Eagles-Chiefs Preview

I didn't have a full opportunity to do a full preview this week, but knowing what I know about the Eagles and the Chiefs, I don't think a full breakdown is needed. As long as the Eagles don't take the same haphazard approach in preparing for this game as I'm doing for this blog, they should have little difficulty with the young, rebuilding Chiefs no matter who lines up at quarterback.

The one trend I will point out that works against the Eagles is the fact that Andy Reid has a losing record (3-7) on the week before the bye, which is what this week is. The Eagles have also not fared well against the AFC during Reid's tenure. All that said, unless the Eagles beat themselves, I don't see how they lose this game.

My prediction: Eagles 30, Chiefs 12.

Review of Eagles Week 2

Unfortunately, I was correct in my prediction that the Eagles would lose Week 2 to the Saints. I know a lot of people point to the fact that the Eagles had back up quarterback Kevin Kolb in the game instead of the injured Donovan McNabb, but I believe the Eagles would have lost that game even if McNabb would have played.

Instead the special teams I feel deserve most of the blame for this loss. Obviously the easy goat is Ellis Hobbs for fumbling the opening kickoff of the second half. The two Eagles turnovers at the start of the second half turned a close game into a runaway. I want to focus on a special teams blunder that I thought actually may have been bigger. It was by one of my favorite players too. With a few minutes left in the 1st half and with the score tied 10-10, DeSean Jackson decided to try and return a punt from the 5 yard line. Veteran punt returners know you are better off letting those punts go into the endzone and let the offense take over at the 20 yard line. While DeSean got a great return, a penalty got called which meant that the Eagles got the ball half the distance to the endzone from where he caught it - the 2 1/2 yard line.

That blunder set up a situation where the Eagles had to play conservative being so close to their own endzone. This gave the Saints great field position which they converted into a touchdown, leaving the Eagles with some, but limited time. As a result, the Eagles were able to move the ball, but with time running out they had to settle for a field goal. Score at the half: 17-13. That misplay by Jackson set that whole string of plays up. Had he let the ball go into the endzone, the Eagles would have gotten the ball at the 20 and would have been able to play their full offense and at that point, they were having success moving the ball. Between those possessions at the end of the first half and the turnovers at the beginning of the second, the Eagles were in a hole from which they were never going to recover.

Despite the poor result, I would also like to just talk about the experience I had on opening day. There's no game quite like the home opener. The season is still fresh (although there was a bit of a downer this year with McNabb's injury) so anything is still possible. The weather is usually nice (Sunday was absolutely beautiful) which makes for great tailgating and a lively atmosphere. The opening festivities with the full field flag for the anthem and the jet fighter flyover can make your hair stand on end. Finally, I get to be reacquainted with 68,000 of my closest friends. While that last one is a hyperbole, since this is the 7th year at the Linc, I have gotten to know many of the people around me and it was good to see all the familiar faces again.

This season was a little different for me though. My usual "partner-in-crime" at all these games was not going this year and I wanted to find someone extra special to take & experience the magic of a home opener. Knowing that Jen would NEVER go to an Eagles game with me, there was only one other person I could think of taking - my dad. He took me to my first ball games as a kid & although I turned into a more die hard fan than him, he was willing to feed into my passion and take me to more games when I got older. Some of my best childhood memories were going to games with my dad, so it made sense that I would take him to the opener.

Earlier this year when I was selling the bulk of my season tickets on eBay, I realized that I had no pictures of the Linc past the 1st season. So I decided I would take my camera this year. It then dawned on me that in all the years of going to games with my dad, I had no pictures of the two of us at one. So I made sure that got corrected as well. The picture below is that shot & it is one I will cherish the rest of my life. Dad, I love you.

A bit of trivia for my family: do you notice anything about my dad in the picture? (Kristel can't answer as we already discussed it).

Eagles Review of Week 1 and Preview of Week 2

After predicting that the Eagles would lose the season opener to the Panthers, I am more than happy to eat a little crow. What I didn't count on was the fact that the best player for the Birds turned out to be Jake Delhomme. I give new defensive coordinator Sean McDermott a lot of credit for the game plan he drew up which forced Jake into a lot of bad decisions. It was a defensive masterpiece that would have made his mentor, the late Jim Johnson, proud.

Unfortunately for the defense, they were over shadowed by the big news of the game - Donovan's injury. I've been waiting to post my prediction for this week to see if there would be any good news on McNabb's injury and whether he'd be available this week. At this point, it is looking like Kevin Kolb might get his first start in the NFL this Sunday.

To be completely honest, I think this makes this week's game against the Saints very hard to pick. The Saints have a dynamic offense and Drew Brees will not be as easily forced into turnovers as Jake Delhomme was. I think the defense will have to play even better this week if they want to hold the Saints under 30 points.

All this means that the offense will have to produce points. Last week's 38-10 score was deceiving from an offensive standpoint. Consider that the special teams scored 1 touchdown, defense scored 1 touchdown and the defense set the offense up on the 10 yard line for another. That's 21 points essentially scored by defense and special teams, leaving the offense only responsible for 17 points.

This week they will have to do better with a back up quarterback. Normally you would think that this all adds up to an Eagles loss, but Andy Reid seems to thrive on developing winning game plans for back ups. He has done so with Koy Detmer, AJ Feeley and Jeff Garcia. Because of this, I wouldn't count the Eagles out so easily on this one.

Hopefully, not having Donovan will force the Eagles to run more, which is something they were very effective doing in Week 1. I have been very impressed with Jason Peters as a run blocking tackle, although his pass blocking still needs improvement. Fullback Leonard Weaver has also been a great addition to the running game. Running the ball more will also keep the explosive Saints offense off the field and could shorten the game. I know Andy Reid loves to pass the ball, but this is one week that screams for them to run. If they do, I think they have a real chance to win this game.

Alas, I think though that Andy will give into his passing side and that will spell doom for the Eagles. Ironically, before the season started, I had predicted the Eagles would be 1-1 after 2 weeks, I just had the games reversed.

My prediction: Saints 34, Eagles 26.

Preview of Season Opener

The Eagles kickoff their season tomorrow afternoon at 1 PM against the Carolina Panthers. If you recall, when I first did my schedule analysis, I put this as an L on the schedule. Unfortunately, nothing has transpired which would make me change this prediction.

First of all is history. In the previous 10 seasons under Andy Reid, the Eagles opening game record is 4-6. Of those 4 wins, only one was an upset and many of the six losses were in games where the Eagles were favored. For a coach who has had a very good win/loss record, it continues to puzzle me how they have done so poorly in season openers.

However, the main reason I believe that the Eagles will lose has to do with their offensive line. It has had no continuity in practices and preseason games and we just learned yesterday that Shawn Andrews is definitely out at right tackle. That means that the person responsible to block Julius Peppers will be none other than Winston Justice. I'm already having flashbacks to the Sunday night Giants game when Justice was like a piece of swiss cheese and Donovan spent most of the night on his back. The Panthers know how to rush the quarterback and although I think the Eagles will have a very explosive offense this year, I think we will have to wait a week to see it.

All this said, the season is not lost. I think the next few weeks set up favorably for them. Although, I'll predict a Carolina win, I expect the Eagles will bounce back and have a good season.

My prediction: Panthers 23, Eagles 13.

Eagles Preseason Review

Well the Eagles have concluded their preseason schedule with a 1-3 record. As I said in prior posts, the preseason scores & records really mean nothing, but you can pick up on some things good and bad that then translate to the regular season.

For instance, last year you could tell instantly in the preseason that DeSean Jackson was a real talent and when the regular season started he kept up the great play. On the other side, I think of two years ago when the return game showed that there were issues in the preseason and sure enough a few misplayed punts cost them against the Packers in the first game and Reno Mahe found himself employed by an NFL team the next week.

So what do I take from this preseason. To be honest, I have a confession - I only watched the first two games. Those of you who know me personally are aware that I started a new job and my online training took up most of the third game. I did see the last two minutes in order to see David Akers kick the game winning field goal. As for the fourth game, I watched a little but hardly any of the starters played and the Phillies v Giants game became much more intriguing as there was a great pitching duel between Pedro Martinez and Tim Lincicum (one the Phillies won I might add). Once I got watching a baseball game that had a playoff atmosphere, a meaningless preseason football game became even more boring.

So from what I did see, I liked a lot from what I saw from rookie running back LeSean McCoy. I think he'll be a great back up to Westbrook and is his obvious eventual successor. Donovan showed me he is ready to be a Pro-Bowl caliber quarterback, if he has time. That brings me to one of my biggest concerns - the health and continuity of the offensive line. I am hoping that their lack of playing time was a result of an abundance of caution from the coaching staff that they didn't want them to get more banged up. But the lack of depth at those positions is startling.

My other major concern is leadership on defense. I still think that the loss of coach Jim Johnson, free safety Brian Dawkins and linebacker Stewart Bradley will have huge implications in this area. I specifically think of the play against the Colts in game 2 where they gave up a deep ball where the defense clearly was not communicating. Initially, the commentator Darryl “Moose” Johnston totally got the play wrong. He criticized Eagles corner back Ellis Hobbs for not following with Colts receiver Reggie Wayne, but it seemed clear to me that the mistake was by the safeties and Johnston eventually recognized that. The Eagles always play that zone where the corners are responsible for the short routes while the safeties are there to protect the deep pass. Well the Colts ran two deep patterns and the safeties only concentrated on one of them. A player who is a leader on defense can recognize those situations pre-snap and call out adjustments. Dawkins and Trotter were great at it and Bradley had been the person who seemed to be following in those foot steps. If the Eagles get beat on a lot of big plays, I’ll be looking to see if it was because they got caught in an unfavorable coverage and no one called out an adjustment. That being said, they were going against a quarterback in Peyton Manning who is an expert at finding those kind of unfavorable conditions.

Well, I just checked the Eagles website and there was no big news on players released as of yet. I’ll be watching as tomorrow’s deadline approaches. I’d still be surprised if Reggie Brown makes this team and I think the only way the Michael Vick experiment continues is if the team parts ways with AJ Feeley. Since Vick isn’t available until week 3 according to the NFL Commissioner’s ruling, Feeley may still be with the team at the end of the weekend, but I wouldn’t get too comfortable if I were him.