EAGLEMANIACAL.com

FINALLY! I can’t remember when an offseason felt longer. To Hell with all the talk! We are just two days away from the wins and losses counting, and the deck looks stacked in our favor, to grab a “W” this week.

One of the best defenses from last year (the Eagles) is going against one of the worst offenses from last year. While we reloaded a defensive front that notched 70 sacks last year, the Patriots limp into the season with an offensive line that is already banged up.

Expect to see us eat in this one.

We need that “W” this week. The giants and Cowboys play each other Sunday night, so one of them (Cowboys) is likely to end up being 1-0. We can’t allow for there to be just one winning team in the division. Even for a week.

Who’s Out?

PHI: No one. But CB Josh Jobe was listed with an illness as of 9/6. He’ll likely play on Sunday.

NE: RT Riley Reiff is on non-season ending IR, with a non-specific “lower leg injury”. The Boston Herald said that WR DeVante Parker was “visibly limited on 9/6 by his knee injury. LG Cole Strange is also battling a knee injury, RG Mike Onwenu is still working back from off-season ankle surgery, and LT Trent Brown is listed with an illness. All but Reiff should play, but their o-line will be far from it’s best.

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The point of Four Things isn’t to predict a winner, it’s to discuss which tactics would give our Eagles the best chance to win this game. So here are the Four Things that we need to focus on this week versus: the Patriots.

1) Establish the run: Head Coach Nick Sirianni was a fan of heavy misdirection and zone blocking, when former Offensive Coordinator Shane Steichen was here. Whether that will still be the case under Brian Johnson, remains to be seen. According to Sirianni, we were very vanilla in the preseason. So there is currently no indication of what we should look like.

New England (like us), is essentially a 5-2 defensive front. Their Achilles heel is that there isn’t a player in their front seven under 250 pounds. It’s a big front that doesn’t play in space, or change direction very well. Misdirection will take advantage of that.

If we can rush for chunks of yardage, then they will have to load the box, which will open up the deep passing game. This was the blueprint for last season and we did pretty good with it.

2) Load the box: I just said that we should force our opponent to load the box, in order to open up our passing game. So why am I saying the we should load the box? Won’t that open up New England’s passing game?

Not really. Our CB’s are better than their WR’s; their o-line already has one leg in a bear trap; and their QB is game manager, not a miracle worker. They will need to run the ball just to keep it out of our hands, to limit our scoring opportunities.

Don’t let them run. Putting the game in their QB’s hands, immediately takes their head coach out of his comfort zone. At that point, apply pressure, get sacks, and maybe generate turnover or two.

3) Set the Dogs on Them: On third downs, use a five man rush. Go to Cover Two or a Tampa Two. Get those hands up, and challenge every ball in the air. We want to artificially speed up parts of their offense, to cause a miscue. This is the fertile ground where turnovers are grown.

4) Pull the Trigger: Once our run game takes over, the deep shots will be there for the taking. Two things New England doesn’t have in their secondary are size and speed. While I still have a soft spot for CB Jalen Mills, he can be exploited deep. When WR’s A.J. Brown or Devonta Smith are matched-up with Mills, QB Jalen Hurts needs to let loose down the field.

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If the Eagles do these Four Things, then we’ll be virtually impossible to beat. That being said…

The idea here isn’t to be big and splashy. Well coached teams have a way of coming back, against big splashy teams. What we want here, is to slowly drown the Patriots. Get a lead, then milk the time of possession. Take the occasional “BACK THE FUCK UP!!” deep shot, but mostly just run it, and bleed the clock.

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WARNING: I don’t have the faintest clue as to what a point spread is, and I know even less about how it works. I know FOOTBALL and that’s it. If you use Four Things as a gambling tool, then you are a fool trying to lose your money, and will deserve it when you do.

Check back in a couple of days for Four Things Reviewed, and we’ll discuss how this game went.