Reality Check

Well that could have gone better.

In a battle of would-be Super Bowl contenders, the Eagles came up well short in just about every facet of the game.  About the only bright spot took place away from the cameras.  In the locker room at half time, X-rays on Jeremy Bloom's injured toe came back negative.  Considering his success in the return game, that's a dodged bullet, although the whole experience doesn't do much to reassure us of his durability.

I'm on the road this week, but I thought I'd be able to catch the game on television during my time in DC.  The channel guide said it would be on, but "MASN" decided to show an Orioles game instead.  Presumably because they were playing the Yankees. 

All of which means my impressions of the first preseason game were colored by two things, the game stats and the commentary of Merrill Reese and Mike Quick.  I'm pretty sure Merrill is getting ready to adopt rookie tight end Brent Celek, who in fairness did put up some nice numbers.  Unfortunately, he's clearly not a big fan of Tuny Hunt, who then didn't do much to change his mind.

Hunt wasn't much worse than any of the other running backs, however.  As a group, the backs managed only 11 yards on 15 carries.  Tony must have been having flashbacks to his last year at Penn State, when the Lions had to replace four starters on the line and running lanes were hard to come by.

I'm not really joking.  Again, I haven't seen the video, but just going by the stats, the offensive line was really, really bad tonight.  Eleven yards?  Five sacks?  It's a good thing McNabb wasn't out there.

What happened to all this talent we've been hearing so much about?  The Ravens are a good team, but the Eagles' backups are guys we presume to be future starters.  If nothing else, maybe the youngsters learned the other teams are using real bullets as well.

The defensive effort was also disappointing.  Sheppard and Dawkins didn't play, but only one of those guys is much help in the run game.  And besides, the big difference this year was supposed to be that the front seven could control the line of scrimmage without Superman's help.  Nope.  The Ravens piled up 157 yards rushing, averaging 5.1 yards a carry.  On the first drive, a very sharp Steve McNair drove the team 93 yards on 12 plays for an easy touchdown.  I can't wait to watch the NFL Network replay to see how Bunkley and Gocong fared in their individual matchups.   

The Eagles also did worse in all the "mistake" stats.  They had more penalties than the Ravens -- although only six total -- and lost two of three fumbles, without forcing any Ravens' turnovers to balance that out.

The big injury news ended up being Ryan Moats' fractured ankle.  It's a bad injury, but one he should be able to come back from in the long run.  Tough break for the kid, but the team will survive.  It could have been worse.

Finally, the only position battle anyone cared about before we realized this team actually had some work ahead of it really heated up tonight.  The big Aussie, Saverio Rocca, kind of muffed his first attempt of the night for only 33 yards, but after that he went 45 yards (not bad), 56 yards (called back), 65 yards (!) and 50 yards (I was hoping he'd keep going to 70).  Not a bad first day, Sav.

There's no point in getting too worked up about what is only the first game of the preseason.  After all, the 2004 team got blitzed almost as badly in its first preseason game and still went on to the Super Bowl.  (Although that matchup is a bit eerie.) 

So we all have to try to keep an even keel about this, even if the team looked bad and opposing field goal kickers are continuing their amazing run of not ever missing against us.  At the time I'm writing this, it looks like at least one message board is playing things pretty cool.  That's good.

And the best news is that the city only needs to stew on this loss for the next four days, before the Eagles get their next shot at hitting guys wearing different color uniforms.  And this time McNabb will be playing. 

Hopefully he'll look good and we'll all be able to pretend tonight's royal crapfest never happened.

Comments

[BleedingGreenNation]

On the local TV broadcast in Philly they were slobbering over Brent Celek as well...