Week 14 Wrap Up

 

Coming into this game, there was a lot of potential for this to be a let down game for the Birds. They were coming off an emotional win against the Carolina Panthers while the Redskins were looking to battle back from an embarrassing loss against the Atlanta Falcons. The Eagles were shaky early on, going 3 and out on the first drive and allowing a field goal on the Redskins’ first drive. We hope you like field goals, because this game had a lot of them. Moving on, with the Redskins driving again in the first quarter, rookie LB Omar Gaither gobbled up a pass by QB Jason Campbell that would eventually lead to an LJ Smith touchdown making the score 7-3. Up until that point, the Redskins were running all over the Eagles thanks to Ladell Betts, but when they threw the ball they picked on Eagles CB William James, throwing it to the guy he was covering almost every time. However, Campbell got greedy on a pass to Santana Moss as the ball was tipped by James into the arms of Michael Lewis, who returned it 84 yards for his first NFL TD, Eagles ahead 14-3. Following a defensive stop, QB Jeff Garcia launched a 60 yard bomb to Reggie Brown that would be followed up with a TD pass to Donte Stallworth. With the Eagles ahead 21-3, all was well in Eagles land right? Well, not so much. After another FG by Redskins kicker Shaun Suisham made it 21-6 at halftime, the game was all Redskins. Suisham kicked his third FG early in the 3^rd quarter and finally in the last minute of the quarter, Campbell found the endzone and connected with his WR Randel El for a 34-yard TD. In the fourth quarter with the Eagles defense worn out by the running attack of Betts, Weapon X, Brian Dawkins  put a huge sack on the Redskins who had 3^rd and goal and forced Joe Gibbs to make a controversial decision to go for the FG making the score 21-19. The Eagles were able to run out the final 5 minutes of the clock as they squeaked past the pesky and high priced Redskins in Washington and kept their playoff hopes alive as they improved to 7-6 while the Redskins dropped to 4-9, thus ending their playoff hopes.

 

Post game positives

 

Big play (offense and defense)

This is sort of a grey area for the Eagles in this game because the big play all but disappeared in the second half on both sides. In the first quarter, the Eagles were being outplayed early (a trend that continued the whole game). However, the rookie Omar Gaither helped the Eagles get a momentum swing with a big interception that led to a TD. Then a little later, William James who had been having a rough game up until that point, tipped a pass in his direction into the arms of his fellow CB Michael Lewis who took it for a TD in his first NFL touchdown. Speaking of big plays, Brian Dawkins also made some big plays himself, knocking a pass away that would have been a 1^st down and a beautiful sack on QB Jason Campbell when the Redskins were poised to take the lead. The Eagles have got to stop relying on the big play to bail them out because it nearly lost them the game today, however in this case, it gave them just enough points to win the game. Remember when Dick Vermeil said football is a funny game? Maybe he was onto something.

 

Dirk Johnson’s leg

This game was won thanks in large part to the leg of Dirk Johnson. Johnson’s punts were crucial in helping the Eagles win the field position battle even if they didn’t win any other battle in this one (besides the game itself). Johnson’s punts had a lot of air under them and a lot of distance to boot, no pun intended. Johnson and the Eagles punt coverage team pinned explosive kick-returner Antwaan Randel-El within his own 20 yard line multiple times. As a result, despite the Eagles shoddy defense they were able to bend but not break and hold the clicking Redskins offense to four field goals when they very well could have gotten touchdowns. Dirk Johnson’s leg is sometimes unpredictable but in this one, he helped the tired Eagles defense out tremendously with field position and thanks to Johnson, this near collapse turned into a W for the Birds.

 

Brian Dawkins, Michael Lewis, and Omar Gaither

On a defense that played, for the most part lousy the entire game, three guys showed up to play the entire game. B-Dawk’s play has been simply amazing this year. No matter how high or how low this season has been, we can always count on Dawkins to leave everything on the field and play his heart out. He came up with big plays when the Eagles need them including a critical 4^th quarter sack. Lewis has had a down year so far, but his 84 yard TD was huge and frankly very pretty to see from Lewis, whose future in Philadelphia is in limbo as we speak. As far as Gaither is concerned, how impressive has the rookie from Tennessee been in his two starts? Gaither can’t be blamed for the run defense problems as he was in coverage most of the day, but when it came to Jason Campbell, Gaither read him like a book and came up with 1 and nearly two interceptions. The play of these three guys was a silver lining to another wise terrible day by the Eagles defense.

 

Time Management

Just when we at The Eagle Report were ready to pop the Pepcid AC like candy following that last drive by the Redskins, we saw Jeff Garcia, Brian Westbrook, Thomas Tapeh, and Donte Stallworth help the Eagles keep that clock moving and keep the Redskins offense off the field and give the defense a much needed rest. Let’s face it. Put that tired defense on the field again, the Redskins chances of tying the game or even winning it would be pretty good. The ability to keep the ball with smart playcalling by Andy and Marty helped the Eagles put this one away, helped us from rehashing memories of Week 2, and most importantly, kept the stomach ulcers and heartburn away as the Eagles stole one here today.

 

Post game negatives

 

Rushing defense

Same old story on this one, the Eagles are atrocious at stopping the run. We knew it, the Redskins knew it, the 90,000+ people at FedEx field knew it, yet for some reason the Eagles had no idea they were going to keep handing the ball of to Ladell Betts. Even when it was third and short, the Eagles were doing their Nickel and Dime coverage and it led to a first down almost every time. The Eagles gave up 210 yards rushing today, 171 of those to Betts, who averaged a nice 5.2 yards a carry. It’s a pretty odd thing when the Eagles can give up 210 yards rushing and not allow a touchdown, yet they managed to do it. The Eagles are exposed and have been exposed ever since Duce McCallister and Reggie Bush ran all over them in Week 6. Everyone in the league knows the way to beat this team is to simply run the ball early, often, and consistently and unless the Eagles can find a way to stop the bleeding on the ground, we will see more of what the Redskins did today.

 

3^rd downs and the big play

Here is another area that works on both offense and defense. The Eagles relied way too much on the big play on offense as the ‘Skins had Garcia’s number most of the game. As far as defense, the Eagles needed the big play to keep the Redskins from moving the ball. Onto the third downs, the Eagles were 4-10 on third downs, but couldn’t convert when they needed to. For defense, the Eagles forced third and long multiple times, but the Eagles defense fell asleep multiple times to allow either a Betts run, a Campbell pass to Randel El or Santana Moss, or most painfully, the WR Pass from Randel El to Brandon Lloyd where the defensive line just stopped. Again, the Eagles got lucky in this one that the Redskins played conservatively in the red zone because the 4 FGs made the Redskins come up a little bit short. Did we also mention that the Eagles gave up 16 unanswered points to end the game? To make the playoffs, they need to do what it takes to convert on third downs and move the ball without the big play on offense, while doing the opposite on defense.

 

Sloppy breakdowns

The Achilles’ heal this year for the Eagles has been sloppy breakdowns both physically and mentally. The best example of this came in the 4^th quarter. Jaqua Thomas made a great play to get the sack on Campbell on 3^rd down, only to have stuck his hands in the face and give them 15 yards and a first down that would lead to points. The call itself was a little bogus considering Campbell turned his head into Thomas, but it was reminiscent of what has happened all year. Whether it’s the Trent Cole kick to the groin against the New York Giants in overtime, Jerome McDougle’s 30 yard layaway sale in Tampa Bay, or the seemingly endless parade of dropped passes that stretch from San Francisco to Philadelphia, it’s always something with this team that looks sloppy. We’ve seen how well and how good this team can be when everything clicks such as Week 5 against Dallas, but these mistakes and breakdowns have killed us multiple times and nearly killed us yet again.

 

Closing remarks

 

The Eagles got lucky today and you know, that’s not a bad thing at all. Every team that is making a playoff run or even makes it into the playoffs to begin with needs a little bit of luck be it a bad call by the refs, a dropped pass by an opposing receiver, or in the Eagles’ case today, conservative play calling. The Eagles were outplayed this entire game. A telling stat is the total yards. The Eagles managed 263 total yards a game to the Redskins 415 and QB Jeff Garcia was the only Eagles player to get over 100 yards in any category. Also amazing, how in the world did the Redskins have 210 yards rushing and no rushing TDs? Redskins coach Joe Gibbs let conservative predictable playcalling get the best of him in the redzone, hence all the FGs. As for the Eagles, they will take this one, but it was not pretty how they got it. They will need to prepare to do a lot of preparing and learning as they look towards Sunday’s 4:15 matchup against the Giants. Both teams are fighting for a wild card berth and the Eagles are looking to avenge that painful week 2 loss. It’s not normal that a team wins a game and you don’t feel great about it, but that is exactly how we feel about this. All things considered, this game had all the makings of a classic “Eagles collapse, Eagles lose the game, Andy Reid doesn’t answer reporters’ questions, fans bury their heads in their hands until next Sunday” and the fact that it was not this kind of game was simply a miracle. Let’s be clear here, this game was lost by the Redskins, not won by the Eagles. The conservative playcalling of Joe Gibbs and yes, a few selective good plays by the Eagles is what helped the Eagles improve to 7-6. This game had all the makings of a let down game and it almost was. The Eagles should not rest on their laurels this week. They will need to put their all into practice this week and Andy will need to develop a good gameplan as they face the Giants, who are trying to salvage a once promising season. So far so good on the road trip from hell. We are 1-1, but with New York and Dallas coming up on the road trip, there’s much to be worried about with this team all around following this game, especially with the defense. Miracles usually don’t win football games. Solid play from all cylinders does, and we’ll need that in our last three games.

 

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