WK7: VIKINGS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/22
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, Defense, NFL, Offense, Players, Preview, Roster. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

 

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Minnesota Vikings

Sunday 1:00        Lincoln Financial Field        PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania

NEEDS TO STEP UP:

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WR Jordan Matthews: He has to start getting open earlier in his routes, to give QB Carson Wentz somewhere to go with the ball. In the last 3 games, Matthews has caught 3, 4, and 2 passes (respectively). An offense can’t thrive if it’s top WR is averaging less than 1 catch per quarter. Look, at some point Matthews will need a new contract. Games like this is where his play will set the value of his worth in this league. (Time to earn it, young man.)

WE MUST CONTAIN:

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QB Sam Bradford: We average 27.0 points per game, with our lowest output so far being 20 points in a loss last week. If Minnesota is to stand a chance against us, they’ll need to pack their offense. Since they rank dead last in the NFL at running the ball, their offense is basically Sam Bradford. If we stop him, we stop them. Simple and plain.

EAGLES STORY LINE:

We are literally a Ryan Mathews fumble, and a Fletcher Cox roughing penalty, away from this being a battle of two 5-0 teams. On the outside the Vikings look like a tough nut to crack, but the truth is they are a very beatable team. It would be both unfair and unwise, to say or imply that the Vikings didn’t earn all five of their wins. However, it would be equally as foolhardy to let their record scare you into thinking this team is more than it is.

BOTTOM LINE:

Since the preseason we’ve allowed 9, 6, 10, and 3 points at home. The 12th man matters here.

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PREDICTION:

EAGLES 21 – Vikings 13

FOUR THINGS: EAGLES/VIKINGS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/22
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, Defense, Four Things, Offense, Players, Roster, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , . 1 Comment

 

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LET me be honest with you. I’ve been afraid of this game since QB Sam Bradford was traded to Minnesota. Either we’d beat a so-so QB, or we’d lose to trash. Like winning a fight against a girl, there was never going to be an upside to this game for Philadelphia. Then something weird happened. The Vikings went 5-0.

So NOW it’s a big deal if we win, right? RIGHT? Wrong.

Though the Vikings (5-0) are undefeated, they are by no means a complete team. While their defense does get after QB’s, they have yet to be seriously challenged vs the run. Speaking of running the ball, Minnesota can’t. The cop-out answer is that it’s because RB Adrian Peterson is injured. However, prior to being hurt, he’d run for 50 yards on 31 carries. That’s a whopping 1.6 yards per tote. So the issue isn’t his injury.

Just like our win over the Steelers came with lame media excuses on Pittsburgh’s behalf (“Yeah, but there was no LeVeon Bell!” , “Ryan Shazier got hurt during the game!”, “Nooooo! They wasn’t ready!”, etc.), you can bet that a win over the Vikings would include similar lame excuses. For example: “Kyle Rudolph’s new twins won’t let him sleep!”, “The Vikings are a cold weather team.”, “LeVeon Bell didn’t play in this game either!”. Etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam.

We either get to lose this game and get talked about like idiots for “giving away” Sam Bradford; or when we win, it’ll get spun as us beating a team that isn’t as good as their record. Nothing less than utterly dismantling the Vikings will earn the Eagles any form of acknowledgement nationally. This is a pitfall game.

Still though, a win beats a loss.

So let’s talk about the Four Things we need to look for, Week 7 versus the Minnesota Vikings :

1) Use less 12 personnel and more 21. If RT Halapoulivaati Vaitai is going to start, we have to find him effective help. Call me crazy, but I’d like to see us make an attempt at not getting Carson Wentz murdered during his rookie season. (I’m weird that way.) Vaitai is heavy-footed, so he lacks the ability to recover. That’s why last week’s attempt at using an in-line TE to help him, fell flat. Going from 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 TE 2 WR) to 21 personnel (2 RB, 1 TE, 2 WR), would leave a RB blocking to delay a defender, and give Wentz a chance to use his legs to run, or use his eyes and dump off the ball to a close RB. 

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2) Shorten the strong-side read time. This has to be said: A couple of the sacks from last week came from Wentz just holding the ball too damned long. This is our fault because we don’t throw enough short passes along the hash marks to the TE. That kind of pass forces Safeties to declare early whether they’re going outside to help with the WR, or staying in the middle to take away the TE. Using this pass will get our strong-side WR clearer one-on-one match-ups, and help Wentz can get the ball out quicker.

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3) Get QB Sam Bradford running. Bradford is completing 70.4% of his passes, which tells you right away that he’s not airing it out. Take away Captain Checkdown’s short options, and force him to throw on the move. We’ve seen firsthand what it looks like when defenses do that to him.

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“Minnesota is that way!”

4) Don’t fall into the trap, and run the damned ball! The Vikings have the NFL’s 4th best run defense. Sounds impressive until you realize that it’s because they are DEAD LAST in rushing attempts against. They allow 3.7 yards per attempt, but teams just don’t test them much. Given that they aren’t a very big defense on the ends, punishing them with the run is clearly be the best way to de-fang a unit where 4 players have at least 3 sacks apiece. We didn’t do this last week, and we got BUTCHERED for it. Let’s learn a lesson.

Executing quickly is the name of the game this week. If we get the ball from Wentz to other skill players quickly, we’ll own the game. Anything else plays into Minnesota’s hands.

yeah-bitch

FOUR THINGS REVIEWED: REDSKINS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/19
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, Four Things, NFL, Offense, Players, Reviews, Special Teams. Tagged: , , , , , . 1 Comment

DAYS later and the Eagles 20 – 27 loss to the Redskins still feels like a deep scratch that’s less than an hour old. For all the things that went wrong in that game, there were so many things that went right. Even with huge deficiencies, this game was at no point, ever out of reach. On the one hand those seem like things to take comfort in, but at the same time they only seem to highlight just how deep the problems were.

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Carson Wentz manages to protect the ball, despite not being protected himself.

The biggest of these problems was the way our run defense was exposed for a second week in a row. I won’t get into those weakness here, but you’d better believe, that they will feature prominently in my next Four Things article.

While the Lions (two weeks ago) didn’t run for a huge number of yards, their anemic rushing attack managed to get a toe-hold, and exposed some of the very keys that the Redskins exploited on their way to racking up 230 yards on the ground.

But what about the stuff that the stats don’t reveal? That’s the reason for these “Four Things” articles. To have an idea of what needs addressing BEFORE the game, so that we’re forced to honestly answer questions AFTER the game.

So, of the Four Things  we were looking for in this last game, what exactly did we see?

1) We need a plan for covering TE Jordan Reed. This was a “just in case he played” sort of thing. He didn’t play, so there is no fair way to say “not done”. Especially given that Redskin QB Kirk Cousins’ completion percentage (52%) was his lowest of the season, by far. DONE

2) Work the edges. The idea was to force the Redskin OLB’s from pass rushing to coverage by throwing passes to their vacated areas. The prescription was for short passes along the hash marks. However, at no point did the Eagles scheme to fill it. NOT DONE

3) Do NOT punt directly to WR Jamison Crowder. I hate when technically something is done, but it’s swapped out for something equally as bad. While we didn’t punt directly to Crowder, the punts hung up there long enough for him to get under them, which in many ways is the same thing. Next time I will specify “line drive punts that go out of bounds”. DONE

4) Protect the rookie. This was emphatically not done. The Eagles coaching staff didn’t even try. They just rookie RT Halapoulivaati Vaitai, spend the day getting his ass handed to him by anyone who lined up across from him. It’s a miracle that QB Carson Wentz wasn’t seriously injured. NOT DONE

This week has a score of 2 of 4 which represents the toss-up that this game felt like. The problem was we did the smaller things, but didn’t address the big things. Deservedly, we lost this game. For this next game we get a 5-0 Vikings team, led by former Eagle QB Sam Bradford.

Though there was no indication that the Vikings would be any good behind Bradford, I’ve been afraid of this game since the trade. The media will use this next game to serve as a verdict on the question of whether we were right to move on from Bradford. Depending on how it shakes out, we may never hear the end of it from The NFL Network, ESPN, and Comcast Sportsnet this season. Fingers crossed!

WK6: REDSKINS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/16
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Offense, Players, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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EAGLES 20 – Redskins 27

LET me start with this. There were a number of VERY correctable problems out there today. These last two losses are no reason to get down on this team. Our 3 – 0 start was more than most of you expected, so don’t go acting like you’re somehow being let down now.

Rookie RT Halapoulivaati Vaitai didn’t allow a single inch of the 230 rushing yards that the Redskins ran up today. He was however, beaten like a drum by pretty much anyone who lined up against him today. The worst part was in the second quarter, when that eight year old Redskins fan gave Vaitai a hard fake outside, and beat him for a sack with a spin move back to the inside. Alright, alright that didn’t happen, but given how Vaitai played, it’s really easy to picture it, isn’t it?

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If Vaitai isn’t replaced with Allen Barbre SOON, it may result in our rookie QB finishing the year playing ‘Go Fish’ with Teddy Bridgewater.

QB Carson Wentz (11/22 – 50% – 179 – 0 – 0) truly impressed me today. Not only did he keep fighting until the end, but he never melted down over his shitty protection, though he was sacked 5 times and hit 10 more. Given the Redskins porous run defense, you have to wonder why Head Coach Doug Pederson didn’t lean heavier on the run game and specifically RB Ryan Mathews (9 – 60 – 6.6 – 0 – 0). His 9 carries represented fewer than half the Eagles total of only 19.

I’d love to discuss the Defense, but it seems we forgot to bring one with us this week. The 230 rushing yards we gave up… Three words: “Gap integrity” and “contain”. No one on our team seems to know what these are. (Containment has been a concern I’ve been writing about since the preseason.)

Did you notice?

To hell with that today. This week we have a TRIVIA QUESTION! 

Question: Who was the last Eagle to rush for 100 yards in a single game?

Answer: DeMarco Murray. 112 yards, in a 27 – 7 Week 6 win over the giants on October 19, 2015.

So it’s been a full season since we had a 100 yard rusher. By the next time we play, it will have been a full calendar year.

WK6: REDSKINS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/15
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, NFL, Offense, Players, Preview, Roster. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

 

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Washington Redskins

Sunday 1:00        FedEx Field        Landover, MD

NEEDS TO STEP UP:

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TE Zach Ertz: Usually Ertz is more of a bigger, slower WR than a true TE. However, with the Eagles forced to start rookie RT Halapoulivaati Vaitai in place of suspended Lane Johnson, it would be wise to give the rookie help from an in-line TE. That means either Ertz has to step up his game, or TE Brent Celek should start. Otherwise QB Carson Wentz could wind up paying the price.

WE MUST CONTAIN:

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WR DeSean Jackson: Honestly, Jackson is the only player on the Redskins entire roster who scares me at all, and in truth he doesn’t scare me much. While he’s only had one game in his career where he caught two touchdowns in a game (2013), what he brings to the table (besides blazing speed) is an ability to make a play that swings momentum in games. (See above.) That, even more than Jordan Reed (if he’s cleared to play), is what needs to be contained on Sunday.

EAGLES STORY LINE:

In recent history the Redskins have had our number, having beaten us in our last three match-ups. While those games have been close, they’ve still been losses. A win this week won’t mean as much to the national media as our win over the Steelers, but it would be far more significant in terms of getting the monkey off our back and shifting the de facto balance of power in the division. With any luck, DE Fletcher Cox‘s ankle will be healthy enough to play in this game. We’ll need him.

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BOTTOM LINE:

No moral victories this week. We need this game.

PREDICTION:

EAGLES 27 – Redskins 24

FOUR THINGS: EAGLES/REDSKINS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/13
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Four Things, NFL, Offense, Players, Preview, Special Teams. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

 

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Admit it. REAL hate makes football so much better. 

FINALLY! At last we have a game against a division rival. I don’t know about you, but every week since the preseason started, I’ve had to manufacture every ounce of disdain, and hostility I’ve expressed for each opponent we’ve faced. TWICE I had to invent reasons to badmouth the Steelers (a franchise that I actually have a great deal of respect for).

No need to manufacture fake disdain this week. I’m sitting on tons of good ol’ fashioned, homegrown, organic hate. And it feels lovely. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get geeked up for the Lions? The Lions? But this… Twice a year rival. Playoff implications. Old grudges and bad blood… So I’m sure you understand why I can’t stop smiling this week, despite the loss we suffered last week.

So let’s talk about the Four Things we need to look for, Week 6 versus Washington:

1) We need a plan for covering TE Jordan Reed. (NOTE: Reed experienced concussion symptoms this week during practice, and as of now there is no word on whether or not he will suit up Sunday. If he does play, we need to be ready.) I’m not sure that we have a LB with the skillset to go step for step with Reed. Having to keep Safeties back deep to help with WR DeSean Jackson, means that bracketing Jordan with OLB Nigel Bradham and SS Malcom Jenkins is out of the question. Alternating coverage concepts underneath will help get the job done, but only if we get enough heat on QB Kirk Cousins to keep him from making reads in time.

2) Work the edges. Like we did with the Steelers who also run a 3-4 defense, we need to force the ‘skins OLB’s into coverage. Their two best pass rushers (Ryan Kerrigan, Trent Murphy) are OLB’s who don’t excel at playing in reverse. Against the Steelers we needed to pull the OLB’s out. That favored using RB’s. For the ‘skins we need to push the OLB’s back. That means short passes along the hash marks to WR Jordan Matthews and TE Zach Ertz.

3) Do NOT punt directly to WR Jamison Crowder. Even without his 85 yard return for a touchdown, he’d still average 18.5 yards a crack and has 5 returns (out of 7) of 20 or more yards. By the way, he’s only fair caught 2, so he’s looking to scoot if he gets his mitts on the pig. So don’t give him the chance.

4) Protect the rookie. Rookie Halapoulivaati Vaitai, will be starting at RT after not suiting up for any of the previous games this year. His belly will be LOADED with butterflies. Settle him down by letting him mash on the guy across from him, early on. On passing downs help him out with TE chip blocks. The game will be faster than he’s ready for at this point. Hanging him out to dry could damage his confidence and stunt his development. (Remember the game against the giants where LT Winston Justice was stuck against Michael Strahan with no help and victimized for a million and half sacks? Let’s not do that again.)

The ‘skins will be our toughest test so far. Yes, even tougher than the Steelers. The ‘skins are built to compete against the rosters in their division and will be playing in their house, in front of their crowd, for actual stakes. Winning this game would be a clear indication that the balance of power has indeed shifted in the NFC East and establish the Eagles as the team to beat.

Let’s hear what’s on YOUR mind football fans. Scroll down and leave a COMMENT. What do you think of this upcoming game?

yeah-bitch

FOUR THINGS REVIEWED: LIONS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/12
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Four Things, NFL, Offense, Players, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

WELL, the Eagles came out flat and looked almost listless at times. Going into this last game I worried that the Eagles might be looking past Detroit, and already looking to the coming division match-up vs. Washington. To be honest, I was worried about that, because I myself was already doing that very thing. It would seem that it came back to bite us in the ass.

It would be nice if this loss could serve as a lesson, but these sorts of losses seldom teach anything, because they rarely come with a demotion. No Eagle player looked like a man with anything to prove out there, and how could they? On a team that uses a Little League “everybody plays” approach, does anyone actually have to prove anything? How do you demote anyone when everyone gets minutes regardless?

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Like the Postal Service, the Eagles DID NOT deliver on Sunday.

 

Amid our player’s apparent lack of interest or motivation, the Eagles found a way to lose 23-24 to the Lions. Hard to believe that you can lose a game in which you do everything wrong, for the first half of it. Wait. That’s not what’s hard to believe. The part that’s hard to believe, is that we only lost by a single point. In all fairness we deserved to get blown out.

Our Defense only allowed Detroit 164 (net) passing yards and 80 yards on the ground for a total of 244 yards. That’s not a bad days work. On paper. Offensively we put up 230 (net) passing yards and 116 rushing for a total of 346 total yards. Not stellar, but definitely solid. Statistically this game seems like it should have been ours. Right?

But what about the stuff that the stats don’t reveal? That’s the reason for these “Four Things” articles. To have an idea of what needs addressing BEFORE the game, so that we’re forced to honestly answer questions AFTER the game.

So, of the Four Things we were looking for in this last game, what exactly did we see?

1) Use four man rushes and take away RB Theo Riddick. Riddick caught 6 passes for 2 touchdowns. That does NOT count as taking a man away. NOT DONE

2) Run the ball right at DE Kerry Hyder. While the ball was run with some frequency, most of the time it seemed we were running to our left instead of to our right which is where Hyder generally lined up. He only had one tackle on the day, but it seemed as if we were ceding an entire side of the field in the process of canceling him out. NOT DONE

3) Go big and throw jump balls. At no point did we even attempt to attack this obvious disadvantage. NOT DONE

4) Get RB Ryan Mathews 12 carries by half-time. Mathews had 11 total carries for the entire game. NOT DONE

 

This week we did 0 out 4 things we needed to do. Surprisingly, (here’s my shocked face) we fell behind early, and struggled in a game that we ultimately lost.

In any case, the Eagles will look to get back into the win column next week when we play our first division game of the year vs the Washington Foreskins Redskins.

WK5: LIONS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/10
Posted in: Defense, NFL, Offense, Players, Reviews. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

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EAGLES 23 – LIONS 24

WELL we saw a few firsts out there this week, didn’t we? Our first loss of the year, first turnover, our rookie QB’s first interception. First almost comeback… The Eagles battled back from a first half 10-21 deficit, to take a 23 – 21 lead, before the win SLIPPED OUT OF RY- (deep breath) Woosahhh, (deep breath) Woosahhhhhhh…Slipped out of OUR hands.

QB Carson Wentz (25/33 – 75.7% – 238 – 2 – 1) yet again made very good use of short passes, primarily to non-WR targets. (Hard to hide my sarcasm there…) RB Ryan Mathews (11 – 42 – 3.8 – 0 – 1 / 5 – 33 – 6.6 – 1) led the Eagles with five receptions and was having an effective day until his 4th quarter fumble allowed the Lions to score the go-ahead field goal.

Defensively there were enough adjustments made at the half to make this seem like almost two different games. Everything that didn’t seem to be working in the first half seem to come on-line in the 3rd quarter. However there just wasn’t enough Offense to meet and sustain that effort.

Oh well, onto Week 6 and our first division game of the year.

Did you notice?

The only skill player on either team to reach 50 yards in either rushing or receiving (not combined), was WR Jordan Matthews (4 – 65 – 16.2 – 0).

WK5: LIONS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/08
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Offense, Players, Preview. Tagged: , , , , , . 2 Comments

 

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Detroit Lions

Sunday 1:00        Ford Field        Detroit MI

NEEDS TO STEP UP:

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OLB Mychal Kendricks: Though RB Theo Riddick isn’t the guy we need to key on, he’s a big part of the Lions passing game. OLB Nigel Bradham will likely be fine corralling Riddick on his side, but so far this season Kendricks hasn’t done a great job in coverage. More snaps in practice, and fewer on Instagram might keep him from getting embarrassed on Sunday.

WE MUST CONTAIN:

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WR Marvin Jones: Consider for a moment that for a receiver to be dangerous, the snap, dropback, and protection has to be good; and then the QB has to select that receiver, (who has to be open), and then the ball has to be delivered at least half decent. So it seems weird every time I say that the key guy to stop is a WR. However, that’s the case here. This team can’t run the ball, and no one (aside from Jones) coming into this game Sunday, averages 10 yards per catch. If we take away Jones, we remove the Lions teeth.

EAGLES STORY LINE:

At 3-0 we hold a razor thin edge in the division over Dallas (3-1), but we can move comfortably ahead of them with a win over the Lions this week. The hope here is that the team isn’t looking past Detroit, at our first division match-up next week vs Washington (2-2). This game has to be the focus. Losing fluff games like this one, generally comes back to haunt a team when it’s time to jostle for playoff home games.

BOTTOM LINE:

This is a must-win game now, so that we don’t have to “make it up” later in the season.

PREDICTION:

EAGLES 28 – Lions 20

FOUR THINGS: EAGLES/LIONS

Posted by The BEAST on 2016/10/07
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Four Things, NFL, Offense, Players. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 1 Comment
player-leseanmccoy

‘member the Snow bowl?   Ooooooo, I ‘member the Snow Bowl!

SERIOUSLY, if it weren’t for the fact that we’re coming off our Bye, I’d call this a trap game. You have a hapless 1-3 Lions team, being fed to a 3-0 meat-grinder, disguised as your Philadelphia Eagles. This chance to pull clearly ahead in the division, will be enough motivation to keep our players dialed in. Regardless of how weak this week’s opponent is. 

Since the Lions top RB was lost for the year, their dogged attempt to turn their scatback into their feature back, has kept them from being able to run the ball. Hopefully they’ll give him another shot this week. Sadly, I can’t be sure if their defensive players are paid by the Lions or by their opponents. Needless to say, by all indications this game should be a bloodbath. 

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So let’s talk about the Four Things we need to look for, Week 1 versus the Detroit Lions:

1) Use four man rushes and take away RB Theo Riddick. The guy isn’t any good at running the ball, but he’s 2nd on their team in receptions. So put a LB on him or QB Matt Stafford will already be looking for him. Since no active Lion (their starting TE is out this week), besides WR Marvin Jones averages more than 8.0 yards per catch, taking away Riddick should seriously stall their offense.

2) Run the ball right at DE Kerry Hyder. He has 5 sacks so far this season. The best way to make sure he’s not a problem for us, is to tire him out by beating on him directly.

3) Go big and throw jump balls. If we started WR’s Jordan Matthews and Dorial Green-Beckham on the outsides, and then targeted 5’9” CB Nevin Lawson with a ton of jump balls, it would be seriously unfair wouldn’t it? It would. So yeah…let’s do that.

4) Get RB Ryan Mathews 12 carries by half-time. Due to injuries, the Lions are still trying to figure some stuff out. The more clock we eat, the fewer downs they have to do that. It’ll also go a long way to keeping QB Carson Wentz‘s jersey clean and give returning TE Zach Ertz more room to roam.

If we do what we’re supposed to, this one should get ugly fast. Raise your hand if you think the Eagles Defense scores their first touchdown of the season in this game. (In my mind I see LB Nigel Bradham picking off a pass to Riddick and taking it back 35 or so yards to paydirt.) The only way Detroit stays in this game is if we help them to do so.

Let’s not help them.

yeah-bitch