Help For A Holiday Friday

Since I know some people have ogre-ish bosses who actually require them to be at work today, here's a little something to help get you through lunch at least.

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Let's see, let's see, what order should we do these in?  I could bury this thing about that guy ... or we could just take it up front?  Yeah, probably should:

Stacy Andrews said yesterday that his brother Shawn will soon undergo more back surgery, a disc procedure by Dr. Robert Watkins out in California, where Shawn has been rehabbing since September.

Shawn Andrews confirmed the surgery in a Tweet yesterday. He said it would involve two discs. "Lord willing, I can play again," Andrews said. "We will see. SHOULD set me pain-free."

...

As with many of Shawn's setbacks, this one seemed oddly timed, becoming public the week the Eagles signed Winston Justice, his replacement at right tackle, to a 4-year contract extension.

Have fun, people.

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For balance on that one, let's do this one next:

"In my history, two thirds of the sacks are normally [on] the quarterback," Mornhinweg said. "There is a chance to get the ball out. Only about a third is there absolutely no chance to get the ball out. I thought he did an excellent job of that last year."

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Last week against the Bears, two of three sacks were primarily his fault.

"Two of them were on screens, so we have to throw them away," Mornhinweg said. "I'm not particularly concerned about that, because we know where the issues were, so we have that corrected just a bit."

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"Sacks are a funny thing, because it's just what you are saying they get kind of dumped in the offensive line's lap," head coach Andy Reid said. "Can the line do better? Absolutely, but sacks, when you really break them down and study them, everyone has a little piece of those sacks, and they are distributed across the board with the offensive players, and at times the coaches."

First of all, great article by McLane.  Fresh angle, all that good stuff.

Secondly ... yeah.  And yeah (at the end).  Let me know when this starts to get really annoying and I'll stop for awhile.

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One thought on those sack stats is how it's affecting the red zone.  McNabb's historically been much better about not taking sacks down close, is that still happening? 

Yeah, pretty much.  I can't recreate this whole chart because I'm away from home, but here's an 08/09 comparison:

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The weird thing about that chart is how it's just one more piece of evidence that McNabb's playing pretty darn well this year.  He's probably having the second-best season of his career.  It's weird.

Or maybe not that weird?  Although I'm not sure how seriously we should take that ranking when it also includes rushing stats.  (Here's McNabb's player page where you can see the splits.)  Not sure it's his fault they can't get first downs on QB sneaks.  Anyway.

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There's some statistical support for Les Bowen's "rookies need reps" theory.  Or at least, the stats don't undercut it.  By and large, the teams McCoy has struggled against have had worse run defenses than the ones he had success against.  That's sort of interesting. 

Although the Giants game isn't really a great match.  Sure, he had 82 yards on 11 carries, but 66 of those came on one play.

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Good luck getting through the rest of the day.