Game 2 Thoughts - 2007

- as everyone is pointing out, the passing game looks awful. some part of the blame lies with the receivers, some part lies with the coordination between the receivers and mcnabb, but a big part sits with mcnabb himself. wow. he was missing guys left and right, and he hasn't been that bad since that awful stretch in the early part of the 2003 season when don couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. it could be a combination of things (and certainly some of it is getting used to his new set of receivers since curtis is new, avant didn't play last season, and reggie brown was secretly switched with featherstone), but mcnabb is just not right. why? one reason is that his knee is obviously not quite right. don's footwork is awful right now and history has shown that he is a guy who needs to have good mechanics to throw an accurate pass. unfortunately, his legs were consistently out of sync with his upper body last night to the point where even his long passes (usually his best area) were consistently off-target and usually ended up sailing out of bounds. another reason is that he's a guy who needs to have confidence in his receiver corps because he's so loathe to take chances with the ball. with the receivers continuing to drop so many balls, he's hesitating on pulling the trigger and checking down a lot. of course, the receivers need to get open as well, which they're not really doing, but the bottom line is this: if mcnabb plays like mcnabb, the eagles win the game last night. even as poorly as he played, the birds had a good chance to tie the game on third down at the end of the game, but don threw a pass about 3 yards wide of curtis (who had made a nice outside cut to get open).

- the receiver corps needs to step things up. everyone except for avant is playing like ass right now. not sure if the playcalling has something to do with it, but there was no one running free in the secondary like we got used to seeing last season (with or without stallworth). just a minor point, but they also need to CATCH THE BALL when it hits them on the numbers.

- i haven't read or heard anything about last night's game yet, but i'm sure that people are going to say that the defense played well last night. well, i don't think they did. the redskins had guys running free all over the place. if jason campbell wasn't such a young player and was able to look off his primary receiver (which he didn't do a lot of), the skins might have scored a lot more than they did. there were guys wide open, and i mean wiiide open, on a large number of plays. i couldn't focus on the line like i wanted because the secondary was so awful, but it seemed to me that the eagles were unable to get consistent pressure on campbell. how many times was campbell able to look at his primary guy, double clutch, wait for the guy to cross zones, and then fire a strike? four times? five? meanwhile, the same old bugaboos that plague JJ defenses were still there. inability to defend against mobile QBs. inability to defend against bootleg passes to the TE. the run defense was pretty solid until the end, so there is that.

- can we stop starting trent cole? he's a situational pass rusher. let's agree and try something else. he's not good at holding the edge and he's not a good tackler. howard should be starting and cole should come in with juqua thomas as pass rush specialists.

- will james sucked last night. every other play he was getting turned around by the skins receiver. he is not well suited to covering smaller, quicker receivers. they were eating him alive last night. the receivers he was covering were often open by 3-5 yards. it was sick.

- the o-line played ok i thought. don's lack of accuracy was not due to the o-line not blocking well (though there certainly were a few jailbreaks during the game). mcnabb was sometimes not stepping up into the pocket when it was there. again, lack of confidence in the knee i suppose.

- sav rocca sucked last night. he only got one decent kick and the rest looked terrible (short and low). the one that was a boomer was certainly impressive, but overall he sucked.

- i never thought i'd be glad to see reno mahe back returning punts, and i'm glad to say i'm still not. he may be able to catch the ball, but he still stinks. of course, getting cut and resigned was the best thing to happen to him. at least for this game, he was certainly a fan favorite.

- mcnabb - d minus
- receivers - d
- running backs - b
- o-line - b
- d-line - c plus
- linebackers - c
- secondary - d

yuck and double yuck! this is certainly no reason to panic and by the end of the year, the eagles will likely not suck, but i think big dog is feeling the same way i'm feeling about this -- fatigued.

i agree with big dog. i'm really starting to get tired of living through the same thing every season. this year is especially tough because in past years, you knew that once the eagles got their heads on straight, they could be viable contenders. not so this year, with belicheat and the patriots looking like they have a chance to be the best team ever. that's not the real problem though. the real problem is that without the hope of potentially contending for a championship shining out in front of me, what i'm left with is a team that runs an offense i hate (worst coast offense) and that i'm finding less and less enjoyable to watch.