It’s back to work today for the Birds and I’m anxious to see what Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and Kevin Curtis look like in action. Of course I’ll get a quick look at Jeremiah Trotter on the defensive side.
The first ten minutes of practice will be open, then the Birds are going to shut things down. You know Andy and Marty are going to go crazy with the play calling without the media there to watch them.
That’s another story, let me get back to McNabb, Westbrook and Curtis.
Will they be out of sync with the rest of the offense or will they be at full speed?
Will we see McNabb altering his throwing motion because of the rib injury or will he be putting just as much zip on the football?
Will we see Westbrook changing direction and cutting on a dime like he has in the past or will he round off his cuts because of his ankle? Can he accelerate from a stand still position to full speed like we’ve seen him do in the past?
I’m still waiting to see Curtis run full speed. He could have a big year because of DeSean Jackson’s success on the other side. They need production on the other side or at least a deep threat to safeties from cheating up to help on Jackson.
Teams are going to be game planning to stop the little guy. Those big plays let the air out of a team and they put points on the board without a lot of effort by anybody other than Jackson.
Remember, a healthy McNabb and Westbrook is lethal on the same team as Jackson. I haven’t even talked about Brent Celek’s emergence as a top flight tight end. With the weapons the Eagles have on this offense, you have to cover Celek with a linebacker and that’s a mismatch.
Opposing defensive coordinators will go into the games against the Eagles trying to guess who’s getting the ball. Most of the time defenses like to take something away from the offense, but I don’t know if you can do that against this offense, if McNabb and Westbrook are healthy.
One positive that has come out of the injuries is the fact that the Birds have established more depth on the football team. That could prove to be very important as the season continues.
Every team has injuries but some teams are able to continue winning despite the injuries while some teams are destroyed by them.
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