Bye week

All posts tagged Bye week

EAGLES 2023 SCHEDULE REPORT

Posted by The BEAST on 2023/05/14
Posted in: Conversations, Four Things, NFC East, NFL, report, Rivals, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment
Our opponents marking the game against us.

THANK you Schedule Makers! According to our opponent 2022 win percentage of .566 (which is the tool used to make this measurement every year), the Eagles 2023 schedule is the toughest in the NFL this year. That means, no one can claim that our winning the East again this year, was an easy road.

I want to thank the Schedule Makers for such a tough road. No sarcasm, I’m being serious. The NFC East hasn’t had a repeat winner since we last did it in 2003 and 2004. To do it vs the NFL’s toughest schedule, builds validation even from rivals, directly into every “W” that we earn.

I want that.

Now lets discuss Our 2023 Schedule itself. As with any year, there are things I love about the schedule, and things I hate about it. Let’s start with the good news.

Our Bye hits on Week 10. It’s after nine games played, leaving eight on the schedule’s back-end. It’s also right after our first meeting with the Cowboys, which will be a home game. No post-game travel means, one less plane ride for any of our guys leaving Philadelphia during the Bye.

Speaking of planes, our players won’t have to get on one from Weeks 6 – 10, or Weeks 16 – 18. That’s no jet lag, and we’re either playing home games, or in places (NY and DC) where our fans already have very healthy representation. In fact, we finish the season practically on a three game home-stand.

I also happen to love that our division games have quick turnarounds for each second match-up. We play Washington in Week Four, and again four weeks later. Then a Dallas game, with a re-match four weeks later. At season’s end, both giants games have just one game between them. Sweeps, splits… We’ll know pretty quickly where we stand vs each team.

The bad news?

Kansas City has the same Bye Week that we do. So we get Andy Reid after a bye. Andy is damned near invincible with an extra week of prep time. (He’s practically Batman.) Then on a short week, after the KC game, we get Buffalo (but at least it’s a home game.) And then the Forty Whiners come to town. (Probably with 6 QB’s and JUGS machine wearing a jersey.)

I’m also personally not a fan of us playing just three 1:00 games. First, the Eagles have traditionally played well in that slot. Second, I have a whole routine based around early games. The earlier we play, the easier it is for me to get the Four Things Reviewed articles out, on time on Mondays. Those articles can take two to six hours to complete, depending on other games that impact us.

This is partly why I’m irritated with us having at least FIVE prime time games this year. I say at least, because that last giants game is “To Be Determined”. For Sunday night games, I can’t even start my articles until around midnight, while still having to be at work on Monday morning. So night games don’t exactly thrill me.

Thankfully we only have one Thursday Night game, and it’s a four day turnaround not just for us, but Minnesota as well. However for us, it’s a home game. The Vikes have to get in a short week of practice, then get on a plane, while also losing an hour.

On the whole, I’m happy with how the schedule works out for the Eagles. It’s an undeniably tough road, with validation built in. However, due to our geographical location and the way the division is laid out, travel fatigue should be about as light on us, as any team in the league.

THE EAGLES 2021 SCHEDULE

Posted by The BEAST on 2021/05/13
Posted in: Conversations, Crazy Talk, NFL, Preview, Rants, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!??? What the fuck is a Week 14 Bye?! We play FIVE, count ‘em FIVE, games in October, three of which are road games.

Here’s our October:

We start with a home game vs the Chiefs, probably getting kicked in the nuts before we head down to Carolina, in what should be a coin flip. Then on a short week, we get Tampa Bay. We follow that with a plane to Vegas, then back home to practice, then a plane to Detroit. All in a span of 28 days.

Unless we can make some hay in November, we might be already circling the drain by the time our Bye Week gets here.

What the fuck is a Week 14 Bye?! Will someone tell me that!?! Who the fuck does that to someone? “Easiest schedule” my wide, hairy ass! I hope the NFL schedule makers get uncontrollable diarrhea in a traffic jam.

The worst part is, that not knowing this coaching staff, it’s impossible to look at the schedule and forecast any W’s. At least with real confidence. It was already an uncertain year, but this schedule feels like someone handed a drowning man an anchor.

DEAR SCHEDULING GODS…

Posted by The BEAST on 2020/02/05
Posted in: Conversations, NFL, Preview, Super Bowl, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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EARLY Bye weeks kill Super Bowl chances. Thus, I am standing in the rain, bare-chested, appealing to the schedule gods to hear this mortal’s plea: O’ YE GODS OF SCHEDULING THINGS! Hear my plea, and give the 2020 Eagles a Bye Week during the Sweet Spot!

The Sweet Spot is that period between Week 8 and Week 12. Of the last 10 Super Bowl champions, 8 have had their Bye in week 8 or later. Even the two outliers had week 7 Byes, and each faced a SB opponent who also had an early Bye.

It’s that mid to late season breather around the holidays, which helps teams rest, and get a little healthier. The static week also allows the coaching staff to assess where the team is, and how to get the most out of it, specifically vs their remaining regular season opponents.

My wet dream is a Week 11 Bye. Ten games down with an 8 – 2 record. A guarantee of no worse than .500, but just enough losses to keep the team from dipping into arrogance, or complacency. Six games to go, chasing homefield advantage,

Then parade.

None of the Week 4 nonsense that we were served up in 2016. Bleh!

I’m hoping for another parade to come up Broad Street. History says that for that to happen, we need a Bye in the Sweet Spot. So I’m putting it out into The Universe. I’m asking for it. I’m steering it towards us. Thus, I am standing in the rain, bare-chested, appealing to the schedule gods.

FIXING EAGLES GAMES

Posted by The BEAST on 2018/10/31
Posted in: Coaching, Offense, Players, Rants, Uncategorized, X's and O's. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

 

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THERE are things that this team needs to fix. With that in mind, the Eagles needed this Bye Week now, and not a week later. Injuries at Wide Receiver, Offensive Tackle, the Defensive Line, and in the Secondary, have left the coaching staff scrambling every week, to put out solid units. As a result, almost no aspect of this team is running at capacity.

In the spirit of fixing things, popular fan refrains have been “Trade for X” or “Fire Y”. However, the plain truth is that we need to tweak (not wholesale change, just tweak) a few things, to start getting the most out of our players.

While we generally have had the depth-on-hand to plug a player in here and there, there is a difference between a back-up being ready to play this game, and a back-up being ready to play his game. Our Bye allows the coaching staff to step back, and re-imagine what the rest of 2018 needs to look like, for us to make it back to the post-season.

One of the first things killing us, is not running the ball effectively. Some fans and media types people put it on our RB’s. Folks like me have been blaming the Offensive Line. Turns out both of those camps are wrong. It’s the coaches. It’s our alignments. Those are the reasons why we can’t run the ball.

Look at these game shots:

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The disclaimer on this is, I had to cull these shots from highlight videos. (I chose the Panthers game.) Since our running game sucks, the rushing highlights were, well… Yeah these are all passing plays, but they’re still our typical alignments. 

You may recognize that these alignments with the WR’s tight to the O-line, are typical of our Offense this year. We did some of this last year, but this year it seems to be our Default Setting. Go back and look at each picture, and you’ll see 8 and 9 man boxes. A couple of them “loose” boxes. Again those pictures are all from pass plays, but we run the ball out of these same alignments.

This has been great for play-action, but it means zero room inside, on actual hand-offs. That was fine when we had bruising inside runners, to mask the Offenses true intent, but without a physical runner to help, all our smoke and mirrors are easy to see through. While our Offense puts up 22 points per game (21st in the league, 11th worst), the inability to run, has kept us from being explosive.

The simple fix is to spread our formation during the early part of the game when we want to establish the run, then later on when we need to sit on our lead, and close the game out. Rotate the slot receiver and put him in motion to move that 8th man out of the box. When room opens up inside for the ball carrier to find a crack, hit it, and step on the gas.

At that point we could get around to doing #7 from The 12. The Defense could rest during games, and we could seriously talk about running the table for the remainder of the year. Oh yeah. I said run the table. And YES, I’m aware that the Rams and Saints are two of our dance partners.

THE 2018 SCHEDULE

Posted by The BEAST on 2018/04/20
Posted in: Conversations, Reviews, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

 

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YOU can’t tell, but right now, I’m dancing in my chair. For the second year in a row, the schedule makers have smiled upon Philadelphia, and given the Eagles a pretty good schedule. It’s not a great schedule, but it’s a pretty good one. It’s also a tough one.

While a good schedule doesn’t mean a team will win their division, a bad one can easily act as an obstacle, or magnify the effect of existing obstacles like opponents, and injuries.

This year’s schedule includes a Week 9 Bye. Not too shabby. That’s a week off, smack-dab in the literal middle of the 17 week season. Eight games on, one week off, then eight games on. While I’m glad it’s not an early Bye (meaning anything earlier than Week 6), it would be better if it it fell on Week 10, 11 or 12. But Week 9 will do.

It’s a good schedule, but we do get plucked in the eye a few times. It’s a tough run, but there are only two points where we have short turnarounds of less than 7 days:

  • Week 6 at the giants, after facing Minnesota 4 days earlier. However, that’s not so bad considering that the giants are also on a 4 day turnaround, after visiting the Panthers. So both of our teams will be about as tired as the other. Sauce for the goose.
  • Week 14 at Dallas, after we duke it out with Washington 6 days earlier. A double stack of division games! Yummy! And we get to go on the road to Dallas! After they’ve had 10 days of rest. (Me no likey, the this one here.) Sometimes the placement of a game can make it hard to win it. This is one of those.

Then, after two weeks of war and emotional exhaustion vs Washington, and Dallas, we get to play the Rams in their home, on Week 15. This three week stretch could be the most dangerous part of the year.

In fact, the entire second half of the season is loaded with land mines. Five division games, and meetings with both the Saints and the Rams. All of which is fine, because a champion should be served a challenge.

It’s a tough schedule, but it’s a good one.

THE RIVALS (Pt 2 of 3)

Posted by The BEAST on 2017/11/10
Posted in: Conversations, Defense, Fans, Four Things, NFL, Offense, Players, Rivals, Roster, stats. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

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WITH the Eagles away on Bye Week, There will be no Four Things this week. Needing something to write about until next week, it was time to do another review of our division rivals. I said I’d do three. You remember the first one, and the final one will hit right after the regular season. This one here, this is the middle child.

So everyone wave hello to Jan, and lets dive in.

(That seemed weird.) 

New York Giants: 1 – 7, 4th in the NFC East

The giants are ranked 29th in scoring (16.1ppg), and 29th in points allowed (25.9). They rank near the bottom of nearly every meaningful team statistic. In the last two games they’ve been outs scored 75 – 24, with one of those being a 51 – 17 loss to the Rams. Added note: Both of these games were at home.

Offensively, they still can’t run the ball. Considering the depletion of the receiving corps, the injury to C Weston Richburg, and the ineptitude of head coach Ben McAdoo, QB Eli Manning is practically performing miracles anytime that offense produces a point.

Defensively, the team has suspended CB’s Janoris Jenkins (Week 9), and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (Week 6), as well as benching CB Eli Apple (Week 5), all for “conduct detrimental to the team”. If this were a great defensive team with great depth, this wouldn’t be an issue. The giant’s however, are anything but a great defensive team. They need all the help they can get. So why the coaching staff would try to discipline players at the expense of embarrassing the franchise in it’s own home, is beyond me.

There are clear indications of a dysfunctional coaching staff, locker room, and front office culture.

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McAdoo’s throwing of players under the bus reached peak ridiculousness, when he (I guess) threatened(?) to bench Manning, after his team allowed 51 points in a game where Manning was hardly the problem. From here (and pretty much anywhere else), it looks as if the team has quit on the coach. That leaves the giants ownership with a question: Is Ben McAdoo worth replacing 53 guys?

Washington Redskins: 4 – 4, 3rd in the NFC East

Ranking 14th in scoring (22.1) is a solid, healthy position to hold. However, ranking 24th in points allowed (24.2), could be a problem. While that stat line would give the impression that Washington loses close games, the fact is they’ve won both of their close games (26 – 24 vs San Fran, and 17 – 14 vs Seattle). It’s all the games where they get man-handled that’s the real issue.

Offensively, it would appear that their plan of having a QB throw to a QB, isn’t working out as well as they thought it would. Thus, “WR” Terrell Pryor is now riding pine on Sundays (while probably wishing he’d stayed in Cleveland.) Thanks to RB Chris Thompson, the teams leader in rushing and receiving yards, QB Kirk Cousins doesn’t spend 30 minutes per game crying while curled in the fetal position, and wishing he was in Cleveland.

On defense, given that twice this year we hung 30 on Washington, I’m surprised by their ability to hold teams like the Rams and Seahawks, to ten points under their averages. Ranking-wise, they’re bottom third in points allowed, but middle of the road in yards allowed. There are no huge visible leaks, but there is clearly something that is holding this team back.

When a team starts the year 0-3 vs their division, you have to think that maybe a Wild Card appearance wouldn’t work in favor of the coming rebuild. Yes, I said rebuild. The Redskins are in a dangerous place. It’s a team that could possibly delude itself into thinking it’s a player or two away, when in fact it needs major renovation. Long-term, the last thing this team needs is to find itself in the playoffs via Wild Card. That could set them back for years. So of course I’ll be rooting for them to make it!

Dallas Cowboys: 5 – 3, 2nd in NFC East

The Cowboys are 4th in scoring (28.2), and 15th in points allowed (22.2). Prior to their Week 6 Bye, they were allowing 26.4 per game. Since the bye that number is just 15.3, which is dramatic drop. Speaking of trends over that period, their scoring has been on a decline from 40 points vs San Francsico, to 33 points vs Washington, to 28 vs Kansas City.

On offense, RB Ezekiel Elliott was suspended for 6

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yes, 6 games, but that doesn’t mean the Cowboys won’t still be able to move the ball. QB Dak Prescott is the undisputed, second-best QB in the division, and he helms the 17th ranked passing offense in the league. Then again, who needs to be #1 in passing, when you have RB Ezeki- wait. (Sorry about that.) The fact is, that the Cowboys have the NFL’s #2 rushing attack due to their outstanding (but still overrated) offensive line, and RB Eze—oh crap. (Did it again.) Well there’s RB Alfred Morris, right? And he’s… I mean, he’ll get like… Yeah, so there’s him. They got him. Also that other guy. The one who’s been a healthy scratch every week so far. They got those guys, right? Hey remember WR Dez Bryant? I wonder what he’s doing these days.

On defense, Dallas has not allowed an opponent to reach 20 points since they came off their Bye. In a two week span they grabbed 9 sacks. They got five sacks against the (0-9) 49ers, and four sacks against the Redskins, who were only missing 60% of their starting offensive line,(LT Trent Williams, LG Brandon Scherff, and C Spencer Long). To be fair, they did hold Kansas City to just 17 and beat them in the process.

They loaded up the box, to take the run game away from a Chiefs team carried by it’s young RB. In the end, a game managing QB and an All-Pro TE weren’t enough to make up for a suspect group of WR’s. The team figures that averaging 28 points per game, will hide the fact that their leaky defense allows opponents to score 20+ per game. In the end, that shoddy style caught up with them.

(For any Cowboys fans who missed what I just did there, that was me holding up a mirror. We know how to beat you. It’s the same way you beat the Chiefs, and the same way we beat the hell out of the Broncos.)

So, that’s the state of our division rivals, as the Eagles head into our Week 10 Bye. The next time I do one of these will be at the close of the season. With a little bit of luck, we’ll be on a first round Bye, getting ready to hold home-field advantage through the Conference Championship. Don’t assume it, but put the vibe out there. Don’t make it a wish, make it an invitation. We are inviting the playoffs to Philadelphia.