Eagles / Steelers Recap

Can the Eagles just skip the final week of preseason?  Like just not show up?  What's the worst that could happen?  The last preseason game is a brutal affair, and at this point, the team looks ready.  The only important thing that can happen from here on out is some sort of major injury. 

Bring on the Texans...

Five big thoughts on the game:

1. Four games in and our secondary looks very, very shaky.  What happened to these guys?  Dawkins is still everywhere, but the rest of them continue to struggle with the trickier zone coverage schemes.  Brown and Sheppard have been on the same side of the field in the nickel a lot, and it just doesn't seem to be working.  Is Lito fully recovered from his injury? 
   
   Lewis is also still getting to his coverages too late.  On one play we had a DB who lined up over the slot receiver and then blitzed.  Lewis was supposed to slide in from his deep safety position for the coverage on what clearly is going to be the hot receiver.  He was way, way late and the Steelers completed the easy pass for a first down.  On another play, he was lined up tight to the line of scrimmage, but then had to bail backwards to cover a receiver in the middle of the field.  He saw it late and wasn't even close.  Only a bad pass kept it from being a big completion.
   
   We would have chewed out guys who made plays that bad on our flag football team.


2. Last night saw the reemergence of last year's starting wide receivers.  Reggie Brown had a nice night with three catches for 46 yards -- but looked bad by not coming back on a ball that should have been intercepted.  Greg Lewis caught two balls for 91 yards, including a 61-yard touchdown strike from Jeff Garcia (against Pittsburgh's nickel back, not some scrub 4th-stringer).  Jason Avant also looks like a big, tough target.  He uses his body really well.  Todd Pinkston looked like he had daggers in his shoes.
   
   Here's my guess about our wide receivers.  First of all, Lewis isn't getting cut.  He might get traded, but they are not going to cut him.  Andy Reid said a couple of weeks ago in his press conference than the only reason Lewis wasn't playing much is because they already knew what he could do.  I think that was true.  Secondly, I think we're going to be rotating a bunch of guys in at receiver during the first part of the season.  Brown should be on the field most of the time, but guys like Baskett, Lewis and McCants are all going to be in and out.  Avant should see time on third downs in the slot.  This makes sense, because why anoint one guy as a "starter" when you truthfully have a bunch of guys who are all kind of the same?


3. Correll Buckhalter -- IF he stays healthy -- is going to be the number two running back and help this team.  He looked very solid last night.  He's a much stronger runner than Westbrook and has nice shiftiness.  He did almost get McNabb killed on a missed blitz pickup, but he looked appropriately sorry for it.  The problem is, it's 50-50 whether or not he can last a whole season.  And that might be generous.


4. Jeff Garcia has happy feet.  He's always kind of been the guy who runs around wildly back there, but a couple years of playing behind terrible lines seems to have messed up his pocket presence a bit.  If we need to count on him at all this year, Reid's going to have to shift the offense to more quick hitters and three-step drops.  Otherwise it's like one read and go, which worked well for Vince Young at Texas, but probably won't turn out so well for the 36-year-old Garcia.


5. Darren Howard is easily our best defensive lineman.  He was disruptive again last night.  One wonders how Kearse will respond to the challenge.  Also, Brodrick Bunkley, while he wasn't quite as dominant against the starters as he had been in past games against the scrubs, is a big force in the middle.  He was drawing a lot of double teams, both on rushing and passing plays.  If he continues to improve, Mike Patterson will have the chance for ridiculous numbers this year.

And five little thoughts:

1. Duce is done.  Which is really too bad, because I've got my old #22 jersey waiting to come out again.
2. The reaction of LT William Thomas, when he had his guy blocked out of the play until McNabb scrambled right past him and the guy slid over to take him down, was priceless.
3. Too many stupid penalties.  Three 15-yarders in one game is ridiculous.  And Runyan could have gotten one for picking Polamalu off a pile some time after the whistle had blown.
4. This is probably just my bias towards the greatest late-night ESPN quarterback of all time, but Timmy Chang looks more like an NFL quarterback these days than Koy Detmer has in a couple of years.
5. Ryan Moats and Bruce Perry were absolutely strangling the ball when they carried it.  Guess the coach's "don't fumble the @#$^%@# ball" message finally got through.