Kolb And Eagles Young Offense Get Taste Of Dealing With Challenges

Yesterday morning was a struggle for new starting quarterback Kevin Kolb and the Eagles young offense.  I thought it was a great learning session because contrary to what some may believe, this group will encounter tough times as they establish themselves in the NFL.

They must learn from these situations by knowing to increase their focus on fundamentals when they encounter challenging times.

It’s not a surprise that the defense would be ahead of the offense during this time of year because most of the time, the defense is ahead of the offense in early off season drills.

Eventually the offense catches up after they get some reps.¬† The Eagles potentially explosive offensive group was out of sync yesterday and they couldn’t find a way to get their timing back during the morning session.

After practice Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said Kolb, who he described as being very consistent, needed to clean up something from the morning session.

During the workout, it seemed that nearly every pass which Kolb threw, one or more of the defensive players got their hands on it.  There seemed to be 13 defensive players on the field rather than 11.

The first play of the team period, the Birds offense went with a pass play to Pro Bowl wide receiver DeSean Jackson in the middle of the field.  Jackson came in motion from his outside flanker position and went inside through the trees (the linebackers and safeties).

He was running a get open route, where he looks for an opening anywhere he can find one.¬† He didn’t find any opening but Kolb threw the ball any way and it was knocked down by one of the linebackers.

It was a dangerous pass which Kolb has to guard against throwing.¬† I still don’t like the idea of making a habit of running Jackson across the middle all of the time.¬† I do prefer the get open routes much better than all of those slants.

On the second play of the period, Kolb tried to get the ball to his tight end Brent Celek, who ran a route where he goes up field about ten yards then abruptly makes a cut outside.  Usually he runs this route against a zone coverage on first down.

Unfortunately this time he was running route against a guy who is very familiar with it, Eagles middle linebacker Stewart Bradley.  The former Cornhusker cut underneath Celek when he saw Kolb release the football.

He was in perfect position to pick it off, but he let it bounce off his hands into the air.  It went up nice and high which gave every defensive player on the field enough time to get there and they did.

Safety Quintin Mikell picked it off and headed down the side line with a large escort of blockers.

The rest of the plays in the period by the first team offense were more of the same.  Right cornerback Ellis Hobbs almost picked off an errant throw by Kolb on a play or two later.

The young quarterback had to get out of the pocket on one of the plays, so he darted to his right with pressure in his face and hit Jeremy Maclin for a short gain on the sideline.

Maclin had come back to give him some help, when he saw he was in trouble. ¬† I think Kolb is going to have to get rid of the football rather than pull it down and start running.¬†¬† He doesn’t have the speed to run away from anybody.¬† He’ll find out soon that the defenders in the NFL are incredibly fast.

On another play, Kolb tried to hit Jackson on a deep double-move route against Asante Samuel but the veteran corner was waiting for it, so Jackson had to play defense and to stop Samuel from picking it off.

Samuel was yelling throughout the entire period as the defense made play after play.¬† He’s got to get under the players and coaches skin because he doesn’t stop talking “trash” the entire team period.

You can hear him in Center City even though the workouts are in South Philly.

One of the linebackers got his hands on another pass which was a seam route to Celek.¬† Kolb didn’t throw it high enough and it was almost picked off.

That entire period they couldn’t get out of the funk.¬† This was a good challenge for this young unit which should prove to be an explosive group.

There are going to be times when things aren’t going right, but they must keep focusing and working hard to turn it around.

This is going to be the key to the 2010 season because their defense will likely struggle early in the season.¬† They have a lot of new people on the defense, so they’ll need the offense to carry them.

When things aren’t going right of the offense, they must focus on the fundamentals and not panic.¬† I think they’re going to have some big days, but the key to them having a good record will be how they handle adversity.

They might not know it, but yesterday was a good learning session for this young group.