Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Too Much Britney Time for Romo

Two things happened to Tony Romo this week: 1) he signed a six-year, $67.5 million contract extension, and 2) he lost the ability to speak English when someone compared him to Troy Aikman and Roger Staubach:

"Those guys are in the stratosphere when it comes to good players, so if you try to live up to that, you're fighting a no-win situation," Romo said. "You take what you can and you learn from those guys, but you just have to be yourself and hope that one day you can be mentioned in the same breath as those guys."

I guess we can forgive him for being a little excited.

Akers Wins Monthly Award?

This seems kind of weird, doesn't it?  I guess when your offense gives you so many chances to kick field goals you're going to be a front-runner, but really?  Akers?  For going 9-of-12?

This is totally in Bounty's wheelhouse.

Yikes, The Cowboys Are Good

Really, really good.

I don't want to rehash what's already been written, so let's take as our starting point this preview of the game written by the Inquirer's Ashley Fox.  I've noticed a couple times this year that Fox has been the reporter assigned to writing about the Eagles' upcoming opponents, which has to be kind of a bummer of a way to cover a team.  Everyone else is in Philly rocking it up at the Linc and you get to drive up to the Meadowlands to cover the pitiful Jets. 

Anyway, she sets out a pretty good overview of what's roaring into town this weekend:

[Dallas has] the conference's top-ranked offense and defense, and the league's second-best offense behind the juggernaut that is the New England Patriots. Dallas is balanced, with the rushing tandem of Julius Jones and the shifty Marion Barber, and with Tony Romo, he of the new contract extension, under center.

In his first full year as a starter, Romo ranks fifth - behind Tom Brady, David Garrard, Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger - with a 95.6 passer rating. His 62.8 completion percentage is 19th in the league but still pretty good. The nine interceptions are the glaring weakness on an otherwise gaudy stat sheet.

As for Owens, he isn't the Cowboys' leading receiver. That honor goes to tight end Jason Witten, who has 42 catches. But Owens' 556 receiving yards and five touchdown catches are team highs.

Scratch the surface of those numbers though and they get even scarier.  Here's an offensive comparison between the two teams:

Ouch.  As we all know, those Eagles' numbers would look a lot uglier without the one big game against the Lions.  And check out that last column.  Those are the points and yards per game numbers for the Eagles during their first seven games last year, when Donovan's Deep Attack was blitzing the rest of the league.

Through seven games, the Cowboys are outscoring that offense.

The defensive numbers are somewhat more balanced:

The Dallas defense officially ranks higher than the Eagles because it's been stingier with the yardage, but as usual Jim Johnson's unit has been better at preventing points than the yard numbers would suggest.  The bad news is that that's the only major statistical category in which the Eagles surpass the Cowboys.

If you're looking for silver linings, Romo's tendency to throw interceptions, mentioned by Fox above, is a place to start.  Here's the turnover breakdown:

That table gives you a sense that these are two very different teams.  The Eagles take great care of the football.  Say what you want about Donovan's unwillingness to do a Brett Favre impression, but the results speak for themselves.  He's generally not going to put his defense in a bad position out there.  The bad news is that the Eagles defense has not done a good job forcing turnovers (which is kind of a scary stat). 

The Cowboys, on the other hand, treat the football like one of Tony Romo's increasingly long string of celebrity girlfriends: disposable, and if they lose it they'll just get a new one and score with that instead.

The funny thing is that both teams end up in the same place, with mediocre +1 turnover ratios.  It will be interesting to see if either side breaks the trend in this game.      

Now yes, you can argue that the Cowboys really haven't played anyone of note other than the Patriots.  But it's not like the Eagles have been facing the truly elite teams either. 

Long story short, there are better teams to be facing the week of a must-win game.  Maybe we could convince the Vikings to come back and take another shot.

Headline of the Day

Dalembert as anchor will keep 76ers sailing | David Aldridge

And that's generally what anchors do, yes?  I'm not really a "boat" guy.

About The McNabb Trade "Rumors"

I've been meaning to make this point ever since the Bears' game and I keep forgetting.  For a McNabb trade to make sense, the following three things need to be in play:

1. The trade needs to make the team getting McNabb better.
2. The trade needs to make the Eagles better (although not right away).
3. The trade needs to make sense given the position of the franchise and its employees.

Item one isn't hard to satisfy.  Assuming fair draft pick value, there are many, many teams who would improve if suddenly quarterbacked by Donovan McNabb.

Item two is a lot trickier.  In the short-term, the Eagles would not be better under AJ Feely or Kevin Kolb.  Otherwise one of those two would be starting.  In the long-term, the league is littered with can't-miss quarterback prospects who never could cut it when the lights came on.  It's interesting that the same people who think Andy Reid can't get out of his own way when he gets out of bed in the morning also seem to be putting a lot of faith in his quarterback-picking skills when it comes to Kevin Kolb.

But let's assume for a minute that the trade worked out.  McNabb's departure brings in a couple of draft picks who can make an impact and after a brief period of adjustment Kolb takes the league by storm.  I'm not saying it's the most likely scenario (hey, didn't a second-round draft pick just get cut yesterday?) but let's just pretend in this case that it does.

That leaves item three.  And the question you have to ask yourself is, deep down, does Andy Reid feel like a guy in a position to say, "You know what, this team has an unshakeable veteran makeup and they're not getting me out of here with a backhoe, so screw it, I'm trading the franchise and making a run at 2010."

I don't think so.  And it honestly has nothing to do with the reaction of the fans.  I think Reid has been disappointed in how the character of his team hasn't always seemed to hold firm the last couple of years.  He's also mentioned a couple times how important it is to make sure you don't let a culture of losing get established. 

I think his plan all along has been to stick with McNabb as long as he can, and then only go to Kolb when he was sure the new guy was ready to take over.  Waking up and finding himself on the (semi) hot seat only makes that more imperative.

Like it or not -- and neither one may -- Reid and McNabb are more closely tied together now than they have been since 1999.

About Damn Time

The Eagles cut former second-round draft pick Matt McCoy this afternoon because they felt like Akeem Jordan could be a great contributor on special teams and was a better fit for them right now.

Yeah, even PhiladelphiaEagles.com ain't buying that story.

McCoy got his butt cut for being the latest Eagles player to commit a stupid, nonsensical, potentially game-changing penalty.  The cynics will argue that it's a hell of a lot easier to cut a backup linebacker for something like that than it is your star defensive end.  And the cynics would be right.

But that doesn't change the fact that this was an important, necessary move for the Eagles.  We talked about a culture of no consequences last week.  With this move, Andy Reid just said: I got your consequences right ... here. 

HT: to Jason for beating me to the news.

[Bonus nugget: This is going to make Tom very happy.  You'll have to ask him why.]

[Bonus bonus nugget: 10 bucks says DPO'N uses this episode to take a shot at Reid's handling of his kids at her very next opportunity.]

Is There Such a Thing?

As a "not severe" case of plantar fasciitis?

The Hype Machine Churns Onward

Peter King couldn't even be bothered to slog through this week's slate of just-completed games before jumping right to you-know-who.

Smoking the Good Stuff in Minny

Pioneer Press writer Charley Walters:

"Some people think today's Vikings-Eagles game at the Metrodome could end up being a tryout for Philadelphia quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Vikings coach Brad Childress, in dire need of a QB, was McNabb's offensive coordinator and QB coach before coming to Minnesota. If Childress is back next year, as expected, it would make sense to trade with pal Andy Reid, the Eagles' coach, for the established McNabb, 30, who probably could use a change of scenery.

A trade, which probably would cost the Vikings a second-round draft pick, makes more sense than drafting another QB in April and waiting two years for him to develop.

Meanwhile, today at the Dome: Vikings 13, Eagles 10."

... and a first, and a third ...

Other Thoughts on the Vikings Game

Boy, it sure is nice coming to work a day after a win, isn't it?  I mean, it's not that great coming to work, but after last week's three-day post-game funk I'll take all the underwhelmed contentment I can get.

Listen to those birds chirping. 

I have to say, the Philly beat writers really stepped it up this week.  So much so that I think some call and response is probably the best way to look back at yesterday's game.

Rich Hofmann | For McNabb, a matter of trust

This is what McNabb has the ability to give his teammates, if he can trust them. This is the kind of explosiveness this offense can potentially show, if he can just throw it up there every once in a while, confident that the receiver will either make a play on the ball or at least prevent the defensive back from intercepting it.

McNabb plainly hates interceptions, a very good thing. He has thrown fewer of them than any NFL quarterback in history on a percentage basis. But when the big plays are not coming, and when the offense is not scoring enough points . . . 

Risk, reward, trust - one following from the other following from the other. McNabb had not made two throws like that all season, ones that were so decidedly 50-50 when they left his hand.

First of all, McNabb has always played the waiting game with every receiver other than Terrell Owens (and to some extent LJ Smith).  Given how few plays guys have made for him over the years, it's really not that hard to see why.

And the wide receivers did step up yesterday to make some tough plays.  Truly outstanding ones, actually. 

But it can't be easy for McNabb to just let it fly when too often these guys aren't even catching the ones that hit them in the chest.  So yeah, we can make Donovan the frame of reference here and say he needs to change, but on the other hand maybe it's the receivers who need to bear the burden of proof. 

Good start yesterday.

John Smallwood | Cole helps keep Peterson in check

But during the game, Cole noticed a trend about Peterson that he first noted while watching film.  "From watching the film, I saw that Peterson cuts back a lot," Cole said. "Every time he takes one step forward and stops, he's going to go outside. I saw it the whole game.

"If he takes one step, he's not going to want to run inside. If he's going to run inside, he's going to wait until a hole opens up."

So when Cole broke through the line of scrimmage and saw Peterson stop, he knew how to react.  "I knew he was going to cut it back," Cole said. "When I was running down, I'm glad I set down because I knew he was going to cut back.

"I was out there and able to make the play."

I love stories like this that give you something you can't just see during the game itself.  Nice job. 

Also -- if this is true -- great job by Cole studying his film.  It's great seeing a young player working that hard.

And while we're on the topic of Trent Cole, let me make my weekly point that I've never seen any one player so blatantly held so many times without getting calls as Trent Cole.  I think the problem is that he has that one move -- the one Brian Baldinger is always so breathless about -- where he comes in low and hard and guys just completely lose their leverage.  They end up wrapping an arm around his neck to slow him down. 

The Eagles should be sending a tape of his plays to the league offices after every single game.   

Paul Domowitch | It's an Oscar-winning film session

MINNEAPOLIS - On Saturday night, Jim Johnson got his defense together in a hotel meeting room to watch a short film. For lack of a better name, let's call it "The Best of Adrian Peterson." It featured about 15 to 20 of the Minnesota rookie's best runs this season.

"We showed them all of his runs over 10 yards," the Eagles' defensive boss said. "We said, 'Hey, if we can keep this guy from making 10-yard runs, we can win the football game."

In case his unit needed a little extra motivation, Johnson had the team's video people splice in some scenes from the movie "Gladiator" between Peterson's big runs.

I'm curious here, has anyone ever heard of the Eagles doing this before?  It sounds a lot like the old Phil Jackson deal where he tries to keep his players' attention by splicing clips with game film. 

If it's a new trick, I'm glad to see the coaches are pulling out all the stops.

This is a pretty critical point on the offensive side, too.  The Eagles coaches are trying everything to get things going.  They ran the flea-flicker we were looking for, but they used it to help kill the clock at the end of the game (which ... how do you even think of that?).  That fake-fake with Jason Avant down near the goal-line was borderline brilliant.  Clearly there will be no more of the "we're good enough to win without fooling you" stuff for the rest of the year.

Gotta hurt that Childress pulled off the surprise onsides kick against his old boss, though.  Nice hands, Mr. Bradley. 

Bob Brookover | Eagles conquer Vikings, 23-16

"It's a step," offensive tackle Jon Runyan said, refusing to put too much stock in a win that got the Eagles' record to 3-4 as they get ready to take on the first-place Dallas Cowboys in a critical NFC East game Sunday night. "This was about getting that good feeling back and building on our confidence a little bit. Now, we have to go from there."

Runyan did not pretend this win over the 2-5 Vikings was pretty, easy or efficient. He just knows it was necessary.

"We did struggle in the red zone a little again, but we got a couple of touchdowns out of it, too," Runyan said. "We improved a little bit, but we didn't improve as much as we wanted to. We had a couple of [offensive line] assignment mistakes that really hurt us. I think that one sack there in the third or early fourth quarter was a blown assignment. You can't have that kind of stuff because it switches momentum on you..."

"I think every week you have to go to a higher level because that wasn't the prettiest thing out there," said the tackle, who played for the second straight week with a fractured tailbone. "You're battling to try to play that perfect game. When you have that perfect game where everything is clicking, it looks easy and feels easy. Out there today, that didn't feel easy."

Thank you, Jon Runyan, for again being the voice of reason.

Bob Ford | He can't say, but grab was worth 1,000 words

As the two tumbled to the ground, Curtis rolled over and brought the ball in, still with just one arm, putting it away as he hit the ground.

"I jumped as high as I could, not that it was very high or anything, and tried to get the ball. I was just trying to make a play."

Best line of the day, player division.

Bob Ford | Roller coaster takes Birds to the Cowboys

What else? McNabb, whether he is fully rehabilitated from his knee surgery or not, at least played as if he believes that is the case. He insisted that a quarterback draw be part of the game plan, and it is better to focus on that than the weekly sack in which he is caught from behind by a 280-pound lineman.

Reporter division.

Jason | Bleeding Green Nation

So as we look for playmakers, you wanna hear something a bit shocking? I talked about this guy a bit last year and I know that Andrew has brought him up this year... Maybe Matt McCoy should be playing more... In a limited role, McCoy could potentially bring some much needed playmaking ability to this defense.

Derek | Igglesblog

Am I crazy for thinking the Redskins actually have a chance in this game?  I think it's going to be a lot closer than everybody thinks, and the Skins might even win.

Blogger division (tie).