Teams The Eagles Don't Play: Indianapolis Colts

The team of destiny; or at least the team of the right place, right time.

The Colts have everything going for them this year. The offense is as potent as ever. The defense is the best the Colts have fielded in recent history. The schedule is cream puff. Their nemesis has been struck low by departures, retiring players, and an ungodly amount of injuries. The Super Bowl is in a dome. Have the stars aligned for the Colts or what?

Fortune favors the bold, and the Colts management has quietly been mading a number of bold moves that culminated in an interesting offseason. The first moves were locking up their franchise QB, then bringing in the defense minded Tony Dungy. Interesting theory, the offense would be dominant no matter who the coach is, so bring in a coach who could mold talent from the draft into a competitive unit. In the salary cap era, the Ravens proved that one dominating unit plus one efficient unit, add decent special teams, and there's your Super Bowl recipe. Only problem for the Colts: the New England Patriots defied the logic of the salary cap era and became the dynasty every pigskin wonk said was impossible in the current football climate.

The Colts have been patient, though. They took their shots at the Pats (and came up noteably short). They've waited for the D to gel. They've kept the offense together, even developed new weapons like Reggie Wayne and Brandon Stokely to take the pressure off the big three. And this season, with the Pats seemingly reeling from so many key loses, the Colts moved all-in. They gave Marvin Harrison well deserved money. They added a legit Pro-Bowler in Corey Simon to shore up the middle of the line, and take pressure off their speed rushing ends. They franchised Edge, keeping all the pieces together for one big run.

Something unforessen happened this offseason, something I don't think even the Colts' front office took into account. The D finally became the unit they hoped Tony Dungy could make. A new dimension has emerged in the Colts' D, one I hadn't condered until I saw the Colts physically dominate the Steelers this Monday night: the Colts' D has a physical, hard edge nobody has seen from the Colts before. Bob Sanders has emerged as a brick-laying safety. His 70 tackles are only bettered by Adrian Wilson, Lawyer Malloy, and the underrated Chris Hope. Two of those guys spend their time chasing WRs their corners forgot to cover.

The other guy who suprised me in the Pittsburgh blowout was Dwight Freeny. Freeny came out of Syracuse with the rep of a very talented speed rusher who would get tossed around by big NFL tackles. He's listed now at about 270 lbs, a repectable size for an NFL DE. Monday, he ran over Marvel Smith. Repeatedly. Straight bull rushed the guy, knocked him over a couple times. It was so bad Bill Cowher pulled Smith for Trai Essex, who then got run over by Freeny. Repeatedly. Freeny is on pace for 10 sacks, the lowest total of his career, but he is argueably a more complete defensive player on a more complete defensive unit.

I didn't believe the Colts' D was for real. They played nobody the first seven weeks, then gave up 21 to NE and 37 to CIN. But in the dome, the Colts crushed the Steelers. They were faster and made more plays, but they were tougher than the Steelers. If I were a fortune teller, that alone might be the brightest of those stars that are all comming together for the Indy Colts.

Bad News is Good News

OK, that's an exageration, and the silver lining is paper thin, but today's game might reveal the shape of the Eagle's future in two ways:
1) If they lose, they'll be losing alot from here through the end of the season. That's bad news to season ticket holders, not so bad to people looking to next season. Remember the goal for this team is to win a Super Bowl. That's obviously not happening this season, but that does not mean the window is entirely shut. Eagles fans can expect a revitalized squad in 2006, liberated from the TO mess and renewed in their determination to prove they are a championship caliber team. The pride of the defense and Donovan McNabb requires no less.
The other pluses to losing out (I can't believe I have to write this, but here we are) are draft position and schedule. A pick in the top 12 could net either a stud at any position or a starter quality player at a need position. And there are now plenty of those: DE, T, WR, OLB, G, S, FB. The draft is a story for another day, though.
2) Today's story is the left side of the offensive line. With Tra Thomas and Artis Hicks out, the Eagles wil start two guys with little experience: at tackle 4th round pick Todd Herremans and at guard two year "vet" Adrien Clarke. With John Runyan's contract expiring at the end of the season, and Artis Hicks getting knocked around by DTs all year, these two will have a chance to make an impression on the coaches and enter next year with a shot at a starters job. If either can play at this level, that would be tremendous news for the Eagles. The offensive line is set for big time transition in the next couple seasons. Tra and Runyan will be phased out and Shaun Andrews should move to tackle. That leaves two or three spots to fill. If either Herremans or Clarke shows the accumen to fill one of those holes, that's money and draft picks saved for the future, or for one of those other holes listed in #1.
If they can't Mike McMahon may not make it out of 2005.

Brian Westbrook: Worth the Money

The Birds and Brian Westbrook are at an impasse; neither wants to admit that they're made for each other and make a long term committment. Sounds like a bad romantic comedy. Westbrook has contract envy after seeing some of the big dollars the loose pockets around the league handed out to Deuce McAllister and LaMont Jordan, the Eagles see Shaun Alexander and Edge James dangled this offseason for second rounders. The bizarre state of the NFL's RB market isn't helping, but these two camps need to come together for the good of both.

The Eagles are very aware of the downside of BWest. He's feast or famine carrying the ball, with a 43% success rate last year and only 35% rate this year according to footballoutsiders (SR is a measure of how often a player gets the necessary yards or more on a given play. So on first and ten, that might be 4 yards, but on third and one, just enough to get the first.) Compare that to Edge James 57% last year and 59% this year, and you see what a difference there is. That means last year, Edge James made a postive play one and a half times out of ten more than BWest, at least a couple a game. Even though defenses are thinking pass the whole way against the Birds, BWest is still stoppable in the running game.

The other knock is durability. Westbrook went down two seasons ago with a fluke injury, and he is about as thick as the average back (alittle over 200 lbs on just a 5'8" frame). He carries the ball around 10-12 times a game. His 400+ career attempts would be a stiff season for some backs. Brian Westbrook is no more an injury risk than any other NFL player, and he might be less than RBs who have racked up many more miles.

So what's right with Westbrook? Why is he perhaps the perfect back for this pass happy team? Last year he had an 84% success rate in the passing game. Thrown to 87 times, he made 73 receptions. (again, stats courtesy footballoutsiders.com) TO meanwhile had a 61% SR and caught 77 balls out of 127 thrown to him. Granted Westie is thrown high percentage passes, but he turns them into explosive plays. And we all know thats as close to a running game as this Eagles team will get under Andy Reid.

It's in the interests of both to get a deal done. Westbrook is not going to make huge money on the open market, no matter how loose certain owners are with their cash. The Eagles can plug in Ryan Moats or some other RB and expect the same success. With TO almost certainly leaving at the end of the year, that's a concern. Bottom line to the Eagles and Brian Westbrook: get it done.

Teams The Eagles Don't Play: Buffalo Bills

I've always had a soft spot for the Bills, my mother's family is from Buffalo. I sat through four progressively more depressing Super Bowl parties, waiting for the Bills to pull one out. As tough as it is sometimes for Bills fans, they have to be given credit for being amoung the most diehard in the league. This year was one for optimism. An excellent defense, dynamic special teams, a stud running back, plus receiving corp. All the pieces except the big one that connects it all, QB. But the front office traded two picks to the Dallas Cowboys (those two? Julius Jones and Marcus Spears) to move up and acquire the QB of the future, right?

Four weeks into the 2005 season, the first he has started, and JP Losman is on the bench. Whose fault is that? Anyone who has seen him play would say Losman's, but this disasterous decision ultimately will fall at the feet of Mike Mularkey. And this decision has the potential to be catastrophic, with very little upside. The QB of the future, before being given a significant chance to develop, has been sat down. How's his confidence? I'm guessing low. Why would Mularkey do this? Does he actually think Kelly Holcomb is a solution? Holcomb was 5-9 as a starter for the Browns, leading them nowhere. He's 32, certainly no QB of the future. Trading a few weeks of Kelly Holcomb future for the confidence of the QB the franchise has invested so much in seems like Buffalo is ending up on the wrong end of this deal. Sad part is, it's a deal with themselves.

If Mularkey wants to blame someone for the rough start to the JP Losman era, he can look in the mirror. The formula this year was supposed to be simple: run the ball, control the clock, let the defense keep the team in games, and run the passing game through play action. Pretty familiar formula to anyone who has watched more than two games of football. Unfortunately, Mularkey has decided to pass more than run in three of the Bills first four games. Leading with the wrong foot, Mike. On paper, 103 passes to 97 runs looks like a good balance. 19 of those runs are Losman specials, though. So the play has run through the QB 122 times and Willis McGahee 79 times. That ratio isn't looking so good now.

To be fair, in game two the Bucs shut the run game down, and by the middle of the third the Bills were down 16-3 and forced to throw. The next week, however, Buffalo came out throwing, Losman dropped back on their first five first down plays. Thanks to some penalties, the Bills kicked two field goals on their first two drives. Down 14-6, Mike Mularkey finally committed to the run. Eight runs to three passes, ending in a McGahee eight yard TD run.

The next week the Bills came out running. Seven runs to three passes on the first drive, ending in a touchdown. After incompletions and an interception halted two drive, the Bills got the ball at their own thirty, down 3, with 5:30 left in the half. First down, incomplete. The Bills were bailed out on third down by a penalty. First down, pass -2 yards and a hold, total-12. A couple of successful passes later and the Bills had a first at the Saints 41. Incomplete. On those three first downs, despite having plenty of time on the clock, the Bills threw three times for -12 yards. Is it JP Losman's fault he is not being put into manageable third downs?

Down six in the fourth quarter Mularkey pulled his QB of the future for a QB who has neither past nor future. What a message to send the kid, and way to test his competitiveness, Mike. Holcomb was ineffective enough to win the starting job this week.

This kind of QB development is exactly how coaches lose jobs and franchises lose decades. If Mularkey finds the stomach to ride out the rough patches, he might find that QB of the future at the end of the rainbow. If he puts the franchises future in the hands of Kelly Holcomb, well, the end of that story is bleak. Take some antacid, Mike, run the ball, and resign yourself to the fact that kids make mistakes. You can either be coaching the Bills two years down the line, glad Losman worked those mistakes out years ago, or you can be watching Sundays on TV, wondering where the Kelly Holcomb era went wrong.

Matchups with the Chiefs

Pretty interesting game for the Birds this week.

The big matchup should be the Chiefs run game vs. Eagles D

-Looks like Willie Roaf might not play. That's great news, that guy is a beast who seals the end on those power sweeps like nobody else. He lets the G's pull and create mismatches. Without him, the Eagles quick ends can get involved more against plays between the hash and the sideline.

-The Chiefs will probably try to put a body on Trot every single run play. The worst case scenario for them is Trot blowing plays up in the backfield and Trent Green dealing with long yardage situations. If they do stick Trot, the OLBs will have to step up. With Tony Gonzalez out there, I'll be interested to see how much JJ lets the safeties up in the box.

-The D-line has had a few injuries and hopefully can hold up over the length of the game. The Chiefs will change speeds with Larry Johnson, so they will always have a fresh RB ready. How fresh the Eagles' front seven is in the 4th quarter will probably depend on if Andy commits to eating some clock.

To run some clock, obviously you can't expect Andy to commit to the run. What I think we'll see is alot of misdirection plays (screens, shovel-passes, counters) to take advantage of KC's aggressive and inexperienced LB's and get Westbrook touches without actually having to run too much.

Teams The Eagles Don't Play: Tampa Bay Bucs

The Tampa Bay Bucs are as hot as their rookie RB right now. Not suprisingly they are becoming a darling of the national columnist and talking head alike. The question is: are they a legit threat to take down the Eagles and make the second Super Bowl appearence of the Jon Gruden era, or have they started at a sprint just to finish at a walk.
Bill Simmons recognized recently that the folks over at Footballoutsiders were the only preseason publication to give the Bucs a nog as a contender, and even they hedged by basically saying, "Uh, we're not sure how the numbers came out this way, maybe our Excel is broke". Credit where it's due, they were all over this telling stat: Brian Griese led the NFL last season with a resounding 69.3% completion percentage (look it up). In Gruden's West Coast offense built around quick drops and intelligent reads, Griese has excelled. The other stat that Griese would like to see repeated more often: he was ninth in the league in YPA. Skeptics would say that's all completion percentage. Sure, only Jake Plummer completed less than 60% of his passes and broke the top 10-YPA, but for a guy with a rep for a weak arm ninth's commands alittle respect. It doesn't hurt to chuck it to two veteran wideouts and a second year playmaker who plays like it's his tenth either. Not to mention handing the ball to the leading rusher in football almost two out of three plays.
The other thing people forgot about Tampa is that this season is close to the last ride of three great players who made the pewter-D feared for years: Simeon Rice (31), Derrick Brooks (32), and Ronde Barber (30). These guys can still flat out play, and the front office quietly filled in some holes left by John Lynch and Warren Sapp nicely. The D is tied for the NFC lead with 9 takeaways so far.
Anyone who reads all that can see the potential, and anyone who reads the box scores might say the potential is being realized. Looking at the Bucs last game might give alittle insight into how big the seperation between this team and the NFC's 1-2 teams really is. The Bucs went into Lambeau and came out winners, some would say that's all you should ask for. But the game showed some stregths and weaknesses that will be interesting to watch as the season develops. The Bucs dominated the ground game, and so the time of possession, outgaining the Pack on the ground 161 - 75 and holding the ball for 34:22 (that's right, they did that to the Packers at Lambeau. Haven't seen numbers like that often.) They scored two TD's on smart plays by Griese, one where he picked on a rookie CB and one where Joey Galloway easily found a seam in the Packers zone coverage.
Despite the disparity on the ground and a couple nice plays in the red zone, the Bucs won in the end because of a missed extra point. You might be asking how the game could be so close when it appears the Bucs dominated in most phases of the game. The answer is simply the long ball: Favre throws it and Griese doesn't. Robert Ferguson blew by a corner who didn't get safety help for the Pack's first TD, a 37 yarder, and the Pack's top three wideouts averaged 24.5, 18.5, and 17 yds per catch respectively, while Clayton and Hilliard were held under ten.

Week 3

The Eagles match up with the NFL's Island of Misfit Toys today, aka the Oakland Raiders. Fantasy fans spent the offseason cleaning their sheets after wet dreams about Kerry Collins gunning bombs downfield to Randy Moss. Meanwhile Raiders coach Norv Tuner spent the offseason stocking up on Paxil. The Raiders' offense has proven so far to be alternatly electric and ineffective; full of spotty execution and mental mistakes.

This offense will get much of the attention this week as they match up against Jim Johnson's D, but the formula JJ will show Kerry Collins isn't too hard to figure out or interesting. Blitz Collins from random angles, take advantage of the inexperience of Robert Gallery, and let the secondary do their job on Moss just like when he wore Purple. LaMont Jorden might find some daylight without Darwin Walker in the lineup, but even if he gets by rookie Mike Patterson he'll find the Axman right behind.

The more interesting match up is the Eagles' offense with the Raiders D. Interesting if you are an Eagles fan, that is. The Birds could tear this D apart faster than Oakland's Bay Area counterparts got torn up last weekend at the Linc. Assuming TO sees lots of Charles Woodson and double teams, Oakland will be forced to match up their hybrid DE/OLBer's with LJ Smith and Brian Westbrook. LJ is comming off his best game as an Eagle, and he might be able to follow that up with an even bigger game. Facing a combination of Tyler Brayton, Danny Clark, and ex-Eagle Derrick Burgess all day should mean big numbers for 82 and 36. For anyone who doesn't know, the genius behind this hodge-podge D? None other than Rob Ryan, son of the man who walked tall in the Vet almost two decades ago.