NFC East Preseason Round-Up

I watched large chunks of six different preseason games this weekend, including the contests of the three "other" NFC East teams.  Thank you, NFL Network. 

You can't tell everything from watching these games, but there's enough for some first impressions.  Here are my thoughts on the teams that share the Eagles division:

Washington Redskins

• Obviously, the Portis injury is the big question.  I think they can manage a couple of weeks without him being full strength, but they're in trouble if he never gets back to 100 percent this year. 
• The Redskins offense is kind of like the bizarro Eagles.  We have an MVP-candidate quarterback, an unproven cast of receivers and a bunch of scatbacks running the ball-control West Coast offense.  The 'Skins have talent (and speed) to burn at receiver, a ticking time bomb at quarterback and a power running game combined with a deep-strike passing game.  Interesting contrast.

• It was only the first game, but Mark Brunell looked terrible.  He seemed jumpy and tentative, and not at all comfortable with the offense.  He also made some really terrible, chuck-and-duck-level decisions when he got pressure.
• The key to stopping the Redskins this year is going to be shutting down their running game without having to resort to too many gimmicks.  Don't let them control the clock and don't give up the two or three big plays that team relied on at the end of last season to win games.  Pretty simple.
• On defense, they still look solid.  They were getting a fair amount of pressure on the quarterback, but they also seemed to be relying a lot on trickery and blitzing to get there.  I wonder if that's out of necessity?  Washington had the 9th-ranked defense last year, but was only 20th in sacks.  They also had 22 total takeaways, only better than two other teams in the NFC.  I wonder...

Dallas Cowboys

• Wow, who knew Tony Romo was a real quarterback?  He looked like he was a bit quick on pulling the ball down and taking off, but maybe the coaching staff wants him to avoid any mistakes there.  That was a pretty impressive opening performance. 
• Let's see him handle TO before the fans get too excited, though.  My guess is the interaction will be akin to a gnat greeting a semi. 
• Does it seem like no running backs in the NFC East are totally healthy? 
• We saw how Parcells is going to get highly-touted rookie tight end Anthony Fasano into the game plan, even though Jason Whitten is the starter.  Fasano played a lot of snaps at fullback against the Seahawks, and looked pretty good back there. 
• The defense looked sharp.  And very big.  Some of those linebackers -- like converted lineman Greg Ellis -- are huge.
• Of course, none of this really matters.  In the end, the Cowboys' season is going to come down to Bledsoe-to-Owens.  We'll see what kind of deal Jerry made with that devil in due course.

New York Giants

• The bad news is Eli looks more like a real quarterback every day.  Hopefully he's still got the Manning big-game choker DNA, but that may not help much in the regular season.
• I've done my best to forget both of last year's games against the Giants, so I'm not sure if this is a new thing or not, but the Giants clearly still run a fair number of plays where Eli only has to read one or two guys on half the field.  I hope that's a sign of something.
• Brandon Jacobs is terrible.  You wonder how a team not far removed from the Ron Dayne experience could make the same mistake again.  If Tiki goes down, there's not much behind him right now.
• That Lavar Arrington signing isn't looking great right now.  Someone out there should start a website of record for all the free agent obsessions that grip Eagles fans.  Lavar, Randle El, ad infinitum...
• I was actually sort of impressed with Baltimore.  Steve McNair changes the whole character of that offense and -- here's a shocker -- Jamal Lewis looks better having spent his summer in the gym, rather than the pen.  The Eagles play the Ravens in their next preseason game -- that's going to be a much better test than the Raiders or Browns were.