Eagles defensive coordinator Sean McDermott has the difficult task of defending the Cowboys deep threats while containing their outstanding tight end, Jason Witten.
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.
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.
