I’m coming in hot. Somehow I’m more worked up about the game now than I was during and immediately after it. But now that I’ve watched it almost three full times – live, condensed game last night, and offensive plays this morning – I’m more upset that ineptitude on the part of the coach and untimely miscues cost them a winnable road game against a potentially elite team. Make no mistake, this was a winnable game, and for three quarters, the Eagles were arguably the better team before it all unraveled in the fourth, when they flushed it down the drain.

To the Droppings!

Defense

First, the good thing. The defense was absolutely outstanding. The line is top 5 in football. They get constant pressure and keep the quarterback uncomfortable in the pocket. Credit both Kirk Cousins and Alex Smith in consecutive weeks for weathering the storm and using their legs to keep their teams in it (or win it) late. The Eagles for the most part kept the Chiefs run game and Kareem Hunt in check with swarming coverage at the line and in the immediate area behind it. Jordan Hicks and Timmy Jernigan tossing Chiefs around was just the icing on top of a mostly dominant performance:

https://twitter.com/notkerouac/status/909488748416700416

When the Eagles decide to blitz, they’re borderline unstoppable. Sean Cottrell touched on it in his “Three and Out” last week and the point still stands – Jim Schwartz times his blitzes impeccably and they almost always pay off. And somehow a secondary without Ronald Darby prevented Tyreek Hill from torching them over-the-top at all (save for one play where Alex Smith overthrew him in the end zone). It’s unfortunate that the late Hunt touchdown, on which the Eagles over-pursued….

… might be what we remember from this game. The Eagles could make the playoffs on the strength of their defense alone.

 

Doug Pederson

The 46-17 pass-run breakdown is ludicrous, partly because the Eagles were running the ball effectively early.

Excuse me? No, Kyle, you’re a fucking idiot and don’t know football.

That’s what Twitter says.

Here are the Eagles’ run plays:

Sproles: 12 yards

Sproles: 6 yards

Sproles: 3 yards

Smallwood: -2 yards

Sproles: 2 yards

Sproles: -3 yards

Sproles: 6 yards

Sproles: 11 yards

Sproles: 3 yards

Smallwood: 8 yards

Sproles: 3 yards

Sproles: 5 yards

Smallwood: -2 yards

A few stuffs at the line, particularly on the Eagles’ second drive, led to them abandoning the run almost completely. Surely, feeding the ball to Darren Sproles all game is unsustainable, but there’s no reason Smallwood couldn’t have been the beneficiary of the push the Eagles got on the outside on these two plays:

The Chiefs’ defensive line is quite good, and we should credit them for the Eagles’ offensive line struggles and lack of a running game. But even going back to the well for a middling two-yard gain is worth it to keep them honest. It’s easy to make the Madden joke about Doug Pederson, but this is exactly how I play Madden— I’ll try a few runs and if it doesn’t work I’ll just start slinging the ball. That was the worst of early era Andy Reid, but he has matured to the point that he kept going back to the well yesterday until it paid off with a 50-yard touchdown run.

This was a close game. There was no reason, until maybe their last two drives, the Eagles had to pass on nearly every play. They were arguably in control of most of the game. I don’t like LeGarrette Blount very much (more on that in a second), but it’s laughable that he didn’t get one official carry. He should’ve gotten at least enough to make him an effective play-action decoy so Carson Wentz could underthrow a deep ball to Torrey Smith.

 

LeGarrette Blount

It’s Week 2 and Blount got one touch in a game and was then accosted by the media at his locker afterwards because a vast majority of people now think he’s an incompetent running back (not the least of which might be his coach) on the verge of a full-on freakout. That’s where we’re at. But, I said I wouldn’t break out the I told you sos on Blount until mid-October (or when Blount gets cut), so I won’t. I’m a man of my word.

It’s funny how when Saint Sheil says it, it’s gospel. Here’s what I wrote immediately following the Blount signing:

Noooooooooooo I hate this. God this is such a cuck signing. Blount was the beneficiary of a Pats offense that could make a trash can look like a formidable running threat. He’s 30, curiously was a free agent until today, and saw his average yards per carry hit a five-year low last year despite scoring 18 touchdowns because HE PLAYED FOR THE FUCKING PATRIOTS.

hate the notion of signing guys Bill Belichick is done with. I’m telling you, no, he’s not that good. The deal is reported to be one year, $2.8 million, and Blount will put some much needed size in the Eagles’ backfield, so it makes some sense and is hard to get truly outraged about, but the signing strips away almost all the positive feelings I had about Howie Roseman this offseason. Signing a guy like Blount is exactly the sort of thing Dream Team Howie would do, and I thought that guy was dead or at least locked in an airplane bathroom somewhere.

It’s telling that Howie Roseman thought signing a system running back to complement a super old third-down back and a harem of underachieving young players was the solution to a problem that typically can be solved by sound drafting – HELLLLLLLLO THE CHIEFS – and strategic waiver wire pickups. Never mind the fact that Roseman siphoned away offensive line depth in the process to open up roster spots for the collection of misfit toys that currently make up the Eagles’ running-by-committee attack, which is spearheaded by their fucking franchise quarterback who is GOING TO GET HURT. I was flat-out assaulted by Eagles Twitter for my initial Blount take, and yet…here we are.

I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’D READ ANY OTHER SITE.

 

Carson Wentz

He is a phenomenal talent who has a physical skill set that could eventually turn him into one of the great ones. His effort yesterday, behind a porous line and with a tower of sculpted clay calling his plays, is to be commended. He hung tough in the face of pressure, never went full Bradford with his at times frantic pocket demeanor, and racked up impressive passing totals while also leading the team in rushing. He is at his best when he is out of the pocket and forced to make plays on his own. Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are much the same way, and that’s good company to be in.

HOWEVER.

Wentz is far from perfect and he is still incredibly raw. Lost in his effort yesterday is the fact that he still makes a considerable amount of mistakes, forces balls where they don’t need to go, and is, generally speaking, an inaccurate passer.

As noted last week, he struggles with the short touch passes. As evidence, here’s the NextGen pass chart showing Wentz as 12-of-21 on passes under 10 yards:

That includes three balls that were thrown into the line (one of which led to the Chiefs’ go-ahead touchdown), two fumbles behind the line (one of which resulted in a turnover), and two incomplete inept screen passes to Sproles.

Surely the offensive line contributed to these errors, but that doesn’t necessarily excuse them. Carson Wentz is 6’5, and though there generally isn’t much correlation with size and pass deflections, his three batted passes yesterday – 6% of his 46 passes – were above the league-average rate. There’s not a ton of data available in this regard, but in a 2015 article in which Football Outsiders listed the batted passes from the 2014 season, not one quarterback had a rate higher than 3.8% (Blake Bortles). Interestingly, Nick Foles had 0 passes batted on 310 attempts, leading you to believe that there was something to Chip Kelly practicing with fly swatters.

That’s the short game.

The long game isn’t much better.

We all can see that Wentz has a BIG ARM, but he simply does not throw a good deep ball. Perhaps all of our views are colored by a few beautiful passes at the start of last season. But often times he underthrows or overthrows receivers, or is just generally inaccurate, on passes over 20 yards. And he of course routinely throws high, including on this (catchable) pass to Torrey Smith that should have been a touchdown:

Yes, Smith should’ve caught it. But the throw was high. Good quarterbacks – not great ones – like Kirk Cousins, Philip Rivers and Matthew Stafford – routinely make this throw more accurately. It would be great to have an Eagles receiver, just once, step up and make the play, but that does not excuse the throw entirely.

It’s also worth noting that, for whatever reason…, these are the same sort of small mistakes that Donovan McNabb would get lambasted for, or that we laughed at Sam Bradford over. Michael Vick was cast aside as an untenable quarterback because of stuff like that. Wentz is lauded for being a gamer.

I got abused on Twitter last night for tweeting these observations, I’m guessing by many of the same chucklefucks who jumped all over me for my Blount take early in the offseason. Some accused me of clickbait – interestingly on Tweets that didn’t contain a link to the site – and trying to make money of hot takes. In fact it’s the opposite. Takes like this lose audience – I lost at least 40 Twitter followers – and hardly compel you, the reader, to pony up for our Carson City t-shirt. But I don’t think Wentz is beyond critiquing. He is still very raw, and fixing a few of these issues would turn his upside from a good quarterback (Philip Rivers) into a great one (Brett Favre).

More worrisome is that the first three years of Wentz’s career and growth could be stunted by Doug Pederson calling his plays.

 

Doug Pederson

There is absolutely no flow. By the second half it became clear that Pederson would abandon the run game entirely, and that left receivers covered and Wentz frantic in a collapsing pocket. That’s not the way to nurture a young quarterback. Pederson rarely allows Wentz to get into a rhythm. When he does, the offense is almost breathtaking. The Eagles’ third quarter touchdown drive – which included two runs and a toss that was essentially a run – is a good example of this:

They moved the ball on the ground and freed up some air space, through which Wentz threw a touchdown pass to Alshon Jeffery. The Eagles then ran four straight pass plays to start the next drive, which was salvaged by Wentz running on third down. Brutal.

Another thing: Credit to Pederson for running a good number of 10- to 20-yard pass plays– something we called for last week. This is where Wentz excels as a passer, and indeed he had a big day on those curl and out routes to Jeffery. Here’s his route tree:

But the Eagles seem to lack on slant and timing plays. It feels that so many of their passes take so long to develop. Wentz lacks rhythm. This is my bad memory of the worst of Andy Reid’s offenses. And to that point, it seems damn near criminal that Eagles didn’t attempt one pass in the underneath area of their best receiver’s side of the field. Look:

How does Sproles not get a dumpoff in that area?

Speaking of, here’s visual evidence that the outside run, with Sproles, was effective when used:

 

Little Birdie

The same person who allowed me to break essentially every major piece of Eagles offseason news weighed in both last week and yesterday on the Lurie-Roseman dynamic and the existence of Doug Pederson as the Eagles’ head coach. These are his words:

Following the Reid/Banner era of the Eagles Lurie no longer had “any boots on the ground” with the exception of Howie Roseman.  What I mean by this is that many of the day-to-day operations from a football operations standpoint were unknown.  Not because they were purposely being hidden from Lurie, but because he believed that the operation was running well.  We all know how this backfired during Chip’s tenure.

This was the reason Lurie opened his checkbook up to Howie when Chip took more control in year two.  Lurie needed Howie to stay to make sure Chip didn’t sink the ship.  This move by Lurie in year two of Chip’s tenure has also created a rather interesting dynamic still present in the team today.

Howie Rosmean has remained the sole voice and ears of the team to Lurie following Chip’s tenure.  Yes, Doug participates in a these meetings on occasion now but he is in essence a puppet of Howie’s.  This has essentially created a filter where Howie has the ability to spin things to put himself in a better light to Lurie if and when issues arise.

Let me make one thing clear, I don’t know how long Howie will be our GM for but Lurie has made it abundantly clear he wants and needs to know more from a team operations standpoint, and Howie is the only guy doing that at the moment.  It sounds like barring any kind of colossal fuck up Roseman will be the GM for the foreseeable future.

And another:

Make no mistake about it – Doug was not hired as the long term answer.  This was known the day he walked in the building and anyone in Football Ops who says otherwise is a liar.  If Doug somehow managed to be lightning in a bottle (Early Andy Reid Era) then it would have been a win/win for us but this was never expected and clearly isn’t the case.  Doug was and is continuing to prove that he’s simply our stopgap at the coaching spot.

Here are some of the internal frustrations – Doug isn’t hard on the guys, he tries to be everyone’s buddy and it’s an issue.  Simply put, he doesn’t drop the hammer in the lockerroom.  He’s so focused on being a “player friendly coach” that he’s actually hurting this team and stunting development.

This is in essence a direct result of Chip Kelly’s transgressions as Chip divided not only the locker room but the entire facet of football operations.  Lurie and Howie needed to fix the mess, so we hired a puppet in Doug that would help heal the wounds from Chip.

Doug is a good man, but he’s not worthy of being an NFL head coach at this point in his career – if ever.

Do with that what you will.

 

The media

I am no LeGarrette Blount fan. Of this you may be aware. But what the Eagles media did to him yesterday was shameful. Regardless of whether or not he proves to be a bust, Blount was criminally underused yesterday. Getting one touch in a close near-defensive slugfest is simply inexcusable. He had every right to be upset, but I thought he handled himself quite well after the game:

This is why players hate the media. The assembled beat reporters were trying to extract something that wasn’t there, and extract a pull-out quote they did indeed:

The media is desirous to turn Blount into a malcontent. Perhaps he’ll become one. But that’s not what he was yesterday (at least publicly), and it’s not what he was with the Patriots, as evidenced by this interaction with Robert Kraft in Katie Nolan’s excellent ring ceremony video:

https://youtu.be/pyBZy0rvB9w?t=1m22s

The media reached yesterday.

 

No handshake

Two brutal gaffs by FOX yesterday:

  1. Not showing Travis Kelce’s unsportsmanlike conduct that led to a certified lashing from the Fat Man.
  2. Not showing the post-game handshake between Andy Reid and Doug Pederson. How does that happen? It was like the biggest layup in the history of TV production since using the wide shot on FOX News anchors.

At least CSN got Brotherly Love:

Giants next week. Thumbtack.