• March 19, 2024

Linebackers Are A Problem, But Safeties Are A Bigger Problem For Eagles

I sat and watched the entire game again and I’ve rarely seen safeties play as bad as the Eagles safeties. The truth of the matter is that the Eagles don’t have the most talented safeties, so it doesn’t make sense to put them in positions where they’re trying to cover a guy who they don’t match up well against.

All of the blitzing the Eagles have been doing has exposed the safeties and forced them to play too much man-to-man.

Most of the time, when linebackers make mistakes you give up a decent gain, but not usually points. When safeties get beat, you normally see points going up on the board.

I know everybody has made a big deal about how poorly the linebackers have played, but the play of the safeties is more important because the NFL is a passing league and the high-scoring teams pass the ball very well.

This is now two weeks in a row that the defense has surrendered four touchdown passes. That’s a lot of touchdown passes and it says that the Birds are doing something wrong.

I think they’re blitzing too much. On most blitzes the guys in the secondary are playing man-to-man. When you play man-to-man there’s a chance of giving up big plays. We’ve got a great set of corners (at least they were supposed to be great). We’ve a good pass rushing defensive line. Why are we still blitzing so much?

Juan Castillo thinks he’s Jimmy Johnson, but JJ didn’t have many good pass rushers. He’s got to stop blitzing so much. I think they were blitzing on two of the touchdown passes thrown yesterday. Why sign Jason Babin and Cullen Jenkins, if you’re going to bltiz every down?

Johnson had a safety in Brian Dawkins who could cover like a cornerback. Most defensive coordinators don’t have that type of players on their roster.

Right now, I think Kurt Coleman, who gave up that long touchdown play to Victor Cruz is the best safety on the football team. I blame some of that big play on Castillo for matching up Coleman on Cruz. He was doing the Giants a favor. Usually teams have to go through a lot of formation changes and motions to get their wide receiver matched up against the corner. The Eagles did that for them by blitzing when there was no need to .

Coleman isn’t a bad football player. He was drafted a year ago in the seventh round because he doesn’t have great size or speed.

He should have made that tackle on Cruz, but I think all of the Eagles defenders made the mistake of underestimating Cruz. I read about him putting on a show last year in the preseason when the Giants beat the Jets. Cruz was going up in the air taking balls from defenders the way he did Nmandi and Page, yesterday.

Is there a slower safety in the NFL than Jarrad Page? I like the way he comes up and tackles at times and his understanding of the coverages, but this dude is slow. Check him out sometimes and you will see a safety, who must run a 4.9. They need to time him with a calendar rather than with a stopwatch. You can understand why he’s been released so much.

We can’t afford to have him playing deep or put in man-to-man situations.

I’ve talked about how second-year safety Nate Allen got treated like a bug trying to walk across the highway with a 18-wheeler approaching. Ahmad Bradshaw threw him to the ground like he was a bag of trash. What do you think Bradshaw is going to think the next time he sees him on the field?

Allen was also the culprit on that screen pass to Bradshaw which went for a touchdown. It was a blitz and I think Allen was supposed to cover Bradshaw, but he was in pursuit of a big play and made a huge mistake.

Bradshaw faked a block and it suckered Allen, who took the bait. The running back then moved in position to catch the screen pass. He had the blocking lined up and Allen trying to make up for his mistake but it was too late. Bradshaw followed his big guys into the end zone for a touchdown and he was untouched.

Still they’re going to have to play Allen because the other safeties aren’t as good at defending the pass. He will miss some tackles in the running game, but he’ll likely do a better job against the pass.

It’s been two weeks in a row and Page can’t defend the pass. He was torched by Tony Gonzalez which isn’t an unpardonable sin, but everybody else catches balls on this guy.

I think Allen and Coleman should be the starters at safety this week. I also want to see the Birds work Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie at the safety position. They’ve got to put their talent on the field. You don’t sign talented players to have them standing on sideline looking at most of the plays.

GCOBB

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IanIJM
IanIJM
September 26, 2011 3:06 pm

I agree they’re blitzing way too much. You honestly don’t need to blitz with this front four. They can get pressure by themselves without needing to add rushers. I think it’s fine to bring an extra guy in obvious passing situations, but seriously you spent all this money on your line so you didn’t NEED to blitz. I swear sometimes it seems like the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing on this team.

jakedog
jakedog
September 26, 2011 3:48 pm

besides reid, the problems boil down to personnel, or the lack therof, disgraceful drafting, your first 3 picks of 2011 draft are not suited, not on field,,your 4th is on field bc of his hair and lineage, but stinks, your first last year, undersized, injured, not on field, 2nd is trash, bradshaw abused him with a flick of a wrist, and your third was cut, what the hell is going on here with these picks, i dont care who we could have got what we got stinks

scorpiodsu
scorpiodsu
September 26, 2011 4:23 pm

I don’t see why DRC isn’t out there playing safety at times. You need your best players on the field and Hanson is still a good nickel CB. Against a 3WR set you’d have Nnamdi, Asante, Hanson and DRC all on the field together and get one of the bums off the field. And they to stop having Nnamdi playing zone coverage. He is best suited locked up against the other team’s best receiver. You do you team a diservice by having him in zone coverage. Asante is your zone QB because he reads QBs. Nnamdi locks people down one on one. Castillo is an idiot.

BigE
BigE
September 26, 2011 4:26 pm

Juan Cheerleader is no match for good offensive coordinators. He is out of his league. He talks about fundamentals but his players are matador tacklers. So far this season disgusts me to no end. Where is Howie and Joe talking excitement and all in bullcrap. This team is on the verge of imploding. You have Desaun Jackson badmouthing the defense openly after performing below par. You have guys at positions they are not familiar with. You have a coach who can’t call a play to gain one yard who says he thought it was the right thing to do. You have Babin still saying the ref made a bad call on the field goal attempt where he was offsides. Boneheadedness from the top down.

scorpiodsu
scorpiodsu
September 26, 2011 4:28 pm

I think a lot of the defensive shortcomings this year have to do with scheme. The LBs and Safeties are poor but with these CBs and defensive lineman, there’s no way we should be this bad. Even teams with lesser talent play better than this. A lot of it is scheme. From the wide 9, to blitzing too much and zone coverage with your best CB they aren’t putting the team in the best position to succeed. I’m pretty sure McDermott would be doing better with this personnel than Juan is doing. He looks confused on the sidelines and doesn’t look in control at times. There’s absolutely no reason this defense should be this bad even with the LB problems. So far we are worst this year with much better personnel. That tell me a lot right there.

scorpiodsu
scorpiodsu
September 26, 2011 4:32 pm

All we heard about Juan was “no one is ever going to outwork him”. And then they ask Juan about being the d coordinator and he says “we’re gonna work hard….”. Man please, working hard isn’t the only thing that’s going to make you a good defense. You think the Steelers, Ravens, Jets, Packers and any other defenses don’t work hard? Right now, he just looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Dick Jauron isn’t great but he would have been a lot better especially since they opened the check books this offseason. I hope Juan gets better, soon. He has a lot of work to do.

drummerwinslow
September 26, 2011 5:01 pm

Even Reid sounded dejected during the post-game interview. I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed that before. I’ve seen him angry, and I’ve seen him somewhat confused, but dejected? Never.

paulman
paulman
September 26, 2011 5:58 pm

I agree drummerwinslow,
His hands were shaking, and he seemed almost catonic or drunk where he was in a fog of war and just wasn’t listenting and that his mind was elswhere …
I think he realized how much work and coaching needs to be down and how this Defense with big holes at the LB and Safety positions is just not good enough to win the NFL at this point and that there will be no short cuts to updgrading the talent level at this positons until next off-season…

Rocko
Rocko
September 26, 2011 6:37 pm

FIRE REID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xtian999
xtian999
September 26, 2011 11:47 pm

I never thought I’d say this, but if things aren’t turned around in the next 6-8 weeks, we could be seeing a lot of changes in the staff, specifically Reid. It would have to get really bad for it to happen (3-8 or 2-9), but I am having a hard time figuring out how Reid will manage the deficiencies he is currently faced with. All is not lost, yet. It’s not like the Eagles didn’t have plenty of chances to turn the Giants game into a 10-14 point victory, but the fact that this is a poor tackling team and their reliance on gimmicks, deception and scheme to be successful on offense leaves little room for error. They simply do not have the personnel to line up and play solid, smart, fundamental football. The sooner it clicks in the player’s minds that they are simply not as good as they think they are, and start pointing the finger at the man looking back at them in the mirror, the better chance they have at turning the ship around. Let’s just hope that things don’t get too far gone before they realize this fact.

xtian999
xtian999
September 26, 2011 11:53 pm

One other small pet peeve I had during the game is the fact that Vick was on the bench with a baseball size welt on his right hand which was originally thought to be a fracture, and he doesn’t have a bag of ice on it to start the treatment process. Unless someone educates me to understand why it was better to wait until the game was over to start treatment, I will continue to be flabbergasted over that image.

paulman
paulman
September 27, 2011 3:04 am

Giid points Xtian999
Why does he even come back out onto the field, Get the treatment started..I really didn;t think it was broke foe he was moving it and rubbing and if it was truly broke, he most likely would have been in a lot more pain than he appeared to be, but he should have remained in the locker room and received more treatment immediately instead of sitting and brooding on the bench..

DCar
DCar
September 27, 2011 10:23 am

They both equally suck monkey nads! Like I said for the millionth time, if they didn’t waste $$$ on players that they didn’t need, like in Smith, Brown & VY, they could have & should have spent the $$$ on a LB, O-linemen, & Safety. How much better would they look right now, if they resigned Stew & Q Mike!?!?

xtian999
xtian999
September 27, 2011 1:00 pm

Agreed DCar. Look, Q & Stu had limitations, but right now they’d be better options than anyone they are currently putting out there right now. So far, the only contribution VY and his $5M salary has made towards the 2011 season is his ridiculous “Dream Team” quote.

Butch007
Butch007
September 28, 2011 7:59 am

Obviously you want to have your best players out, but DRC is not a particularly physical player, none of the “Star” DBs are, so I really don’t know that putting him in regularly is going to help if the team against the run, when it happens or possibly against better TEs. Having said that I guess I still like the defenses chances with DRC/Allen at WS versus Allen/Page. Curtis Marsh seemed to have a handle coverage and batted down a couple of passes maybe he could be paired with DRC at WS and he might be more willing to get his hands dirty against the running game being a rookie.