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Any idiot can say “Hey let’s sign every high-priced Free Agent on the market”. The 12 focuses on what we can do with what we already have, to fix or improve our team.

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LAST season we ran a lot from the Shotgun, behind blocking schemes that focused more on movement and isolation, than on simply overpowering a man. This isn’t a complaint about that. I mean, it worked, right?

During the 2017 season, 8 of our 16 opponents were either leading us, or still withing striking distance in the 4^th quarter. Physically wearing them out early, would take care of that in 2018. It also sends the message that tackling our hard-charging RB’s is the “easiest part” of stopping our run game. That’s the sort of thing that breaks an opponent’s spirit.

We all know the expression “Why work harder, when you can work smarter?” In most cases, I’m all about that. But not here. In this case there’s a huge pay-off for “giving an opponent chicken” as former Eagle RG Shawn Andrews used to call it. Put bluntly, there is no cute or clever way to rag-doll an opponent. There is also no substitute for it.

A more power-oriented rushing attack, (with the QB under Center more often), suites the current make-up of our roster (RB’s Jay Ajayi and Corey Clement). It also means teams would have to roll out 8 and 9 man fronts, as much to cope with the blockers as the backs.

The Eagles 2017’s Three Headed RB Monster showed the NFL how to share the rock: (l to r) Corey Clement,  LeGarrette Blount, and Jay Ajayi 

That’s kind of the situation that Dallas would have, if they had a single wide receiver worth worrying about. The Eagles on the other hand have a few guys who’ve proven that they can find holes vs Cover One and Cover Two. Even Atlanta’s Cover Three, in the playoffs.

If our receivers can get more than a few looks per game against Cover Zero… It would be a string of massacres. We’d break scoreboards. Every record we set would be written in pencil, because we’d probably break it the following week. Defensive Coordinators wouldn’t sleep for days before they faced us. Head coaches already on the hot seat, would quit so they wouldn’t end up with that beating on their resumes. Opponents would talk about us like facing a firing squad.

That could all be set up, off of the run game.

We gotta run the ball harder this year. We gotta. We won it all last year, so we’re the hunted this year. We’re the team to beat now. We have to act like it.