Does This Thing Work?

The killer who won't die is the ultimate horror movie cliché.  No matter how many times he's shot, stabbed, scalded or smashed, he keeps trudging on, always ready to reappear just when the victim thinks the coast is clear.

This year's Eagles are pretty much the Jason Voorhees of the league, only if the Friday the 13th anti-hero had been more obsessed with finding creative ways to kill himself than other people.  The Eagles have tried just about every manner of self-inflicted wound at this point, but somehow the league just won't let them die. 

It's come to this: if the Eagles beat the Panthers tonight, this team will be sitting in the sixth NFC playoff spot and have control of its own destiny. 

Amazing. 

Of course, that raises the question of if the Eagles actually can beat the Panthers tonight.  I'll be honest, part of the reason I didn't blow up over last week's loss to the Colts was that I was convinced they were a really good team that was out of our league.  Then Indy lost to the Titans yesterday and ... well, can you really use the "letdown game" excuse one week after playing this year's Eagles?

Last week I defended Jim Johnson's approach to the Colts by arguing that the first thing you have to worry about when you play Indy is Peyton Manning.  Stacking the box with eight defenders to stop the run would be insane against the future Hall of Famer and smartest quarterback in the league.  Unfortunately, that put the Eagles in a bad spot when their front seven proved completely incapable of stopping the run.

The problem is that the Eagles face an analogous situation this week.  Steve Smith is the league's most dangerous receiver and this year he is the only thing keeping the massively overrated Jake Delhomme from a sub-70 passer rating.  For a guy who's only 5-9 (in cleats), Smith does a great job making tough plays against bigger cornerbacks, but his biggest weapon is easily his downfield speed.  If the cornerback so much as blinks, Smith will be by him.  He is one of the very few players in the NFL who is a threat to score from any point on the field.

That puts Johnson in a difficult spot tonight.  On the one hand, he wants to make sure his cornerbacks have deep safety help to contain Smith.  On the other hand, dropping his safeties off the line means the undersized Eagles front seven will have no help stopping the run.  And even with Smith, Panthers coach John Fox would be happy to hand the ball off to DeAngelo Williams 35 times tonight if he could.  (You would too if Jake Delhomme were your quarterback.)

So what does Johnson do?  Well, the first step seems to be replacing Matt McCoy with Omar Gaither in the starting lineup tonight.  That's not going to solve all the problems, but it should help, particularly since McCoy seems to be battling some nagging injuries. 

But I'm not sure Johnson can afford to play it safe.  Given the crowd, the field conditions and the fragile state of the defense's psyche, a conservative first series that conceded big yardage on the ground and led to some early points might be enough to send this defense into the tank.  There's also this:

"Maybe we need to take more chances," Johnson said. "We kind of start out the ballgame trying to see what they're doing. Maybe I can't do that anymore..."

I might be crazy to think they would do this facing a team with Steve Smith, but I honestly think the Eagles might come out like gangbusters tonight, blitzing early and often, sticking eight in the box, trying to pressure Delhomme into some mistakes and trusting Lito (Smith) and Sheldon (Keyshawn) to keep their guys in check.  Clearly Johnson needs to do something to get his guys back into an attacking mode out there.  Well, this is one way to do it. 

Maybe they give up a big play doing this.  But if in return they can control the Panthers running game and force Delhomme into a mistake or two, that's a good trade.  When you're no longer the more talented team, you can't always afford to play it safe.

As for the offensive side of the ball, I'm really worried about tonight.  The Panthers have the league's best front four and one of the top front sevens.  In the sloppy field conditions that are likely to follow yesterday's Army-Navy game, quicker running backs like Brian Westbrook are at a disadvantage relative to bigger running backs like [insert name of Eagles big running back here].  I think the Eagles can run effectively against this front -- if they don't fall too far behind early -- but "effectively" in this case means 3-5 yards a pop and not too many big plays. 

Which means it's going to come down to Jeff Garcia.  I've defended the guy all week against the folks who think he was somehow at fault for what happened at Indy.  He wasn't.  But the Carolina Panthers present a very different kind of challenge.  I hope heart and veteran savvy are enough to cut it this week. 

I think Garcia needs to throw for 185+ yards and be +1 in touchdowns vs. interceptions (1TD/0INT, 2TD/1INT, etc.) for the Eagles to win.  There are some teams in this league that can pretend the quarterback doesn't exist and still win, but the Eagles aren't one of them.

So IF the Eagles come out aggressively on defense tonight and IF they can hold the Panthers' running game in check and IF Steve Smith has a 100yard/1TD game rather than a 160yard/3TD game and IF the Eagles are able to run the ball at least enough to keep Carolina honest and IF Garcia has enough time to get the ball to his wideouts and plays as well as he did last week, the Eagles really have a chance to win this game.

But if some of those dominoes fall ... look out.

I'm not making a score prediction tonight, because, honestly, if I had to bet my house on the outcome, I don't think I'd pick the Eagles.  But it's bad karma to put it in black-and-white (unless I'm giving them the reverse hex...) so let's just say I'm rooting hard for the boys in midnight green.

Come on, fellas.  If Philly's own Rocky Balboa can make a successful comeback at age 87, you guys can make a run at the playoffs.