Now Do We Pull Out All The Stops?

There's been a "Phoney War" quality to this season so far that, thankfully, should end Sunday when we finally play, a) a real team, b) with our starting quarterback.

I'm extremely curious about what we're going to see Sunday afternoon.  Not the players so much.  Other than McNabb we have a pretty good handle on where everyone is right now, although there will be interesting questions about how some of the new guys match up with the physical Giants.  I'm more interested in the game plan.

There's been a significant split between how the offensive and defensive coaches have approached this season.  McDermott's crew has been showing a ton of new (or revivified) stuff every week.  We like to talk about how the Wildcat forces teams to spend extra time in preparation, but imagine having to get ready to face the Eagles' crazy quilt of blitzing defenses. 

(When McDermott said he'd be adding a few wrinkles, I expected this.  We're instead getting this.)

The net effect is scheme overload.  You can prepare for everything you've seen, but that's still a lot to prepare for.

On the offensive side, we've seen a different approach.  The only game the Eagles really took the wraps off was the first contest with Kolb against the Saints.  Reid and Marty tried to take some of the load off their young QB by opening up the playbook and rolling out a far more creative collection of plays from their "Spread Eagle" package than we've seen any week since.

In fact, the past couple weeks the SE offense has basically been a couple snaps to Vick and some direct-snap running plays by McCoy.  We've seen very few of the true Wildcat plays, and the other stuff we sort of expect to be in the package (note: includes passing) has been nowhere to be found.

On Sunday, I expect these roles to finally reverse.  On the defensive side, the number one priority is shutting down the Giants' run game.  Do that first, then if you get a lead, go after Eli with all your craziness.

For the offense, without Brian Westbrook, there are going to be three priorities:

1. Protect McNabb
2. Get the ball to DeSean
3. Use your creative schemes to get the ball to the young guys in ways that aren't just "line up and beat that veteran"

And of course, if number three works, it makes numbers one and two that much easier.

I'll refer back to this post at this point, although I would note the conclusion is no longer valid.  Teams the last few weeks have been all up in the box to stop this thing.  It's time for the next move.

The Stack Rank: Empire State Of Haterade

As IgglesBlog's New York Bureau Chief and an off-and-on resident for 7 of the past 10 years, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on the coming apocalypse of Eagles-v-Giants-plus-Phils-v-Yanks this Sunday in South Philly.  An intra-division rematch of a playoff game plus Game Four of the World Series?  Against the teams from the city that has made Philadelphia feel insecure and less than for the better part of the past five or six generations?  Surely this has the makings of one of the bigger sports days in recent Philly history. 

Still, the Yanks and G-Men aren't the only baseball and football teams, respectively, in New York. Perhaps you're confused about how you should feel this Sunday?  Is this a friendly rivalry or teams that we should hate with the depths of our sports feelings?  Worst possible case?  Best possible case?  What would worst or best even mean in that sentence?  What's a Philly fan to do?    

Never fear -- if there's anything I can do for you this week, it's help us all to articulate and rank our hatred and bitterness towards Philly's New York opponents this weekend.  My stack rank of Haterade for the New York football and baseball teams is below.  The rankings are based on both the franchises and their fans.  A more comprehensive review of this topic might include the hockey and basketball teams, but no one wants to read/ write/ think about the Knicks, so I'll spare you that. 

Off we go:

4. New York Jets.  For a team ostensibly based in a city that isn't shy about telling the world how amazing their city is (and really, it is The Capital Of The Known Universe), the Jets and their fans are delightfully pitiful; they're essentially the second-class team in the first-class city.  The fans are very loyal and a bit more blue-collar than the Giants faithful, but they really can't catch a break.  Sound familiar?  After getting dissed by Bill Belichick for their head coaching job, the Jets then had to absorb beatings from the Pats for the past decade.  And yet they come back every summer convinced that maybe this is their year (while acknowledging under their breath that it probably isn't).  Add to that their tasteful choices in uniform colors (which is arguably more legitimately green than the Eagles' shade), their preponderance for spelling their team's name at their stadium, and the fact that they got stuck with Rich Kotite after the Eagles, and there's a lot here to love (or at least not hate very enthusiastically).  Also, as noted earlier this week in the comments, the New York Jets have never beaten the Eagles.  Ever.

3. New York Mets.  For a younger generation of Philly fans, putting the Mets #3 might be sacrilege.  The Mets -- the Phils' fiercest rivals over the past few years -- certainly need to be ahead of the Yankees!  But, really, the Mets historically haven't been good at the same time as the Phils.  There's a certain sad-sack quality to Mets fans, as well as a familiar sense of delusion; every spring, the papers and talk radio are on fire about how the Mets are a shoo-in for the World Series, and pretty much every year they disappoint (in most spectacular fashion!).  There's a part of me that has a soft spot for that.  Also, you can't help but notice how crappy the Mets look next to their cross-town rivals: crappier stadium, crappier uniforms, crappier history.  The deciding factor for me versus the Yanks here was the Subway Series; I rooted for the Mets.  It didn't feel great, but it was the right thing to do.  That's what keeps them behind the Yanks. 

2.  New York Yankees.  If you don't have warm feelings for the Yankees, you're not alone.  They wrote tacky musicals about hating the Yankees fifty years ago.  Supporting the Yankees is akin to rooting for the deleterious effects of aging.  They're the villain.  I've never really been able to take Yankee fans that seriously, if only because of the solipsism of the whole affair.  It's just all about the Yankees, all the time.  As in, a good number of them thought that Cliff Lee (despite having won the Cy Young in their League last year) just had a lucky night on Wednesday; can there be talented players who don't play for the Yanks?  Whuuuh?  Also, there might be little that is more intolerable than Derek Jeter worship.  When he's playing well, you hear about his stats.  When he isn't, it's all about his intangibles.  Ugh.  And while it makes for good talk radio and tabloid headlines, it's just tough to listen to them fret about not having enough pitching, or someone struggling at the plate, or some goofy managerial decision.  Essentially, I just don't think they have any right to complain (as fans) about anything: their team goes and buys all the best players every single year.

1.  New York Giants.  Well well well, if it isn't the presupposed royal family of the NFL.  Yes, the New York Football Giants, ambassadors for all that is good and pure in the NFL.  The red, white, and blue uniforms.  The obvious alignment with the league office (again, after being gifted with an extra home game in 2005, they also got hooked up with their London trip counting as a road game in 2007).  The team that's too good for cheerleaders.  The team that enabled Eli Manning and his dad to opt out of the NFL draft and pick the team where they wanted to play.  The team with the annoying stadium announcer with that fake patrician accent that seems to delight all the old white people in sweaters that have had those Giants season tickets for generations.  Yet for all their pretensions to royalty, let us never forget that this team was originally owned by a bookie, Tim Mara (not that there's anything wrong with that, but I could do without the snobbery).  The most offensive part of the Giants is obviously the fact that they were the team that got hot and beat the Patriots in 2007.  Yes, it was an amazing Super Bowl.  Yes, the Pats were the villains that year.  But this does not mean I'm willing to listen to four paragraph declamations on how Eli Manning is a great NFL quarterback because he played on the winning team in said Super Bowl and was wrongly awarded the MVP trophy, or Antonio Pierce's latest claptrap about how the Giants own the Eagles (not so much of late, Antonio!).

Thus will I contend that Sunday's matchups offer the optimal combination of villainy for Philly fans.  Bring your Haterade -- I'll see you at the Linc on Sunday.  

In Light Of The Enormous Chip On Sheldon Brown's Shoulder

Which, mind you, I'm not saying isn't deserved, especially because he continues to be the Birds' best cornerback this season, this is a rather interesting quote from the Giants' Steve Smith:

The good news this weekend is that the Eagles play a lot of man-to-man coverage with cornerbacks Sheldon Brown and Asante Samuel in a scheme that stresses getting pressure on the quarterback.

"They're good, they are savvy guys," Smith said. "I think sometimes they get caught with their eyes in the backfield and you can run by them sometimes. We're not going to be surprised if we are wide open down the field on a play."

Eagles Video

Yeah, so, I get a lot of random emails.  This one ... wow.  I just don't ... I mean ... it's just ... 

Is it parody?  Truth?  Mockery?  Self-mockery?

I can't make up my mind. 

"McNabb may be an inconsistent piece of shit some of the time ... but I still love him."

Truer words were never spoken.  I think you should watch this one (although not at work, fair warning).

This is the year.

Attention Mobile Users

I don't know where this comes from and I can't promise it will be there forever, but TypePad seems to be rolling out some sort of mobile option on the site.  Check it out.

Note that the last slash in the address is actually rather critical.  And it's not the greatest implementation I've ever seen, in that the width is fixed, so if you increase the text size on your iPhone, it then spills off the page.  But looking sideways, it's readable. 

It also seems like it misses anything that comes after a page break, which I do for the rewinds. 

Anyway, this is good news, because I know the site takes awhile to load on cell networks.  And it may actually be a back-end fix for the people who've had some issues with commenting on the real and -- um -- ad-supported site.

Redskins Video Rewind

Dear McNabb Haters,

We regret to inform you that rumors of the Philadelphia Eagles' quarterback's demise have been greatly exaggerated.  You're stuck with him a bit longer. 

You may continue complaining amongst yourselves.

Sincerely,

Everyone else in Philadelphia

Eagles Add Running Back

Still puzzling over the meaning of this.  From PE.com:

The Eagles have placed linebacker Omar Gaither on Injured Reserve, and have added running back P.J. Hill from the Saints practice squad to the active roster. Hill, a 5 feet 10, 218-pounder, had an outstanding career at Wisconsin, but was not drafted in April.

He was projected as a late-round draft pick, but had a pair of DUI incidents, one of which was dismissed. Hill was a four-year letterman for the Badgers who joined former Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne as the only backs in UW history to gain more than 1,000 yards in each of their first three seasons. He closed his career with 770 carries for 3,942 yards (5.1 avg.) with 42 TDs, and added 39 receptions for 358 yards and two scores.

Definitely a road block at his position in New Orleans, but do you leave a solid practice squad position for what could just be a one-week cup of coffee?  Have to think there was at least some assurance by the Eagles that he'd get a chance to stick around awhile.

Still thinking about this...

UPDATE:  From Sam: If you sign a ps guy, he has to be on the roster 3 weeks. In those 3 weeks, hill will make about 60 pct as he'd make all year on a ps.

4th In The League In Special Teams!?!

To this point in the season, I have been underwhelmed by our special teams play. Football Outsiders, on the other hand, seems to disagree. The Eagles are ranked #4 in the NFL in Special Teams by DVOA. #4!!

That means that either we have misjudged the special teams; everybody in the league is as frustrating to watch on special teams as we are; or the things that are most frustrating are not being adequately captured by FO.

I think the truth is that a little of all three are at issue here.

In the table below, I show the ranking of the Eagles by DVOA in each of the five primary special teams categories. For comparison purposes, I also show the six teams that the Eagles have faced this year.

 

Focusing on the Eagles' row, note that other than two categories, they are above average, but not by a lot: FG/XP, Kick and Punt. The coverage teams have been just ok, and David Akers is an average kicker at this point in his career. All that is probably right. Yes, we harp on the negatives of these units (Akers managed to miss two of five 40 yard kicks against Oakland, Rocca had the temerity to shank one against Washington, we failed to tackle Rock Cartwright when we had the chance on that one kickoff) but the truth is that on the whole, these units have been pretty solid. The Punt unit has had the advantage of going against only one Punt Ret unit in the top half of the league, and the kickoff unit is split 50/50 with good and bad Kick Ret units.

The return teams are at opposite ends of the spectrum. DeSean Jackson has been consistently outstanding on punt returns, so it isn't too surprising that he has helped us to be second in the league. Who knows, if he didn't celebrate his touchdowns with such vigor and let Maclin on the field to return punts, maybe we'd even be #1. Further, notice that four of the six Punt units that the team has faced are in the top half of the league.

The kick return unit has been our biggest sore spot. We have only broken off one of 40+ yards, and that is well below the rate at which Ellis Hobbs and Quintin Demps did so last year. And it isn't like we are facing elite Kick units -- four of the six teams we have faced are in the bottom half of the league. And quite frankly, going off of memory, most of the frustrating STs penalties that I can remember have been on kick returns.

Now, on the topic of penalties, I think STs penalties are the most frustrating element for fans. And rightly so. I think that part of the problem is the transition to the new blocking rules with the elimination of the wedge. This would be a league-wide problem, though, and I can't get a sense of how many STs flags are being thrown this year league-wide. If anyone has that data, let me know. However, from what I have seen from other teams, everybody seems to be drawing STs flags.

Further, it isn't clear to me how, if at all, DVOA for Special Teams takes penalties into account. So it could be that this is an unquantified element, I don't know. You'd think if it were unquantified, doing so would drag us way down. But as I said, I have no benchmark.

---

Now, onto this week's production points tables. The numbers are quite strange, to be honest. It seems that the coaching staff thought that this was, by far, the best STs performance of the year. That isn't my recollection of the game. Here is the summary by week, or plays and points per play:

 

Huge explosion in points this week. I can't explain it. Could be errors in entry, though they appear to be uniform across players, could be historical adjustments showing up this week, I don't know. Or it could simply be that the coaches thought we were really good this week. I didn't see that, but I am not a coach - it is hard to know what is really happening based on the small view you get on a tv screen.

Here are the points per player:

 

Some observations:

• Huge weeks by Sean Jones and Eldra Buckley at 36. Before this week, Jones had the highest total of the year at 30.
• Rocca got a lot of points in a week that didn't seem that strong to me. Yes, he had a short field to work with a lot, but he didn't do anything that spectacular and he had a bunch of shanks. On one hand, the Redskins only generated 10 return yards against him on 8 punts, which says that the kicks were put in a place where the coverage teams could (and did) make plays. On the other hand, the Redskins have been struggling a great deal on punt returns all season.
• Jason Avant had his best game of the year. Maybe he has been saving the energy that he would have been spending on catching the ball on offense and used it on special teams.
• Quintin Demps is driving me nuts. Dumb penalties, and in general, he should be a lot better, IMHO.

What's Wrong With Shady McCoy?

With the unsurprising news that Brian Westbrook probably should miss a week or two, attention turns to his back-up, rookie LeSean McCoy.

And based on what we've seen so far, that's not a good thing.

We've been complaining so far about the Eagles' running game, but actually, it's not been the same for everyone:

The Eagles are actually tied for 11th in the league in yards per attempt, but as you can see, that's a number that's heavily influenced by the superlative contributions of DeSean Jackson.  If you take him out of the mix, that 4.35 drops to 3.73. 

But even that doesn't tell the whole story.  There's one running back who actually has a pretty decent per carry average ... the aforementioned Brian Westbrook.  And Leonard Weaver is doing fine as a short-yardage specialist.

Which means that for all the talk of a shuffling offensive line and maybe some poor gameplanning, one way of viewing these data is that the whole thing comes down to LeSean McCoy. 

And I do mean down.  His FO numbers look even worse:

Westbrook's numbers aren't great, certainly not up to his usual standard, but for a guy who was struggling to get up to game speed early in the year, they're not terrible.  If he qualified for the rankings, he'd be #14 right now in terms of DVOA. 

Shady, on the other hand, whew, that's some terrible stuff.  You can tell he's played more against some better defenses than Westbrook has (his DVOA adjustment is smaller than Westbrook's), but his rankings across the board are coming in the 30s.  That's bottom of the barrel stuff.

The biggest question, of course, is why.  The simplest explanation -- that he's just not very good -- doesn't seem borne out by the other evidence we have:  1) great college production, 2) good measureables, 3) doesn't look like he sucks when you're watching him.

Another possibility is that this is a statistical anomaly.  Possibilities there would include:  1) different defenses, 2) small sample sizes, 3) one or two big runs from Westbrook that are throwing off the mean.

To address issue one, we have the FO adjusted numbers above, as well as this chart:

Shady got the bulk of his carries in two games.  Against KC, he was reasonably effective.  Against Washington, he wasn't.  And you can take out the Washington game without really affecting the overall differences (it becomes 4.8 vs. 3.9).

There's nothing we can do about the small sample sizes.  But we can look to see if only a couple runs are skewing the averages.  Histogram (percentage of carries):

Graph form:

There seem to be a few issues here.  The first is that Shady's accumulating more negative runs.  We've seen a couple times this year when he's tried to reverse field against an entire defense -- which rarely ends well. 

On the other hand, if you're getting tackled in the backfield, that's generally a blocking issue.  But what's interesting is that Westbrook and McCoy have the same percentage of runs that go for less than one yard.  It's just that Shady gets more negative plays and Westbrook has more zero-yard stuffs.  My theory there -- assuming, again, these numbers are even meaningful at this level -- is that Westbrook might be just darting forward to take his medicine on those plays, while McCoy tries to make something happen -- and ends up going backwards.

McCoy also has a lot more one-yard runs (hole misidentification?), but the next big difference you see is really at the 4-6 yard level.  Those are runs that in almost any situation would be classified as at least a partial success.  Westbrook has been much, much better at accumulating those runs than Shady has.  In fact, if you group up those numbers a bit to get a smoother chart, you end up with this:

Pretty similar at the bottom and top, biggest difference in 1-3 vs. 4-6 (with the bulk of the 1-3 difference coming with one-yard runs).

So what does this all tell us?  It's by no means definitive, but the numbers certainly suggest that the issues here are related to the backs themselves, and not other factors.  That doesn't necessarily mean McCoy isn't a good back, but it might mean that he's not yet figured out how to run effectively in this offense.  And it also might mean that if Westbrook is out for a week or two, we need to start thinking about getting Eldra Buckley a few more carries.

Overall, I doubt Buckley can match up to McCoy in any way, but Correll Buckhalter demonstrated quite conclusively that a change of pace back can have success in this offense if he sticks to a handful of fast-hitting plays, doesn't think too much and just runs hard through the hole.  Might be worth seeing if Buckley can be the same guy, if McCoy doesn't get off to a fast start on Sunday.

Because You All Love Nailing Me For My Bad Predictions

I never got a chance to post a link to this little preview deal-y yesterday because I was traveling most of the day and generally not near a computer.

You'll note, I trust, the last line.