More Playoff Talk

***

I was thinking about the game on the way in to work this morning. A few things have had me worried. We're facing a good QB in the Wildcard round. In the past we dealt with Shaun King or Brad Johnson or a young Eli. Last year we beat Tarvaris Jackson. Dealing with Romo is a whole different ball of wax. I'm worried about the LBs and the state of flux in that unit. There isn't a clear answer of who to play and where to play them. Finally, I'm worried about McNabb. The last 6 quarters have not been pretty. We need him to start making clutch plays and eliminate the mistakes.

I'm always thinking about both sides of an issue. While my brain had started to sense gloom and doom was on the way I started to see the situation a bit differently. Tony Romo was 24 of 34 last week. That is 71 percent completions. He did that against our players, but not really against our defense. Sean McDermott didn't run the Eagles defense. He called plays for Eagles players, but that wasn't us out there. The 1st half was some weird aberration. We played vanilla and Romo was 15 of 20. Dallas piled up 291 yards and 17 points.

This is now the playoffs. You go all out to win every game. You save nothing. You use every trick possible to beat the team in front of you. McDermott will empty the playbook this week. Also, our players will have some edge. They laid an egg on Sunday and that will motivate them. Our guys didn't lack effort last week, but they also didn't play with emotion. I don't know if we were too tight or what. Dallas got us on our heels and it stayed that way til halftime.

The other thing about playoff football is that everything speeds up just a notch. Guys understand the situation and play accordingly.

Romo won't have the clean pocket that he did on Sunday. His receivers won't be as open. Things will get sped up. Last week's scrimmage could give him a false sense of confidence. If that happens and we can get off some blocks up front and hit Romo solidly a few times that will change the game completely. No QB likes to get hit. We've shown in the past that we can get to Tony, physically and mentally. We can do that on Saturday, if the guys make plays up front and in coverage.

Romo isn't normally at his best under pressure. Donovan McNabb is. I go back to the drives that started in the end zone vs MIN last year. Donovan dropped back, read the defense, and made big throws to Avant to move the ball. That was clutch football. Last week he was highly erratic. And his worst throws came on plays when he had a good pocket to pass from.

Finally, Andy Reid does a terrific job of getting his team ready to play, mentally and physically. I have to think that Big Red will know what buttons to push in order to get this team ready for Freddie. Andy is 10-7 in the playoffs. He has 1 loss in the SB. He's got 4 losses in NFC Title games. He's got 2 losses in the Divisional Round. He has never lost in the Wildcard round. This Dallas team looks better than any WC opponent we've ever had and that could change things, but Andy does seem to know what he's doing in the playoffs.

If you look at last week only you would think Dallas should be a heavy favorite. If you look at the big picture you can see where the Eagles have a very good chance to go to Big D and win this game. I'll have a full preview on Friday.


MISC ITEMS

* Chris Gocong is splitting reps at SAM in practice. McDermott could put him back in the starting spot this week. Chris is a good run defender and can be an effective blitzer. Coverage is his weakness. McDermott made mention that Chris is vying for playing time "at a couple of different positions". They tried him at MLB earlier and it failed. Sounds like they may be seeing if he's a possible fit in there once again. Interesting idea.

* Expect the running game this week to be a 2-headed monster, Shady and Leonard Part 6. I think the coaches could see Westy's lack of speed on a couple of his runs last week. Brian will play, but should be more of a backup. The offense had a real good rhythm with McCoy and Weaver as the runners. They ran well, the OL blocked well, and play-action passes were more effective. Just a guess on my part.


ANSWERING QUESTIONS

RE: quick plays to offset the Dallas rush

We have used creative screens against them in the last few years. We've gotten good gains from TE screens. We lined up Westy at WR last year and ran a quick screen to him out there. I think we did try a screen to DeSean vs Dallas in 2008. That play just wasn't good for us. I'd be surprised to see them use it.

McNabb had time to throw last week in the 1st half. That's what made his poor throws so annoying. He wasn't under heavy pressure on them. The last 1.5 Qtrs was different. Dallas pinned their ears back and really attacked.

We will use screen passes to try and offset the Dallas rush.


RE: Jenkins vs DJax

Dallas does keep a Safety over the top. CBs don't consider that a true double team. WRs do. There are times when a team will use bracket coverage on a receiver and have multiple defenders stay tightly on the guy. Dallas doesn't do that for the most part. They do keep someone deep. Jenkins is a good young CB, but DeSean is faster that 99.5% of the CBs in the league. Teams would be dumb to just single cover him all game long.


RE: Howie Roseman qualified for GM?

Legit question. Howie isn't a football guy, per se. He is a smart guy that started on the accounting side of things. He was interested in personnel and the team developed him in that area. Howie, from what I'm told, seemed like a natural. He's spent time in Pro Personnel. He has scouted college players. He knows the contract side very well.

There is a belief among some fans and media that GMs and scouts must be ex-players or coaches with extensive backgrounds. Ron Wolf was a history major that ended up with a football career. Gil Brandt was a baby photographer when he started dabbling in football. Marty Hurney was a Washington sportswriter when Bobby Bethard invited him to work for the Redskins. Matt Millen was a great college player and then a long time NFL star. He became a very good NFL broadcaster before taking over as the Lions GM. He was an utter disaster.

Some guys have a feel for personnel. Some don't. The real key is the scouts who go out and collect the majority of the information. They bring it back to Philly where Roseman and his people analyze the reports and work on rankings. Then the coaches get invovled late in the process.

Roseman needs the ability to handle information, analyze data, deal with people, and make decisions. He can have a solid football mind even if he didn't play at the college or pro level. I played very little football growing up. I happened to spend most of my time in Boy Scouts. That's where my best friends were. I now listen to some NFL guys talk about the game and they don't poop from shinola. They played the game, but don't know it as well as me. This isn't true for all players obviously. There are some guys that I love to listen to because you know they understand the game of football from a big picture standpoint.

Howie could prove to be a complete disaster if given the job, but he has passed each test to this point. He is smart and I'm a believer that smart people can accomplish an awful lot if given the chance. I have no issues with him getting the job, should Heckert leave.


RE: Rory Segrest / DL struggles?

Rory is learning on the job. Pete Jenkins was a veteran coach who knew every trick in the book and a few that never made it in. I'm sure Pete could have helped this group out in some way. That said, the DL has generally played pretty well, aside from LDE. Bunk and Patt have been good. Antonio Dixon has developed nicely. Trent Cole had a great year. While LDE hasn't been ideal, Juqua did have 8 sacks, a career high.

Our run defense is weak mostly in the Nickel. That has as much to do with MLB problems as anything.


RE: Juan Castillo

O-Line coaches aren't considered to be schemers and gameplanners. They are thought of as teachers more than anything. You find very few OL coaches who go on to deal with QBs or become OCs. Juan is good at what he does, but I don't think he needs to be more involved with running the offense.
_