Eagles Blog

Paul Domowitch always does a great job with his stats columns and this is no different. He starts off by writing about the Eagles and how they haven’t done much with the TEs so far.

As the season goes on, the Eagles almost certainly will play more 12 (1 running back, 2 tight ends, 2 wide receivers) and 13 (1 back, 3 tight ends, 2 wide receivers) personnel.

Defenses will start to use their base package more to stop McCoy, and Kelly will try to create mismatches with his athletic tight ends on linebackers and safeties.

“We’re going to get those guys involved at some point,” Vick said. “Our coach knows exactly when he wants to incorporate those guys. But for the most part, they are in the game plan and they will be a big part of this offense at some point.”

Said Kelly: “A lot of times it becomes a match game. What matchups do you want to be in? What matchups do you think are more favorable to you? You’re kind of looking at how people try to defend different formations and different sets to try and get tendencies in terms of how they’re going to deploy their personnel. So, sometimes you, by your personnel, can at least dictate what’s going to be in the game.”

Right now, Kelly likes what’s in the game just fine.

Exactly. The TEs will be used more down the line.

There are tons of good stats. I’ll share a few.

The Eagles’ seven giveaways are the fifth most in the NFL. They are a respectable 11th in third-down efficiency (41.7 percent), but have converted just four of 21 third downs of 5 yards or more. Vick is 30th in the league in third-down passing (47.3 rating). He’s completed just seven of 20 third-down attempts. On third-and-5 or more, he’s just 3-for-13 with an interception and three sacks and just two first downs.

* The Eagles’ average field position in their Week 1 win over the Redskins was the 38.9 yard line. In their two losses to the Chargers and the Chiefs, it was the 21.4.

* In their first three games, the Eagles have had six touchdown drives that lasted 2 minutes or less. Last year, they had seven under 2 minutes the entire season. They’ve already had four touchdown drives of three plays or less, which is just one less than they had all last year.

* The Eagles have had just one three-and-out in 38 possessions.

Always interesting to see some different numbers.

A Broncos blogger took the time to break down the Eagles offense and had some good thoughts.

It’s easy to look at what Philadelphia is doing, and say that it’s the same thing that Washington or Seattle did last year. It’s not, though. That was about creating discipline conflicts in run defense, much like the Broncos did under the Shanahan regime, and the Texans do under Gary Kubiak. If you force a defense to be disciplined and stay at home in all eight gaps, it’s easier to win in the one gap in which you’re actually trying to run.

When Robert Griffin reads a DE at the mesh point, he can either hand the ball off to his RB going one way, or keep the ball and run at the gap that a crashing DE just vacated. There are two options there off the action, and a defense that sells out to fill all eight gaps can have some luck with slowing down those two options.

What if there were more than two options, though? What if there were five? Would a defense be able to cover them all? That’s the question that Chip Kelly is asking, and answering generally, no, you can’t stop everything.

He finished with this point and I can’t argue.

 It will be tough to stop the Eagles offense, but I think the terrible Eagles defense will have twice as big a challenge with the Broncos offense.

Probably won’t be a boring game.

Some interesting notes from Football Outsiders on sacks. 2 of the items related to the Eagles.

Philadelphia Eagles, Michael Vick, six sacks.

Who Is To Blame: Right tackle Lane Johnson.

Until this week, Johnson, the fourth pick in last spring’s draft out of Oklahoma, was having a nice and relatively smooth introduction to the NFL. Justin Houston ruined that.

Johnson had given up half a sack in Week 1 for his only blemish coming into last Thursday’s game. Houston beat him to the inside for a sack at the two-minute warning of the second quarter, followed it up by beating Johnson for a second sack on the next play. Then, in the final two minutes of the game, Houston beat Johnson with a speed rush for a third sack allowed.

The final tally could have been worse as Houston actually ended the night with 4.5 sacks, but one of those came on a play where Vick held the ball for 5.6 seconds and another came on a bad snap where Vick simply ran to the ball and fell on it.

Johnson’s off the hook for those two sacks.

Lane was very good for most of the 1st half. Things fell apart late and then the 2nd half was a struggle. I think it mostly was due to Justin Houston playing lights out. We’ll see how this week goes.

And…

LONG SACK OF THE WEEK

There were plenty of long sacks this week, but none longer than Alex Smith’s extended scramble against the Eagles. Smith rolled to his right, reversed field to run back to his left, and was finally run down by Nate Allen 8.2 seconds after the snap.

Good play by Nate, but an odd one. He didn’t rush initially, but when he saw Alex scramble, Nate came upfield aggressively and made the play.

Shutting down Peyton Manning is darn near impossible. So a reader over at Iggles Blitz decided to come up with some “creative” ideas. Hilarious stuff from ATG.

I think the team should embrace the opportunity to do something special. Playing straight up, our defense loses. Davis is going to need to get creative. And, as we all know, creativity that works becomes innovation.

• Combine man and zone coverages. Have the players in a zone scheme, but all playing with their backs to Manning so that his eye manipulations are rendered useless.

•Rotate players. All over the field. Manning is a student of the game, but he has very little film to study of what kind of a look to expect when Cox and Curry rotate back to a 2-deep safety look.

•Disguised blitzes. Manning is good at diagnosing plays, so we need to get creative… or innovative. Put Riley at corner, have him lay down and disappear in the grass like he did last year. At the snap, he starts army crawling towards Manning, unbeknownst to the Oline or RB. Riley pops up, yells “Yoink!” as he yanks the ball from Manning’s hand and runs for a touchdown. All they need is a coverage scheme to give them about 40 seconds for the blitz to get home.

•Teamwork and timing. Davis should insist his entire secondary wear gloves that are football colored. When the ball is snapped, they take them off. When Manning throws, they all throw their football-colored, inflated gloves at the intended receiver.

•Get the fans into it. On the road this seems counter-intuitive, or innovative. When Manning drops back, have one of the defenders strip naked and run around waving their arms in the air – Nate Allen usually doesn’t seem too busy – and screaming. The collective gasp from the crowd in the already-thin Denver air will create a complete vacuum, causing the ball to explode.

Now, right there are 5 creative (innovative?) ideas for our defense, and I don’t even have any coaching experience at the professional level, believe it or not. Honestly, they don’t even need to all work. If just 3 of them are effective, we have a chance to win this game.

Wow, I am feeling more confident already.

Great stuff. I don’t see how the Eagles can lose.

The Giants are 0-3. Let’s enjoy it.

The Giants averaging 2.4 inches per dropback in the first half against Carolina is maybe my all-time favorite stat. http://t.co/vbUSZxfJUu

— sir broosk (@celebrityhottub) September 25, 2013

And some bad news for Eli. He’s got a serious case of Manning Face.

The veteran quarterback’s face has been locked in sustained Manning Face since midway through the third quarter on Sunday. He spent the night in a Charlotte hospital and will reportedly make the trip back to New York on Wednesday if his face doesn’t worsen.

“It’s scrunched up real good and his eyes are kind of crossed and he is breathing only through his mouth,” said wide receiver Victor Cruz. “I’ve seen his face stick like that for 15 minutes or so before. Even 30 minutes. But this is different. Obviously, Eli is in our thoughts and prayers.”

Funny stuff. Sports Pickle is The Onion for sports.

Since the Eagles played on Thursday, RB Chris Polk took a trip to his alma mater over the weekend. Here’s a short interview with him from a UW site.

Now in his second season with the Eagles, Polk was asked how he feels about his NFL career so far.

“I can’t complain,” he said. “I’m still playing. I feel blessed to be able to be playing for a living, playing for a great organization. I just have to keep going in there and turning in work and, eventually, things will happen.”

He’ll get on the field eventually. I’m curious to see how he does.

Nnamdi Asomugha was never on a winning team in Oakland. The team was 11-5 in 2002. They chose Nnamdi in the 1st round of the 2003 NFL Draft. The Raiders then went 4-12 in that year.

Oakland did go 8-8 in 2010. That was the highlight of Nnamdi’s time there.

He then went to Philly. The Eagles were massive underachievers, going 8-8 and 4-12.

Now Nnamdi has taken his talents to SF. And the Niners, who lost a total of 7 games in 2 years, sit at 1-2. Forget talking about Colin Kaepernick, receiver injuries or Aldon Smith. The losing is all on Nnamdi. He’s some kind of curse. No team with him can ever make the playoffs. This was foretold by the Mayans, the Book of Revelations or maybe Nostradamus. Maybe all 3.

All I know…it is a one million percent foolproof fact.

Sorry, Niners Nation. You should have asked us before signing him.

I had completely forgotten about this, but Time’s Yours on Twitter reminded me about the ambulance from Madden ’92.

He made the point that the ambulance running over Peyton Manning is the Eagles best shot for winning on Sunday.

Did you know that RG3’s middle name is Owen?

This is funny.

Bo Wulf from PE.com is now writing a weekly column that is quite good. The Wulf’s Den. He posted some good note on the offense. You’ll need to read his piece to check out all the rankings and where the Eagles fit in.

Wulf did offer this nugget on the running game.

Team Rushing Update

Every week, we’ll monitor the pace of the Eagles’ rushing attack to check in on our preseason prediction that the franchise team rushing record is in serious danger. Despite the loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, the Eagles piled up an impressive 260 yards on the ground on Thursday night, putting another early dent in the season total.

Franchise Record: 2,607 rushing yards (1949)
2013 16-Game Pace: 3,333 rushing yards

*The NFL record for team rushing yards in a season is 3,653 by the 1948 San Francisco 49ers.

Wow. The Eagles are on pace to shatter the team record and challenge the NFL rushing record. Crazy.

Wulf also talked to Earl Wulf Wolfe Wolff.

EW: I could have done something like that, but I’ll tell you what they did do. During the game, they’re always yelling Wolf then Pack, from sideline to sideline. If I made a play or something, they would yell my name, Earl then Wolff from side to side. They’d get it going back and forth. Every time my name came up, every time I made a tackle, all the fans went crazy. It all made sense.

Of course I had to go there because I wanted to stay in state. I couldn’t go to North Carolina and have the last name Wolff. I couldn’t go to Wake Forest and have the last name Wolff.

BW: Don’t start with Wake Forest on me now.  (Bo is a WFU alum)

EW: I can’t do Wake Forest.

BW: You know what the NC State chant was at Wake Forest? Did you hear that when you went there?

EW: No.

BW: “If you can’t go to college go to State.”

EW: Wow. Wow. Why do y’all do that to us? That’s rude, man.

I like Earl Wolff. Bo’s not too bad either, except for the whole part about going to Wake Forest.