Slingin Sammy 33's - Eagles Game Review

I know some of you were holding out hope for a rebound prior to the Bye. While noble, those hopes are offically dashed and the Clausen/Okung watch is on.

We've discussed the problems to death and it's pretty apparent we suck. But rather than just say "We suck" and "blow the whole thing up" I think we have to look at why we suck and will it be a rebuild or a reload. My opinion is that we have some good young talent on offense, but the coaching staff is still not using the talent correctly. Also, I've been saying this for a couple of weeks now...it's time for the youth movement (talent eval).

This week I focus only on offense again, the D is playing well and doing its job. Aside from two bad plays, the D gave up two FGs. Philly started with the ball in Skins territory on both those "drives". The D allowed 0 points in the second half.

On to the review.

Things That Allow Hope For Next Season
- Our D. Greg Blache and the D continue to get it done, despite the offense consistently putting them in bad position. It would be nice for J. Gray to stay on the new coaching staff as DC and have Blache retire after fielding a top five defense.
- Net Yards for Philly - 268 (a good chunk of that came on the two blockheaded plays).
- 3rd down % - 26%
- 3 sacks
- Only 11 first downs
- Even with the shank, Hunter Smith had 7 punts for a 43.1 yard avg.
- D-Line still playing well. Haynesworth thusfar has been worth the investment. Orakpo and Jarmon are exceeding expectations.
- I almost crapped myself...we ran from a Gun formation. Unbelievable, I know.
- Davis and Thomas played well, draft 2008 may not be a bust after all.

Stuff That Made Me Drop F-Bombs While Working Monday Night
- ARE returning punts. Can we just not do this anymore. Moss, D. Hall, D. Thomas, hell put Landry back there. Please no more ARE returning punts.
- Portis 43 yards, 3.07 YPC. Not all his fault, but he's not playing well at all.
- JC, two fumbles....what else is new.
- Skins 3rd down conversion % - 25%
- Carter losing contain on the D. Jackson TD
- Rogers biting on the double-move and the D playcall, which looked like a very loose Cover 2. I'm assuming Cover 2 by the way Hall let his man run by him while still looking in the backfield, and by Rogers looking at Horton after the play as if he assumed Horton was over the top help. Why not just go to a Cover 4 on 3rd & 23.
- We're back to the Stretch & Stretch Lead plays. We're averaging 3 yds or less on these plays. Other running plays averaged out at over 4 yds per carry. We are not a stretch running team, we have some big O-lineman with not particluarly good feet (which our smaller guys don't have either). We should be running a more straight ahead style with some counters and traps thrown in.
- We know Portis has lost a step getting outside, but good fundamentals and execution make up for lack of talent/ability. This play winds up as a penalty on the D but it illustrates my point. On the second series, we attempt to run a Stretch L. JC opens up to "6 o'clock", basically straight back with a short first step, rather than closer to "8 o'clock" with a more lateral step down the line. Portis starts inside then bounces out, rather than running downhill aiming for outside the LT. I can't tell if it's Portis adjusting to JC, or JC adjusting to Portis. Heyer and Sellers had set the edge for Portis, but he was tackled for what would've been a 1-2 yard gain that should've been 5+. The result of the play was a penalty on Philly, fortunately. Later in the game JC & Portis take the proper steps and the Stretch is run successfuly for +8. It's the little details that make a play successful and we're not taking care of the details.
- Max Protect calls. Leaving 7 or 8 guys into block isn't sound. When the LBs see RBs or TEs staying in, they come. Instead of a 5 or 6 man blitz you wind up with 6 or 7 coming. Simple swings for the RBs or quick TE routes to isolate against a LB in space should be a win for the O (well most NFL offenses anyway).
- Rabach, two bad snaps. JC should've gotten the first one, but it was bad. The second was sickening.
- JC's play continues to be poor. JC is still going through his "wind-up" and "pat-patting" the ball, costing a fumble and missed completions because the ball comes out late.
He left two TDs on the field, one to Moss and the other to ARE on a corner. He flat out missed a wide open Moss. On the play to ARE, he releases the ball late and off-target. He should've thrown to just inside the front pylon, rather than two yards out of bounds at the three.
He also didn't read the blitzes properly, call correct protections, or go to a hot receiver to slow down the Iggles blitz.
I'm not saying JC is the only problem we have, he's not. But he's not part of the solution either. He made a few good plays, but the mistakes he makes and limitations he has week in and week out are not tolerable. He will not be more than a back-up anywhere else. It's time to play Woodson or bring back Chase and give him a shot.

Stuff That Still Has Me Pissed-off Today.
- One thing we've all normally agreed to in the past about Portis is that he brings it on Sundays. This week I'm getting the feeling he'is in the beginning stages of "mailing it in". Like it or not, Portis is a team leader, throwing your helmet on national TV, joking at the end of the game when your team has just been embarassed on national TV, piss-poor leadership and maturity by Portis. Put his ass on the bench for the next game for conduct detrimental to the team.
- The team attitude. The MNF broadcast team, JAWS specifically said he didn't get a sense of urgency or passion from the team. This starts at the top, the coaching staff is to blame. You just ho-hum through this rough start...business as usual. No fire from Zorn, no mention of suicide practices, fines for piss-poor play, nothing...just "we're gonna work until we get it right". Everyone's just going through the motions on O, and while the D is playing well, they will only get let down so many times before they throw in the towel.
The FO isn't to blame for this. Zorn is going to be fired, I'm sure he knows that. He should've seen this train-wreck approaching after the Lions game. If he gets fired or not, his performance for the rest of this season is a resume or job interview for OC or HC positions for 31 other teams. Come out with some fire, make sure the players are giving 100% effort, even if they're out-manned (which we haven't been).
- NO AUDIBLES! Are you f-ing kidding me. Maybe this has been some sort of mystery to me, but I figured they had at least some basic audible system in place. Gruden is saying no audibles and quoted Portis as saying he hasn't seen an audible since Denver(I find it hard to believe Gibbs didn't have audibles in place for Brunell, tho). How can an NFL team not have audibles? This is complete insanity.
- The OL shuffle continues. If Zorn doesn't start Batiste at LT, Dock at LG, Rabach at C, Rinehart at RG, and Heyer at RT for the ATL game, he should be fired on the spot.

I will be doing another review strictly on the OL. I scored each O-lineman on a scale of 1-5 for each play. What it boils down to is what we all have already seen, the OL in it's current state is not even close to working. But I'll go into detail about who/why/when. There are scheme issues and RB protection issues as well.

We've gone over so many of these issues....there's not a lot new and it's really a shame. Writing about the same problems and nothing seems to change or improve. We just keep hitting new lows. Each week I tell myself, "Last week was pretty bad, we've got to get better this week". Was it Einstein that said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

I know some of you were holding out hope for a rebound prior to the Bye. While noble, those hopes are offically dashed and the Clausen/Okung watch is on.

We've discussed the problems to death and it's pretty apparent we suck. But rather than just say "We suck" and "blow the whole thing up" I think we have to look at why we suck and will it be a rebuild or a reload. My opinion is that we have some good young talent on offense, but the coaching staff is still not using the talent correctly. Also, I've been saying this for a couple of weeks now...it's time for the youth movement (talent eval).

This week I focus only on offense again, the D is playing well and doing its job. Aside from two bad plays, the D gave up two FGs. Philly started with the ball in Skins territory on both those "drives". The D allowed 0 points in the second half.

On to the review.

Things That Allow Hope For Next Season
- Our D. Greg Blache and the D continue to get it done, despite the offense consistently putting them in bad position. It would be nice for J. Gray to stay on the new coaching staff as DC and have Blache retire after fielding a top five defense.
- Net Yards for Philly - 268 (a good chunk of that came on the two blockheaded plays).
- 3rd down % - 26%
- 3 sacks
- Only 11 first downs
- Even with the shank, Hunter Smith had 7 punts for a 43.1 yard avg.
- D-Line still playing well. Haynesworth thusfar has been worth the investment. Orakpo and Jarmon are exceeding expectations.
- I almost crapped myself...we ran from a Gun formation. Unbelievable, I know.
- Davis and Thomas played well, draft 2008 may not be a bust after all.

Stuff That Made Me Drop F-Bombs While Working Monday Night
- ARE returning punts. Can we just not do this anymore. Moss, D. Hall, D. Thomas, hell put Landry back there. Please no more ARE returning punts.
- Portis 43 yards, 3.07 YPC. Not all his fault, but he's not playing well at all.
- JC, two fumbles....what else is new.
- Skins 3rd down conversion % - 25%
- Carter losing contain on the D. Jackson TD
- Rogers biting on the double-move and the D playcall, which looked like a very loose Cover 2. I'm assuming Cover 2 by the way Hall let his man run by him while still looking in the backfield, and by Rogers looking at Horton after the play as if he assumed Horton was over the top help. Why not just go to a Cover 4 on 3rd & 23.
- We're back to the Stretch & Stretch Lead plays. We're averaging 3 yds or less on these plays. Other running plays averaged out at over 4 yds per carry. We are not a stretch running team, we have some big O-lineman with not particluarly good feet (which our smaller guys don't have either). We should be running a more straight ahead style with some counters and traps thrown in.
- We know Portis has lost a step getting outside, but good fundamentals and execution make up for lack of talent/ability. This play winds up as a penalty on the D but it illustrates my point. On the second series, we attempt to run a Stretch L. JC opens up to "6 o'clock", basically straight back with a short first step, rather than closer to "8 o'clock" with a more lateral step down the line. Portis starts inside then bounces out, rather than running downhill aiming for outside the LT. I can't tell if it's Portis adjusting to JC, or JC adjusting to Portis. Heyer and Sellers had set the edge for Portis, but he was tackled for what would've been a 1-2 yard gain that should've been 5+. The result of the play was a penalty on Philly, fortunately. Later in the game JC & Portis take the proper steps and the Stretch is run successfuly for +8. It's the little details that make a play successful and we're not taking care of the details.
- Max Protect calls. Leaving 7 or 8 guys into block isn't sound. When the LBs see RBs or TEs staying in, they come. Instead of a 5 or 6 man blitz you wind up with 6 or 7 coming. Simple swings for the RBs or quick TE routes to isolate against a LB in space should be a win for the O (well most NFL offenses anyway).
- Rabach, two bad snaps. JC should've gotten the first one, but it was bad. The second was sickening.
- JC's play continues to be poor. JC is still going through his "wind-up" and "pat-patting" the ball, costing a fumble and missed completions because the ball comes out late.
He left two TDs on the field, one to Moss and the other to ARE on a corner. He flat out missed a wide open Moss. On the play to ARE, he releases the ball late and off-target. He should've thrown to just inside the front pylon, rather than two yards out of bounds at the three.
He also didn't read the blitzes properly, call correct protections, or go to a hot receiver to slow down the Iggles blitz.
I'm not saying JC is the only problem we have, he's not. But he's not part of the solution either. He made a few good plays, but the mistakes he makes and limitations he has week in and week out are not tolerable. He will not be more than a back-up anywhere else. It's time to play Woodson or bring back Chase and give him a shot.

Stuff That Still Has Me Pissed-off Today.
- One thing we've all normally agreed to in the past about Portis is that he brings it on Sundays. This week I'm getting the feeling he'is in the beginning stages of "mailing it in". Like it or not, Portis is a team leader, throwing your helmet on national TV, joking at the end of the game when your team has just been embarassed on national TV, piss-poor leadership and maturity by Portis. Put his ass on the bench for the next game for conduct detrimental to the team.
- The team attitude. The MNF broadcast team, JAWS specifically said he didn't get a sense of urgency or passion from the team. This starts at the top, the coaching staff is to blame. You just ho-hum through this rough start...business as usual. No fire from Zorn, no mention of suicide practices, fines for piss-poor play, nothing...just "we're gonna work until we get it right". Everyone's just going through the motions on O, and while the D is playing well, they will only get let down so many times before they throw in the towel.
The FO isn't to blame for this. Zorn is going to be fired, I'm sure he knows that. He should've seen this train-wreck approaching after the Lions game. If he gets fired or not, his performance for the rest of this season is a resume or job interview for OC or HC positions for 31 other teams. Come out with some fire, make sure the players are giving 100% effort, even if they're out-manned (which we haven't been).
- NO AUDIBLES! Are you f-ing kidding me. Maybe this has been some sort of mystery to me, but I figured they had at least some basic audible system in place. Gruden is saying no audibles and quoted Portis as saying he hasn't seen an audible since Denver(I find it hard to believe Gibbs didn't have audibles in place for Brunell, tho). How can an NFL team not have audibles? This is complete insanity.
- The OL shuffle continues. If Zorn doesn't start Batiste at LT, Dock at LG, Rabach at C, Rinehart at RG, and Heyer at RT for the ATL game, he should be fired on the spot.

I will be doing another review strictly on the OL. I scored each O-lineman on a scale of 1-5 for each play. What it boils down to is what we all have already seen, the OL in it's current state is not even close to working. But I'll go into detail about who/why/when. There are scheme issues and RB protection issues as well.

We've gone over so many of these issues....there's not a lot new and it's really a shame. Writing about the same problems and nothing seems to change or improve. We just keep hitting new lows. Each week I tell myself, "Last week was pretty bad, we've got to get better this week". Was it Einstein that said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Gibbs 1 didn't have any either.

Excellent review as usual.

On the OL personnel, do you know that Zorn is deciding the line-up? I would have thought that would be left to Bugel.

JC is so limited it's amazing. The only throws he seems comfortable with is when the receiver finds a hole in the coverage and just sits. He is hopeless with a moving target.

The biggest problem we have however is Zorn. He just isn't up to the job and I doubt he ever will be. I'll be amazed if he ever gets a coaching job with a higher status than QB coach in the future.

Assuming Zorn was Cerrato's choice and not Snyder's, you would have to fire him for that decision alone.

I agree there's talent on the offense that isn't being utilized. With this D, a few changes on O, and I honestly think this team can rebound nicely next year. But we also need a serious attitude adjustment from the front office on down for that to happen too.

Zorn can't seem to rally the troops right now but the players see the writing on the wall. He's a lame duck and everyone knows it.

Sammy you are so right on with the attitude of the team especially on offense, and I think our 2 leaders Portis and JC are to blame. No passion what so ever, I saw this at the very end of last year and we havent shook it through this season. That is why I think both have to go. I think Portis can still be effective, but attitude outways that. JC is flat out sorry in every aspect except turning over the ball, he excells at that.

When talking about Davis and Thomas, Davis just hasnt been able to effectively show with Cooley being the primary playmaker at TE. Davis with improvement in blocking can be an outstanding TE in this league. Thomas and Kelly look like busts. Have shown me 0 on the field.

Gibbs 1 didn't have any either.

What other NFL team doesn't have audibles?

Sammy you are so right on with the attitude of the team especially on offense, and I think our 2 leaders Portis and JC are to blame. No passion what so ever, I saw this at the very end of last year and we havent shook it through this season. That is why I think both have to go. I think Portis can still be effective, but attitude outways that. JC is flat out sorry in every aspect except turning over the ball, he excells at that.

When talking about Davis and Thomas, Davis just hasnt been able to effectively show with Cooley being the primary playmaker at TE. Davis with improvement in blocking can be an outstanding TE in this league. Thomas and Kelly look like busts. Have shown me 0 on the field.

I respectfully disagree about JC and team attitude. While JC has many failings, he seems to be motivated to play well each and every game.

Portis, on the other hand, no longer seems to show up for games, much less practice. And Santana Moss also fails to mentally show up for games. To me, those are the two player leaders of the bad attitude club, and their approach rubs off on others. Two bad apples can spoil a bunch. Personally I will be happy if both are playing elsewhere next year.

Gibbs I

This talks about Rypien calling an audible
Wilmington Morning Star - Google News Archive Search (http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1367&dat=19890922&id=tgQWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XRQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4177,2416242)

Gibbs II

I ask Parcells if there is anything he would like to know that he doesn’t know: that is, if he had a spy inside the Redskins who could provide him with answers to any of his questions, what would he ask? He thinks a bit before he finally answers. “I’d like to know their mechanism on audible,” he says. “I’d like to know how they were changing the plays.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/sports/playmagazine/1029play_parcells.html?pagewanted=all

Zorn

Q: What is the trademark of this offense compared to the one you ran before?

A: The trademark of the offense is mismatches, actually. It is finding a way to get guys one-on-one. Before it was, “This is what we are going to do no matter what they do. They have to stop us.” And you know, fortunately for them, more than not, they had the opportunity to stop us. We didn’t have audibles before. Right now if we are in a bad play, we can get out of that play. Jason has the opportunity to put up the audibles and change things around and get us points. So I think everybody is just excited

Scout.com: Conference Call: Clinton Portis (http://was.scout.com/2/785523.html)

It was Saunders' system that didn't use audibles.

None of this happened last year, or the previous five seasons. The Dick Vermeil/Al Saunders/Mike Solari offensive system did not believe in audibles or check with me calls. Those offenses entered every game with an abundance of options in the game plan, sometimes as many as 200 plays.

Those coordinators believed there was too much to teach and learn each week to introduce shades of gray. The play call was black and white, and it came from the offensive coordinator. The philosophy was that while there may be a moment or two in a game where it would have been advantageous to switch plays, the breadth of offensive options the Chiefs had would create more plays where t he defense was at a disadvantage.

Kansas City Chiefs - Audible Reaction (http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/2008/08/14/audible_reaction/)