Eagles Blog

Stat of the Day. RT @RLiuNFL: The @Eagles have scored 74 2nd half points. That’s more than 21 @NFL teams have scored all season

— Rich Eisen (@richeisen) September 23, 2014

I’m not a huge fan of these, but it can be interesting to see how your team is viewed by the general media.

PFT’s rankings have the Eagles at #4.

Yahoo has the Eagles at #5.

The top 3 teams are Seattle, Cincy and Denver. Yahoo also has the Pats ahead of the Eagles. I don’t get that at all. The Pats writers I follow on Twitter seem to think the team has some real issues.

I can remember when The Sporting News first starting doing weekly rankings. I was in my early 20’s and a less reasonable fan. I would really get upset if I didn’t feel the Eagles were ranked correctly. So silly.

Just a few months ago the Niners looked like the second or third best team in the NFL. Things have gone very wrong since then. The team is 1-2. Injuries and suspensions have hurt the team, as well as a significant lack of discipline. Could Sunday be a must-win game for SF? Greg Bedard of MMQB.com thinks so.

Talking about “must-win” games before the halfway point in the season is often silly. Teams can get things turned around in a number of ways, and often do. But when it comes to the 49ers and their current predicament (1-2, having been outscored 38-3 in blowing halftime leads the past two weeks against the Bears and Cardinals), Sunday’s showdown with the Eagles sure feels like a must-win  for San Francisco. This team needs to start to feel good about itself in a hurry, or the season could slip away.

That’s the feeling I got watching the 49ers’ 23-14 meltdown in the desert against the Cardinals. There were the three personal foul penalties against San Francisco in a little more than five minutes of game action. There were the three carries for 49ers running backs (one for Frank Gore) in the second half despite San Francisco’s 14-6 halftime lead.

There was the lack of pressure against Cardinals quarterback Drew Stanton (zero sacks, two hits, five hurries according to ProFootballFocus.com), which meant he could conduct business from the pocket like he was sitting in a La-Z-Boy. That further exposed a secondary that has been torched the past two weeks. You could understand it against the Bears, with Jay Cutler and his weapons, but Drew Stanton and rookie receiver John Brown?

And, finally, there was Colin Kaepernick, who continues to look like a franchise quarterback in the first three quarters of the game but just another guy when pressure mounts and he can’t use his feet.

This will be a huge game for the Niners. While they may be down, you hate to play a desperate team. And they will be desperate to avoid falling to 1-3.

_

Did Chip Kelly benefit from a playmaker like DeSean last year…or was it the other way around?

In DeSean Jackson's last 29 games played for a head coach that wasn't Chip Kelly, he has 6 TDs. #Eagles

— Eliot Shorr-Parks (@EliotShorrParks) September 20, 2014

DeSean played his best football in a while last year. It will be interesting to see how he does this year. So far he’s been quiet, but there are mitigating circumstances. The lack of production isn’t all on him.

That said, I guarantee you DeSean misses Kelly and the Eagles.

_

Did you know the Raiders were favored to beat the Eagles last year? In the Nick Foles 7 TD game? Will there be a 30-for-30 on this one day?

— Football Perspective (@fbgchase) September 20, 2014

Wow.

Just, wow.

The @Eagles are 1st team in @NFL history to win by 17+ points after being shut out & trailing by 17+ points at halftime

— Randall Liu (@RLiuNFL) September 7, 2014

Wow.

Good piece here by Bob Grotz on how the current Eagles defense is different from those run by Buddy Ryan, Bud Carson and Jim Johnson. Snarky answers aside, things are different because of the style of offense and also the way the league enforces rules these days.

Malcolm Jenkins offered some thoughts on how the defense can still be an impact unit.

Jenkins has walked the talk. In his rookie season with New Orleans he contributed 4 tackles to help the Saints defeat the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, in Super Bowl XLIV. The Colts outgained the Saints by 100 yards. The Saints returned Peyton Manning pass for a touchdown and recovered an onside kick to start the second half, leading to another touchdown.

“We were never going to be a top-5 defense in yards because our offense put up points,” Jenkins said. “They get a lot of yards so in turn offenses of the other teams are throwing the ball and trying to score more points. There’s a little give and take. But we were taking the ball away at a high level. We were physical and feared and that played into our hand.

The defense can’t worry about rankings and conventional stats. They just need to be the right defense for this team and style of play. And that is something they can do.

We love to pick on Jerry Jones for his bad decisions and goofy way of doing things, but he does have 3 Super Bowls and plenty of success on his resume. Dan Snyder is just a jerk who makes bad decisions.

Here is a list of many reasons to not like him. A few of my favorites:

Rodgers, Pepper: FedEx official whom Snyder almost made Redskins head coach. Snyder knew he wanted to fire Norv Turner in the middle of the 2000 season, but he didn’t have anybody to put in charge. So he contemplated Rodgers, 69, who had never coached in the NFL and whose last coaching stint was with the Memphis Mad Dogs of the CFL. Rodgers’ main qualification for the Redskins job was that, after FedEx became a Redskins sponsor, he watched games with Snyder in the owner’s box and told stories about coaching John Riggins at the University of Kansas.

Robiskie, Terry: Early Snyder Yes Man. After taking over for Norv Turner as head coach in the middle of the 2000 season, Robiskie confessed he would play Jeff George over Brad Johnson just because that’s what the owner wanted. “Mr. Snyder owns the football team,” Robiskie declared after his first practice as head coach. “If I wanted to change my desk, I’m going to call him and say I want to change my desk. If I want to change quarterbacks, I’m going to call him and say, ‘What do you think of me changing quarterbacks?’ It’s his football team.”

Sanders, Deion: Crown jewel of the fantasy football team Snyder put together during his first offseason as owner, which also included Bruce Smith, Mark Carrier, Jeff George and Adrian Murrell. Snyder signed Sanders to a seven-year, $56 million contract with an $8 million signing bonus. After a debacle of a 2000 season for the team and himself, Sanders refused to report to the Redskins in 2001—but declined to return any of his bonus money.

Glorious.

Cody Parkey is the Eagles PK heading into the 2014 season, despite being on the team for only a couple of weeks. STs coach Dave Fipp recently explained that the Eagles liked Parkey a lot as a UDFA, but went for Carey Spear instead.

“We looked at both of those guys. In their individual workouts, Carey had just a little bit better day on the one day I worked him out in person. They were really close. Carey’s numbers on field goals [39 of 50 at Vanderbilt, four from 50+] were a little bit better. Cody’s were a little bit better on touchbacks [he led the nation with 69 last season at Auburn].

“It was a tough decision; we went the other direction. I missed the ball.”

Interesting to find out why Fipp made the choice he did. I certainly didn’t realize that Fipp had that much interest in Parkey prior to the draft. Thank goodness that Fipp got a do-over and was able to give Parkey another shot. So far, that looks like a great move.

#Eagles players have been off since Thur night's preseason finale. They get back to work and continue preparations for the #Jaguars on Tues.

— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) September 1, 2014

Chip Kelly has been giving his team time off the last few days, most coaches have been practicing. Who do u guess is right ?

— Joe Banner (@JoeBanner13) September 1, 2014

Banner is an interesting guy to follow on Twitter. He will praise some, but also isn’t shy about being critical.

_