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OK, who wrote this for Spads??

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  • OK, who wrote this for Spads??

    Sounds like this could have been written by several of our board members. This is pretty critical by Spadaro, and points to a lot of the issues many of our posters are talking about:

    Work Ahead? That's The NFL Game




    October 16, 2006


    I see this whole season going down to the end of the year, to those three road games in December, to that finale against Atlanta.
    I see the teams that play the most consistent football being the teams that reach the playoffs. I see an NFC East picture that is going to change a lot over the next several weeks with, hopefully, the Eagles remaining at the top of the pack.

    I see an Eagles team that is good, potentially very good, maybe great. Things have to get better in several areas, however.

    At 4-2, the Eagles are in first place in the division. They are kicking themselves over losing fourth-quarter leads against New York and New Orleans, but the reality is that the focus is on Tampa Bay.

    The Bucs have one just one game this season, but Tampa Bay has a great defense, a good offense and a fine coach in Jon Gruden. Sunday will be a physical football game.

    I like this Eagles team a lot, but I'm not blind to areas that need to be better. Let's take a look at some of them now.


    DEFENSE ON THIRD DOWN
    For the most part, the Eagles had been pretty good through five games getting off the field on third downs. But they were not successful in that department on Sunday. New Orleans converted 8 of 16 third downs.

    I expected to see an Eagles defense this season that would overwhelm offenses with its speed and versatility. I thought Jim Johnson would have the chance to be even more creative than usual mixing and matching his personnel groupings and his blitz packages.


    Jeremiah Trotter and the defense must be better on third downs
    The pass rush had 23 sacks entering New Orleans and was shut out there by a surprisingly good offensive line and the guile of veteran quarterback Drew Brees, who completed 13 passes to backs and three more to tight ends. Thus, 16 of his 27 completions went the way of the check-down, or the swing pass, or the short dump.

    Anything, in other words, to combat the pass rush.

    The Saints were successful using that formula and I'm sure other teams will try to copy it in the coming weeks. Quarterback know the best way to circumvent the pass rush is to get rid of the football.

    This will force Johnson to make some adjustments, and I am not smart enough to tell you what he might be thinking. He needs his linebackers to clamp down on those short passes, and he needs his pass rushers to get their hands up and get their hands on some of these passes.

    This is not the time to panic, for sure, but Johnson wants more urgency from his defense. Look, the Eagles miss Jevon Kearse, and we're seeing it now. You don't just take that kind of player away from a defense and move on without a hiccup. The Eagles also miss cornerback Rod Hood, who has a heel strain. There is no telling when Hood is going to return. He is "making progress" in the words of Andy Reid, and only Reid and head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder know when Hood will be back on the field.

    Look for the Eagles to play more of a "downhill" style against rookie quarterback Bruce Gradkowski on Sunday. Gruden knows this, naturally. He'll try to counteract the Eagles pass rush with a get-the-ball-out-of-the-quarterback's-hand gameplan.

    Should be interesting.

    All I know is that third downs are critical and they worked against the Eagles on Sunday.


    STARTING FASTER
    For whatever reason, the defense allowed successive scoring drives to open the game and the offense failed to generate much of anything until the third quarter on Sunday in New Orleans.

    How do you get the Eagles playing at more of a fevered pitch?

    No clue. Maybe you start the game in a no-huddle offense, as Reid has done this year. Maybe you go the route of the Knute Rockne speech before the game, although they really aren't Reid's style and you can only go to that well a couple of times a year.

    Quick starts are key, obviously. The Eagles came back and took a lead in the fourth quarter, but they had a two-touchdown gap to cover at halftime. That makes a team awfully one dimensional in its offensive approach.

    Which leads us to ...


    OFFENSIVE BALANCE
    The Eagles took a bunch of deep shots on Sunday and they didn't work. They were there, and Hank Baskett had some chances, but the plays ultimately didn't happen.

    It's hard to argue with an offense that scored 24 points and that has averaged nearly 30 a game this year. I would like to see more running at critical times, of course. Everybody would. I would like to see the Eagles demonstrate they can string together a few 15-play, 85-yard drives in a game.

    It is something to work towards. Nobody has a finished product in October. This is the time of the year to accumulate wins, so the goal here is to get to 5-2. Nothing else matters to me, except for good health.

    I don't know how to label this offense. The Eagles are dynamic and they have the game's best quarterback. The receivers dropped too many passes on Sunday -- I think the offense could use Donté Stallworth to make it truly special -- but by and large the offense has been OK.

    To be better, the Eagles need more balance. They need to eat clock with the running game. They need confidence in the running game and develop some bread-and-butter reliance on the ground attack.

    I have always argued that the Eagles don't put up big running numbers because they chose not to run as much as many teams. Even on Sunday, the Eagles averaged 5.2 yards per rushing attempt. Thing was, they only attempted 19 runs.

    They need more than that.

    We'll see where it goes from here. Trust me when I tell you the coaching staff is far more critical of itself and of the players privately than any fan or media talking head can possibly be.

    The coaching staff knows what needs to improve. Offensive balance is on the list.


    FOURTH-QUARTER DOMINATION
    Where is it? Where is the killer instinct? When are the Eagles going to grab a lead early in the fourth quarter and then come right out and put going to put their collective feet down on an opponent's throat?


    Brian Westbrook ran well, but not enough, in New Orleans
    What bothers me maybe more than anything else about Sunday's loss was the way the Eagles allowed momentum to sift through their grasp immediately after taking a 24-17 lead.

    First, New Orleans returned David Akers' kickoff to the 31-yard line, which was a good starting point. Then the defense gave up big plays on a five-play scoring drive. New Orleans converted a third and 2 with a short pass to Marques Colston. Two plays later, wide receiver Joe Horn worked his way free in the deep secondary and scored on a 48-yard catch and run and, just like that, the game was tied.

    All square, with the Saints gaining the edge. The crowd and all that fake noise that make the Superdome a tremendous home-field advantage started thumping and bumping.

    So what happened next? Dexter Wynn had a 19-yard kickoff return to the 26-yard line. The offense ran the ball well -- three runs for 18 yards -- and then a completion to Greg Lewis put the ball at the Saints 45-yard line.

    Another Brian Westbrook run gained five yards. But on second and 5, Donovan McNabb was sacked by the Saints and the Eagles were in a third-and-long situation, and, well, the drive ended.

    The lesson: You have to sustain drives. You have to avoid sacks and penalties. And the Eagles ran the ball effectively in the fourth quarter.

    But they didn't score. And they never got the ball back, as New Orleans whittled the clock down to zero with its great drive.

    The Eagles won't go anywhere until they start winning the fourth quarter of games. Win. Dominate. Take over a game.

    It's been a mantra of Andy Reid's teams here, but it's an area that needs to be improved now.

    Hey, really, everything needs to be improved. I am on a quest for perfection. I know it is impossible, but I can't help but hate the taste of losing a football game.

    It is October and a win in Tampa Bay is a must. Get to 5-2, get to 5-2. That's all that matters now. The Eagles have work to do to get back on track, and they know it.
    http://shop.cafepress.com/content/global/img/spacer.gifOK, let's try this again...

  • #2
    If he didn't have written that, then I must. Cause I agree 500% on it.
    "You will dress only in attire specially sanctioned by P.E. special services… You are no longer part of the system. You are above the system, over it, beyond it. We're "them." We're "they." We are the Men in Green."

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    • #3
      There's even a part in there about the importance of dedicating more of your offense to the run game....must have been contributed by our boy Dawk. LOL!
      http://shop.cafepress.com/content/global/img/spacer.gifOK, let's try this again...

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      • #4
        I can't believe a guy that writes for a living spelled won 'one'.

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        • #5
          One of the better articles I have read by Spuds. It was as critical as I have seen him be about this team. He is right, there is no killer instinct. My question is WHY? This is basically the same defense from 2004 that had the killer instinct. Why don't they have it now. Why can't the offense sustain drives at the end (even though I don't blame them at all for Sunday, and they did sustain a drive at the begining of the 4th quarter it just ended prematurely with Runyan getting beat for a sack.)
          Were from Philly F in Philly no one likes us we DON'T CARE!

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          • #6
            Originally posted by EFD
            I can't believe a guy that writes for a living spelled won 'one'.
            I think we all get lazy these days with spell checkers. I don't proofread my Word documents like I used to, because most errors are pointed out to me as I am typing.

            I would bet that Spad's entire article would pass through a spell checker without errors.

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