Eagles vs Lions observations

[taz]

First off sorry I didn't post last week. I was actually out of the country with bad internet. I did get to see the game (all be it in Spanish )

This one, a win is a win is a win.

1. Hurts - Average game. Missed too many throws in my opinion, also had some drops on him. Detroit is a really good defense so I am not too concerned about him going forward. Bound to have a meh game.

2. Barkley - Best run of the year was his last run to seal the game. Otherwise he just looks a blink slower this year and those runs he was breaking last year he is getting caught. You can see the difference when Bigsby is running the ball.

3. AJ Brown - A couple of drops and he gave up on some plays. Something is off about him this year and I don't think its the attitude stuff. Its almost like the Barkley thing a split slow

4. Offensive Line - This is going to be one of those years where you just have injury after injury on the oline. Jurgens and Johnson didn't finish the game. Even when they were in there they still struggle in the run game. Also just too many penalties on them. The only one I will say was bogus was the false start on Steen. It was obviously on the Lions.

5. Tush Push - Lions stopped it no problem 2 of the 3 times we ran it. The Lions might have the best defensive line we have seen.

6. The Defense - The entire unit is playing out of their minds right now and Jalen Phillips looks to be the missing piece.

7. Nakobe Dean looks to be faster and better than he was before he got hurt. They have a real decision to make after this year. I know they have a 1st invested in Campbell but they have to bring back Dean.

8. Adoree Jackson - Yes he gave up a long TD but he also played really well the rest of the game.

9. Dan Campbell - Might be the worst coach we have faced all year. He simply went for 4th down after 4th down and lost on every one of them. You generally don't do that. If he played it straight up they might have won this game.

Overall the toughness of this schedule continues. 8-2 in clear control of the division. Tied for 1st place in the conference but own the tie breaker with the Rams. They need to clean up the offense. It starts with execution they have stop with all the penalties.

Bonus the officials were putrid once again this week. Steen did not false start the defensive player was in the neutral zone causing him to false start. it was not a penalty on Brown knor was it a penalty on Rock Ya Sin. Barkley scored, not sure how they over turn that. Goedert got tackled 4 yards out of bounds no call. I mean just a really bad performance once again. 9 penalties on the Eagles, I saw 4 legit ones. 79 yards and it stalled 5 Eagles drives. Ironically the one bad one on the Lions decided the game. They just need to get this fixed.

[FairOaks]

I was actually overseas for the Vikings game... saw that one in German

1. I think the wind was a major factor for the second straight game. Those deeper lob throws getting blown around, and probably some other issues. Both opposing offenses also rather bad and I think it affected them too. Hurts was OK, but some throws were off (quite possibly wind on a fair number) and there were 4-5 drops which made his numbers look pretty bad. But played OK I think.

2. Bigsby doesn't seem to wait and just go forward. He's also not a guy that everyone is keying on. Barkley, admittedly, does dance a little at the line to decide on a hole, where Bigsby does not and that did help at times.

3. He's not getting separation but he was catching balls when other guys were dropping them. The separation is something of a concern.

4. Yeah, and Dickerson had a couple of off plays early. Just not quite themselves this year thus far and probably some nagging injuries for a while. Penalty on Steen... by the rules, yeah, Detroit DL had hand in the neutral zone and Steen reached out to touch it. But seems like they let the DL get his hand back onside then when Steen kept moving the hand, and the DL jumped, decided to call it on Steen. I would rather to just play it straight and hope they call the neutral zone infraction on the snap.

5. Eh. We got a TD on one, false started out of a couple, then the last two -- the 3rd and 1 was a longish yard and we got almost all of it. Was not really stuffed, just a tiny bit short. That last one was, but we usually get it. But Detroit was playing it reasonably well.

6. Phillips is just an awesome fit.

7. I love Dean and hope we can figure out a way. He's probably going to get a pretty good contract from someone. We do have depth there, and of course Baun's contract is large, but I'd love to keep the core Georgia guys around for longer.

8. Adoree is about at cromulent level at this point. Definite improvement.

9. That is who he is, and it works for them a lot. Also, long FGs were not the option they normally are. But a couple of those just seemed reckless. Their offense was going worse than ours.

Yeah, some odd penalty calls. The one on Steen... refs may have a dim view when the OL was not really drawn offside but try to get it called on a technicality. Or they weren't looking for it. But there were some other bad calls on us. That last one was hideous. (There was one in the Commanders/Dolphins game today that was even worse -- not sure the receiver was touched, and the ball was way uncatchable anyways, yet still called.)

[Eaglebreath]

Boy, that defense is really balling out. Goff is going to have nightmares tonight. I don't recall ever seeing him get his ass kicked like that. They took him completely off his game. Great move by Howie to get Phillips. He's defnintely given them an impact player on the edge that they were missing.

The offense still concerns me a bit. I do think the wind was impacting throws early in the game, but it seemed to die down as the game went on. They just don't seem like they're firing on all cylinders for whatever reason.

Am I the only person who thinks Nick does dumb things sometimes? Why in the hell are you going for it on 4th and 1 on your own 30 yard line up 10 in the 4th quarter like that? I know they generally convert the push, but still, it doesn't make a damn bit of sense. He handed them 3 points. You gotta punt there. That was a really stupid decision IMO.

[FairOaks]

We had been getting about a yard on the shove plays fine this game. If you convert, it's pretty much close to game. If we had converted we'd be praising his aggressiveness at sealing the game. I was far more annoyed at the lack of punt last week -- thought that was pretty much indefensible. This one was, as the upside was huge and we convert that almost all the time. Only real reason to not go was that Toth was in there.

[Eagle60]

Nick is over aggressive and it's going to bite us in the ass one of these days. Big Balls Campbell's over aggresive strategy finally sunk him today. I agree that not punting wasn't as bad as last week's dumb decision though. After all, a blocked punt really would have been much worse of an outcome and probably was the only way we could have lost that game. My favorite part of the game was, we finally ran quarterback draws!! Collinsworth has been calling for them too! Both were at key points of the game and led to our win. He commented many times that Hurts has to get involved in the run game for the Eagles to make their offense more effective.

[dawkins20]

Collinsworth was about as annoying as I’ve heard him. He repeats the same shit over and over again.

kempski had a good article on AJ about him maybe slowing down and not being as good. Separation numbers are waaaaaay down. Maybe it’s the head and the play? The hands and RAC are still amazing though.

[musicman]

He likes to mention his company PFF .

[andrewaters]

Well a win is a win.

1. There is nothing more that can be said about the defense here guys. They look like last year's defense now and if they stay healthy they will only continue to improve. Here are some thoughts on the young players.

1a. Nakobe is all the way back. It's going to be hard to keep him He is an UFA next year and he looks like a star in the making if he can stay healthy.
1b. Reed is also almost always in the right place at the right time. He is also an UFA. I think maybe he is going to get paid somewhere else and I can't blame him although he might be a system guy who teams don't really want to pay because they might think his success is based on the system.
1c. Moro Ojomo is just ridiculously good. We do have him for one more year but I gotta say I think we could consider letting Jalen Carter walk and just resigning Ojomo and Jordan Davis. Looking at what Milton Williams got last year, I think Ojomo might get a deal similar if we let him get to the free market.
1d. Andrew Mukuba is there man. Kid has picked up the defense so quickly and he is in the right place at the right time almost all the time.

2. Quinyon Mitchell gets his own number. Goodness he is a baller. It is just unbelievable how good he is playing.

3. Jaelen Phillips man. Also just a baller. I'd love to keep him long term but how are we going to be able to afford him.

4. Jake the Make had a great game. Kickoffs too. And our ST coverage units played really well.

5. Has anyone noticed that Jihad Campbell and Zach Baun don't even get mentioned as much anymore because the guys around them are playing so well but truthfully the defense played GREAT. Very few missed tackles. They maintained leverage all game long. They had Goff rattled.

6. The wind impacted that game. Especially Jalen because his arm is just not as strong as most NFL QBs. But Goff struggled too. That was not all the pass rush. Some of that was also the wind. The deep ball was hard to throw last night. If you noticed, the Lions big plays came on crossing routes which we just rarely run with anyone but AJ. Why they don't run Devonte on a shallow cross once in a while makes no sense to me. Goff's completions to WRs came mostly in zones as they were running across the middle of the field. I got no clue why Patullo can't figure that out for us.

7. Some of the run calls are just terrible. It becomes so predictable. And the DTs are blowing up the line and slowing down the running game just through penetration. Do something different man. It is just too obvious what they are going to do. It's like tipping pitches in baseball.

7a. That play action shallow boot or whatever the F that was in the 4th quarter was honestly the worst play design I have ever seen. Something that to be wrong there. It was awful.
7b. Why is Dallas Goedert open on these out routes off play action but we can't figure out how to get other WRs open? It is staggering how bad the route schemes appear to be.
7c. Jahan Dotson was getting open? Why was that? Explain how Dotson gets open but AJ and Devonte can't? And don't tell me it is bracketing AJ and Devonte because the Lions don't have 14 defenders on the field.

Guys we are 8-2. If you would have told me we'd be 8-2 right now in the season I'd take it. We have a game in hand over the Rams. The Rams still have home against the Bucs and Lions and at the Seahawks. The Seahawks have the Colts and at 49ers still on the schedule. I think if we can go 13-4 we will get the one seed but 14-3 almost seems certain to get HFA and the bye.

We can't give away these last two hard fought wins by going down to Dallas and laying an egg. If we can get the win over Dallas, we come home to the Bears who are good man. And then from there we have tough games left at the Bills and Chargers. Got to win 3 of those 4 and then NOT spit the bit against the Commanders and Raiders.

We really need HFA and the bye guys. If we can get HFA and the bye I think we are headed back to the Super Bowl and the Chiefs are out of the picture now. They still have some tough games left. I really believe if we can just get HFA we have a great chance to get there and win it again. The Bills defense is bad and the Colts are good but Daniel Jones is still there QB. The Broncos beat us once and that was a gift. They won't beat us again.

[Eagle60]

Collinsworth was about as annoying as I’ve heard him. He repeats the same shit over and over again.

kempski had a good article on AJ about him maybe slowing down and not being as good. Separation numbers are waaaaaay down. Maybe it’s the head and the play? The hands and RAC are still amazing though.

He might be slowing down a little but that guy is such a stud! I'll match him up with anybody on a contested catch; 6'3" and 230lbs and a vice grip. I also love his attitude because he's right, the offense has to go through him to win a game.

[NoDakIggle]

Maybe defense maybe wind but Hurts had more than a couple bad passes last night. And the drops were quite evident last night.
I fully believe Barkley is a half step slower or the OL is giving a half sec less time. There are outside runs that he would’ve broken free on last year but he is caught at the line this year. I also believe AJ has hands that you just can’t break but he also isn’t the player he was last year. Maybe it is the speed maybe it is the desire but he just isn’t who he was.
Punt was very well the right answer but I have no problem using the push last night. My problem is they have not sprinkled in enough other plays off the formation in order to keep the D just a tad suspicious as to what they are going to run.

[Eagle60]

Maybe defense maybe wind but Hurts had more than a couple bad passes last night. And the drops were quite evident last night.
I fully believe Barkley is a half step slower or the OL is giving a half sec less time. There are outside runs that he would’ve broken free on last year but he is caught at the line this year. I also believe AJ has hands that you just can’t break but he also isn’t the player he was last year. Maybe it is the speed maybe it is the desire but he just isn’t who he was.
Punt was very well the right answer but I have no problem using the push last night. My problem is they have not sprinkled in enough other plays off the formation in order to keep the D just a tad suspicious as to what they are going to run.

[RobLew65]

Quickly: Defense has been amazing ! Even Adoree is playing better! Phillips really solidified the DLine! My one concern is that the Eagles offense keeps out Defense on the field way too much!
The offense is a complete mess. There is no identity unless dysfunctional is an identity. Penalties injuries inconsistent playcalling all are playing apart but the biggest thing seems to be that just are not on the same page. AJ is right but also wrong! Jalen is so hot and cold Then you have Grant C whiffing on every single block! This guy should never see the field at all! Bring up EJ Jenkins for Pete's sake.

Lastly the officials have been terrible all year. That call at the end was brutal! But they missed so many and it's a league wide problem. Not one crew do I feel comfortable saying they get it right 90% of the time

[sfphillyfan]

I don’t think this is a Super Bowl caliber team with this shit offense. HOWEVER, there are no world beaters out there, especially in the AFC. If you deep dive into strength of schedule and strength of victory, they’re all fraudulent. The Bills might be the only team to put up a game and they’re way too reliant on Josh Allen.

I honestly feel the Rams and Lions are the only challengers to the NFC throne. Sam Darnold is a big game choker.

check out SOV here https://www.espn.com/nfl/standings/_...playoff/league

[RobLew65]

Rams are legit! I know 49ers are beat up but they keep winning! Never count them out. Seahawks have Darnold who sees ghosts with pressure. Lions will be there. I can't see Eagles beating Rams again with this offense but they have surprised me in the past

[Eagle60]

Rams are legit! I know 49ers are beat up but they keep winning! Never count them out. Seahawks have Darnold who sees ghosts with pressure. Lions will be there. I can't see Eagles beating Rams again with this offense but they have surprised me in the past

I wouldn't overreact too much to last night's game Rob. The weather in the Northeast was brutal, and I know our defense is good, but let's face it we're not 9 points good. I actually was Happy the way our offense looked last night with the play calling considering the conditions. We hadn't seen a quarterback draw for most of the season, and we got two huge first downs off of it. I've seen Jaylen perform in three Super Bowls so I'm sure not worried about him come playoff time.

As for those teams in the NFC West, all three of them are Super Bowl caliber teams and we will have to deal with them. It sure would be nicer to deal with them in our house though! The only thing I worry about is the health of our players. Jorgens went down again yesterday with that back and that is huge So if you want to worry about something there it is.