Gotta be honest, when I saw Tampa Bay on the week two schedule and thought about the Jameis Winston suspension, I figured this might be an easy win for the Eagles.

I did not see the Bucs going out to New Orleans in week one and winning a shoot out against Drew Brees. I don’t think anybody did.

The task at hand looks tougher than originally thought for a 1-0 Birds team that showed some great defensive stuff last Thursday but needs to get the offense in gear moving forward.

Today coordinators Jim Schwartz and Mike Groh talked about weeks one and two.

Schwartz:

  • Tampa Bay made a bunch of “big plays” in week one, DeSean Jackson and Mike Evans moving down field, it was “eye opening to watch, for sure”
  • Nigel Bradham is an important part of the defense, able to cover up some things last week, it’ll be good to get him back this week
  • DeSean has always been a guy who can take a top off a defense, Evans is a physical player who can win jump balls ever when covered, two different threats in two different ways
  • Fletcher Cox played most of the game because they wanted to limit Bruce Hector a bit before giving him a bigger role, rain helped cool things down in the second half and give the defense some rest on the sideline, not ideal to play Cox so much, but necessary to win the game
  • Jordan Hicks looked like his old self, sack was a big play in helping the defense lock things down, key part of the game and a physical play
  • had constant communication with Brandon Graham to chart his snaps on the night, rotated a lot of defensive ends on the evening
  • Derek Barnett has to “continue to detail” offside problems, gets a good jump on the snap but might need to move back his starting points. He was physical throughout the game and showed great conditioning at the end, kept coming at the quarterback.

Groh:

  • need to improve execution, confident we’ll get back to that
  • didn’t intend to limit Dallas Goedert’s reps, game just sort of played out that way
  • had some chances down the field but didn’t capitalize, Atlanta made some good plays on the football but “we know we have to create more explosive plays and push the ball down the field”
  • too early to say how defenses are playing against the offense without Alshon Jeffery on the field
  • Doug Pederson will announce starting quarterback possibly within the next day or so
  • lack of early touches for Jay Ajayi was not part of the plan, didn’t have a ton of snaps in the first half, which made it hard to get a lot of guys involved, “he’ll continue to be a big part of what we’re doing”
  • Ajayi’s foot: he missed some time, hard to keep your conditioning where you need it to be, probably factored in to game one
  • RE: DeAndre Carter getting more snaps than Shelton Gibson, they moved Nelson Agholor around and tried to “put the best guys out there that we can”
  • Tampa invested heavily in the defensive line, Gerald McCoy need to pay special attention to, Jason Pierre-Paul and Vinny Curry and Beau Allen did a nice job last week
  • Nick Foles finds a way to win games ever when not playing at his best
  • will keep feeding Zach Ertz – “we know he’s going to make more plays than he misses”
  • Tampa linebackers set the tone, guys who “have played a lot of good football over the last few years,” secondary added some pieces, they have team speed, a lot like Atlanta, defensive line can put some pressure on the quarterback

The video: