#7 DISRUPT TIMING ROUTES

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/03/08
Posted in: breakdown, Coaching, Defense, NFC East, NFL, The 12, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

EARLIER in the THE 12, I covered taking away a TE’s clean release. Here we’re going to get into disrupting a QB’s rhythm with his WR’s. The idea is to get one of two things to happen:

1) The QB either holds the ball a little longer, as he goes to his next read, giving the pass rush time to get to him.

or

2) The QB forces an ill-advised pass, in an attempt to “make something happen”.

Again, disrupting the TE was covered earlier. That said, trying to treat a WR like a TE can set an entire secondary on fire. So the approach has to be different. It has to be more cerebral. Generally a defender cannot rely on one approach all game long, but here are just a few that they can mix and match for 30 minutes or so.

Man Press gets a CB in the WR’s face, and makes the QB sort out whether the WR can win that down and get open. As long as the CB can keep the WR in front of him, this approach is golden. Problem is, when the WR gets past the CB, the defender is left in the trail position. Given the speed, and leaping ability of many WR’s, man press played wrong, could be a death sentence. (High risk/High reward)

Darrelle Revis demonstrates top-shelf, Man Press vs Calvin “Megatron” Johnson.

Hand-fighting is for WR’s who like to stem their routes to get the defender off balance. Hand-fighting at the line of scrimmage, gets the defenders hands into the chest/shoulder area of the WR. It doesn’t allow the receiver to lean quite the way he wants. This erases the time the receiver would use to stem, and forces him to go directly into the route.

Hand-fighting is not quite the same as press, because hand-fighting “feels” the route and bails sooner than press. All a defender is doing, is taking away what the early part of what the receiver wants to do. The idea isn’t to stop, it’s to delay, and maybe get the QB to look elsewhere. (Moderate risk/Low reward)

The next two are a one-two combo, that not only affects the receiver, but it can make offensive coordinators question how they utilize their players, and call the game.

The 100 Yard Defender. The sideline is a defensive player. Stepping on it end plays, and a receiver who steps on it prior to catching the ball, can’t catch a forward pass on that down. If the WR lines up close enough to the sideline, shoving him out of bounds (within the first 5 yards), is totally legal, and basically takes him out of the play. (Low risk/High reward)

Lowering The Boom comes with a great deal of risk, since refs are very aggressive about throwing flags for the same hits that used to comprise the entire opening sequence of a Madden game. Still, a CB taking away the sideline, basically “opens up” the middle of the field for the receiver. Which is where beasts like LB’s and S’s roam.

While a ref may throw a flag and award 15 yards as a result of that play, coaching staffs may think better of running that player into harm’s way again. Question: Is a potential 15 yard penalty during the first possession, worth limiting how the opposing team calls the rest of the game? Answer: You bet your ass! (Just don’t do this in the second half.)

Not to mention how rattled the QB would be for getting his buddy fucked up, to start the game.(Sky high risk/Sky high reward)

So there are tools. We just have to be willing to use them.

HIDE EAGLES HIDE?

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/03/04
Posted in: Conversations, Fans, Front Office (F.O.), Offense, Players, Rants, The 12, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

EAGLES QB Carson Wentz was traded to the Indianapolis Colts on February 18th, 2021. At that point, all talk of the drama could cease. The was nothing left to do for the Eagles organization and fans, but look towards the future.

With that in mind, I stepped back and observed. I watched. I listened. I waited to see what the new coach envisioned for the team. I waited to see what the fans would chatter excitedly over.

Two excruciating weeks have dripped by, and there’s been practically nothing about the team. Most peculiarly, from the organization itself. It’s 3:04a.m., March 4th as I write this, and these are stories on the Eagles website:

Now don’t get me wrong. I understand not tipping your hand, but to say nothing? Are they telling us that no one, has an encouraging word for presumed starting QB Jalen Hurts? Are they telling us that “Where Are They Now?” articles are more important than “This Year’s Break-out Player Will Be” articles?

Aside from my THE 12 series, there doesn’t seem to be much passion for football in this city, anymore. Sad. Maybe we traded it away on February 18th.

DEVELOP A DEEP THREAT

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/03/04
Posted in: Conversations, Offense, Players, Rants, Roster, The 12. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

CUTTING WR DeSean Jackson was a foregone conclusion. While it remains true that he’s still faster than gossip, he can’t string together 6 consecutive downs in a game, without having to be shut down. Usually for weeks. This leaves the Eagles once again without a deep threat.

After last year’s draft, rookies WR John Hightower and WR Quez Watkins had us Eagles fans excited. We had a couple of speedy, young pups to bring along behind Jackson, and free agent addition WR Marquis Goodwin. With Goodwin also being a speedster, we looked to be deep with deep speed.

Funny thing about Goodwin though, he also has tendency to get nicked up and miss weeks with injuries. So naturally, Covid-19 saw Goodwin opt out for the year, and fans worrying that he might miss a few games, suddenly were even less happy. And Jackson? He was of course, hurt just minutes into the 2020 season.

He spent most of 2020 hurt, but Jackson’s last Eagles touchdown… Classic DJax.

This left us leaning on Hightower by the end of Week 1. His speed was undeniable, but his inability to track balls, led to his 34.5% catch rate on the year. For those of you who don’t follow stats, that catch rate isn’t just bad, it’s horrendous. Watkins saw a little playing time later in the season, but he wasn’t exactly killing it out there.

In 2021, we have Hightower, Watkins, and Goodwin returning. At this point, I think these three may scare Eagles fans more than they scare opponents. Still, we need to turn one of those guys into a weapon that can stretch the field, and create room for the other receivers to work underneath.

Ward and Fulgham.

WR Greg Ward is a Slot/possession receiver. WR Jalen Reagor looks like a Slot guy right now, but he keeps being sold to us as being able to play outside. WR Travis Fulgham looked like a solid second option for a few weeks. Then opponents realized that we didn’t have a first option, and took Fulgham away. WR J.J. Arcega-Whiteside is still on the roster, and was supposed to give us a physical, 50/50 ball winner.

FUN FACT! No Eagles WR has reached 600 yards since 2018.

Without a deep threat, our other receivers are going to have a much more difficult time finding separation. This means our QB will have to hold onto the ball and well…

My hope is that Hightower spends this off-season working on his hand-eye coordination. Exercises like, catching a jelly bean with both hands (Not just one). Or tracking raw eggs over his shoulder, while inside of his home. (All kinds of incentive to focus on the “ball”.) I’m not saying these are exercises that he will do. Just naming examples of some classics.

In any case, we gotta have a LEGIT deep threat in 2021.

NO CLEAN TE RELEASES

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/03/02
Posted in: breakdown, Coaching, Conversations, Defense, NFC East, The 12, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

THIS is not a new gripe for me. Too often we’ve let TE’s into their routes with little or no challenge. The results are high completion percentages, and easy scores. In fact, until OLB Nate Gerry went on IR last year, he was being victimized on a weekly. Some of it was his slow feet, but most of it was the scheme that told him to allow clean releases.

Here’s hoping that a new Defensive Coordinator means asking new things from the OLB’s. Specifically, not letting TE’s routinely set up for quick passes, within 3 to 6 yards of the line of scrimmage. A ball coming out of an opposing QB’s hand that fast, means that our pass rush won’t have time to get home.

It also means that we aren’t seeing that the opponent is using a timing or rhythm based passing game. Or even worse, maybe we are seeing it, but refusing to adjust to it. If an opposing QB keeps executing ‘1, 2, throw’, ‘1, 2, throw’ then it behooves us to slow up that TE, and take away that quick pass.

This can be done with all receivers (later article!), but the TE has to be played a little differently. Their position lets defenders beat-up on them more, but being physical with them can backfire easily. So TE’s have to have their routes disrupted in few different ways.

Jamming can and should be used, but it needs to be used sporadically. Trying to jam a TE too often, will tell an opposing coach to run the ball, since the defender is putting himself in position to be blocked easily. We should jam primarily on long downs. The run risk decreases, and it allows the SS to not have to immediately crash down to pick up that TE.

Re-directing in Man Coverage. All a re-direct is, is aggressively pushing a receiver (within 5 yards!) to an area where you have help in coverage. While a defender likely won’t know the route, if the TE is escorted to a more populated area of the field, the odds of a completion go way down, and the chances for big hits, tipped passes, or quick fumbles, go way up.

“Holding”. Used to be if your hands were inside the shoulders, you were allowed that grasp. Today, at no point are you allowed to hold. That said, TE’s get held all the time near the line of scrimmage. Particularly if they line up tight to the formation.

In that situation the refs can’t know if a held TE was supposed to run a route, or was supposed to block, and did a good job. Holding a TE has to be a quick, grab-pull-release, right around the line of scrimmage, and look just enough like fighting off a block. Just long enough for the QB to decided to go elsewhere with the ball.

Chipping is thought of as something that only offensive players do, but that’s a myth. In Zone Coverage, an OLB delivering a hard bump to the TE, then settling into a shallow area as the SS patrols the intermediate, is generally enough to cause a QB to think “Nope”, before progressing to his next read.

If the idea is to rush the passer with just our front four, then taking away the opponent’s quick and easy options, will give our defense the best chance of forcing their plays to run off-schedule. Plenty of tools here. We just need to finally start using them better.

GET UNDER CENTER

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/02/28
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, NFC East, Offense, The 12, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

PLAY-ACTION makes a mobile QB more deadly. However, we have to be better at selling the run, in order to make our play-action more effective. On first and ten or in short yardage situations, we have to make opponents believe that a QB Sneak, a HB Dive, etc. is immediately on the table. All of that is far easier to sell with a QB lined up under Center, vs being in the Shotgun or the Pistol.

When a QB uses play-action from the Shotgun or Pistol, he has to thrust it forward to the RB. Generally with both hands on the ball to prevent a fumble. A defensive lineman who sees two hands on the ball, immediately knows it’ll be a fake. The fake doesn’t sell, and the QB ends up sacked. Sound like something you’ve seen?

From under C, when the QB fakes, he turns his back to the defense. This helps hide the ball momentarily. A defensive lineman has to honor the hand-off, and identify whether or not the RB truly has the ball. That right there, that second’s pause, helps slow the pass rush and gives an offensive lineman a chance to secure his block. (Which we are always thankful for!)

During a real hand-off, what happens? The QB clears out of the way, and no one really chases him because they’re chasing the ball. When it’s a fake, the QB can take his clearing momentum and turn it into a bootleg. This gets him far away from pressure, and gives him a clear view of the field. In which case he can throw it, or pick up some quick yardage with his legs.

Lining up under C makes play-action more dangerous, because it is the most legitimate alignment to run from. Again, your QB Sneak, your HB Dive, yadda and so forth. This is especially true for teams that run 12 Personnel (1RB, 2TE). With the Eagles being a team that is still rumored to favor such a package, lining up under C needs to be the rule and not the exception.

PLAY COVER TWO

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/02/23
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, Defense, NFC East, The 12, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

SINCE the days of Defensive Coordinator Jim Johnson, the Eagles have been a Single-high Safety team. That started in 1999. Stated plainly, the Eagles have been almost an exclusively Cover One, for the last 21 years. It’s time we went to a more Cover Two based system.

Some of you may be new to football. Some may not know, and have been ashamed/afraid to ask. So let me start by quickly, and very basically explaining what Cover One and Cover Two are. Trust me, no matter how new you are to football, these concepts will be super easy to follow.

Cover One

Lots of teams like to walk the Strong Safety “into the box” (closer to the line of scrimmage) to help take away the run. That leaves the Free Safety back in coverage. In theory, he’s sort of a Center Fielder, keeping the action in front of him, acting as the last line of defense.

Sometimes he’ll cheat towards one side or the other, to help a CB “bracket” a particularly talented WR. While that CB has some help, the other CB is mano-a-mano with his assignment. Every mistake there is potentially a killer, so that CB has to play the assignment, and not gamble. Lest his desire to make a big play, cost his team six points.

Cover Two

In this alignment the Strong Safety comes out of the box, and plays about as deep as the Free Safety. Instead of a single “center fielder”, these two can now each take half of the back end. Even better, they can each help a CB cover a WR. This can allow the CB to gamble on interception opportunities, while still having someone back there in case he misses the ball.

While Cover Two takes a man out of the box 1) That man shouldn’t be there anyway, and 2) It means the LB’s have to be able to handle their business up front, instead of stealing a man from the Secondary to get their job done.

*****

If Single-high was working, why change it? The thing is, it’s been working less and less for us. On the one hand, interceptions have been really hard for us to come by. Especially in recent years. Our Super Bowl win? We gave up 505 passing yards, which is both a Super Bowl, AND a playoff record. Guess how many of our stating Secondary players missed that game? Zero. That was done vs our starters.

Jim Johnson. Sean McDermott. Juan Castillo. Todd Bowles. Bill Davis. Jim Schwartz. Six coaches over 21 years. Imagine that each was a chef, and they have all tried to improve dessert by serving the same vanilla ice cream (Cover One), in a different bowl.

In the meantime, how many good, free agent CB’s did this team spend big money on, only to have pretty much every one of them flop? How many bad CB’s did we draft? Contrast that against how many Pro Bowlers we’ve produced at that position since CB Asante Samuel in 2010. That number by the way is zero.

I’ve been saying for years now: The CB’s aren’t bad, the scheme is. They can’t gamble, undercut some routes, and make plays, because they frequently have had no deep help behind them. The result is the Eagles, year in and year out, hemorrhaging passing yardage. The result is hurries and hits that should have been sacks.

Switch to a Cover Two base. Give the Defense a chance to be truly dominant again.

SELL THE TEAM!

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/02/21
Posted in: Conversations, Fans, Front Office (F.O.), NFC East, Offense, Players, Roster, The 12. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

NOW that the Carson Wentz saga has concluded, everyone is staring directly at new Head Coach, Nick Sirianni, and expecting him to have detailed answers on how we’re going to not end up 4th in the division this year. Whatever those answers are, this team is going to need spokesmen to pitch it, not just in the locker room, but outside of it.

Under Doug Pederson, the Eagles voices to the public were most often DE Brandon Graham, S Malcolm Jenkins, S/CB Jalen Mills, and C Jason Kelce. All of which were outspoken and who brought and energy of enthusiasm to interviews.You always felt that these guys were totally “bought in” to what the coaches were preaching. Pederson’s program had great salesmen.

Sirianni needs to find salesmen who bring both energy, and verbal agility to promoting the team. Jenkins left before last year, Kelce keeps hinting at retiring, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Mills will be shown the door. Graham would seem a likely candidate, but he may become a cap casualty. TE Zach Ertz would be a great pick, but he won’t be here so…

When the time comes for Sirianni to have answers, he’s going to need players to sell fans on the notion that things are going as planned. He’ll need players that fans find credible. He’ll need players who the locker room won’t tune out, or dismiss as a coach’s pet. There aren’t a lot of great options on the roster, but THE 12 is making do, with what we have.

Ideally with Sirianni being an offensive guy, you’d want an offensive player. QB Jalen Hurts would be one of the default options. Provided that he ends up being the starter. WR Jalen Reagor seems ill at ease, and almost annoyed when talking with the press. 

Possible candidates would be RB Miles Sanders, TE Dallas Goedert, and LB Alex Singleton. Sanders is animated and personable. Goedert gives quick answers and remembers to smile, but he doesn’t usually help steer the discussion. Singleton brings energy and enthusiasm, and unlike the other two, promotes the team beyond parroting company lines.

Getting everyone to buy into what the new coach is selling, (once he knows what it is), would help him out immensely. Besides, this new regime is going to need strong voices. Just in case the Eagles luck runs out, and we finally have to face some adversity. You know, injury bugs, locker room divides, lunatic accountants who are allowed to run a whole franchise into the ground, because he either gives spectacular blowjobs, or has video of owner Jeff Lurie hanging out with Jeffery Epstein and Jerry Sandusky.

In any case, we’ll need some good spokesmen.

START JALEN HURTS

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/02/20
Posted in: Coaching, Front Office (F.O.), NFC East, Offense, Players, Roster, The 12. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

THE 12 focuses on how to use what we already have, to win the division. Rumor has it that QB Jalen Hurts will have competition for the starting role. That’s just plain stupid. Just make the kid the starter, and get to the business of fine tuning the rest of this banged up team. Team meaning players AND coaches.

Announce him as the starter and stick to it. (Unless we can somehow draft QB Trey Lance.)

Head Coach Nick Sirianni doesn’t come in with an established system. He’s developing it with his freshly assembled coaching staff. In the past he’s been a play designer, never a play caller. He says that he develops plays to the strengths of his players. Well right now, Hurts is the only QB on the roster. So who else could they develop the Offense to suit? Quit dicking around and build the guy a system.

Some of the players on this roster have already expressed enthusiasm about working with Hurts. He’s supposed to be spending time with some of the receivers, sometime in the near future. Use that! If players like him and trust him, make that a building block!

The Eagles have shown Hurts that they will cut a starter’s throat, and then sell him for peanuts. As an organization, that may make it hard for them to earn Hurts trust. They need to send the message that he will be supported, not thrown under a bus.

Starting Hurts will go a long way to getting the youth on this team to trust the Front Office, and the coaching staff. While the Wentz era didn’t end the way it should have, that doesn’t mean that the Hurts era should start under a cloud, or with him already bewaring the ides of March.

THE FUTURE HURTS

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/02/19
Posted in: Coaching, Conspiracy Corner, Defense, Front Office (F.O.), Offense, Players, Roster, The 12, trade. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

TRADING QB Carson Wentz officially ends the media drama that has surrounded the team since his benching in Green Bay on December 6th. As of now, all of the focus is on HC Nick Sirianni and QB Jalen Hurts. How do they power the Eagles to win the NFC East and championships? Oh, and how long will we suck?

Don’t lie to yourself about “re-arming” or “re-stocking” or “re-loading”. The Eagles are re-building. The team that told us in February of 2018, that deep runs into the playoffs would be the norm, has been officially tossed onto the scrap heap. Gone is the coach who led us in ultra ballsy fashion. Gone is the upstart triggerman, and the wily gunslinger who stepped in for him.

For God’s sake, please stop talking about that Super Bowl, and the almost MVP season. All the important vestiges of that era have been striped away. 2017 is gone. It is dead. General Manager Howie Roseman clubbed that baby seal to death.

This is 2021, and this rebuild means that for Eagles fans, it may as well be 1999 all over again. In 1999 when Andy Reid first got here, he’d never been an NFL head coach, nor an offensive coordinator. During the interview, Reid blew Eagles owner Jeff Lurie away with how meticulous his plans were for rebuilding Eagles entirely. Lurie hired Reid to resuscitate a team that had just lost 13 games, and a legend was born.

Fast forward to 2021 and playing the part of Andrew Walter Reid, is one Nick Sirianni. (Gemini.) Also never been a head coach. Also never called an NFL game. Lurie however, loves that “he cares”. I’m not kidding. It’s the first thing Lurie mentioned when asked about why he hired Sirianni. So Sirianni is on the hook to be the next Andy Reid and revive this team based on uhhh, him caring? So okay, he cares. Did the other candidates not?

Having stepped barefoot into this warm pile of rebuild, the first thing that comes up, is that the Eagles are reportedly not anointing Hurts the starter. Instead, they intend to bring in competition for him. Or at least that’s the rumor that ESPN is reporting. Until there is a source next to a statement, me representing it as more than a rumor, would be irresponsible.

But trust and believe, we will discuss it in THE 12 tomorrow! 

The second thing that crosses my mind is: Who are we losing? Rebuilds mean blood on the floor. Usually the blood of formerly sacred cows. I’m thinking names like C Jason Kelce, DT Fletcher Cox, DE Brandon Graham, TE Zach Ertz, G Brandon Brooks, and FS Rodney McLeod. Those six players represent a cap figure of 82.3M$. Six guys, 82 mill.

For a team that is projected to be 50M$ over the cap, 82.3M in cuts would clear out a lot of space. Quick, fast, and in a hurry! It would devastate the team, of course. Especially given the combined and individual leadership of the guys on that list. However, if it’s a rebuild, then fans already expect the team to suck. The only question is now: How long will the sucking last?

What a ride.