Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Matching Up With The Division

The Eagles' offseason additions are by no means done -- and yeah, I know what you're thinking *cough* fitzgerald *cough* -- and while that would of course be tremendously awesome, I'm mostly talking about the draft and whatever hole-patching, minor free agents the Eagles see fit to add between now and training camp. 

So now we wait. 

Most everyone has noticed by now that the Eagles were by far the most active NFC East team in free agency.  The Giants had mountains of cap room but didn't see the need to give much of it to anyone.  They also lost a few semi-key contributors.  The Cowboys picked up Zach Thomas and that's about it -- although the mere speculation of a Moss/Owens receiving corps had me spitting up my coffee a week ago.  And the Redskins finally ran out of money.

The more interesting question is what, if anything, has changed?  Do the Eagles match up better against the teams that make up 37.5 percent of their schedule than they did a few weeks ago?  Let's take a look.

New York Giants
Challenges:  Pass rush, excellent screen defense and Plaxico Burress.

I think so far the Eagles are one-for-three here, but that could change if Lito gets moved.  Because the Eagles have made no moves so far on offense, not much has changed with the first two challenges.  The best way to back off a strong rush is to run the football.  The Eagles can already do that.  The second best way is to burn the blitzers deep.  I'm not sure they're in any improved position to do so, although pending a shake-up of the offensive line this summer, that could change.  We certainly haven't added (yet) the kind of deep threat who makes defensive coordinators think twice about sending the house.

Furthermore, we're still looking at Westbrook as options one, two and three in the offense, so it's not like the Giants are going to forget about him and open up our screen options against them again.

The one place where we're clearly better is with Plaxico Burress.  Not just because Asante gives us another (better) primary coverage option, but also because a secondary with three very strong cornerbacks means we can hopefully shut down the other guys one-on-one and drape so much coverage on Plax that Eli is forced to look somewhere else. 

Notice that the second part of that equation changes if we end up trading Lito. 

Dallas Cowboys
Challenges:  Offensive diversity and firepower, Ellis and Ware

It remains to be seen whether Chris Clemons gives us the kind of opposite-side pass rush pressure needed to compensate for the fact that Flozell Adams completely dominates Trent Cole every time the two match up.  However, the secondary issues discussed above really come into play here, with the Eagles perhaps able to match up with guys like Owens and Witten even on the days when the rush isn't getting to Romo.  No one can really cover Witten one-on-one, but I like our chances better with Sheldon than with Hanson, Gocong, or whatever safety is healthy that week.

Nothing on the offensive side suggests we're better able to handle the unique challenges presented by the Cowboys' fantastic OLB pairing.  Twenty-seven points in two games suggests we better come up with something, however.

Washington Redskins
Challenges:  Quick wide receivers, Chris Cooley, not sucking when we play them

Starting to see a trend here?  As much as everyone wants to get Larry Fitzgerald -- including me -- there's a lot to be said for the secondary as currently constructed.  All three divisional opponents present varied passing game threats that are much easier to contain if we can throw out Asante, Lito and Sheldon as a group.  It's something to think about. 

As for that last bit, with a fully-healthy McNabb, the Eagles should be fine against the Washington franchise this year.

And yeah, I'm feeling that dismissive about the team I thought would be the surprise challenger to the Eagles last year.  Burn me once...

Look, I Still Hate the Giants

But I loved the way they played football the last two months.  They were relentless.  They never gave up, they never made excuses for injuries, they just kept coming in waves.

Last night, they stood up to the league's biggest bully and popped him in the nose, over and over until he didn't want to get up any more. 

I loved it.

I still hate the Giants.

But I like the way they play football. 

Wouldn't mind seeing some of that around here next year.

Division Rivals Getting Banged Up

About the only good news from yesterday's game was that no Eagles got seriously hurt.  Lito Sheppard looks like he's going to miss some time with an MCL sprain, but that could have been much worse.  The same can't be said for the rest of the division:

Cowboys -- Terry Glenn is deciding whether to have season-ending knee surgery.   Nose tackle Jason Ferguson -- a bear of a man who was expected to be the foundation for the Cowboys' run defense -- is out for the year with a torn biceps tendon.

Giants -- Eli Manning, Brandon Jacobs and Osi Umenyiora were all injured in last night's game.  Jacobs will be out three-to-five weeks.  His potential replacements didn't look great last night.  The severity of Osi's knee injury isn't yet known.  Eli has a bruised shoulder, which doesn't sound too bad but could be the kind of thing that lingers.  [UPDATE:  On Monday Night Football they just announced Eli will miss at least a month with a separated shoulder.]

Redskins -- Right tackle Jon Jansen suffered a "fractured dislocation of the right ankle," which sounds terrible.  Washington hasn't decided yet on his replacement, but Jansen won't be an easy guy to replace.

Yes, things could have been worse yesterday.

UPDATE: Add the Bears to the list after they lost two defensive starters for the season as well.

Good Move by the Redskins

Washington has traded a mid-round 2009 draft pick to the Jets for disgruntled guard Pete Kendall. 

That article mentions "Three NFL executives who scouted the Redskins over the weekend all came to the same conclusion about Washington's issues at left guard," but you didn't need to be an insider to see that Washington had problems at that position.  During the Redskins and Steelers replay last night on NFL Network, fill-in LG Mike Pucillo just looked lost.  I was already wondering if the Eagles might consider flip-flopping Bunkley and Patterson to take advantage of him.

I'm actually a little worried about the Redskins this year.  Assuming Jason Campbell's injury isn't serious, I have a feeling he's going to be the second-best QB in the division this year.  And he's got plenty of weapons to get the ball to.  If Gregg Williams can whip his defense back into shape, I think there's a good chance this team is going to surprise people.

Is Redskins' New Safety a Psychopath?

I'm all for football players being football players.  This ain't lawn tennis.  But the Washington Post's lengthy feature on first-round draft pick LaRon Landry makes you wonder how the guy functions in normal society.  Consider these points:

Rhonda [LaRon's mom] has heard it before, almost daily. The source is not a train or an earthquake, but a ghost-white Hummer H2 with blindingly shiny 30-inch rims loaded with enough subwoofer power to devour the remaining fragments of Frank Landry's story of integration, which succumbs to the generation gap and an overwhelming dose of bass.

"Oh," Rhonda says. "That's just LaRon."

...

"If they go over the middle, I'll bet on him. I'll give him a dollar if he take T.O. out," said Lou Valdin, Landry's coach at Hahnville High. "He'll shut him up because he can hit you and hurt your whole family. Interception for a touchdown or put a guy in the hospital? That's a tough decision for LaRon."

...

At LSU, he won a national championship as a freshman under Nick Saban in 2003, drew the nickname "Dirty-Dirty" because of his frequently borderline hits...

...

He stares through the lens, now in game mode, the fiery player his high school coaches say took something of an odd joy in crushing even his own teammates during practice.

"I just don't smile," he says. "Sometimes, I'll give a smirk. That's as close as I get."

...

In the days following the draft, Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott has called to congratulate him, perhaps as many as five times.

Yet days have passed, and Landry, perhaps not wanting to seem too eager, hasn't returned the phone call from the man he has called his idol.

...

Barbara Fuselier, the principal of Hahnville, remembers the tense game against South Lafourche when, playing quarterback, Landry was ejected after kneeing a defender he believed hit him with one cheap shot too many. Landry still knows the sequence.

"It was the only time," he says, "I ever let a player make me lose my control. I still hate that."

...

"We had one of the top receivers in the South being recruited everywhere and one of the first plays of training camp, LaRon puts him in the hospital. Put his feet over his head, and so, we found a safety."

...

If Frank and Derick Landry were good players and Dawan a cut above, then LaRon was the prodigy.  "He was different," Valdin said. "Dawan led by example. LaRon led by fear."

The Ronnie Lott thing seems particularly egregious.  This is the best safety of all time and LaRon doesn't want to seem too eager to get back to him?  Way to respect your elders, big guy.

Of course, we have to remember how young the guy is.  Lots of guys come into the league with attitudes (Hi Brodrick) -- few last very long (Bye Brodrick?).  There's time for him to grow out of it.  But based on this one article, I wonder.

Bonus Redskins safety news.  Here's some more news that doesn't make that much sense.  Redskins' defensive coordinator Gregg Williams announced this week that Sean Taylor would be the free safety while Landry would play more in the box at the strong safety position.

Am I the only one a little bit confused by why you'd want to put the fearsome hitting / poor covering Taylor way off the line where he can't do the things he does best?  Keep in mind, Taylor is 6-2, 232 pounds (or about the same size as former Eagle Michael Lewis) and struggled mightily last year in coverage.  Landry is much smaller, at 205 pounds, and ran a 4.37 40-yard dash at the combine.

Seems odd, to say the least.

UPDATE: Bonus Bonus safety news: 

"While the majority of the Washington Redskins' regular players were in attendance at the team's first organized activities of the offseason yesterday, two absences were noteworthy: Neither safety Sean Taylor nor cornerback Shawn Springs was at Redskins Park... [N]umerous players suggested that Taylor likely would not be in attendance, a byproduct of his possible displeasure with his contract.  Sources said that team officials were hoping Taylor was merely taking personal time and preparing to join the workouts.  [Me: Right] Sources added that Director of Player Personnel Vinny Cerrato and Taylor's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, had been in discussions in recent weeks regarding a contract extension for Taylor, whose contract expires after the 2008 season."

Parcells Out

The offseason hasn't even officially started yet and already there have been two great developments in the NFC East:

1) Bill Parcells just announced his retirement...

2) The Giants decided not to fire Tom Coughlin...

So far, so good.  Now we're just waiting for:

3) The Redskins make their annual push to win a Super Bowl in March by snapping up lots of mediocre free agents with ludicrous contracts...

Good News for Philly Fans

New York Giants Coach Tom Coughlin gets to keep his job for another year.

In three years with the Giants, Coughlin has won 25 games and lost 25 games, alienated 53 players, a handful of coaches and several million fans, and somehow convinced one ownership group that he can still coach a locker room full of guys who all can't stand him. 

Maybe he can get through to them by starting every meeting 15 minutes early next year.

Tom Brady will be the 2006 NFL MVP

I don't agree with the people who say the preseason is meaningless.  If that were really true, the coaches wouldn't even bother watching the film.  So when I saw the Patriots had beaten the Redskins 41-0 on Saturday, I was intrigued.  Then I read this Washington Post column written by a clearly concerned Michael Wilbon and I became even more confident in my prediction that at least one of the much-hyped NFL East teams would fade by the middle of the season. 

Unfortunately, I then watched the game (through the magic of TiVo and the NFL Network).  In the first half at least, the Redskins actually played about as well as a team on the receiving end of a massive drubbing could play.  Quarterback MarK Brunell is clearly still not comfortable in the new offense, and they missed Clinton Portis, but they moved the ball decently except for a couple of big sacks that killed drives.  On defense, the 'skins didn't give the Pats much running room, had decent coverage, and got a fair amount of pressure on Brady.  I don't want to oversell their performance (they did get killed after all), but it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be.

The problem for Washington -- and by extension the rest of the League -- is that Tom Brady is frighteningly good.  He completed short passes and long passes, passes to running backs, tight ends and receivers, passes where he had plenty of time and passes where he unloaded just before he got drilled.  He was fitting balls into tiny holes, without ever looking like he was forcing the action.  It was a clinic.

Here's a good comparison for those of you who have been watching the Eagles preseason games this year.  Donovan McNabb has been in complete control of the offense, completing 23 of 31 passes for 283 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions.  That's a completion percentage of 74 percent.  The guy is locked in.

Brady looked twice as good.

I'm dead serious.  Yes, it's the preseason.  Yes, the Redskins were without a number of key defensive starters.  But the throws he was making in the situations he faced were simply uncanny.

That's why I think he's going to win the MVP this year.  And it's also why I wouldn't read too much into that Redskins score.  I'd love to believe those guys are dead coming right out of the box.  Instead I think they just ran into the Brady buzzsaw. 

NFC East Preseason Round-Up

I watched large chunks of six different preseason games this weekend, including the contests of the three "other" NFC East teams.  Thank you, NFL Network. 

You can't tell everything from watching these games, but there's enough for some first impressions.  Here are my thoughts on the teams that share the Eagles division:

Washington Redskins

• Obviously, the Portis injury is the big question.  I think they can manage a couple of weeks without him being full strength, but they're in trouble if he never gets back to 100 percent this year. 
• The Redskins offense is kind of like the bizarro Eagles.  We have an MVP-candidate quarterback, an unproven cast of receivers and a bunch of scatbacks running the ball-control West Coast offense.  The 'Skins have talent (and speed) to burn at receiver, a ticking time bomb at quarterback and a power running game combined with a deep-strike passing game.  Interesting contrast.