Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

So How 'Bout Those Phillies?

If you look closely on the list of Andy Reid defenders -- grown somewhat shorter this evening -- you'll probably find my name listed somewhere just under "Tammy."  I love the guy.  I think he's the best coach of any team I've ever followed and I don't ever want to see him leave Philly.

But what happened tonight in the Meadowlands goes on Andy Reid.

Now by "what happened" I don't mean the loss to the Giants.  The Eagles played tonight without:

• Brian Westbrook
• Brian Dawkins
• Lito Sheppard
• LJ Smith
• Tra Thomas

Take five guys of that caliber away from any team in the league and they're going to have issues.  So, tough divisional game, on the road, without those guys -- a loss sucks but is at least understandable.

This wasn't just a loss.  This was a complete undressing of the Eagles' coaching staff by a franchise whose head coach is so universally respected that everyone in the League expects him to get fired pretty much any week now.

The Eagles have run Jim Johnson's defensive scheme for years, yet somehow they were completely at a loss for what to do when facing it.  Early in the game, the Giants pulled out a page from the 2003 edition of "How to Beat the Eagles" by bringing continuous pressure up the middle into McNabb's face.  This wasn't supposed to be a problem any more now that we had the young trio of Todd Herremans, Jamaal Jackson and Shawn Andrews in the middle.  So much for that theory. 

Then the Giants decided to attack Winston Justice, the second-year man starting his first game ever at left tackle.  And when I say decided to attack I mean they pretty much left their starting right defensive end out there to beat him, continuously, play after play, to the quarterback. 

This is where we move into the realm of whatthefuckwerethecoaches thinking?  All week you know that you're probably going to be without Tra Thomas.  All week you wonder how the rookie is going to do.  And yet you don't have a single contingency plan in place for when the answer to that question turns out to be "not so good"??

Look, I'm not here to rip Justice.  The guy had a really tough game and he's going to hear about it for a long time to come.  But it was absolutely inexcusable for the coaches to leave him alone out there, without any help, as play after play the Giants came crashing around McNabb's blind side.

I don't even care what they think about Justice or what he should be able to do.  You absolutely cannot put your fragile franchise quarterback in a situation where the opposing team is turfing him every single play.

I'm amazed McNabb didn't get injured tonight.

Shocked, really. 

And for the life of me I can't figure out why the coaches thought it was ok to see him get ragdolled all night.  Note to the coaches: YOU'RE ALLOWED TO USE A TIGHT END, OR PERHAPS EVEN A RUNNING BACK, TO HELP YOUR LINEMEN PASS PROTECT.

Of course, the loss shouldn't just go on the coaches.  As a unit, the offensive line was incredibly poor tonight.  Justice didn't give up all 12 sacks on his own.  But here's the weird part.  Guess who the leading rusher was tonight?

Correll Buckhalter, with 103 yards on only 17 carries...

...

..........

Could someone please explain to me why we didn't just run the ball down the Giants' throats until they proved they could stop it? Was it because:

1. Our line was struggling and it wouldn't have helped them to be able to be the aggressors for a change? 
2. The Giants blitzed like mad early and running the ball could have helped slow them down?
3. Running the ball was actually fucking working?

Um, oh right, so, yeah, all of those would be reasons to run the ball more.  But I guess when you're averaging 2.5 yards per passing play how could you get away from throwing the ball.  That's not a typo.  In fact, here's an interesting comparison for you:

Penalty yards -- 132
Yards rushing -- 114
Net yards passing -- 76

Awesome.  Andy Reid should continue his tradition of giving all the players the bye week off.  But he should nail the offensive coaches to their desks for the next fortnight until they can figure out a gameplan that goes beyond "Chuck it a lot and hope it works."

Oh, and the Eagles defense actually played pretty well again tonight.  Fat lot of good it did with that offense. 

It IS Always Sunny...

I woke up this morning convinced the Phillies were going to blow it and the Eagles would find some way to lose tonight.

Thanks, Jamie Moyer.  Thanks, thanks and thanks.

EDIT: Should have gone with my gut on that second part.

MASH Ward

Brian Westbrook, Brian Dawkins and William Thomas are all inactive for tonight's game.  That's on top of Lito Sheppard and LJ Smith.  Young guys need to step up.

Giants Game Preview

When I started this blog, I figured my schedule would go something like this:

• Monday -- Game review (long)
• Tuesday -- Second-day reactions (short)
• Wednesday / Thursday -- Random stats or around-the-league stuff (short)
• Friday -- Game preview (long)
• Saturday / Sunday -- Watching football, not writing about it

My assumption was that people would care most about the Eagles right after and right before their games, with less interest during the middle of the week when other things were going on.

Not exactly.

First of all, people don't want to wait until Monday.  It's amazing how many people show up within 10 minutes of the final kneeldown.  I try, but even the pros get a couple hours to file. 

Secondly, folks aren't easily sated.  Interest runs strong through at least Wednesday before it starts to slow down a bit.  (I've also noticed that when bad things happen, traffic is better than when things are good.)

Finally, Friday's are glacial.  This is the biggest surprise.  I figured that would be the "ramp up" day.  Nope, it's always the slowest week day.  I have a few theories for why this could be so:

1. Especially in the summer, lots of people take off early on Friday.
2. It's a night/day effect.  The day is similarly paced, but people aren't hanging around the house reading about the Eagles on Friday night.  (This can't be the whole answer, based on the numbers.)
3. My game previews suck. 

I kinda think it might be #3.  Or at least maybe it's that they don't provide something you can't get a million other places.

That thought came to mind last night as I was trying to figure out what to write about the Giants.  I mean, we played those guys three times last year.  Other than Tiki's retirement, not much has changed.  You watched all those games too -- you know what they do.  And if you do want to read about the game, you have approximately six million choices. 

So I've got a request.  I'm always open to feedback on what happens around here.  If you've got any ideas about ways I could make these things more interesting, please email me or pop 'em in the comments.  I'm all ears.  And the same thing goes on a week-to-week basis.  If the Eagles are playing a team we all don't already know everything about, let me know if there are any specific questions you'd like to see addressed.

As for this week, here are the things I think those six million people are all getting wrong:

Chris Gocong is not going to be the primary coverage option on Jeremy Shockey.  Every week we get these stories about how such-and-such a tight end will be Gocong's "toughest test yet."  I'm sure it will happen again when Jason Whitten comes to town.  Guys, can we all please just keep in mind that Gocong spends half the game on the bench, there's no way Johnson trusts him yet to consistently match up one-on-one with a guy like Shockey, and very few linebackers can stick with these modern tight ends in space.

I don't think Burress is going to be that effective.  The Eagles don't typically flip their cornerbacks for match-up purposes, but after what happened last year we might see a bit more of that on Sunday.  As for William James, he definitely struggles a little bit with the quick guys, but Burress isn't beating anybody down the field, he just jumps over them when Eli heaves one of his hopeprayluck specials down the sideline.  He'll probably destroy us in the second game, however.  (Also, the Eagles corners aren't "small," it's just that he's 6-5.)

It's going to be very, very tough for Westbrook to have a big game.  I think good players can go one week without practicing and not show any ill effects, but that starts to catch up to you if it continues.  I think Brian might be a little less sharp this week.  Also, the Giants are going to throw everything they have at Westbrook.  Spagnuolo was around Philly long enough to get a good sense about what works best against him.  McNabb better be on again.  (On the flip side, if Westbrook can't go look for Buckhalter to have one of those "oh, well we don't have to worry about him" big days.  He was hitting the hole really, really hard last week.  Obviously the rest of the package isn't the same, but I think Bucky might be faster than Westbrook these days.)

Lions Video Rewind

For this week's video rewind I focused on the Eagles' defensive line.  The big fellas up front had a great game, so I wanted to see how they did it.

First let's talk numbers.  Much has been made of the team's d-line rotation.  Although this wasn't the most normal game, I wanted to get a sense of how much each of these guys was playing. 

As a side note, let me just say it was really, really hard to read the numbers on those Team Sweden jerseys the Eagles were wearing on Sunday.  I'd like to personally thank Juqua Thomas for wearing those arm bands that make him so easy to pick out.  Also, my DVR cut out before the last four plays, so with that caveat in mind, here's what I found:

You can see from that table that the starting tackles (Bunkley and Patterson) are getting a lot more rest than the starting defensive ends (Kearse and Cole).  This is primarily because Jim Johnson likes to bring in Howard and Reagor to man the middle on passing downs since they're both more adept at getting to the quarterback than the young guys. 

It's also apparent that Darren Howard is getting a lot of playing time.  He was third last week in total snaps logged, split between 27 at the tackle position and 17 at end.  He truly looks better inside these days anyway, so I can see why they're using him there.  He also seems to have a knack for doing a decent job in pass coverage.  At least once I saw Johnson drop him off the line and then ask him to run out and cover the flat, which seems like a heck of a request for a guy playing tackle, but he pulled it off.  Since he's used to playing end, he's also a logical person to have slant to the outside when Johnson asks the defensive end to drop into coverage.

You may remember that after the game Cole talked about the Eagles coming out with a different game plan.  I'm sure it was the case, but it wasn't anything I was able to pick up on.  The Eagles ran a number of early stunts -- including on the first play where Bunkley sacked Kitna -- but it didn't seem like an unusually high number.

I also wanted to call attention to two very good, back-to-back defensive plays by the Eagles.  Take a look at the video for more (and I guarantee it's straightforward, no funny voices this time):

Other things I noticed while watching the defense:

• On the Lions' first touchdown, Spikes left his gap because he thought Kevin Jones was trapped behind a stack of blockers.  Jones slid off and walked in where TKO should have been.  Hard to blame him though, since Jones really did disappear for a second.
• On the good news side of things, at the 3:35 mark in the first quarter, the Lions attempted a screen pass.  Gaither read it all the way and was ready to wrap up the running back had the pass been better.  It's a good thing he was, because the Eagles had nine guys on the line of scrimmage on that play.  The back might still be running. 
• On the bad news side, at the 10:58 mark in the second quarter, the Lions ran a pick play for one of their backs swinging into the right flat.  Roy Williams ran a five-yard in and then looked to pick off Gaither ... who had so badly blown the coverage that Williams didn't even have to run into him.  He did anyway.  The play resulted in a 16-yard gain before a nice ankle tackle by Considine.
• Three plays later, Trent Cole managed to knock the ball out of Kitna's hand even as he was being blatantly held/tackled into the ground right in front of the ref.  After the play, the ref gave him some explanation for why it wasn't a hold.  Yeah right.  (Maybe now that Trent is leading the league in sacks he'll actually get a call once in awhile.)
• At 12:46 in the third quarter, Jevon Kearse was easily blocked one-on-one by one of Detroit's tight ends (I believe PSU and Bonner alum Sean McHugh).  The play made me wonder whether Kearse really has the strength back in his injured left leg, because that was the leg he was trying -- and failing -- to push off from.  The next play he jumped offsides.
• Brian Baldinger praised Joselio Hanson for "always being around the ball."  Yes, because they constantly throw at him.
• Finally, Trent Cole saw a lot of solo blocks in this game.  He shouldn't get used to that.

On the offensive side of the ball, easily the coolest thing all game was this alignment the Eagles used on a couple of short-yardage plays (click for full-size):

Yeah baby, check the shadows, that's an unbalanced offensive line.  I got your power football right ... HERE.  (And note how confused the Lions defense looks.) 

Beyond that, I can tell you that my expert opinion after watching the game again is that the offense looked really, really good and that Brian Westbrook fellow might have a future in this league. 

Here's why I think the Eagles attacked the left side in their run game on Sunday.  Detroit's basic defensive alignment looked like this:

   X     X

.X    X     X  X

  O  O  X  O  O 

That gave the Eagles two "bubbles" to run at, either the left-side B gap or the right-side A gap.  The frequently chose the former.  Herremans had a fantastic day at left guard basically doing one thing.  He'd block down on the DT for a beat and then hustle out to the second level where he'd blow up a linebacker.  Tapeh would take care of the other LB, Justice handled the end and then Westbrook would work his magic on the safety. 

The Eagles have a lot more creativity in the run game than I remember seeing in the past.  They ran a nice tackle trap where they pulled Runyan through that same gap.  They also had an interesting pass protection off play action where Andrews would come over from his RG spot to handle the opposite defensive end.  The first time they tried to run that protection it didn't work, with McNabb getting sacked and fumbling.  It was more successful later.

A couple of injuries on the line meant we had a chance to see how Winston Justice and Max Jean-Gilles would do in real, live NFL action.  My MJG notes read like this:

• MJG came in here.  Cody gave him a nice spin move but he had RB help.  McNabb didn't wait around to see if that help would be successful; he just took off.
• Decent backside block on a run the other way
• Double teamed DT with Runyan
• Stood up Redding without help
• Got nice push on Redding on run play
• Got out pretty well on screen -- nice quickness for his size -- but missed everyone he tried to block. Westbrook is Superman so it didn't matter.

And that was it.  He came in again later, but nothing much consequential happened.

As for Justice, I was very impressed with his play.  He started out a little rusty, which is probably inevitable when you're standing around all game and suddenly they ask you to go protect Donovan's blindside.  On his first play, Corey Smith got into his kitchen a little bit, but the coaches smartly called a quick drop passing play.  On the second play, he again got collapsed back into Donovan, but then from that point forward he was very, very solid.  He looks seriously quick out there. 

The best measure of his success is probably the fact that Tra Thomas checked himself back into the game on the next series, even though he was clearly laboring with his knee.  Justice came back in again a few plays later and stayed in the rest of the game. 

As for his run-blocking, either he's better than I realized or the Lions had pretty much given up by the time he entered the game.  Justice had a huge collapsing block on the Tony Hunt touchdown that allowed Hunt to walk into the end zone.  (Although he failed to finish a block on a linebacker in his first series that might have given Hunt his first NFL TD a few minutes earlier.)

As a final note, it's certainly far more fun doing these things when the game in question is an Eagles victory.  Please keep it up, guys.

Gregg Easterbook Nails It

Wow, strange things happen when you get a real reporter covering sports, don't they?  I strongly encourage you to read Gregg Easterbook's detailed report on his attempt to get further information out of the NFL regarding why it was in such a hurry to destroy all the evidence the Patriots turned over regarding their past cheating. 

Look, we all know the Super Bowl is never coming back.  You could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Tom Brady had been replaced by an advanced cybernetic organism that had been perfectly designed to shred NFL defenses and it wouldn't change the result of that game one bit.

But the NFL's decision in this case reeks.  Badly.  And I'm glad Easterbrook is on the case. 

(I try not to move beyond the boundaries of sports on this blog.  It's just not worth it.  So I'm not going to link to too much of his non-NFL work to make the point that this is a guy who almost infallibly asks the right questions -- if sometimes I'm not sure about his answers.  But if you want to read one of the most devastating, prescient takedowns of a government boondoggle you'll ever see, you can't go wrong with this.)

But Can It Be Sustained?

After three games, the Eagles' defense has collected 14 sacks.  Trent Cole leads the league with five.  The defensive line has accounted for 13 of those sacks, suggesting that they can get pressure without blitzing.

After three games last year, the Eagles defense had collected 16 sacks.  Trent Cole had five.  The defensive line had accounted for 14 of those sacks, suggesting that they could get pressure without blitzing.  You know how this story ends:

"A year ago, after Kearse went down in Week 2 with his knee injury and Howard suffered a variety of nagging injuries, the defensive-line production and the defense suffered. The Eagles had 23 sacks after five games last year and just 17 in the final 11 games.  It didn't help that Bunkley and Sam Rayburn provided little help as the reserve defensive tackles, leaving Darwin Walker and Patterson worn down."

You can do pretty much the same kind of comparison with the run defense as well.  Through three games last year, opposing running backs were averaging 3.4 yards a carry, and that included performances by Frank Gore and Tiki Barber. 

Through three games this year, opposing running backs are averaging 3.3 yards a carry, and that includes a match-up against the two-headed monster of Clinton Portis and Ladell Betts.

So what makes this year different?  Are we just going to see a repeat of history, as the long grind of the season takes the edge off the Eagles' very quick, but relatively undersized line?  It's possible, but I don't think it's likely.  Here are a few reasons why:

This year's line can stop the run.  Stats don't always tell the whole story.  The switch from Darwin Walker to Brodrick Bunkley has made a huge difference.  Walker tried to go around blocks, Bunkley destroys them or -- at worst -- holds his ground. 

You can see the difference when you break down the tackling stats by position.  Through three games last year, starting safeties Brian Dawkins and Michael Lewis had already racked up 38 tackles.  It's great that those guys were both such good tacklers, but on the other hand it's better when your safeties aren't quite that busy.

This year, Dawkins, Considine and (only counting last game) Mikell have only combined for 22 tackles.  That's a big difference.  And yeah, some of that is probably due to Dawk not being full speed yet, but it's mostly a result of the Eagles being able to play run defense with just seven guys. 

Kearse hasn't been a factor.  A big part of last year's early success was the hot start by Jevon Kearse.  His 3.5 sacks in two games looked like the start of something big until he suffered the knee injury that cost him the season.  Once he went down, the pass rush never looked the same. 

This year's unit is doing all this in spite of Kearse's slow start.  If he can start rounding into form, that's one more thing opposing offensive coordinators will have to worry about.

Better depth on the line.  Last year's fifth defensive end was Jerome McDougle, this year it's Victor Abiamiri.  VA may not be much of a pass-rusher yet, but he's a big guy (who won't get blown off the ball) that they can call on if they need to later in the year.  Montae Reagor and Kimo Von Oelhoffen provide better support than last year's Bunkley and Sam Rayburn.

Finally, the linebacker experiment is panning out.  Guess who leads the team in tackles -- that's right, Takeo Spikes.  Chris Gocong may not be playing all that much yet, but he still has eight tackles already, which amazingly is three more than Dhani managed through the same period last year.

In the middle, you can't say that Gaither (14 tkl) has been better than Trotter (22 tkl) was to this point last year.  But the difference is that Omar is likely to continue improving as he gains more experience -- so long as the DTs continue to keep the big bodies off him -- while Trotter's old legs just wore down over the course of the year. 

(On another note, I don't think Trotter's been active for any of Tampa Bay's games so far this year.  I wonder how long he'll put up with that before calling it quits.)

A Good Cause

Look, I hate Michigan (the football program, not the state).  And it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to email a Penn State fan only a few days after the most recent debacle in Ann Arbor.  But this does appear to be a worthy cause, so I'll pass it along:

My name is ******* and I'm co-chair of the Bernard "Pat" Maloy Scholarship at Michigan. The scholarship gives a money to undergrads at the Univeristy of Michigan who either have cancer or whose family members have cancer. We're holding an online auction of sports memorabilia at www.umich.cmarket.com . Most of the items are UofM stuff.

I know that people in Philly would ordinarily not care at all but there is an autographed Brian Westbrook jersey up for auction that your readers may have an interest in. Frankly they could probably steal these items because despite the fact that the site has been up for 4 months, no one has even put a watch on that item. I think most of our bidders are interested in the UofM and Detroit sports stuff.

Anyway, I was hoping your blog could help us promote. Check out the auction site www.umich.cmarket.com to see that we're both legit and what I'm talking about.

So yeah, I don't know anything beyond that, but I followed that link and searched for the Westbrook jersey and it does indeed exist.

And like those eBay ads say, it's more fun helping people when you win it, or something.

Tuesday Quick Hits

A couple of nice Bunkley articles today.  What I like best about the guy is that he never quits.  I don't always notice these things the first time through, but on the replay you can see that there are many times where he gets knocked down or blocked, but he gets right back up, fights through the trash and hustles to the ball.  And boy is he a force inside.  I'd like to watch Andrews vs. Bunkley in practice some day -- Godzilla vs. King Kong.

How 'bout that offseason.  Despite the fact that some teams were making quite the splash in free agency this offseason, Eagles fans were for the most part comfortable with the team's "stand pat" approach.  A lot of people wanted to see Jeff Garcia return, but we now know that the Kevin Kolb plan made that impossible.  Even more of us wanted to see Donte Stallworth brought back, especially after he didn't attract that much inital interest around the league.  I count myself strongly in that group (as, probably, does Stallworth himself now that he's playing a decidedly third fiddle in New England).

Through three games, however, the Eagles' plan looks pretty good.  Quintin Mikell, Juqua Thomas and Montae Reagor are all playing nice roles on this team.  William James has been better than appreciated.  There aren't many guys who can stay with Santana Moss one-on-one.  Ian Scott couldn't get healthy enough to play, but Kimo Von Oelhoffen was brought in to eat up his snaps.  No need to mention Kevin Curtis (although it will be nice to see him have the same sort of impact when facing an actual live body at cornerback).

The one failing was probably neglecting to bring in a veteran guy who could return punts, but that was solved before week two with Reno Mahe.

I still wouldn't mind seeing Adalius Thomas back there, but so far these guys are panning out nicely.

Speaking of Juqua Thomas, starting him isn't the best idea.  Fans are getting frustrated with Jevon Kearse's big money, low production game.  It's not that he's playing badly, it's just that the contract he has is going to invite extra boo-- scrutiny.  Meanwhile, JT is having a bang-up year, with three sacks on the season. 

Naturally, this leads to thoughts of benching Kearse in favor of Thomas.  I don't think that's a good idea.  JT is a natural pass-rusher.  But at his listed size of 6-2, 252 pounds, he's not a particularly big guy.  If you force him to play those first couple series, when all the linemen are fresh and teams are often trying to establish the run, there's a good chance you're going to wear him down. 

That's the same reason I thought the Eagles would start Darren Howard this year and bring in Trent Cole as the spell guy.  You can use the bigger body to soak up the punishment and then the quicker, younger guy can make more of an impact by staying fresh.  However, because the Eagles are using Howard as one of the two primary nickel DTs as well as on the outside, it makes sense not to start him.  He played too many snaps last year rotating between those two positions.

It will be interesting to see if Cole can hold up over the course of the full season.  If he keeps leading the league in sacks, he's going to draw lots of extra attention.  I hope he doesn't get worn down when everyone starts deciding that the best way to slow him down is by running right at him all game.

Two more points on Kearse.  First, the best proof he's lost a step out there would be the three offsides penalties he's picked up so far this year.  It looks like he knows the speed isn't quite there any more so he's trying to get an advantage by guessing the snap count. 

Second, I hope Eagles' fans don't give in to the temptation of vilifying Kearse.  It's just not necessary.  Kearse has always played hard as an Eagle.  He's struggled some with injuries and hasn't had the impact they hoped for when they signed him, but he's not a bad guy and there's no reason to move him into the fan doghouse that we always seem to need to keep filled. 

Quotes for Further Consideration

Generally speaking, you're not going to learn very much from post-game press conferences, particularly from a team like the Eagles, where forthrightness isn't exactly encouraged. 

A big win like yesterday's can open the floodgates a bit, though.  Here are a few quotes from the locker room that provide some interesting food for thought:

Trent Cole
"We just changed the game plan and came out here wanting to send a message," Cole said. "That is what we wanted to do and I think we got our message across. We turned this program around and put the two losses behind us. And we keep going."

How exactly did the game plan change?  The two biggest factors in yesterday's sack attack would seem to be facing an offense that 1) likes to get the ball downfield and 2) doesn't have a great offensive line.  I'm very curious as to what else the Eagles did differently on defense.  Maybe the video rewind will help answer that question.

Quintin Mikell
Describing his sack: "It just opened up beautifully," Mikell said. "He looked over his shoulder, but I said, 'Uh-uh, you're not getting away.'''

I loved the flying, Dawkins-esque leap he made on that play.  Great job for Q filling in yesterday, but here's a question.  If everyone agrees he played a pretty good game, then whose fault was it on all those big run-after-catch passing plays that went through the middle of the field?

Brian Westbrook (I)
Almost all of Westbrook's successful runs went to the left side, where the pair continually exposed the Lions' defensive line.  "We tried to run to the right side, but we didn't have as much success as we wanted to," Westbrook said. "As an offensive group, we have to go with what's working. Running to the left, we were having a lot of success, so we kept going."

Did the Lions game plan to try to take away the Andrews/Runyan side of the running game?  Or did it have more to do with Andrews' injury situation and the play of fill-in Max Jean-Gilles?

Brian Westbrook (II)
"Coming into this game, Donovan knew his deficiencies in the last couple weeks and the rest of us were not getting it done," Westbrook said. "All of us pointed at ourselves. We didn't go around saying that the offensive line wasn't doing their job and Donovan did the same thing. He worked his butt off in practice, and we didn't even have too many incomplete passes. Donovan was putting the ball in the right spot for the receiver all week, and that just rolled over into the game."

"That was one of those things that we are going to rally behind. Donovan took some shots this week, and we rallied behind him. We told him that we had his back, and any shots that he was taking we are going to take together as a team. Donovan has been the lightning rod basically his whole career. When he goes out and has success like he did today, all that stuff is going to disappear. The things that we were able to do today, that's the Donovan that we know, that's the Donovan that we want to see every week."

More and more, it's apparent that Westbrook is running co-equal these days with McNabb and Dawkins as a leader in the locker room.  This isn't just fluff, either. "[T]hat's the Donovan that we want to see every week."  I like it.

Sheldon Brown
"I practice against him all the time," Eagles cornerback Sheldon Brown said. "People ask me, 'How good is Kevin Curtis?' and I say, 'He's good. Don't look at me like I'm crazy. The man can play.' "

So are these like NFL people or like guy in front of you at the Wawa people?

Igglesblog's brother
"Bunkley isn't as big as I thought he was."

It really is amazing how much weight he lost over the summer.  The fact that he still can't be moved at this size is really a great sign for the guy's long-term prospects.