Since I still can't post the videos and I stole some of the material for yesterday, we won't really call this a video rewind. But I've got some stuff.
First off, I owe apologies to three people:
Max Jean-Gilles -- I've been hard on MJG a number of times over the past few years, mostly because he seems to lack the commitment needed to pull a Shawn Andrews -- before all that -- and get his weight down to a more athletic level. Couple that with his general inconsistency whenever he does get a chance to play and you have one frustrating player.
When Jamaal Jackson went down, I lamented the fact that Nick Cole would have to play center, but thought the biggest issue would come at the right guard spot, which was to be manned by MJG. I was wrong about that.
Big Max played a very nice game last week. Sure, RG is a decent play to hide someone and he spent a lot of time helping on double teams in pass protection, but with the exception of the one false start penalty, I'm not sure I saw him make another mistake all game. His run blocking was good and his pass blocking seemed fine. There were much bigger issues elsewhere on the line.
Sean McDermott -- I started this yesterday, but I want to continue it today. I still don't think he put together the world's greatest gameplan, but plays like this were not his fault:
Trips right with a tight end. The slot corner -- in this case Joselio Hanson -- is playing an outside technique. Prior to the snap, he motions to the middle linebacker (Akeem Jordan) to make sure he's ready to help inside.
At the snap, the three receivers run slants / posts. Jordan bites on Witten and starts to follow him across the formation, before slamming on the brakes and trying to get outside. Too late, easy completion to Crayton, nothing Joselio can do.
Jordan got benched for a play after that one. How's that for ironic ... bring in Trotter because of his pass defense.
Another one:
Cowboys run a strong side counter. Both Fokou and Mikell get sucked inside. One of those things shouldn't have happened -- and it looked like it was Fokou's fault. The runner bounces it outside, no one is there to provide contain, and a big gain is only erased because of a holding penalty (which wasn't even really necessary).
Things like this happened all day. Like the first touchdown, in which they had double coverage on Witten, but neither guy was all that close to him. Or the later one with Mikell's coverage mix-up. It's up to the coordinator to get his guys to play well -- so he's not totally off the hook -- but the scheming was much better than it appeared live.
I was impressed, as well, with some of the success the Eagles had when they actually did unleash the hounds in this game. Late in the second quarter, when Fokou's personal foul penalty gave the Cowboys first and 10 on the Eagles' 34 yard line, McD finally said "screw it" and started sending people. Forced a field goal.
Jeremiah Trotter -- Yes, like all of you, I was very excited about Trotter's play in this game. But I didn't go far enough. Trotter was frickin' amazing.
You know he's only 32? It seems like he's an old fart, but with a couple years off and some new knees, he looks like the same old (young) Trotter out there.
I guarantee there are a few guys on the Cowboys -- including Marion Barber, Andre Gurode and most definitely Kyle Kosier -- who remember just two things about this game: 1) they pretty much had their way with us, and 2) Trotter hit the hell out of them.
More cowbell, McD.
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Some other stuff that wasn't as good:
I think the Eagles need to give Winston Justice a bit more help this game. We're going to live and die based on letting Peters do his solo act, but Justice did not look at all comfortable out there.
On the play that ended the first half, McNabb threw the ball behind Westbrook. He managed to catch it, but the lost momentum got him tackled in bounds.
Sheldon actually wasn't supposed to have inside help on the play he committed pass interference. Joselio was either guessing or just made a mistake.
Rocca actually had a nice day in terms of distance, but the failed opportunity to pin the Cowboys -- after the timeout -- really hurt.
Yes, Jason Peters spent most of the second half false-starting, in a legal manner, I guess.
Macho Harris had a terrible game. He looked lost in coverage and he didn't even seem all that keen on hitting people, which is usually a strength of his. I guess we ping-pong back to Sean Jones this week.
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Last bit, about the offense. Marty took the blame Thursday for the offense's inability to score points. That wasn't just a magnanimous, player-protecting gesture. Dallas seemed to be a few steps ahead of us, like on this play, a crossing route to DeSean Jackson:
The Eagles have in their basic 3WR personnel, but they split everyone out wide. Dallas is in nickel, but just from a numbers standpoint, this seems like advantage Eagles, especially inside, where three WRs are working against two LBs and a CB.
Unfortunately, Dallas has seen this show before. The two X's above in the black rectangle are both linebackers. The cornerback sits in the middle of the field. Avant and Maclin run a crossing release that attempts to create enough confusion to allow DeSean to get underneath them cleanly for a route across the field. Westbrook and Celek run deep routes to clear the underneath zones.
The problem is that not only has Dallas figured out a way to put a CB on DeSean -- they've even managed to give him enough of a head start (because he already is where DeSean wants to go) that he can actually run with him across the field. McNabb finds Jackson on one of the few reasonably uneventful completions of the day, but Jackson gets dropped for a minimal gain. That's a well designed and executed defense.
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I've asked someone if he can post a couple more videos for us tomorrow. If he can, I'll be back with highlights on two more plays to which diagrams can't really do justice.
All things end badly, else they wouldn't end, which is why we know the end of the McNabb era will be bitter, ugly and leave fans just as divided about him as they were when he played here.
Real Eagles fans have always known that McNabb had more support around town than the national talking heads would have you believe. Whether you considered this an annoyance or a credit to the perceptiveness of your fellow fans depended greatly upon where you, yourself, stood.
Lately, though, we've started to see an erosion in McNabb's base of support. It hasn't been an obvious shift. If you're not attuned to the collective mood of the fanbase, I'm not sure you'd even have noticed. But we're starting to see subtle indicators, like Lawlor saying McNabb "seems to have lost his mojo." Or the fact that on a day when the Eagles called 58 pass plays and only 13 runs, many people seem willing to let the playcallers off the hook and go straight to the part where they start blaming McNabb.
This is all Kevin Kolb's fault, of course. If he'd stunk up the joint during his extended audition earlier this season, this wouldn't be happening. Oh, the people who blame every loss on McNabb would still be on his case, but the rest of us would be perfectly happy going home to McNabb every night, sharing a nice dinner and watching a little TV.
If only he hadn't looked so good. And young, too. He just seems so much less complicated, you know?
If this is to be McNabb's last year in green, I hope he goes down fighting. None of that bite your tongue and then go complain to Bob Costas crap. This is McNabb's team now. There's literally no one else left who can lead it. They're all gone, or worse, old and injured.
So when the offensive coordinator keeps dialing up stupid playcalls in the red zone, yes, this is what I want to see McNabb do:
With everything that's been screwed up about this season, and all the attention that's been grabbed by the rookies and Mike Vick, I'm starting to get the sense there's one new guy who hasn't been getting enough notice.
When Jason Peters went down during the Cowboys game, it looked bad. He was clearly in a tremendous amount of pain. But after they helped him off the field he went back into the locker room, had some x-rays, slapped on a football field's worth of tape, and got back out there to help protect his quarterback.
It was the second time this year he's returned to the field after what looked in real time to be a season-ending injury. This suggests a couple things about Peters: He ain't fragile and he's tough as hell.
The knock on Peters coming out of Buffalo was that he wasn't a try-hard guy. All the talent in the world, but once he got upset about his contract, the Bills decided there was simply no way they could keep such a, er, divisive influence in their, um, locker room.
Peters hasn't been quite the dominant force we expected when Reid heralded him as "the best left tackle in the league." STATS Inc. puts him at four sacks allowed, three false starts and a holding. He's shown some flashes in the run game, but he hasn't had that one signature play that would have fans saying, "Yeah, but remember when he pancaked DeMarcus Ware?"
What he has shown us, though, has been much more important. We're gonna win with this guy.
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.
I go into every video rewind with a number of preconceived notions, based on watching the game live. Most of the time, I'd say, the rewind bears those inital impressions out. There's some calibration each way, but the general thrust is usually not that far off.
This week, my impression after the game was that two things had been most costly in this loss: 1) terrible offensive line play that had McNabb under pressure all day, and 2) an offensive game plan that didn't adjust at all after the initial plan didn't work.
Upon further review, I still think there's a lot of truth to the second point. We're only a few weeks removed from the Saints game, when Andy and Marty pulled out all the stops creating a game plan that utilized every facet of the team's offense, so as not to put the whole thing on Kevin Kolb's shoulders. And yet against the Raiders, when nothing seemed to be working and the offense was stuck in neutral, they just kept having Donovan drop back over and over and over again, like something different would happen if they just called the same stuff enough times in a row. That didn't make sense.
But then I started watching the game. And while McNabb certainly was under a fair amount of pressure -- especially in the first half -- and while the route packages seemed limited to "everyone go deep" -- especially in the first half -- I started noticing something. Which was that Donovan McNabb wasn't playing very well.
Which got me thinking. See, one of the mistakes we make as outside analysts is when we assume the stupidity of the people we're analyzing. Andy Reid is not stupid. Marty Mornhinweg is not stupid. So if doing something, anything(!) different was so obviously the answer, why didn't they think of it? If the offense wasn't working, why not change it?
Well. What if the offense was working? What if guys were getting open and the quarterback had enough time to find them, but the plays just weren't being executed? Would it then be so obvious that you should change everything up? (Some will shout "YES" here, that's cool.) Or do you bank on your streaky quarterback eventually coming out of his funk against a crummy defense if you let him "keep firing"?
All of these troubling thoughts formed as I watched the first half. So, for the second half, I charted the offensive plays, to see what McNabb was up against and who really seemed to be at fault. Here's what I found:
Yeah, I know, good day for it and all since no Phillies last night. I hear you. But I couldn't get it done, even in abbreviated form, mostly due to delays because ANYTHING ELSE seemed preferable to actually rewatching that debacle.
Anyway, you know I don't like to leave you empty-handed, so here are a couple of things:
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On the "Trotter" play, the point was made in the comments after my game post on Sunday that I wasn't hard enough on Asante for his missed tackle attempt. Upon further review, I agree:
Again, I'm not big on hanging a loss on a single guy, especially when he's doing the best he can and it's on the coaches for having him out there.
Except that Asante Samuel didn't do the best he could. That was a lame, piss-poor, gawdawful, weak, pathetic and unforgivable attempt at a tackle.
The hard thing about making categorical statements -- like, say, "Super Bowl caliber teams don't blow October games to crap teams like the Raiders" -- is that there's always a counter-example. I could get all up in high dudgeon about how Asante's non-tackling has been a problem all season and maybe it's exactly this kind of crap that the coaches let him get away with at other times that always comes back to bite us in these close games.
Maybe. On the other hand, Deion Sanders has two Super Bowl rings. So it's not exactly an airtight case.
Still, between that Ole whiff and the stupid penalty he took later in the game, I think it's time for a little course correction. Good thing about all those leadership books, then.
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Here's some gallows humor for you. Check out this defensive alignment by the Raiders (click for full size):
That's the Raiders lining up to stop our fourth and one play in the second quarter, with six men in the box. You can't even see the safeties.
Don't ever let anyone tell you passing every down doesn't have its advantages.
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Lastly (for now), this is why I get nervous when Bunk limps off the field:
Sure, it's a double team. But geez, that's getting blown off the ball.
So here's what I think happened. Jeremiah Trotter didn't really do very much on Sunday. He didn't do anything particularly good, nor anything that was really that bad, in the sense of giving up a big play or tackling one of his teammates. So we never really noticed him all that much. And since the Eagles won and the defense played pretty well, Trotter must have been fine too.
Not really.
Here's another play where you can see vintage Trotter, at least in terms of how they used him:
Overall, Trotter looked like a guy who hadn't played football in a long time. That's sort of to be expected, but he really only has about one more week to get that squared away. The Redskins aren't beating anyone these days, but they always give us fits and we'll need our best 11 on the field that day.
As a note of comparison, here's a look at Omar Gaither:
Beats the block, gets held, still makes the play.
Gaither is quietly rounding into form in that middle position. Remember that he came out for a bunch of snaps in that last game and check his production. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Omar was playing on one leg at the beginning of the year. We won't hear about it until after his season is done, but now that he's healthy, you can see him making plays again.
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Go back to that third video above and note who makes the tackle. That is excellent work by Macho in run support. He seems to figure out what's happening much quicker than Mikell and runs up to make a very good play.
For a cornerback-turned-safety, Macho is a suprisingly physical guy. He lit up a tight end -- legally -- within five yards of the line of scrimmage when he had him in coverage in the flat. He also had that unnecessary roughness penalty that, you know, you sort of don't want to see but didn't look all that bad to me.
As he grows into an NFL body and gets more comfortable playing back there, we could be seeing some good things from him.
Now about that whole "coverage" thing. Some issues there. But at 5-11, he's not a great match-up against the 6-4 Kellen Winslow. Education time for the rookie there. (Might not be a bad idea to get him some more reps against Celek in practice.)
Here was another one:
The ol' pick play. Good thing the young QB didn't take advantage of it (a common theme for the Bucs on Sunday).
People keep asking me about Macho. My stock answer is that it's hard to see a lot of what he does. But I think we're starting to learn more about him. He's still a rookie when it comes to covering guys one-on-one, but he's better in run support than we had any right to expect and we're still waiting for him to give up his first long touchdown from the safety spot this year.
All in all, might want to think about moving his jersey up the list. Although customized as "MACHO" would clearly be the way to go.
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Patterson and Bunkley both got a bit more pass rush than usual. Although whether that's due to something on their part or the permeability of the Bucs' line is unknown.
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From a big picture sense, and this will sound weird, I think we may have been a bit too aggressive on Sunday with all the blitzing. Yes, young quarterback and all, and I'd totally buy the argument that at least some of what we were doing in the second half was running live scrimmage variations of a couple of our blitz packages to get reps in (no, I'm not joking), but still, there's aggressive and then there's a little unhinged:
That was the second play of the game. And that wasn't one of those fancy will-they-or-won't-they scheme where we cram the line but drop some guys off. All nine players engaged, and if not for a pretty darn good play by, again, Omar Gaither, there's a decent chance Cadillac Williams runs through that Patterson ankle tackle and doesn't get caught for awhile.
I don't know. I like aggressive, but there comes a point when it's ok to have a couple safeties back there. Make the Bucs drive 80 yards and try to convert a fourth down or two since they don't trust their kicker.
Here's another one. End of the first half, third-and-15, young QB. It's not like draw wasn't on the table. And yet we're doing some sort of blitz-y / stunt-y thing that opens up running lanes and the middle of the field:
The other thing to note about that clip, while I don't generally highlight great plays by the opponent, there's a wide receiver who takes out both Macho and Quintin on this play near the first down line. And yes, Asante's covering him, and yes, Asante sort of stands there and hopes someone else makes the play before jumping on the guy and hanging on for dear life.
Speaking of Asante, we learned something else this weekend, which is that it's probably not a great idea to send a guy on a corner blitz if he can't, you know, tackle someone when he gets there.
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I realize there's a weird negativity throughout this rewind, but the truth of the matter is that Domo's day-after thesis was right: the defense really didn't play that great against Tampa. They made enough big plays to put things away, but if the Bucs' had been a bit smarter about kicking field goals (too bad people always avoid making their last mistakes), this really could have been a 21-16 game at half time.
Now, with that said, we've argued for years the importance of playmakers for just this very reason. In the NFL, you'll have weeks where things aren't clicking, that's when you need guys who can step up and give you individual efforts to turn a game. The Eagles sure do have a lot of those right now.
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Back to the videos, here's a weird one for you. Dmitri Patterson ... in the game ... as an on-the-line pass rusher:
It took me a long, long time to figure out what McDermott's doing here, but I think I eventually got it. Take a look at the replay they show that gives you a better angle on the play. Yes, Cadillac Williams makes a great blitz pick-up, but notice what McDermott's managed to do here. He has an offensive lineman blocking a dime back and a running back one-on-one against his best interior pass rusher.
That's friggin' brilliant. And the best part is Dmitri can actually rush just long enough to engage the blocker before dropping into coverage. He does that, but because Williams engages with Howard, he ends up rushing the QB again anyway.
After Patterson got hurt, Sean Jones ran this a couple times later in the game.
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Other defensive notes:
Overall this wasn't a great game for covering or tackling. I was especially surprised by a couple plays Quintin didn't make. On one Josh Johnson scramble, Q just stood there, not covering anyone, not rushing up to make a tackle, then he sort of lunged at him and missed after he crossed the line of scrimmage. That was odd.
On that play where Trotter ran 31 yards to help make a tackle, yes, that showed impressive knee health, but his read on the play might have been even more impressive. All the other linebackers were crashing on the play action and somehow he read much earlier that this would be a pass. Experience counts for something, that's for sure.
In the "too aggressive" category, the other issue with blitzing every play is that you really open up the middle of the field. It's a little easier for a young QB to throw those slants and seam routes if he knows he doesn't have to worry about anyone cutting underneath. We saw that a couple times, including a nice pass play on the 20 on the Bucs' first touchdown.
Oh, and someone should really study Reid's use of timeouts at the end of the first half. He jacked it up again this week, although it ended up not costing any points because of the dumb interception at the end. If you're up 21-7, there's 1:12 left, and you get the ball back at the start of the next quarter, I get why you might call a timeout, but if it never seems to work ...
Yeeaaaah, so "zone dog" and "zone blitz" are different things that have highly specific numeric meanings. Anyone ever heard that one before? I hadn't, and neither had Google. Those announcers were annoying.
Chris Gocong played MLB on those last couple plays leading up to the safety.
Lastly, and I should say this every week, but Trent Cole is ridiculously impressive. He's so obviously the Eagles' best defensive player and he's so obviously only going to make the Pro Bowl if one metric -- the sack number -- is right. That doesn't seem fair.
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Ah, the weekly special teams tidbit. A few observations:
Sean Jones wasn't the only one offsides on that kickoff. The guy next to him (number unknown) was as well.
On field goals and extra points, Winston Justice goes to LT and Jamaal Jackson goes to RT. Just thought that was interesting.
The penalties are once again ridiculous, but we're still in the Daisher grace period on that stuff, but ...
How do you not have the hands team on the field for that final kickoff? Pretty sure we can't blame the holdover players for that one, coach.
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Let's take it as read that the passing offense was pretty darn efficient last week. In retrospect, the most impressive thing about Maclin really isn't his speed -- it's his body control and the way he adjusts to the ball when it's in the air. He may not have quite the pure hands Avant does, but he does an amazing job getting his body and hands into a position where they can make a catch. Watching some of those catches in slow motion ... geez, it's impressive.
But anyway, the passing offense worked so well it was a little boring. I'd note only that:
The DeSean PI call was terrible (again);
That play they tried to fit the ball into DeSean in the Cover-Two hole would have worked better if Weaver had run his route a little deeper to get some more pressure on that CB (given the down and distance); and,
The Bucs were not remotely fooled when we tried to screen Westbrook. Teams pay so much attention to Westbrook, I almost wonder if we wouldn't have more success screening McCoy instead? (Semi-relatedly, this is an interesting read in terms of how we use the screen game in this offense.)
So, putting the passing attack aside, why didn't the run game work very well?
Unfortunately, I still don't know. There's definitely no silver bullet answer. There were maybe a couple plays like this one where you could say, "Ok, that dude pretty much destroyed that other dude":
But for the most part, it wasn't like that:
I think Westbrook should have hit one run up inside that he bounced (but then, we don't have the end zone view and he's Brian Westbrook and I'm not).
There's another play where Cole and Justice didn't make great blocks, but if the ball carrier had been Westbrook or Shady instead of Weaver, it still would have been a nice gain, since they would have taken the obvious cutback lane.
One of the Wildcat runs didn't really work because Weaver came across the formation the way we've seen a million times and tried to cut the end, who got right back up and made the play.
The Vick option was just a bad call against the alignment and proved once again he needs to be able to audible out of those looks.
Stacy Andrews blew another block when he showed up late.
Lastly, the Vick QB draw is really just tough to run when opposing defenses treat you as a runner first and passer second, even when you're running the base offense.
I don't know. It's kind of like last year all over again. You can watch a play a dozen times and just sort of not see anything other than that it didn't really work. Sometimes the defense wins, I guess.
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As this week's lone Wildcat segment, here's a play I think just really isn't designed all that well:
Obviously the big problem was Celek blowing the block on the linebacker. But you've already got the defense on that side of the field on the alert because they're worried about Vick flowing that way, so even if Celek makes his block, you really need to figure out a way to get that end to crash inside. And if Vick isn't going to run the fake dive, that's probably not going to happen.
Of course, you'd like to see how it worked if they'd run it right, but even if Celek blocks the LB and Vick can distract the DE, you still have a S sitting there to make the tackle. Just seems like a lot of bad things can happen on that play without enough of an advantage in your favor.
But yes, if it goes for a touchdown later this year, I'll happily post that video.
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And just so you don't think I'm picking on Celek, he solo-blocked the end on Maclin's first big TD.
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That's sort of it this week. I'd say I can't wait for the real games to start, but let's be honest, a boring victory beats a thrilling defeat aaannnyyy time.
It turns out the things that make a game fun to watch in real time are not the same things that make for an enjoyable second viewing. The Chiefs game, so enjoyable live (and in person), was, from a rewind perspective, actually pretty boring.
Basically, what makes these things fun are the exceptions -- the plays that don't go right, the weird calls. the interesting schemes, etc. The Chiefs game was pretty much straightforward football, in which one team executed and the other deserved to be. Not all that interesting.
The Eagles' bye week happens to coincide with the week we're putting our house on the market. That means the video rewind can be / is going to be delayed a bit while I take on more immediate tasks like finishing the staining of the deck and regrouting a few tiles in the bathroom.
I'll get to it eventually, I swear, but for now I'm providing a down payment. I mentioned in last week's rewind that Kevin Kolb didn't look great running the option:
Issue #1: Kolb doesn't run this option well at all. Either he's supposed to pitch it that early or he just made a bad read, but the whole point of a QB option is to get one defender to commit to you -- or you run it yourself. Here, he basically just extends the toss.
And here's the accompanying video:
Compare that play to the first option Vick ran in the Chiefs' game:
It looks like the inside linebacker #51 is supposed to be the man who has Vick. But the right side of the line does a good job getting some push and he ends up getting caught in the wash.
That puts the cornerback outside in a bind. He's supposed to play the pitch man, but no one's going to Vick, so if he overcommits outside, Vick is free to run. He tries to split the difference (and does a decent job of it,) but the end result is still a seven-yard gain for Vick, who read the situation perfectly and kept the ball himself to get what he could get.
Granted, we don't particularly want our passing quarterbacks to run the option this way and take these kinds of hits. But this is exactly the sort of dimension Vick can give us that other Wildcatters who don't have his history with the option game can't.
How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Kevin Kolb
It's Been Two Games And Winston Justice Still Looks Really Good
Holy Crap, I Still Can't Believe We Barely Blitzed
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Lots of sports writers, in an attempt to prove their cultural bona fides, will talk about the music they're listening to while they write a story. I have trouble listening to music when I write anything that requires thinking (you'd be surprised at just how often one can happen without the other), so if I have anything in the background, it's either not-too-catchy classical or something bleep-bloopey. No words, which really screw me up.
Those things are pretty boring to pass along, though, so I thought maybe I could do something else. Like tell you what was drinking each week as I settle in for this watching and posting marathon.
Then I realized that might cost me some football credibility points.
Still, this is a good wine. A really good wine. And even better without food.
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