Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Unbelievable Reporter Arrogance

Not sure how I missed this one today.  BGN has a lengthy reaction up on his site.

NFC Preview Day

Updated with Redskins preview.

A group of Eagles bloggers has gotten together to preview the NFC East and the other teams in the NFC that look like the biggest challengers to the Eagles.  I drew the Cowboys and that post follows below. 

You can find the other -- almost embarrassingly superior and more in-depth -- team previews at the following Eagles blog sites:

• New York Giants -- Eagle Scout Blog
• Chicago Bears -- Fortress of Pillows
• New Orleans Saints -- Bleeding Green Nation
• San Francisco 49ers -- Depressed Fan
• Washington Redskins -- Bounty Bowl

Previewing the Dallas Cowboys

Is Tony Romo any good?

You can look at the 2007 Dallas Cowboys a lot of different ways, but when it comes right down to it, that's really the only thing that matters.  Is he a legitimate Pro Bowler or a half-season flash in the pan?  Will he make the leap in his first full year as a starter, or does the fact that this will be his fifth season in the NFL mean he's closer to his ceiling than people realize?

Most importantly, will he ever be able to convince Carrie Underwood to eat a friggin' sandwich?  Seriously, I hear there's plenty of free food in those luxury boxes.  If she's going to keep hanging out there, she might as well hit the buffet.

It's certainly possible to make some noise in the playoffs without a great quarterback.  The Chargers, Ravens and Bears all did well last year with some variation of the "caretaker" quarterback.  Unfortunately for Dallas, they're not trotting out LaDanian Tomlinson or the Baltimore or Chicago defenses every week.  Nor do they get to play their divisional games in the cozy confines of the Big Ten-level NFC North. 

(Tomorrow's blog: how I defend classifying Rex Grossman as a caretaker quarterback when he inspires hilariously not-safe-for-work posts like this.  Could be tricky.) 

Everyone knows the Tony Romo story by now, but just a recap in case you stuck your fingers in your ears every time Joe Buck and Troy Aikman started talking about him last year like I might have:

• Played his college ball at 1-AA Eastern Illinois University.  Wins the Walter Payton award as the nation best 1-AA player the year after Brian Westbrook does.
• Undrafted but signs with the Cowboys as a free agent.
• Rides the pine for three years under the patient tutelage of Sean Payton and the not-so-patient tutelage of Bill Parcells.  Was Kevin Kolb before Kevin Kolb was Kevin Kolb, only if Kevin Kolb hadn't been drafted in the second round rather than Paul Posluszny.
• Almost gets traded to the Saints before last season -- depending upon whom you believe -- but Jerry Jones' asking price is too high.
• Finally gets his chance to start in 2006 after Parcells spends 10 minutes reaming out Drew Bledsoe for yet another terrible performance before realizing he's actually talking to this guy.
• Plays great the first six games and makes the Pro Bowl in the most premature coronation in modern sports history.  Also inspires the best fake blog ever.
• Plays somewhat less great the final five games as Dallas limps to a wild card berth after looking like a team that was sure to win the NFC East.  Manages to lose the last game of the season to the Detroit Lions, despite throwing for 321 yard and two touchdowns.  Has three turnovers that don't help. 
• The Hold That Wasn't Held.

In the midst of that, Romo endured a pretty significant beatdown from the Eagles defense, which sacked him three times and forced his worst performance of the year.

(Take a minute and savor that link.  Trust me, it's worth it.  I felt all warm again after reading that recap.)

Romo has looked fine during the preseason.  The folks in Dallas got a little excited after he completed 10 of 11 pass attempts in the first game, but the egg he laid against Denver somewhat cooled their ardor.

The one thing I'm always most careful about in this blog is writing stuff about other teams that makes it sound like I know what I'm talking about when I discuss them.  I can't stand when national writers recycle the same half-dozen talking points about the Eagles, so heaven knows I don't want to do that here.  I'm not a Tony Romo expert.  I've probably watched him play as many times as you have.  I really don't feel like I know him as a player yet.

But I think he's going to have problems this year.  First of all, the book's out on him.  Any quarterback can take the league by surprise for a couple of games, but once they figure out what your weaknesses are, watch out. 

The second problem for Romo is that he doesn't take care of the football.  That botched hold last year was really just a symptom of a larger problem.  Did you know that Romo fumbled 11 times in his 12 starts last year?  The Cowboys recovered all but three of them, but still, that's a lot. 

Romo also threw nine interceptions last year, including eight in his last five regular season games.  That's inching in to Rex Grossman territory.  If Romo doesn't start taking care of the football, he's going to get benched and Dallas fans are going to be insufferable over the next decade as every single one of them claims he "would have drafted Brady Quinn" no questions asked.

But the biggest problem I have with Romo is captured in this video.  Take a look at his mechanics on these throws from the Houston preseason game:

(Gratuitous use of video alert -- the same point could have been made by simply writing, "His mechanics seem kind of crappy.")

It's not like those plays are all deal-breakers, but you have to wonder about a guy who plays like that.  Brett Favre got away with that stuff for years, but once the natural talent began to slip a bit, it really caught up to him.  Romo might not be that talented in the first place.

As for the rest of the Dallas team, I leave you with one final thought.  If Bill Parcells had really, truly believed this was a Super Bowl team, would he have walked away?

Like I said before, I don't consider myself to be an expert on the Cowboys. 

But Bill is.

Bloom Needs Blocking

So Andy Reid isn't blown away by the job Jeremy Bloom has done so far returning kicks:

After the Eagles' sloppy 27-13 preseason loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday at Heinz Field, Reid was asked to evaluate Jeremy Bloom's return work in the team's first three preseason games.

"He's done just OK," the coach said.

Pretty much.  The article does a good job laying out the stats of the matter, so I won't rehash them here, but it's clear that the return game has been mediocre to poor thus far in the preseason.

The issue for Bloom is that he's almost the mirror image of the guy who held the return job in Philly the last couple years.  Reno Mahe was slow as molasses, but he ran hard and used his running back skills to break tackles and grind out extra yards. 

Bloom is super-quick, but he's almost impossibly tiny.  Every return seems to end with him getting ragdolled by someone.  It's almost like watching the family touch football game, where dad swoops in and playfully picks up the kid running down the sideline.   

What this means is that Bloom really, really needs first-level blocking to be successful.  Whereas Reno could run over a guy if he had to (and who ever thought we'd be discussing the relative merits of Reno Mahe as a returner, rather than as just a great teammate) the key for Bloom is giving him a clean release and some lanes so he can actually go north/south and use his speed to beat tacklers.

Of course, if we decide we need to go back to a slow guy with great hands and the ability to break tackles, I hear Jason Avant is available.

I'm Starting to Worry About Dawk

When Brian Dawkins missed minicamps this year to attend to his wife and premature twin daughters, everyone said he'd be fine.  Gary Cobb told readers:

"These workouts aren't going to do anything for Dawk.  The fact that he has missed them isn't going to affect his game.  He would have been able to help the other safeties and keep them on top of their game, but he'll be ready to help them in camp.  Brian has always been an ultimate professional and that's why Andy Reid and crew have no problem with his missing this time."

Dawkins has always been a guy who trained hard in the offseason, so there was no reason to believe that would change.  But then training camp began and almost right away Dawk came up with a problem with his Achilles.  Inside the Eagles summed up what most everyone felt about the situation:

"Some players simply do not need training camp and Brian Dawkins is one of them. It is just not worth the risk of losing him for an extended period of time."

Which makes perfect sense.  It's not like he needs time to learn Johnson's schemes.  Besides, the Eagles aren't exactly settled at the safety position, so Dawkins being out gives them even more snaps to use to evaluate the young guys jockeying for position.

There are two problems, though.  The first is that while the Eagles aren't really that old as a group, Dawk actually kinda is.  With yesterday's trade of Kelly Holcomb to the Vikings, Brian is now the oldest player on the team.  He turns 34 in a month and a half, and unlike a lot of the other aging vets on the team who either kick the ball around or mostly stand in place, Dawk plays a position that depends very much on speed.

The second problem is that Dawk ... didn't look great on Sunday night.  He seemed tentative, his timing was a little off and he clearly wasn't 100 percent.

It's almost certainly true that a player of Dawkins' caliber could miss minicamps or training camp or a couple of preseason games and still be ok.  It's not nearly as certain that the same person could miss minicamps AND training camp AND a couple of preseason games and still not show any effects. 

The starters won't play in the last preseason game, which means Dawk has had all the game action he's going to get before lining up against Green Bay on September 9th.  Will he be ready?

Holcomb to the Vikings

For an undisclosed (PFT: 6th-round) draft pick. 

He seemed like a decent guy.  Hopefully he has more success in the move than Billy McMullen did.

This Pretty Much Sums It Up for Rocca

Phil Sheridan in the Inquirer:

"If Sav Rocca didn't clinch the punting competition, then there wasn't a punting competition."

Here's a longer article coming to pretty much the same conclusion:

"Because right now it seems crazy to think Johnson, not Rocca will be the choice when the Eagles play for real two Sundays from now in Green Bay. Rocca's average, after a dozen preseason punts, is just over 46 yards. Not factored in this measurement, but clear to the eye, is that he sometimes hits a 42-yard punt as if it is a pooch, and that the height of his boots are often as impressive as the distance."

Another Look at Gocong

Video review of Gocong's performance against the Steelers.  This one includes narration, which after doing it I'm still not certain is a good idea.  Anyway, if you're at work, you won't miss anything without the sound.

It wasn't really a good night for any Eagles linebacker not named Takeo Spikes, but I think Gocong remains the biggest concern.  He needs to turn it around soon.

Update: YouTube seems to be having some difficulties this morning.

More Questions Raised Than Answered

On a night when all the focus was on the linebacking corps, Chris Gocong and Omar Gaither did little to reassure a nervous fan base that everything was under control in the middle of the field.

Gocong especially continued to ... um ... do whatever is the opposite of shine.  He's still struggling to get off blocks and when he's matched up with a ballcarrier in the open field, it's often not a pretty sight.  On more than one occasion this evening Gocong had a bead on a guy who then dropped him with an NFL-caliber shake move.  Of the 22 positions on the field, right now Gocong is the biggest worry.

Gaither struggled somewhat in his first action as a starter, but I'm still much less worried about him.  His biggest problem is going to be that the Eagles cut Trotter before conventional wisdom had settled around the idea that the old guy didn't have it any more.  In the eyes of the fans, he's playing against a ghost more than anything else.  Every mistake he makes is going to be magnified.

Of course, the biggest bonk of the night once again came from Sean Considine, who actually appeared to hit Heath Miller early on a deep pass play up the seam, but caused so little damage that Miller easily caught the ball and then took off down the field.  On the Wingheads board, "mprincz" compared the play to a bug hitting a windshield, but truthfully bugs do more damage than that.

There were some bright spots.  McNabb continues to look sharp and Kevin Kolb made some nice throws.  The defensive line caused all kinds of (unrewarded) havoc.  TKO made a huge play down on the goal line, forcing a fumble and saving seven points.  And Sav Rocca came out very strong, dropping his first three punts inside the 10-yard line, before cooling off a bit.

But the story of the night was once again mistakes.  Passes dropped by receivers and cornerbacks.  Blocks missed all over the place, particularly at right guard, where Nick Cole continued the three-game streak of fill-ins who are not -- and never will be -- half as good as Shawn Andrews.  Screen recognition was particularly bad, with the Eagles' youngsters looking like they need some practice time in that area.

With that said, I don't think this game was as bad as it looked on first viewing.  On defense, Jim Johnson unveiled a whole new bag of tricks.  On one series he had Juqua Thomas playing as a standup linebacker on every play.  At another time, he stood up Kearse and Cole on the edges and just had two down linemen.  He also ran a fair amount of three-man fronts, with some blitz packages that we've never seen before.  It didn't all work, but it's an indication that the salty old dog hasn't run out of new ideas, and the preseason is the time when you try those things out.   

The offense had some hiccups, but when you're playing without Westbrook -- who showed up for only one series -- and Andrews -- who should be healthy by the start of the regular season -- you're just not going to be as strong. 

The best news was no major injuries.  And the poor play by the linebackers gave Wingheads "JaxEagle" the best line of the night:

"rumor is that the eagles are in negotations to sign free agent jeremiah trotter..."

Steelers Matchup

First things first, Omar Gaither will be fine.  On the list of concerns heading into the season, he's maybe #15, somewhere after the issue of whether William James can stay healthy and nail down the nickel CB situation for good.

1 - As for the rest of the defense, I'm curious to see whether or not Jim Johnson will start his line rotation in tonight's third preseason game.  We don't know how Bunk will hold up with a heavy workload, but we already know that his three first-team linemates all need to be spelled for maximum effectiveness over the course of the season.  I want to know what happens when Kearse, Patterson, Bunk and Cole come out and JT, Reagor, ??? and Howard come in.  Will there be a drop-off?  Or can the backups hold their own against another team's starters?  Bring on the backups in series three, I say.

2 - Will Gocong make plays?  We know now that he can figure out the right place to stand and run with his assigned receiver, can he now start making some plays?

3 - Will Nick Cole grab the "starting" right guard spot tonight?  Scott Young and Max Jean-Gilles started in place of the injured Shawn Andrews in the first two games.  Clearly neither one did enough to lock down the job as top backup.  Tonight, Cole gets his turn.  Given the weirdness around Andrews' situation, this competition might actually matter this year. 

4 - As for the rest of the line, I'm starting to get just a little bit worried that maybe the improvement we saw at the end of last year was related more to Garcia's quick release and the general awesomeness of Brian Westbrook than it was to the front five.  Tonight should be a decent test for those guys, particularly because both teams are treating this as more of a "dress rehearsal" for the regular season by doing some actual game-planning.

5 - Will Tony Hunt get more than just a couple of goal line cups of coffee tonight with the first string?  This is more a personal thing, since regular readers know how much I like the guy, but I think the Eagles really need to have a 4th-quarter sledgehammer they can use to salt away games without putting McNabb or Westbrook at risk of injury.  Those two-yard power runs are nice, but we need to see if Tony can also get 4.5 when he needs to.