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.