- The Andy Reid/Donovan McNabb combination is very impressive, I have to admit. If you look at their receivers, their top three guys are (in no real order) Hank Baskett, Greg Lewis, and DeSean Jackson. Heading into the season, no one outside of avid fantasy football players and Eagles fans knew who the hell any of these guys were. Former first round pick Reggie Brown is hurt and they've still scored 75 points in their first two games. And it's mostly McNabb. So, yeah. Gotta find a way to stop that guy.
- Jackson has been the rookie receiver sensation in the early going. He's 5'10" and weighs about as much as my right nut, but he has great feet, is also involved in the return game, and he's fast as hell. He's kinda like Antwaan Randle-El, except he can't play quarterback in a pinch, he's faster, and returning kicks and playing receiver is all he's ever done. We don't have anyone on defense that can run with him. The best idea is going to be to put Ryan Clark on the goal line and wait for Jackson to drop the ball before he crosses the plane. Dick LeBeau has been pretty effective in designing ways to take a fast guy out of the game and he'll need to pull everything out of his bag of tricks for this game.
- One way he's stopped really fast guys is by blitzing the hell out of the quarterback, but playing a very conservative Cover 2 defense on the back end. That would work well, except for the fact that Jackson isn't the Eagles most dangerous player. Not even close.
- That would be Brian Westbrook. In 2004, Philly really didn't know how to use him effectively and he was just their cute, little back that could catch the ball. Now, they're running him to the outside, designing passing plays for him to run out of the backfield, and lining him up at wide receiver. All to get him the ball in space where he can downright kill you. However, as James Farrior learned in 2004, the best way to stop Westbrook is to square up on him, not get faked out, and then fucking punish him because he makes DeSean Jackson look obese.
- And that's really the strategy for those two guys. They're not sissies by any stretch of the imagination, but they are a lot smaller than the guys we have on defense. Ike Taylor and Bryant McFadden need to smack Jackson around at the line -- before, ya know, they're not allowed to touch him -- and Troy and Clark need to punish him when he does catch the ball. There's a reason that "two for flinching" works. You get hit enough, those damned human reflexes take over and you brace for impact instead of trying to determine whether or not (and how hard) you're going to get hit.
- McNabb is a hell of a player and he's a big, strong dude, but he's had a lot of injuries in the past few years. He's generally one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL... until he goes on injured reserve. So, while I'm not saying that we put a hit out on him, I am saying that we should sick Lawrence Timmons on him. That man is an eliminator. He makes solid contact and very rarely misses a tackle. We should tell him that McNabb banged his mother and didn't tip her. That he punches babies. That he took a leak in Timmons' Gatorade. That McNabb once sodomized Bobby Bowden and game him a dirty sanchez. Basically, anything to make him hate McNabb more and make him want to go kill that dirty, sodomite bastard.
- Pressure, in general, though, is the only way we're going to shut this offense down. They scored 38 against the Rams and 37 against the Cowboys. The common thread in both of those games is that McNabb's uniform barely got dirty. The Eagles offensive line is doing a hell of a job in the early going, but their opponents have kind of sucked at pressuring McNabb. With Brett Kiesel out, it's up to Timmons, LaMar Woodley, James Harrison, and, to a lesser extent, Aaron Smith to crash the pocket and get in McNabb's face. He's a strong dude and he's tough to bring down, but he's nowhere near as much of an escape artist as Roethlisberger and, since his coaches have been beating it into his head for the last ten years that he needs to be a pocket passer, he's no longer a threat to scramble for big yardage. We don't have the speed in the secondary to keep up with Jackson and their other receivers and, if we play too much Cover 2, they'll eat us up underneath. They're too smart, so we need to beat that fancy book learnin' out of them. The only way McNabb is going to be unable to get the ball to his receivers -- and they'll be open, trust me -- is if he's on his back or getting hit. We did it in 2004, we (hopefully) can do it again.
- I know I keep referencing 2004, but that's exactly what we need to do -- attack the line of scrimmage, pressure McNabb, and make it very difficult for the receivers to get off the ball. The pressure on McNabb is the key, though. Eagles analyst Ed Rendell said that, in 2004, the most impressive team he saw was the Pittsburgh Steelers. That includes the New England Patriots, who beat us (and our fantastic defense, scoring 41 goddamn points) and also beat... the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. He was so impressed by us because of the different ways we were able to get to McNabb and the way we neutralized Terrell Owens. Well, Owens is obviously no longer with the team, but Troy was the one who took him out of that game, and there's no way in hell he can hang with Jackson. The other downside is that that 2004 game against the Eagles is the second best defensive effort I've seen from the Steelers this century (the first being in the Divisonal Round against the Colts the year we won three playoff games on the road, then Super Bowl XL. That's right, kids! We won Super Bowl XL! Been a while since I mentioned that). At any rate, it's probably wishful thinking that we'll be able to duplicate our second best defensive effort of the century. On the bright side, the Eagles aren't as explosive offensively as they were back then (Westbrook was younger, they had Owens, McNabb was still a threat to run, their offensive line was better), so we'll probably just need a top-15 peformance. And, hell, that should be easy.
- Speaking of defense, Philly held the Rams to three points in Week 1. But, the Rams kinda suck. Okay, so they really suck and Scott Linehan has less job security than a quadrapelegic lifeguard. The important thing to remember is that they let up 41 points to the Cowboys. Our offense isn't as good as the Cowboys offense, but I'd say our talent puts us closer to 41 points than three points.
- As far as our offensive line versus their front seven, we match up real well against them. We should have plenty of success blowing them off the ball and in the running game and, really, they're going to need to blitz a lot to get to Roethlisberger, even with our crappy pass protection. They've stockpiled a lot more talent in their secondary over the past few years and it shows.
- So, basically, the best defense is going to be a good offense. I'm thinking we need to get Rashard Mendenhall involved and hope to hell he doesn't fumble. Fast Willie is still the guy and he has looked fantastic thus far, but I'm thinking Tomlin needs to put on the ol' Cowher pants and walk around for a while in this game. The best way to defend against this team is going to be to play keepaway and strand McNabb and company on the sidelines.
- Where they have talent and where they've spent their money is in the secondary, where they have five good-to-great players and only four spots. Asante Samuel knows how to cover our guys from his days with the Patriots, Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown are both Pro Bowl caliber guys, and Brian Dawkins and Michael Lewis have already been there. And so has Samuel. However, they got burned more times than a near-sighted crack head last week against Dallas. The issue is that these are guys that have horrible short-term memories and a ton of confidence. So, it's not like Asante Samuel is sitting in his mansion, thinking, "Damn. I'm a fraud. It's only a matter of time before I'm discovered. I wonder if I'll have to give up my signing bonus." No, it's more like he's thinking, "Those damn refs fucked me. I'm gonna do twice as good this week. No one believes in me, but I know I'm the awesomest human ever to lace up cleats." That confidence means that we need to take a couple of shots deep early on. That's pretty much on Santonio Holmes, because he's, by far, the best deep receiver we've got. I think Ben has it left in his shoulder to throw a couple of 50 yard bombs in the first quarter. Hopefully, we can complete at least one of those and get in their heads. But, I'll settle for the yards and maybe a touchdown.
- Need to get Heath involved in this game. With how well the secondary matches up against our receivers, we need to take advantage of the fact that they don't have anyone that can cover Heath well. Dawkins and Lewis are good cover guys, but they're too small. Their linebackers are big enough, but they're too slow and not good enough in coverage. I have a feeling that they're going to stack the line and try to stuff the run, because they can see Tomlin trying to squeeze his way into the Cowher pants. The two best ways to get them to back off the line are to hit some plays deep to the receivers and hit Heath in the seam.
- We can't give up too many big plays on defense and we need to hit the big play opportunities that we have on offense. If this thing turns into a shootout, we're fucked. The offense is starting to grow into more of a high-powered unit (heh heh, high-powered unit), but it's not at the level that Dallas is at and, realistically, the Cowboys were at home. In Philly, they probably lose on Monday night.
- We need to make some plays on special teams. And... that's probably not gonna happen.
- We need to win the turnover battle. We haven't been mistake prone thus far and we've forced a few turnovers and made some big plays on defense, so this shouldn't be an issue. But, you never know. Turnovers are weird things. Sometimes, the ball bounces for the other team.
I still don't think we have enough. This Eagles team is at home, they're playing with a lot of confidence, and I don't see a top-15 performance coming out of our defense.
If we do manage to win the turnover battle, slow down the game by running the ball, limit big plays on defense, and strike with a few big plays on offense, then we can win. And, if we win, then we'll further cement ourselves as the team to beat in the AFC, with all the favorites and Cinderellas currently mired in a world of shit.
Still, though. Don't think it's gonna happen.
Eagles 28, Steelers 24
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