Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Boy, Was I Wrong About These Two

On the heels of an amazing Phillies' comeback win and three cratering performances by our NFC East brethren seems like a good time to try to slip one of these mea culpa posts past an unsuspecting readership.  I'm sure I'll get away with it.

Before the season began, if I'd had to pick guys at the front and the back of the defense who were the biggest question marks, I would have said Juqua Parker and Quintin Mikell.  

I wrote about Mikell in May:

The second is that when it comes to Mikell as a starter, I'm not convinced. I think the guy is great playing situationally. He's very good in the box and down by the goal line. I'm just not as convinced about his ability to play in space.

I saw a few plays last year where he may or may not have been at fault in the coverage not being there (it's not always easy to tell what the scheme is on TV). I have a feeling that teams are going to target him this year -- because with Samuel/Sheppard/Brown and a (hopefully healthy) Dawkins out there they have to go somewhere -- and I'm not sure he's going to hold up.

Remember too that Mikell ran a 4.58 coming out of college.

I guess we'll know for sure in a few months, but if you're looking for realistic areas of concern, the SS position has to be up there.

About Parker I wrote:

If Juqua Parker is starting by the end of the season, it will mean one of two things: 1) significant injuries at the position or 2) he's the nominal starter but not getting the majority of the snaps.

I said similar things about Parker throughout the offseason. 

Now, in my defense on JP, I don't think the Eagles thought he'd be starting by the end of the season either.  They didn't draft Victor Abiamiri and bring in Chris Clemons because they thought they were set at the left defensive end spot for the next five years.

But I definitely thought Parker wasn't a stout enough run defender -- wrong so far -- and that his pass rush production was more a result of limited playing time coming in fresh at the end of the year when everyone else was a little worn down.

So far, I've been wrong on both counts.  With the exception of the Redskins game -- a team-wide meltdown -- Parker has been fine against the run.  Still not quite as stout as Cole, but plenty good enough for an undersized guy whose primary job is rushing the passer.  Much better than Kearse was last year, for sure. 

Parker is second among defensive linemen on the team in tackles, tied for first in sacks (with Darren Howard!!), and has gotten so good at dropping into coverage from the DE spot that he's now the team's primary hybrid guy in Johnson's "joker" set.  I think the team still needs to think about limiting his snaps for awhile to make sure he doesn't get worn down by season's end (the emergence of Chis Clemons should help here), but the fact is, I was wrong about Parker.  The guy's played great so far.

Through six games, my concerns about Mikell have also not materialized.  He's been just as good as expected in the box, but I'm more impressed with his two interceptions already in only six games.  We obviously don't get to see much of him on TV when he's playing deep, but he's certainly not getting routinely picked on in coverage.  Even the touchdown catch against him in the Chicago game you're thinking of right now came on a perfect throw-and-catch on a play where he simply slipped a bit on his break.  He wasn't just flat beaten.

There are some continuing concerns about what tight ends are doing against us.  The strong safety is a natural guy to look for in picking those guys up when they're giving the linebackers trouble.  And Mikell might have been the primary cover on that long Vernon Davis catch and run on Sunday (I'll have to check in the rewind).  But still, Mikell hasn't just been adequate and he hasn't just been as good as he was last year, he's been better.  I was wrong about him, too.

We All Make Mistakes

Well crud.  This is why it can be dangerous to make definitive statements after only watching a game once in real time. 

In Saturday's post, I wrote this:

Chris Gocong still doesn't look like an NFL linebacker.  The guy does more tap-dancing than a White House press secretary.  The Eagles have proved for years that you can have success in the NFL with a stiff at the strongside linebacker position, but it shouldn't always have to be that way.  He better improve quickly.

Upon further review, this ruling may not stand.

We've all seen what happens when you leave a linebacker on the field who can be easily exploited.  It can be the difference between confetti and tears.  So I went back and looked at every snap Gocong played against Baltimore and Carolina.  What I saw was kind of weird.

First of all, that tap-dancing line was wrong.  That came from watching a couple of bad plays where he did seem slow to recognize the action.  However, when I really went back and studied every snap, I saw a guy who was a lot more decisive than I recognized. 

Gocong was on the field for 14 plays (two drives) against the Ravens and 15 plays (five drives) against the Panthers.  In the first game, Gocong spent a lot of time lining up with the linemen.  He started at the end of the line-of-scrimmage (LOS) five times and on the interior of the LOS two times.  On the other seven plays he set up in the traditional linebacker alignment.  He blitzed four times from his LOS alignment and once from off the line (although he crept up beforehand).  The blitzing wasn't effective.

Against Carolina, Gocong spent a lot more time off the line.  He only started on the LOS twice in 15 plays.  He blitzed a lot less too, only coming one time from an off-the-line start position.  It was a well-timed blitz that helped force that pick-six to Lito. 

He had a couple of mental mistakes in the first game, but really only had two bad plays overall.  They came on back-to-back runs by Carolina, and they were a big part of why my initial impression was so unfavorable.  In the first, he overran his gap and didn't cut down the angle, missing badly as the back went inside him.  On the following play, he lined up directly over the tight end on a play that was designed to go the other way.  He didn't shed the block and when the ballcarrier cut back to his side he wasn't in position to contain the backside. 

In fact, not shedding the block was a pretty consistent theme for Gocong.  He did not look like a player who made his name in college beating offensive linemen.  I only saw him come off one block to make a play, and it was a spin move well off the line that brought him back into the play after the back had already busted through the line.  Beyond that I saw a guy who wasn't winning physical matchups.  For being such a big guy, he sure wasn't whipping any of the men coming out to get him.  At this point -- and he's only been playing linebacker for about three quarters of game action in his life -- he doesn't look like much of a factor in the run game.

Surprisingly, it's a very different story in the passing game.  Neither game was broadcast in HD, so I couldn't see how some of his deeper coverages went, but only one pass was completed against him in coverage, and that was a mental mistake and blown assignment against Baltimore.  Jim Johnson had him lined up all over the place, jamming tight ends, dropping into deeper zones, lined up over slot receivers and even crossing the formation to man up on a running back slipping out of the backfield (he did a nice job jamming that one). 

Again, I couldn't see everything, but from the TV vantage point he looked very good in coverage.  I do hope we get to see him locked up against a good tight end like Heath Miller next week, just so we can get a sense of how he'll do against the dangerous TEs of the NFC East, but from what we've seen so far, he'll be fine in the passing game.

Overeall, we're only looking at 29 plays, not much of a sample size for drawing firm conclusions.  But at this point, I'm seeing a guy who is completely the opposite of what I expected: nothing special rushing the passer, struggling to use his size to shed/overpower blocks in the run game, but very solid in coverage against a variety of different assignments. 

In the short run, at least we're looking at a guy who won't be making the killer downfield mistakes.  As he gets more confident at the position, it should be interesting to see if he can start playing with a little more explosiveness, using his size to be more of a factor taking on blocks. 

Best thing about him, though ... no stupid banjo.