*Official* Philadelphia E-A-G-L-E-S Thread (2007-2008)

[hoyasnaxa]

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I'm a pretty big Donovan supporter, but I'll be very upset if he starts next week. AJ earned another start, period.

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WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Thats a good sign, if even you are convinced, then hopefully that means McNabbs time in Philly is ending soon.

[PokerFink]

Jim Johnson seems to be getting a lot of credit in the articles about the game. Am I the only one who thought the Eagles' defensive gameplan was nothing special?

They gave up 24 points and 410 yards. It would have been a lot worse, except the Pats basically lost two drives to the pick-six and the onsides kick. When they did have the ball, the Pats pretty much moved at will.

Johnson made no adjustments to cover Welker over the middle - he absolutely torched us on the same [censored] over and over again with Joselio playing 8 yards off and an outside technique. Hello - you have the best slot reciever in the game who loves to run slants and crossing patterns - why are you playing outside technique? Like Gathier is going to help you on the inside?

I mean, they gave a good effort and had some creative stuff going on, but the end result wasn't much of anything. The Pats scored "only" 31 because the Eagles had a lot of success on offense and kept them off the field to some degree.

Here's their drive log:

1) 10 plays, 78 yards, TD.
2) 11 plays, 75 yards, FG.
3) 9 plays, 54 yards, TD.
4) 3 plays, -16 yards, Punt. (1 stop)
5) 15 plays, 75 yards, Missed FG.
6) 10 plays, 34 yards, Downs. (2 stops)
7) 10 plays, 69 yards, TD.
8) 6 plays, 23 yards, Punt with game basically over.

So 7 real drives that resulted in 5 scores and two stops. Then they stopped them at the end, but not before they got a first down that essentially ended the game. That's a good defensive performance?

Better than Buffalo, sure, but not good.

[hoyasnaxa]

Yea, but the pats offense didnt look like they had in previous games. Brady was definitely confused at times, made some bad throws, and the eagles were able to get some pressure on him. I really like the 3 man rush, but I agree they did not compensate at all for Welker. With sheppard handling moss pretty well and Moss looking pissed off and dropping that one deep ball to him, I would have let them go to Moss rather than let them throw easy passes to welker over and over. They did some things well, but I agree it didnt seem like they adjusted well or did anything particularly noteworthy.

[Triumph36]

PF,

I thought the Eagles played 'bend but break a lot of the time anyway' defense. I don't know that they have the personnel to really play anything better than that against the Patriots. Seems like they were willing to take their chances with Welker instead of Moss - and as hoyasaxa or wtf his name is (there's like 3 guys with the same name on here) notes, the Eagles weren't playing the doormat defense perfected by Buffalo and others. Remember this team put up a bunch of points on Dallas on the road - they're pretty good, imo.

What upsets me is that the Eagles put together a really terrific game plan to beat the Patriots and couldn't do it - I know the Giants will [censored] it up with punts on 4th and 1 at the 50 and bad field goal attempts and deep kickoffs and I'm already tilted just thinking about it.

[StevieG]

PokerFink,

You are being way too harsh. That NE offense has been blowing most teams away, and the defense did enough to keep the Eagles in the game.

20 incompletions by Brady, most this year.

3 sacks of Brady, most this year.

1 TD pass by Brady, least this year.

Gaither did a decent job in coverage, including batting a couple away.

[.Alex.]

PF,

I think the scoreboard doesn't tell the whole story. We were able to get more pressure on Brady than basically anyone else and certainly a lot more than we've been getting in previous weeks. We put them in a lot of third and long situations, but they converted most of them anyway because they are who they are. With a couple of more bounces, we could have stopped them a few more times, which is all you really can ask for against the best team ever.

Hoyas,

I can't believe you're actually unhappy and critical about that peformance. Sure I'm a little disappointed that we couldn't pull it out, but I was very impressed with the creativity and aggressiveness and I realize that if we can play like this against everyone else, we are legitimate contenders. Aside from the one poor decision at the end, what can you possibly be complaining about? This game is another argument for the idea that Reid is an excellent game planner and motivator but is poor at in-game adjustments and management, which is something we should be willing to live with imo. As I said a few weeks ago, this team can be very good with a solid quarterback, and I will be extremely pissed if Feeley is not the starter next week.

[hoyasnaxa]

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Hoyas,

I can't believe you're actually unhappy and critical about that peformance. Sure I'm a little disappointed that we couldn't pull it out, but I was very impressed with the creativity and aggressiveness and I realize that if we can play like this against everyone else, we are legitimate contenders. Aside from the one poor decision at the end, what can you possibly be complaining about? This game is another argument for the idea that Reid is an excellent game planner and motivator but is poor at in-game adjustments and management, which is something we should be willing to live with imo. As I said a few weeks ago, this team can be very good with a solid quarterback, and I will be extremely pissed if Feeley is not the starter next week.

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The only thing I was critical about was not adjusting at all to Welker in the 2nd half, and the playcall when Feeley threw his 2nd pick. The playcall decision was unbelievably awful I dont care what anyone says, and it was just typical andy reid putting the team in a terrible position to blow the game when the eagles had finally gotten to the point of being in control.

Also, an AJ Feeley led, JR Reed starting at safety (and playing well) eagles squad almost beat one of the best teams ever. This makes all the other losses seem pretty damn bad, and they gameplan this well against the Pats, and so unbelievably badly against other teams. Im not really upset with the eagles, but it just sucks so bad that they almost beat the pats who I hate more than any team in the history of sport. A lot of good things happened, most importantly McNabb looks even worse after this game and he better not start for a couple games. But they lost, and could have won, and I was sad cuz I despise the pats.

[PokerFink]

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Gaither did a decent job in coverage, including batting a couple away.

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I thought Gaither did an excellent job, but he was mostly either blitzing or in deep middle coverage. He wasn't helping cover Welker in the short middle.

(Not saying it's his fault, he was doing his job. The point is that it was stupid to have Hanson playing outside technique, giving Welker the short middle.

[CieloAzor]

Stopping the Pats 3 times and holding them to FG attempts twice more is pretty f'ing good. There was also that drive where the Pats were forced to punt, but we gave it back to them with a neutral zone infraction. That was the same drive where they turned it over on downs, so we stopped them twice in one drive.

Our defense also looked good because the Pats had a lot of unsuccessful plays and were forced to convert a lot of 3rd downs. They never really hit the big plays on us, but unfortunately, with as many plays as they ran, they never turned it over and we gave up too many 3rd down conversions.

If Feeley doesn't spot the Pats D 7 points at the start, Eagles probably win. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]