Tweet
So we watched our team loose again, this time to a decent (if injury depleted) Eagles team. After 4 games our team is 2-2, and unless im reading the standings wrong that gives us the same number of wins EVERY other team in the AFC East has (except of course for those terrible jets)
Today was a heart breaker of course. Our D looked rather good, but there comes a point when the bad calls and long drives take a toll. We had Spikes playing with just one eye. Sam and Pat looked rather good. Bannon, and Denny rather bad. Kelsay, Schobel and Edwards all had their moments both good and bad.
The O-line was at times painful to watch, as the interior of that line yet again never showed up. Shaw had a few ugly drops, but on the whole i think the undoing of the offense was the penalties.
Going into this game I was having a few PM conversations with others on this board, and the one strategy I said I would utilize coming into this game would be to toss out the TE and FB, bring in 4 WR, and go run 'n shoot for the whole 60 minutes. My reasoning for this was that the Eagles secondary was a mess, and while they had injuries to their front 7, all of those men were backups. When you spread the field, you do several things; one is that the blitz and coverage becomes obvious to your QB/OL. So the heavy blitzing Eagles would have been exposed in their blitzes giving our o-line and QB/WRs a chance to adjust. The second reason is, that you force the eagles to play more practice squad DBs, which, if you ask me, I like that match up. Furthermore, the passing system we use, IS the run ‘n shoot passing attack, and the adjustment to that offence would be child’s play.
Unfortunately, Gilbride, again spent the 1st half stubbornly trying to get his offence to work. Even when Pro Bowl CB Troy Vincent went down (removing all 3 PBers from their secondary) Gilbride continued with the 2WR 1TE 1FB 1RB alignments. In the 3rd quarter Gilbride tossed the base alignments out and stuck to a near run 'n shoot offense the rest of the way
(as a side note, I discount the play calling in downs that determine the call. In 1st and 20, down by 10, I no longer count it as a "pass play" when Drew lines up in shotgun and throws all three downs. The same as how I do not count runs in 3rd and inches or 4th and inches).
So what can you take from this game? Well sometimes **** happens. We got jobbed by a flag happy officiating crew. Our O-line still cannot run block. Puccillo still cannot play (last year even Sullivan looked better than that). The people calling for Burns or Simington just had their reality check (as both looked mediocre). The middle of our D is tough to run against, the only serious failure on our D I see is that we get eaten alive with off-tackle runs (read this as meaning VERY poor DE play). I would not be worried about the long TD run (yes that was a backbreaker) but there were two horrible non-called holds on that run (one where Kelsay, tried to close the hole, and was literally clothes-lined from behind, bending him backwards in one of the worst looking non-holding calls I've ever seen) which were critical to springing it. Our coaching staff didn’t embarrass themselves (though I thought it seriously ballsy to go for the TD, down by 10 with 3minutes left).
As a result, I say, we've got to dust ourselves off, figure out what we are on offense, and get ready for a stout (defensively) Bengals team.
Today was a heart breaker of course. Our D looked rather good, but there comes a point when the bad calls and long drives take a toll. We had Spikes playing with just one eye. Sam and Pat looked rather good. Bannon, and Denny rather bad. Kelsay, Schobel and Edwards all had their moments both good and bad.
The O-line was at times painful to watch, as the interior of that line yet again never showed up. Shaw had a few ugly drops, but on the whole i think the undoing of the offense was the penalties.
Going into this game I was having a few PM conversations with others on this board, and the one strategy I said I would utilize coming into this game would be to toss out the TE and FB, bring in 4 WR, and go run 'n shoot for the whole 60 minutes. My reasoning for this was that the Eagles secondary was a mess, and while they had injuries to their front 7, all of those men were backups. When you spread the field, you do several things; one is that the blitz and coverage becomes obvious to your QB/OL. So the heavy blitzing Eagles would have been exposed in their blitzes giving our o-line and QB/WRs a chance to adjust. The second reason is, that you force the eagles to play more practice squad DBs, which, if you ask me, I like that match up. Furthermore, the passing system we use, IS the run ‘n shoot passing attack, and the adjustment to that offence would be child’s play.
Unfortunately, Gilbride, again spent the 1st half stubbornly trying to get his offence to work. Even when Pro Bowl CB Troy Vincent went down (removing all 3 PBers from their secondary) Gilbride continued with the 2WR 1TE 1FB 1RB alignments. In the 3rd quarter Gilbride tossed the base alignments out and stuck to a near run 'n shoot offense the rest of the way
(as a side note, I discount the play calling in downs that determine the call. In 1st and 20, down by 10, I no longer count it as a "pass play" when Drew lines up in shotgun and throws all three downs. The same as how I do not count runs in 3rd and inches or 4th and inches).
So what can you take from this game? Well sometimes **** happens. We got jobbed by a flag happy officiating crew. Our O-line still cannot run block. Puccillo still cannot play (last year even Sullivan looked better than that). The people calling for Burns or Simington just had their reality check (as both looked mediocre). The middle of our D is tough to run against, the only serious failure on our D I see is that we get eaten alive with off-tackle runs (read this as meaning VERY poor DE play). I would not be worried about the long TD run (yes that was a backbreaker) but there were two horrible non-called holds on that run (one where Kelsay, tried to close the hole, and was literally clothes-lined from behind, bending him backwards in one of the worst looking non-holding calls I've ever seen) which were critical to springing it. Our coaching staff didn’t embarrass themselves (though I thought it seriously ballsy to go for the TD, down by 10 with 3minutes left).
As a result, I say, we've got to dust ourselves off, figure out what we are on offense, and get ready for a stout (defensively) Bengals team.
. There were a FEW suspicious calls, but you guys just flat out got beat, again.
. They wanted to get beat and we didn't beat them on our turf. We have to win at home.
Comment