Home EAGLES NEWS SECONDARY Eagles Can't Stop Witten But Must Contain Him
Eagles Can't Stop Witten But Must Contain Him
Written by Garry Cobb    Friday, 06 November 2009 05:06    PDF Print E-mail

He must make sure he stops Cowboys Miles Austin from making any more big plays while giving the linebackers some help on Witten.

As a defensive coordinator you have to take away the big play to the wide receivers, so that will occupy the safeties most of the time.

For that reason, Witten will be the primary responsibility of the linebackers.

Witten is a combination of brute strength, tremendous skill with a great pair of hands.

The All-Pro has a tremendous feel for shaking man-to-man coverages and finding the seams in the zones.  In addition his strength and size make him very difficult to tackle one-on-one.

Witten running with ball We all know the Eagles have had problems all year with tight ends, so nobody is going to be surprised if Witten has a good day, but they can't let him dominate, especially in the red zone.

There'll be a bullseye on rookie outside linebacker, Moise Fokou, who will probably be getting the first start of his career. Trying to cover Witten isn't the ideal first assignment for a rookie.

I do like the fact that this kid will fight Witten and be physical with him, but he can't get any foolish penalties.

Starting outside linebacker Chris Gocong injured his quadracep and hamstring on the same leg and hasn't practiced yet this week, so there's a good chance that Fokou will be in one on one situations at times with Witten.

McDermott may try to double Witten by putting two linebackers on him.  I could see them ask Fokou to beat up him when comes off the line, then turn hm over to Will Witherspoon.

Witherspoon is probably the Eagles best chance to stop him from taking over the game, but they're going to have to change up the coverages.

This going to be a chess match.  At times they'll have one of the safeties battle him, but most of the time it will be the linebackers.

I also expect the Eagles use some three safety defenses where they take a linebacker off the field and put Quintin Demps in there to cover Witten.



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Comments (5)
  • wondo40
    Pass rush! Get in Romo's face and don't give that weasel time to find Witten. T.Cole, Clemons, Howard, Bunk & Patty: DESTROY ROMO!!!!

    FLY EAGLES FLY!!!!
  • jnameth
    I like the 3 safety idea - that's why we drafted Demps and Harris to act as hybrids and cover the TE. If they use the nickel as base with 3 safeties, you could use Demps or Witherspoon on Witten with Sean Jones acting as a LB to help in the run game. I think you'll see a lot of that - thankfully they go against Celek everyday in practice who is a similar TE.

    The key as always is getting pressure without having to blitz. They'll also have to watch out for screen and wheel routes to Felix Jones.
  • Butch007
    They definitely need to be aggressive and blitz up the middle early and often. Romo likes to step up in the pocket and turns into an inaccurate interception machine after he gets put on his back a few times. The Cowgirls also like to run between the tackles so blitzing up the middle is a little less risky against them. Another benefit of blitzing up the middle...if the blitzers get there Dallas' offensive strategy could switch to forcing Romo to try those quick outs which are his worse passes and the types of passes Asante Samuel and Sheldon Brown love the most. If Fokou starts, my suspicion is that the Cowboys will try to rely on their running game and their always effective passing game up the middle to Witten so the tackles are going to have to be stout and there definitely should be a lot of tackle rotation. On the flipside the Eagles need to get their passing game to Celek and the running game started early to diffuse Dallas' pass rushing LBs.
  • Stevo
    Butch... its like you took the words right out of my facce. Make him throw outs please!!!

    I would run with demps early. give it a try. I dont want witten to own the rook.

  • scrapdawg12
    Put a helmet on his knee. That will end his play making ability for awhile. I hate the Cowboys
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Last Updated ( Friday, 06 November 2009 05:47 )