Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Beaten up, bedraggled Birds need a recharge
PHILADELPHIA » One week ago, Doug Pederson hit his Monday news conference running. He was a regular 5-hour energy drink delivering the message that Carson Wentz’s season is over, not the Eagles’. The rant was so moving a handful of reporters almost applauded.
This Monday, Pederson looked as tired as the team that hung on to defeat the New York Giants Sunday at MetLife Stadium. You wanted to tell the old ball coach to sit down, have a drink of water and don’t worry — everything is going to be alright.
That would be lying. Everything isn’t going to be fine if the Eagles don’t get some rest before the playoffs. They have earned a playoff bye. They’ll be the top seed in the NFC playoffs if the Vikings lose Saturday night in Green Bay. Throwing everything into the quest for home-field advantage throughout the postseason won’t mean much if the Eagles totally burn themselves out.
Right now, they are running on fumes. They aren’t quite who we thought they would be without Wentz, unless you figured the new winning formula would be giving up 504 yards to a going-nowherefast team such as the Giants.
Nick Foles wasn’t the problem. He not only threw four touchdown passes Sunday but played turnoverfree, although that fumble forced by a blindside sack surrendered by Big V and recovered by teammate Kenjon Barner certainly was an eye opener.
Foles showed his resiliency surviving the shot. He also showed he doesn’t quite have the skills to put up the 35 or 40 points the Eagles are going to need to out-run their mistakes and beat the good teams populating the playoffs. The special teams (three blocked kicks) and the defense set him up with the short field just often enough to get 17 points of what would become a 34-29 win over the Giants. That’s the Giants without Odell Beckham Jr.
The Philly defense that was supposed to step up Sunday didn’t tackle well for the third straight week. The Eagles looked like they’d never seen a hurry-up, quick-throw offense. They couldn’t figure out how to avoid bumping into each other in pass coverage and they gave the opposition a snapshot of how best to attack them offensively, which is to get rid of the ball fast the way Eli Manning did, and make the defense tackle.
Defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz, you may recall, was dissatisfied with the tackling the previous two weeks. Add Pederson to the list.
“Tackling is everything,” Pederson said. “You have to be able to get guys on the ground. We have to continue to address it during the week. This time of the year it falls a little bit more back on the player getting their proper rest, getting the nutrition, hydration, things we talk about during the week and making sure that they are as fresh as they can be.
“And then I do my part as a coach from a rep standpoint during practice. If I’ve got to do more walkthroughs, I do more walkthroughs, or whatever it takes to make sure the guys are as close to 100 percent as possible on game day. We just have to continue to drill it but at the same time, I have to make sure guys are fresh and be in position to make those plays.”
More walkthroughs, drilling it and make sure the guys are fresh are incongruous. What the Eagles need is less, not more practice. Too often Sunday they looked pathetic reaching, instead of positioning themselves to make tackles. It’s dead legs, not fundamentals.
Though the Giants were credited with six plays of 20 or more yards, including touchdowns of 67 yards by Sterling Sheppard and 57 by Tavarres King, both on receptions, a lot of the damage came in the form of run after the catch. And that’s the result of poor tackling.
The Giants averaged 6.2 yards on 81 plays. Manning threw for 434 yards and three TDs with one interception.
The Eagles ran 66 plays averaging 5.2 yards. Though they controlled the ball for 1:46 longer than the Giants, the low volume of plays resulted in too much of a drain on a defense that, quite frankly, is getting it done with just two linebackers in Bradham and Mychal Kendricks, and a bunch of defensive backs who essentially are better suited to coverage than volume tackling.
Since the personnel isn’t likely to change this week or next, it would be best to begin systematically shutting players down, somewhat the way you freshened them for the season opener.
Without Wentz, the Eagles cannot win a track meet with the Vikings, Rams, Saints, Panthers or Falcons, who would comprise the field if the NFC playoffs began Monday. And the Eagles sure don’t want to see the Seahawks again. They’re on the bubble.
Without Wentz, you cannot have Foles launching 38 passes and handing the ball off just 25 times, as the Eagles did Sunday. The Eagles are going to have to rededicate themselves to the run game, one of their clear strengths. That could mean more first downs, fewer snaps for the defense and a better chance to move on in the tournament.
The energy level in the playoffs is 10 times what it was Sunday with the Giants. To survive the Eagles need to hit the ground running like Pederson at his presser two weeks ago, not the guy who showed up Monday.