I finished the 4th quarter. Here are some thoughts from that:
* Jordan had a subtle, but powerful hit on Muhammad that put him on the ground and in pain. Originally I thought Q was the hitter.
* Trent Cole came free up the middle on another play and just missed a sack.
* We lined up with 5 DL on one pass play, but not all rushed.
* Cole bull-rushed Gross late in the game and pushed him right to the QB. That flushed the passer and let Darren get his 2nd sack.
* Juqua had TFL on 4th/GL run at end of game.
* McCoy is fun to watch. He's gonna be pretty good when he figures things out.
COLE 4 PREZ
Trent Cole played a great, great game. He was disruptive all game long. He hustled all over the field. He was around the QB throughout the game. I bet Jake Delhomme and Jordan Gross will have nightmares about #58.
I was re-checking the 1st quarter so I could comment about a defensive adjustment and noticed a play I missed the other night.
CAR is in a 2-TE set. They have Dante Rosario over Cole. Dante is lovely young man. He's got many fine attributes. But blocking isn't one of them.
At the snap Trent fires off the ball and knocks Dante onto his backside. Trent then turns and grabs the RB as he tries to run by. Coaches should show that tape to young DEs on how to attack TEs when they line up over you. Rosario isn't that much smaller than Trent, but he looked like a HS kid the way he was floored. Wow, just wow.
I love Trent Cole.
GARCIA / KOLB
Adding Jeff Garcia was smart. He has been a starter in the WCO for more than a decade. Jeff can jump right on the field and quickly know what he's doing. He also seems a little iffy about playing. That tells me he is more likely to be fine with sitting if that's all he ends up doing. Jeff = good insurance policy. And he's not high maintenance.
If Donovan does sit and we play a backup I think it will be Kevin. However, I'm sure AR won't leave Kevin in there if he's stinking up the joint. If Kevin is playing okay and we're losing, he stays. If we're winning, he stays. If he's really struggling and we're losing I could easily see Big Red putting Garcia in there to see if he can jump start the offense.
I think Reid knows we've got a chance to be a SB team this year and has made his decisions accordingly (Babin over Smith, Patterson over Jack, etc). AR has shown a win-now mode more than in the past.
DEFENSIVE ADJUSTMENT
Izzy the other day asked about a comment from Omar. What changes did the defense make to slow them down after the first series. CAR attacked the edges well on the opening drive.
After that we seemed to have the DEs focus more on playing outside in. We also brought up guys to the LOS at times. Mikell flew up to the edge a time or two. We mostly played our LBs inside, meaning that all 3 were off the ball and between the DEs. This look is often called Double Eagle by offensive teams.
DE.....DT.....DT.....DE
....LB....MLB....LB....
You can see where that look puts pressure on the DEs to stay wide. Early on it seemed like our guys were crashing hard to the inside, as if we expected CAR to focus on inside running.
We did at times play a LB on the LOS. That helps with keeping things funneled to the inside.
DE.....DT.....DT.....DE...LB
....LB......MLB....
RIP MR. SWAYZE
I used a line from Red Dawn yesterday. I didn't know Patrick Swayze had died at the time.
Red Dawn had special meaning to the kids of my generation. It might seem a bit cheesey to some people these days, but I was inspired by it. No way any Russian SOBs were gonna take me or my friends out. That movie allowed kids like me to live out the fantasy of fighting the evil invaders. To the movie's credit, it sure doesn't glorify things. We obviously paid less attention to the parts where the kids don't fare so well. We focused on the good stuff.
Swayze played Jed Eckert, the head honcho. He was great in the role. He'll always be Jed to me. I didn't watch a movie of his made after that until I saw Point Break last year. I hated the thought of Swayze looking like a goofball in Dirty Dancing, Roadhouse, or Ghost. He made a bunch of movies, but I wouldn't watch any of them. I wasn't about to bring dishonor to the memory of Jed Eckert. I finally caved to see Point Break and what that was all about. Don't count on me watching the other stuff anytime soon.
Swayze's best acting came in an episode of MASH when he played a soldier that had Leukemia. That's one of the better episodes of the show.
RIP, Jed.
_
9 comments:
You're crazy. Roadhouse is a great film.
Anyway...
In your opinion, what percentage of snaps does our defense actually line up in a 4-3? It seems like we did a lot of moving around, joker-type stuff, and standing up the DE's against Carolina.
Well said Tommy! Red Dawn is even better in HD on MGM. Classic movie for our generation.
Andrews out for the season is mind blowing. I did not see that coming Runyan/Someone else implications are interesting.
McCoy is fun to watch. He needs to watch tape of Westbrook to see that sometimes it is ok to cut inside on screens.
This week is going to be a real test for the defense. I am looking forward to reading about your keys to stopping Brees and Co. It will also be interesting too see how Macho plays. I am sure he will be a key.
First time commenting... I really enjoy your blog. I am in total agreement on the Garcia move. I think Kolb does start this week, and either gets the whole game or a half if he's really stinking the joint up. If he does play well (and especially if we beat the Saints) then he's the starter until McNabb is ready to go. If not, I think Garcia starts until the Monday night game against Washington. Do you think that the fact that we are playing the Bucs and the Raiders in that span played into the thinking of bringing Garcia in?
Man...it would have been so great to have Andrews at RT, then we'd have a dominating run blocker at both tackles. I guess it was not meant to be.
Tommy, thanks for answering my question with such interesting detail.
So basically the Eagles used the double eagle formation to clog up the middle and stop one of the best running games in the league cold. How cool is that?
Is this something we could see against many other running teams on the schedule like the Giants, Dallas, Oakland, Chicago and Denver or do you think it was a tactic of more limited application but appropriate for Carolina?
Tuesday has gone mad!!!
The Eagles won and kept Carolina to 10 points. So McDermott automatically gets a lot of credit. He created some interesting blitzes and got lots of pressure up the middle. For this he deservedly gets more credit.
But the most impressive thing to me was the solid game plan and McDermott's confidence to stick to the game plan and make the right adjustments after the first drive to shut down the running game. The interceptions also speak well for the pass defense even if Carolinas inept quarterback play was also a big reason. Pressure causes mistakes. Next week will be an interesting test against a better quarterback.
This was not the new guy getting lucky on his first try. This has all the appearance of a brilliant job by a defensive mastermind.
I guess we're drafting o-line with next year's first pick.
Andrews on IR. Baskett cut. Garcia signed. Vick added to the 53.
Did Andy forget that we're already 1 week into the season? These are off-season moves! Not faulting him for that, it's just goofy to see this much activity all at once during the season.
Also, I can't believe Baskett was cut. Gibson essentially replaces him on the roster (although inactive most of the time, I'm sure), but I guess there wasn't much interest from other teams to get a late round pick.
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