Okay, I was seriously bumming out after the ridiculously inept perfromance against the Steelers in the first half Thursday night… Like a child, I took it personally… like someone stole my Melba toast and air-mailed it to Big Ben so’s he might have something to crumble on top of his luncheon salad…
I wasn’t the only one. Have you noticed how many Philly Eagles blogs have taken the last 24 hours off? I know it’s vacation season, but c’mon! Even mainstream newspaper coverage of the Eagles has diminished to a trickle since the great implosion of “The Dream Team” at Heinz Field…
But I’m back with an improved attitude, thanks to the “perks” of posters here like Bri, JB, ATV and many more. They’ve all reminded me of the old adage: “You’re never as bad as you think when you get blown out…and you’re never as good as you think when you win.”
I get that. I remember Lardarius Webb (CB,PR) telling me the same thing after he muffed a punt in Ravens TC last summer… “I should have called for a fair catch,” Webb said, “But I wanted to impress my teammates and coaches by making a big play out of nothing…I made a bad decision right there…but when I got to the sidelines, everyone there told me ‘Let it go, man” and ‘Make the next one better’….No one got down on me or negative on me…which only made me want to prove myself even more on the next chance I got…”
There’s a lesson in there somewhere for not only our Eagles players but our fans…including me. I need to lighten up on judging preseason game results and focus more on the process of learning—which is what preseason self-development in the NFL is all about, anyway
The only sane way to deal with the unmasking of the “Dream Team” in preseason game #2 at Pittsburgh is— ignore it and move on.
It boils down to: Big Ben was on the mark… Starship 7 (Vick) was not… and our back seven coverage on defense was just a tad off…
We can regroup and recover from that.
And give the Steelers their due, too…
“I think we played pretty well, being that we came out slow last week against the Redskins,” said Steelers linebacker LaMarr Woodley. “This was our chance to go out and see what the defense is about against a high-powered offense like this.”
Roethlisberger left the game after his two scoring series with a 140.6 passer rating (8 of 12, 125 yards). Leftwich finished the first half and had a 129.2 rating (4 of 7, 67). Vick left at halftime with a 13.5 passer rating (5 of 12, 47 yards).
Roethlisberger looked to be in midseason, midcareer form, guiding his offense on drives of 96 and 80 yards to open the game. He ended them by throwing touchdown passes of 29 yards to Antonio Brown and 20 yards to Hines Ward. Byron Leftwich made it 21-0 by the half, rifling a 20-yard touchdown pass to newcomer Jerricho Cotchery.
“To come out and get 14 points on a great team like the Eagles shows that we are moving in the right direction toward Baltimore,” Ward said, referring to the regular-season opener. “I think we started to get into a rhythm, and we overcame some of the penalties that we had. Every guy was capitalizing on the opportunities that they were given.”
Not too long ago, in preseason game #1, the Steelers were enduring a 16-7 loss against the Redskins… suddenly, the Steelers’ first teams on offense and defense were highly effective against the Eagles.
But a big part of that Steelers success is simply written off to timing and circumstance…That’s why I believe we should not take more out of the Steelers’ big win over the Eagles 1’s in the first half this past Thursday.
“It’s hard to be pleased with it, but it’s hard to be disappointed, if that makes any sense,” Roethlisberger said. “We made a lot of mistakes, I don’t think we protected well. It was probably my fault more than anything. We found ways to make plays, and guys found ways to get open. I found a way to get them the ball.”
Said Ward: “We have a great group of receivers, a great quarterback, and a great running back. We all need to be on the same page and execute.”
Another quarterback came on and did just that. Byron Leftwich entered the game in the second quarter after Ryan Clark intercepted a Vick pass at the Eagles 30, but backup Swayze Waters — who did all the kicking because Shaun Suisham had his appendix out — had his 47-yard field-goal try blocked to end that series. He later missed a 27-yard attempt wide and connected on one from 30 yards.
Another interception, this one by Troy Polamalu, set the table for the third touchdown, which came on a 20-yard bullet from Leftwich to Cotchery with 12 seconds left in the first half
A less-obvious reason for all this Steelers prosperity could be confusion in the Eagles’ secondary scheme. Last season as a rookie, Nate Allen primarily was responsible for playing center field and serving as the “pass cover” safety, while Quintin Mikell played more in the box to help fill gaps against the run.
The safety jobs were somewhat interchangeable, but are even more so this season. Defensive coordinator Juan Castillo even switched Allen’s job title. He’s the strong safety, and Mikell’s replacement – Kurt Coleman – is the free safety.
The title swap means little, but both safety jobs have been tinkered with because new defensive line coach Jim Washburn is lining up the defensive ends farther outside the tackles.
The “wide-nines” scheme, while giving the ends more freedom to rush the passer, takes away some of their run-stopping responsibilities and widens the run gaps along the front. The linebackers are asked to pick up the slack, but so are the safeties.
“There’s just a little more responsibility on the runs, especially in certain coverages that we have,” Coleman said. “We have to be able to fill these gaps a lot quicker than normally. That’s about as vague as I can be.”
Like most of the first-team defense, the Eagles’ 2009 second-round draft pick Allen had a forgettable night against Pittsburgh. His performance may have stood out more than others’ because he often was targeted by Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, and, well, came up short.
But the eyeball test yielded a few answers after the second-year safety played his first significant amount of football since he ruptured the patellar tendon in his right knee in December. Allen looked a half-step slow and tentative.
The cause, of course, could be the knee. Allen said afterward that his knee “felt good,” although a second question provided more detail: “Just sore half of the time, but that’s normal,” he said…
Last week, when the Baltimore Ravens ran on first down, Allen and Coleman pressed while cornerbacks Asante Samuel and Nnamdi Asomugha took turns dropping back as the safety. Thursday night, the safeties spent more time in the box, but the Steelers still gained 93 first-half yards on the ground.
“It is different from last year,” Coleman said. “But we’ve played this game. We know when we have to fill it on the runs and we know when we’ve got to cover passes.”
Roethlisberger, though, had great success with the play-action pass. All told, he completed 8 of 12 passes for 125 yards and two touchdowns.
As Jeff McClane of the Philadelphia Inquirer retells it:
The first score – a 29-yard pass from Roethlisberger to wide receiver Antonio Brown – came on third down during the game’s opening drive. The Eagles blitzed two extra rushers with Allen coming in off the edge. Inexplicably, he let up and tried to jump and bat Roethlisberger’s throw rather than get in the quarterback’s face.
Samuel was left alone, gambled on a pump, and Brown was wide open for the touchdown.
Allen also was involved in Pittsburgh’s second score in the second quarter. Again on third down, Roethlisberger connected with another of his receivers, Hines Ward, for a 20-yard touchdown.
This time, Allen dropped back into coverage.
“When Roethlisberger scrambled, Ward kind of broke his route off,” Allen said. “That’s when you’ve got to hug up on somebody, and he just got behind me.”
The point of this autopsy report is to simply state there are diagnostic answers and reasons to believe the defensive problems we saw in the Steelers game can be fixed. Maybe the “new car smell” of the so-called Dream Team has worn off after that disappointment last Thursday… but also— maybe that’s a good thing. Now we can get back to what the Eagles do best—and that is (traditionally) low-profile refinement of mechanical technique, having little to do with headlines or dreams…
I’m all in…again.
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