Bonus Akers Coverage

I didn't stick this in the rewind last night, but since I'd already recorded it and everyone's talking about Akers today, take a look at this shot of the second field goal he missed.  Watch how the flags at the top of the goalposts are blowing hard from left to right just until the moment of the kick, when the wind suddenly dies.

You still have to make 'em -- and maybe aiming for the middle would help -- but that's just bizarre.

Bears Video Rewind

I'm going to have a bit of a different posting schedule this week due to some business-related travel.  Video rewind tonight while I still have DVR access -- and the fresh scars to not want to watch MNF -- and then other stuff later in the week.

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There wasn't a smoking gun.  I re-watched every snap of that game looking for what it was the Bears did differently on defense -- or we stopped doing on offense -- to find out how a team could go from looking competent to stagnant over the course of four periods.  Didn't find anything.  The Bears did the same stuff all game ... we did the same stuff all game ... but an unfortunate mix of poor plays, bad decisions and puzzling playcalls handed this team the first head-scratching loss of the 2008 season.

But you knew that already, in general terms, so let's talk specifics.

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The Bears' offense did three things early to try to throw the Eagles off balance:

1. They went no huddle;
2. They used fake snap counts to get our back seven to tip their hands on blitzes; and,
3. They used formations and personnel packages to try to isolate our linebackers in coverage.

Point #1 is the simplest.  If you go without a huddle, the defense doesn't have time to make substitutions.  That keeps the base defense on the field and also gives less time for the coaches to get their fancy blitz packages in.

Point #2 seemed to get us all game.  Orton would go to the line, bark out an extended hard count, watch how our guys moved around, then adjust playcalls accordingly.  On several occasions -- though not every time -- this paid off, as the new play neatly avoided the pressure we were bringing.  I wondered both last night and again tonight why we don't do a better job checking out of those blitzes once we tip our hand.  (And also if we could be slightly better at, you know, not tipping our hand.)

Point #3 is a little more involved.  Early in the game, the Eagles were flipping the cornerback when the Bears went to a twins formation (putting both cornerbacks on the same side as the two receivers).  I don't remember seeing Johnson do this much in the past, but it has the advantage of putting your two best cover guys in the vicinity of the opponent's two best receivers.  I'm guessing the thinking was avoiding an LB on Hester match-up.

The problem is that the Bears were using those guys basically as decoys.  They lined up two tight ends on the other side, with those guys being the primary target on the play.  That put an athletic tight end like Greg Olsen on an unproven pass defender on Chris Gocong, and is exactly what caused the first touchdown.  Olsen ran a little wheel route (out to the flat then upfield) and Gocong was left well behind. 

The Bears stayed with this look -- hitting on it a couple more times -- until their possession that started at 11:40 in the second quarter.  On first-and-10 from the Philly 47, they came out in that same look, the Eagles didn't flip the corner, and Orton called a timeout after checking out the coverage.  I'm guessing that the change is what got him.

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Also on that Olsen touchdown, that was a catch, guys.  The ball may have moved a millimeter in his hands as he brought it in, but he clearly had control while the first foot was down.  As a football fan, I'd be disappointed to see some kind of hyperlegalistic review that took that away.

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Speaking of hyperlegalistic reviews, please explain to me why this:

Draws an illegal formation penalty while this:

 

Is perfectly fine?

They're lined up the exact same way in both shots.  But somehow, the officials thought the first formation was illegal while the second one was just peachy.  (For your viewing convenience, I've highlighted the douchebag ref who called the penalty that cost us the roughing the passer call in the first picture.)

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Now, I understand you may say that you prefer hyper-legalistic officiating that gets in the way of the game on the field.  You're in favor of those kinds of weak sauce calls.

Ok great, but then where was Mr. Call Everything On Special Teams during the only big Devin Hester return of the night:

Look, I don't know if he would have made the play or not.  And it's not like the Bears' anemic offense scored on this drive anyway.  I'm just tired of our special teams getting called for stuff all the time that I see opponents getting away with. 

Both ways, ref, both ways.

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While we're on the topic of whiny ref complaints, didja notice that Lance Briggs managed to plant vicious helmet-to-helmet hits on both Buckhalter and Booker in this game?  Did you also notice that no flags were thrown either time?  (Totally defensible.)  Did you also notice that Madden and Michaels neglected to mention on both occasions that the hits, while aesthetically pleasing, were both somewhat at odds with "the emphasis that [the commissioner's] office has placed on developing and enforcing rules designed to protect players from injury, including concussions." (Not defensible.)

No fine came last week on the H2H hit that gave Hunt his concussion.  That was a fair decision, in my mind, due to the way in which Hunt somewhat lowered his shoulder to take on the blow.  Briggs, however, should be a little lighter in the wallet this time next week.

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A couple weeks ago in the Cowboys video rewind, I questioned why Brodrick Bunkley wasn't making more disruptive plays.  He seemed fine holding his ground, but wasn't doing anything beyond that.

Two weeks later, I think we have our answer:  it wasn't Bunk -- Cowboys center Andre Gurode is just really, really good. 

I've watched Bunkley very closely the past couple weeks.  The guy's been making plays all over the place.  Against Chicago, he was frequently matched up against center Olin Kreutz, who by reputation is one of the better centers in the league.  Bunk whipped him.  Not every time and not in every situation, but enough to confirm the Pittsburgh observations.  I take it back, Bunk.  Keep doing your thing.

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Given that a talented offensive skill position player would have been helpful to have on hand on Sunday night, the tackle combo of Patterson and Bunkley is still just really a pleasure to watch.  Let's get Bunk locked up to his long-term deal so we can enjoy these guys working together for the next 10 years.

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Which is why it was so %@#!$ surprising to see both of those players on the sideline for the most important defensive snap of the game. 

I'm not kidding.  Fourth quarter, 2:43 on the clock, only one timeout left for the good guys, Bears bring in three receivers so we respond by bringing in our entire nickel personnel package.  Not just an extra corner.  Not another safety.  The whole shebang.

Which means, ladies and gentlemen, the play of the game is upon us and the Eagles roll out Darren Howard and Dan Klecko in the middle of their line and as a bonus leave a safety back deep, only putting seven men in the box. 

The Bears ran for 10 yards.

Of all the boneheaded coaching decisions in this game, that might have been the boneheadedest.  Of COURSE they're not going to pass.  They're the friggin Bears.  And if they do, heck, it's gonna be quick, knock it down and save a timeout. 

No.  We bring in the lightbutts, who promptly get shoved out of the way.

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhh.

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Second place:  why did we not challenge this:

His elbow was clearly down.  And don't tell me you need the video to be sure.  This may even be a couple of frames after he hit the ground, but I wanted to bend over backwards to be fair.

Note the down and distance.  That's potentially a four-point play right there.  What a coincidence.

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The guy making that tackle is Omar Gaither.  I thought Omar was a little tentative to start the year.  It probably didn't help that he was coming out so often for Sean Considine (that would kill anyone's confidence).  But he really seemed to be playing downhill in this game.  He posted nine solo tackles in this game and made a handful of plays, defined as doing more than just catching the guy when he gets to you.

I was really impressed with Gaither in this game.  I think he played the best of all the linebackers.  And I'm not just saying that for reasons that will become apparent tomorrow.

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Other defensive notes:

• Dan Klecko's first-quarter sack came on something of a weird play.  RT John Tait blocked him for a two-count, then passed him outside to the tight end, even though no one was rushing up the middle and the tight end already had his hands full.  Strange read by Tait.
• The route that victimized Quintin Mikell for the touchdown was the same one (fake corner, then post) that DeSean Jackson used to get open for his first NFL touchdown.
• Also, Q slipped on that play.  That's not a good thing, obviously, but he wasn't straight up beaten.  Coverage was pretty good other than the slip.
• We're a very screenable defense.  That surely goes with being so young.
• Cole showed a nice inside-outside move in that third-quarter sack/fumble the offense miraculously managed to turn into three points.
• When Mikell made that third-quarter interception in the endzone, I loved seeing Bradley and Dawk immediately telling him to stay down.  I hate when guys make picks and then bring it out to the seven yard line, thus killing the momentum of the play.

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For the offense, is it cool if we just pretend that game never happened?  That this once-mighty scoring attack did not, in fact, start possessions at the Bears' 41, 35, 28, and 31 yard lines with only six points to show for it?

No, you want breakdowns.  Pushy readers.  Onward.

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Chicago safety Mike Brown is a better player than I realized.  On the Eagles' first play of their second drive, he came flying out of the secondary to hold Buck to a two-yard gain when everyone else was blocked up.  (It may have helped his play recognition, however, that this was the play where Herremans false-started by pulling outside Thomas, so the Eagles decided to huddle up and run the exact same play to the other side.  Tricky.)

Brown also ended the Eagles two-minute drill at the end of the second quarter by coming all the way across the field to drop Jackson for a short gain after he ran an underneath route with two other receivers running off all the coverage.  Serious range displayed there.

Brown was also responsible for separating Schobel from the ball down by the goal line on the Eagles first touchdown drive.  I could probably separate Schobel from the ball though -- Boo! ... drop -- so we won't give him too much credit there.

Closing out this series of Mike Brown plays, if you're a football geek and plan to re-watch the game, compare the running play described above to the first running play of the second half.  Everything else was the same, but this time Brown had walked down into the box away from playside.  He saw things just as quickly, but from down there he didn't have the same angle and got caught up in the trash.  It ended up being a 25 yard gain.  It's just funny that bringing a safety up actually weakened the run defense.

- - - - - -

Continuing the obsession with this play, why has it taken this long to get the guard pull into the running game?  And why are we finally rolling it out now, when the guy that play was basically designed for is still on the bench with back trouble?

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Let's talk about something good instead.  Check out this one route by DeSean Jackson.  Yes, it was zone coverage and the corner has to keep outside leverage, but as you can see pre-snap, there are literally no other receivers on this side of the field, so the cornerback shouldn't be leaving DeSean:

Now watch what he does to that cornerback:

That, folks, is separation.  (And it looked even more impressive before YouTube's crappy compression got to it.)

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Now let's take a quick look at two guys so many people seem to think are just as good as LJ Smith.  Here's a look at the blocking of Brent Celek on a third-and-short play in the middle of the second quarter:

That came just before the missed 50-yarder by Akers.  And yeah, Hunt's block wasn't great either, but it's pretty tough to stop a guy when he can just run right through the massive crease the guy next to you opened up.

As for the other other tight end here's the end-of-game goal line play everyone wants to see:

Yeah, we don't even need the fancy slo-mo stuff on that one. 

Oh, you wanted one more look?  Here ya go:

I don't even know what to say.

- - - - - -

Other offensive notes:

• Madden kept talking about how well McNabb was reading the cover two, which is true, but I continue to be impressed by DeSean Jackson's innate understanding of exactly where to be against that defense.  He and McNabb have great chemistry on that throw to the sideline hole.
• McNabb flashed some nice ball-handling skills on those end arounds to Jackson.  I know, I know, you just want him to work on handoffs...
• Buck doesn't really have that great running back vision.  One cut, hit the hole and go.  He's a great change of pace, but there are some plays he's just not suited for, like that shotgun draw we've been running so well with Westbrook.  Buckhalter completely ignored his blocking on that play when they ran it with him, even though it was definitely there playside. 
• As my brother pointed out, it must be killing Tony Hunt to see all this potential running back playing time going to someone not nominally a fullback.  
• By the way, on the season it's Tony Hunt -- 5 receptions, 40 yards.  Lorenzo Booker -- 5 receptions, 10 yards.  Sure glad we brought in the home run threat.
• Finally, I'm all in favor of the mix-and-match "package" thing while we're waiting for Curtis to get healthy, but why on earth would we ever put out a two-receiver package that includes Greg Lewis?  Aren't there like three guys who'd be better choices to put across from Reggie Brown?  Or at least one?

Didn't Work

Ok, yeah, I tried to stick a pretty face on this one (see next post).

Didn't work.  Can't sleep. 

What a terrible loss.

Objectively Speaking...

... and this won't be popular.

But the Eagles are 2-2 after four games, just the way we thought they'd be when the schedule came out.  And the offense has shown flashes of utter brilliance without even having all the best players out there.  I'm still very optimistic about the season, based upon what we've seen so far. 

Things that a Westbrook-less loss does not prove:

• That this team sucks.
• That they're not going to make the playoffs this year.
• That it's "time for [fill in the blank] to go!"

• That the NFC East standings will look anything like they do currently in three months.

Bottom line:  This was a bad loss in the sense that it could be the difference come playoff time between: having home-field advantage / winning the division / grabbing the wild card / watching from home.  But given all the guys who were out -- and particularly the one guy who was out -- we'd be reading way too much into this loss to take it as some kind of death knell for the season.

And I think we can be pretty sure Westbrook is now going to play next week.

And here I thought we might make it to October without a craptastic loss

On a weekend that the Phils clinched their second straight NL East championship, we didn't really think that we'd be twice blessed with an Eagles victory on the road, did we? Without Brian Westbrook?

Despite the text messges I received upon landing in the Pacific Northwest last night ("Don't even bother watching the game"), I plowed through the tape of the game, and the Birds weren't terrible. The defense, in fact, was excellent in the second half. McNabb was fine -- not great, but certainly on his game. But you pile up a couple injuries and stumble on a couple important plays and voila! You lose to the Bears!

(I hate to admit it, but I was a little Nancy Negative ahead of this game, and it looks like my anxieties weren't completely unfounded.  SIGH.)

The thing is, most NFL games are close, and you have to expect to lose a couple close games each year. Last year's team probably lost about 1.5 more close games than the league average (Packers, Bears, Seahawks and second Giants game come to mind); previous years' teams lost fewer of the close ones. We'd like to believe that the Eagles are so formidable that they won't even be in very many close games, but that's just not true. They blew a close one last night; let's hope that the next couple break their way.

My observations upon viewing last night/ this morning on my PC screen via Slingbox:

The Birds need some sort of Team-minus-36 plan.  This will be the most obvious and pedestrian thing I write all week, but man, it sure does look different without the 36 Chambers of Brian Westbrook out there.  Andy Reid needs to start working on the binder of plays for when they don't have the best back in football on the field.  Cause it doesn't seem like he tends to have very many good ideas.  Also, they miss Westbrook in a ton of ways -- not just running the ball and scaring people with his placement in the formation, but the blitz pickups and blocking as well.  Buck whiffed a bit last night on those.  We won't talk about Booker, other than to say....

...Booker isn't there yet.  Seems like a decent situational/ once-in-a-while substitute, but this guy is not serviceable as a first-down back in the NFL.  And suddenly we're a bit thin at that position.  The portions of the second half when Buck was out were horrfying.  Horrifying. 

We've found the weakest link.  Another solid game from the young linebackers.  Gocong even got into it a bit more this week (good for him on the sack), though I think Gocong might be sticking out on film as the "one you can beat if you want to" -- that first touchdown was on him, and looked pretty similar to the Marion Barber TD catch from two weeks ago. 

Question I'd like someone to answer.  I'm wagering against the Eagles in prime time games until further notice.  I'm desperate to be disproven on this, but they've just been awful in night games for too long now.  Is there some sort of Kerry Collins-on-the-sauce-with-the-Giants thing at play here?  (My theory on Kerry Collins on Sunday night games with the Giants was that since it was a night game he'd clear himself to have a few extra drinks on Saturday -- since the game wasn't until later and he wouldn't have to get up early -- and this would inevitably snowball and leave him in terrible shape for the whole day Sunday.  Yeah, you'll see me in hell for that one.)

And suddenly DeSean Jackson is our best offensive player?  I mean, that was it, right?  No B-West and suddenly Jackson is the number-one option?  Is that really the deal at this point?  Nice to see Reggie Brown catch some balls last night, though.  He looks like he's getting back up to speed, and he's had some great games against the Skins in the past -- they'll need that Sunday.

Marvels on the defensive line.  Someone who actually knows something about football needs to explain to me how a little dude (all characterizations relative, of course) like Dan Klecko keeps getting to the quarterback (and why Broderick Bunkley can't).  I could not have been more wrong about Dan Klecko all summer.  And he keeps making plays.  Remarkable.  Also, at what point can we admit that Juqua Parker is playing really well and isn't some sort of undersized liability? 

I agree with Les.  Should have used Dunavin down on the goal line.  He's the most gifted guy on the field.  Let him win it for you.

Don't discount the other injuries.  The running game missed Westbrook, obviously, but it also missed The Big Kid and L.J. Smith (editor's note: we're about 3 mm away from affixing "much maligned" to the front of L.J.'s name in the Word Press templates).  Probably wouldn't have hated having those guys out there for the goal-line offense.  Ultimately, the offense probably looked crappy because it was missing four ostensible starters -- and that was before Buck got dinged up.

Yeah, this one sooked.  The B-West injury watch vigil will continue all week ahead of a tough division game against a confident Redskins team.  Yikes!  On the upside, I bought myself some tickets to that one and will get to see it firsthand.  

Onwards.               

Oh Man That Was Bad

I don't even know what to say.

On the one hand, the Eagles just proved it's hard to win a game without your #1 WR, #1 TE, Pro Bowl RG and All World RB. 

On the other hand, that completely sucked.  Defense stumbled early -- and should NOT be let off the hook for allowing three touchdowns to Kyle ^%$#@! Orton -- but then handed the offense opportunity after opportunity to get this thing taken care of.

Which they couldn't.  Because why, see above.

Let's see, people to blame right now, in no particular order:

• DeSean Jackson
• Andy Reid
• Chris Gocong
• Quintin Mikell
• Jim Johnson
• DeSean Jackson (this time for the offense)
• David Akers
• David Akers
• Rory Segrest (how do you have illegal procedure on a friggin punt AGAIN)
• Jason Avant (McNabb hit him in the gut on that slant in the end zone)
• Asante Samuel
• Matt Schobel 
• Everyone on the kick return and coverage teams

And that may not even exhaustive. 

Shit.

Why Did We Not Challenge This

UPDATE:  Aw crap, they just showed the side view.  Didn't look good.
SECOND UPDATE:  But that view couldn't have come at this point, because of the body on the left in the way.  So carry on.
FINAL UPDATE:  From the side shot, it seems pretty clear he didn't get in.  Sorry guys.

You make the call (click for fullsize):

Opposing Defenses

Teams have clearly decided to challenge out linebackers in coverage.  It's working.

Guess we'll call this the open thread to if you have anything to rant about.

UPDATE:  Why is it that Trent Cole's "personal" foul last week took precedence but this one this week offsets?

Also, that's two illegal formations on punts this year.  Segrest, get your team's shit together.

Week Four Picks

Last week I forgot to forget I suck at this and went 5-11.  This week we're back to not thinking too hard.

Inconvenient work travel schedule foiled by Slingbox

So I'll be in an aluminum tube in the sky during tonight's game.  Again.  I imagine some planning and a Jetblue flight might have solved this problem for me, but my frequent flyer loyalties (and the spoils thereof) have me on Continental this evening. 

Typically I'd be SOL in a scenario like this, but I bought a Slingbox last weekend and it looks like I'll be able to watch the game whence I land over the Interwebs.  So I won't be live per se, but I'll at least get to see the game tonight.

(In case you're wondering, I'll definitely check the score before I watch the game.  You can't expect me to pretend that it isn't over.  I mean, come on.)