Everything is breaking right for the Eagles at the moment. They should be able to take advantage of the injury to Aaron Rodgers because the quarterback backing up Rodgers is Seneca Wallace and he is barely at a NFL quarterback level. He’s a good athlete, but he’s short and he has a weak, pop-gun arm. It will be difficult for him to throw the football down he field, so the Eagles defense will be able to crowd the line of scrimmage, take away the Green Bay running game and dare Wallace to beat them .
In this past Monday’s battle with the Chicago Bears, Wallace completed 11 of 19 attempts for only 114 yards and one interception. I don’t think he’s much of a threat, unless he’s able to hide behind a good running game and a good defense.
If the Eagles offense can score over 21 points and the defense can keep the Green Bay running game in check, the Birds will likely get a win because Wallace can’t get it done without a lot of help. He just doesn’t have the skills. The Packers offensive coaches are going to put the football on the ground and pound it with running backs Eddie Lacy and James Starks. They have no chance of winning the football game by depending on Wallace to carry them.
Lacy and Starks are both good running backs and Lacy is a big monster of a back, but the Birds young defensive line is growing by leaps and bounds. I have been most impressed with the progress they have made. They’re getting better and more confident every time they step on the field. I think they will limit the Packers running game and that will expose Wallace, who isn’t ready for primetime.
This game won’t be a cake walk for Nick Foles and the Eagles offense because Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers will do a much better job than Oakland defensive coordinator Jason Tarver. The Raiders defense did not play on a NFL level last week. That performance by Oakland defense was not at a legitimate NFL-level because many times the Raiders didn’t have enough defensive backs in position to stop the Eagles pass play.
Chip Kelly does a great job of getting his playmakers in one-on-one situations by utilizing spacing. They isolated Riley Cooper on rookie cornerback D.J. Hayden. They got DeSean Jackson in an isolated one-on-one situation. Kelly has his quarterbacks trained to exploit any numbers advantages. Nick Foles did a great of finding those adventages on Sunday.
The Raiders were willing to get destroyed through the air, in order to be able to stack the box to control LeSean McCoy. They surrendered seven touchdown passes in only two and half quarters in order to stop the Eagles running game. That was a foolish game plan that Tarver put together.
Early in the game, they had two defensive backs lined up outside against three Eagles receivers. Are you kidding me? You have no choice but to put three defenders outside with those three receivers. The Eagles threw the ball to Riley Cooper on a quick screen and he ran 42 yards down the sideline. That is incompetence on the part of the defensive coordinator.
They gave up seven touchdown passes, but continued to play man to man defense against receivers who they could not cover. A competent defensive coordinator would have switched to zone coverages. It’s not that complicated. If I were the head coach of the Raiders, I would have stepped in at halftime and made Tarver switch to zone coverages..
McCoy will likely get opportunities this week to have a big day because the Packers will likely put stopping the Eagles passing game as they number one priority. I doubt the any of the Eagles future opponents stack the box the way the Raiders did last Sunday.
I guarantee you, Packers defensive coordinator Capers will employ sound pass coverages against the Birds, so moving the football will be much more difficult. The Packers also have a very good defensive backfield.
you can bet in the week of prep for oakland they said ‘don’t let shady beat us’– they had just watched the dallas film and figured foles couldn’t beat them so they decided to take out their best player.
this whole thing is predicated on ‘pick your poison’
That exactly what happened and we got one on one match ups on the outside with cooper.. The question for me is not if Foles can do this every week but can COOPER.. I like cooper but imagine if we had a calvin johnson , julio jones, or an aj green type reviever..
No doubt. Calvin Johnson would make EVERY TEAM in the NFL better. The man is a beast.
I would hope that Kelly and Roseman move to get us a receiver who is even half as good as Johnson. DJax and Maclin are both smaller, and can be disrupted with strong press coverage. Cooper, while tall and above average speed, has to date in his 4 year career, shown relatively little until the past few weeks. I would hope that this recent trend continues, but at best he is a #2 or #3 receiver. We should look at going after the larger recievers in the draft or FA’s no doubt.
Yes, Dom Capers will surely be prepared to face Kelly’s offense. I agree that it will be a good test to see what the Eagles are made of, and more importantly, find out who this Eagles team really is. Are they the Eagles vs Raiders offense or the Eagles vs Cowboys offense? They only way we will learn is by playing the game, not writing about it on a football blog.
As far as Wallace goes, we all know the Eagles long history of doing horrible against backup QB’s…..Joe Webb…. John Skelton are too very recent examples. I want to see this defense continue to show the improvement we have seen over the past 5 weeks, and continue to be strong as a unit. They give up some yards, but ultimately they are keeping teams out of the endzone…classic bend but don’t break model.
Regardless it will be a good game. GO BIRDS!!!
Yes, hopefully that trend of the back up QB beating the Eagles will be extinguished with Chip Kelly at the helm.
I agree…but he hasn’t broken that trend of losing at home yet….get rid of this one first and then tackle the next one!!
I think what gets really down played by the national media and in this case, G, is that Kelly’s offense is the very thing that puts defenses in these bad situations. That’s right, the same offense that has been taking a ton of heat because the execution (not scheme) has been lacking.
Take the above photograph that G used to show how poorly deployed Oakland’s D was. There is clearly a mismatch on the outside because Oakland was focusing on McCoy. However, if they sent 3 dbs over there to even up, and you have one DB to account for Jackson, that leaves you 7 guys. One has to play deep and one has to account for the TE on the pop-pass. So then you would have had 5 on 5 in the box and Foles would have given it to Shady. If Celek’s man would have stayed in to stop the run then foles would have hit the pop pass. If there was no deep safety, the ball would have gone to Jackson on a go route.
The options in Kelly’s offense is what makes Defenses look so terrible WHEN the execution is there.
All in all, Kelly’s scheme has worked in every game this year, safe for Denver and the Giants. The execution is what has given the national media the opportunity to pounce on Kelly.
This very good defense is going to take away Shady, and DJAX. Its all up to Foles and Cooper. Lets see if they can pull this out. If Foles can pull this off against Green Bay, leave him in the remainder of the year.
I don’t think that he is going to be able to do both. Can’t double DJax is they are trying to bottle up the run and vice versa.
They are going to take away Shadey & DJax…….OK, that isn’t hard to type, but a lot harder to accomplish. To stop Shadey they will need to stack the box at the very least, which will involve moving the safeties up. Stopping DJax usually involves a strong physical press at the line of scrimmage, which is man coverage with help over the top. With the safeties pulled up on stopping the run, they are not there for help. It all sounds good, but I see our offensive attack having multiple ways to hurt a defense. No doubt that Capers will be a good test for Kelly’s offense, but I think the TE’s will also play a big part in our attack.
Very good post, Greenbooger!
I think there’s gonna be a lot of big play possibilities against the GB secondary.I also do see the TE’s possibly making some big plays…GB is aggressive with the LB’s…The key is going to be how the Eagles offensive line holds up…GB is one of the best pass rushing teams in the league. GB likes to use their LB’s and are successful getting pressure or sacks with their LB’s…Between them they have 8 sacks on the season. 11 sacks if you count the backups…In 8 games played…Eagles gotta get bodies on Perry and Hawk especially. If the O line and RB’s pick up the LB’s, the offense will have some opportunities.
Thanks for noticing RealJoke777, I do have some sinus congestion today so everything is rather Green.
Very true about the Packers pass rush being dependent on the LB’s. that is why I am interested in how Mathews return will effect the play of their defense. He will have a cast, and with it being his first game back I would wonder how much he is in “football shape”. Hopefully for the birds, he will be a little rusty and we can neutralize him on his rush attempts.
So wait a minute. GB is going to protect against the pass, so they will not stack the box. Well that should be welcomed right as it would play to the strength of the team and to the best player. Bring it, because I would love to watch Shady drop 150 and 2 tds.
Eh..they picked their poison. They would have gotten eaten alive in zone too. Maybe not 7tds, but it wouldn’t have been pretty then either.
14th ranked scoring defense and 20th against the pass, but pretty solid against the run. I doubt that they are going to change their defense that they have been going with all year.
I think Mathews is returning for the Packers this week, playing with a cast on the broken thumb. His had been their leading pass rusher, but wonder how effective he will be in his first game back.
No doubt Oakland was over matched — Green Bay’s D had difficulty stopping 49er’s Kaepernick read opton in the NFC playoffs and did every thing possible to stop him in the season opener and Kap burned him passing instead for 400 and 3TD– so Capers can over correct also
G, 1st Jesus is indeed lord – I like the tag up there.
2nd, The raiders play in th eNFL and therefore they have an NFL defense, and also one that was touted as very good prior to HISTORY from 9.
I mean last week G Cobb and every media person was praising how good the Raiders defense was.
Anyone who thinks Oregon’s QB Marcus Mariotta is ready for the NFL should turn on the Stanford/Oregon.. This kid is nowhere ready for the NFL , let alone a high draft pick.. He is undersized, not physically strong enough to play in the NFL .. Stanford is pushing this gadget crap Oregon Team like a high school Team..
maybe we can draft Mariotta in the 4th round?
Staford (pro style team) just kicked that gimmicky RO playground shit in the balls
I will never forget the day the FAT MAN lost to a rookie QB and Coach at HOME!
To Minnesota…
Now he runs the Football in KC…FAT SLOB…
Feel sorry for the KC fans getting their superbowl hopes up. KC will lose in the 2nd round of the playoffs..
OH sorry…about the Packers…Pack have a smart head coach, he will establish the run then, play action fake the Eagles and hit bombs on this sorry secondary and beat the Eagles..
Mr. Cobb your site takes forever to load…check the analytics. My guess is you are losing a lot of viewers within the first 10 seconds. Use smaller photo files and less graphics…