I thought the defense got the best of the offense overall during the practice.
With the offense buried on their own one-yard line, Trent Cole shot through and made a tackle on Kyle Eckel and tackled him in the end zone for a safety.
On the next play, Cole dropped into coverage and knocked the ball away from TE Eugene Bright. In general, Bright drops way too many balls, but that's for a different post.
On the goal-line drill, McNabb missed DeSean Jackson deep when Jackson had Joselio Hanson beat deep. This would have tied Jaworski to Quick back at the Vet.
Asante Samuel made some big plays too. He used a bait-and-switch move on Donovan by pretending to cover the back in the flat, but he dropped back into coverage and picked off a pass intended for Reggie Brown. We heard about that for the rest of practice. But it was a great play where Asante really set up Donovan. He does that as well or better than anyone in the league.
It’s very dangerous to throw near Asante Samuel because he reads routes as well as any corner in the league. He has a very high football acumen.
Sean Jones also made some good plays today. He was covering Jason Avant on one play in the end zone and Donovan hit Jason with the pass, but he didn’t catch it cleanly and wasn’t able to bring it down. Jones made sure he was there to pick the ball off. On another play against Kevin Curtis, he was able to get over and knock the ball down. He seems to always be around the ball and he will hit you too.
Quinton Demps showed why he is in the lineup. He made a great play deep on Jeremy Maclin, who can really jump, during a two-minute drill. They had Maclin isolated on Demps on a Hail Mary play and Demps was able to get up and knock the ball away. The dude can run, jump and he’s a really good athlete. So the question at safety becomes, do you go with the better athlete, or the better football player?
The first-team offense did have some good plays though. A screen to Kevin Curtis went for some big yards. Jason Avant caught a couple of passes inside for 10 and 15 yards here and there. But the defense did a great job of taking DeSean away. And that’s saying something because he’s been killing everybody out here.
