that the botched play to Agholor didn’t affect him. Last year a play like that would have destroyed his confidence.
Zach Ertz – Last year Ertz was 6-58 in the opener. Today he was 8-93 and he made some big plays. This might actually be the year that Ertz plays at a high level all year long. He and Wentz have great chemistry and that showed today. Wentz trusts him and Ertz made some tough grabs.
The Blitz – Jim Schwartz was aggressive all day vs the Skins. He blitzed more than he does most of the time. He sent LBs, CBs and Safeties. He attacked up the middle and off the edge. The blitzers didn’t get any sacks, but one blitz was huge. Schwartz had multiple guys go up the middle on a Red Zone play. Cousins threw falling away and his pass sailed over Jamison Crowder’s hands and right to Jalen Mills. That prevented points and may have saved the game. Schwartz prefers to rush four and cover with seven, but he wanted to make darn sure Cousins didn’t get comfortable in the pocket. And he never did.
Blocking – The O-line struggled this summer. I thought playing extended snaps together would get them into a rhythm and things would be fine. Nope. The OL struggled today. Wentz was under way too much pressure. Run blocking wasn’t as good as it needed to be. And you can’t blame this on the Peters injury. I actually think the line was better with Vaitai in there. Sometimes losing a key player will get everyone else to step up their level of play.
Wentz – 26 of 39 for 307 yards. 2 TDs, 1 INT. Rating of 96.8. Wentz had a good game. He had some real highlight moments and he had some poor plays as well. The good far outweighed the bad. His deep accuracy was a problem. The Eagles missed at least three long TDs due to errant throws. Wentz has to get better at that so he can take advantage of his new weapons.
His ability to avoid sacks and keep plays alive is a huge plus. Wentz is so strong that he’s not going down on casual contact. He’s incredibly elusive for a big man and he can give rushers fits. The best part is that he keeps his eyes downfield and that can lead to some big pass plays.
STs – Dave Fipp’s guys did not have a good summer, but that all changed today. The coverage units were great. Caleb Sturgis was 3-3 on FGs (but did miss an extra point). Donnie Jones had a strong day, pinning the Skins at the 1-yard line with one punt. The return game was the only thing lacking.
*****
This was far from a perfect performance by the Eagles, but they played well overall and won the game. Great way to start the season.
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