Cautiously Optimistic - Week One Thoughts and Looking Ahead to Week Two

Quick Thoughts From Eagles @ Browns and a look ahead to Ravens @ Eagles

Opening Thoughts:

For starters, rarely does a team have the perfect win or just not show up for a game. There is usually some good and bad to take from any win and any loss moving forward. Outcomes of games are not black and white, they're very Gray, but then there's only the one stat that counts W's and L's. It's why I love football, it's not black and white, but at the end of the day it kind of is. Wins and Losses are what matter, but they don't necessarily give you great insight on a team's play and what to expect moving forward.

Offense:

Vick was bad, nobody’s going to deny that, but I think many of us are forgetting that a Win is a Win in the NFL and the only thing that matters each week are the 60 minutes on the field and nothing else. Was it discouraging to see Vick play so poorly? Absolutely, but consider these things

Cleveland’s 2011 passing defense ranked 2nd in the league in yards allowed last year and only allowed an average of 5.9 YPA.

Joe Haden is one of the best young corners and most likely the next “shut-down” guy going into his 3rd year (he just got suspended 4 games) but he was the 5th overall pick in 2010 and playing like it. D’Qwell Jackson was healthy for this game; the Browns pass defense is nothing to scoff at.

Also take into account that the defensive coordinator for the Browns is, Dick Jauron the Eagles defensive backs coach and a senior assistant for the team in 2010.

Dimitri Patterson, Jaqua Parker, and Sheldon Brown are all on the Browns defense, it’s safe to say that the Browns are familiar with Andy Reid’s offense and Vick.

I’m not excusing this game by any means, but I’m not nearly as worried as other people are. Am I terrified of Ed Reed this coming week and a good 3-4 defense? You bet, but I think Vick will bounce back to have a solid week this week. Familiarity is a big deal in football, and if you’re thinking too much like in any sport, you’re dead in the water. Why is Peyton Manning so good? Because he walks up to the LOS and knows what he’s seeing and he knows how to exploit it. It’s the same thing with defensive players. You have to imagine that the Browns were able to game plan and prepare for the Eagles in ways that most teams cannot because of their familiarity. If the Eagles came out in formations and D’Qwell Jackson knew what he was seeing and could communicate that then that’s a huge advantage for the defense.

Again, not justifying Vick’s terrible decision making, but he was rusty. I thought his biggest flaw Sunday was that he was making decisions late, a guy would be open, Vick would see it late, throw the ball and the defense had recovered and covered the receiver up - what would have been an open receiver is now a throw into traffic. That to me is a clear sign of rust, readjusting to the speed of the game getting back familiar with your receivers etc, it’s why I’m okay with Andy calling 56 passes in hindsight (only because we won) because there shouldn’t be any rust come week two.

I don't have the All-22 (yet) but I will be curious to hear whether or not the Browns were playing excellent coverage or if Vick wasn't seeing open guys and forcing the ball to covered guys. Either way, he has to be smarter with the ball. I was pleasantly surprised to see him throwing the ball away a few times in the first half, hope he does that more often, he needs to adapt the live to fight another play philosophy.

The penalties have to be cleaned up, that was bad, that could be a huge issue moving forward if this team really is that undisciplined

McCoy got plenty of touches Sunday. I think the reason we threw it so much was one, Vick was rusty, two penalties took us out of running situations and put us into lots of passing situations and lastly the Eagles ran 96 plays including penalties. That’s nearly two games worth of plays. I have a feeling we’ll see a much more balanced attack vs Baltimore week two.

In Mudd I Trust, hope the line gets it together quickly, definitely seeing the Jason Peters effect.

Defense, Special Teams and more after the jump

Defense:

Defensively I’m not quite ready to anoint this unit as a dominant one, I’m really excited to see them verses Baltimore’s new no huddle look this week though. The last four games last year and this opening game of 2012 have been against terrible opponents, but what I saw Sunday leaves me very optimistic. Last year the defense looked like they didn’t know what they were doing, they looked like they were thinking too much on the field and they lacked confidence. What I saw Sunday was a fast physical defense that looked like they knew what they were doing, even if it was against the Browns there is no substitute for confidence, especially with a group with this much talent.

They tackled really well, that's a good sign moving forward.

If this defense goes out and gives the Ravens offense problems I think it’s time to consider this unit as one of the top defenses in the league. This matchup is such a perfect test for this defense. The Ravens have a physical receiver in Boldin, a speedster and deep threat in Torrey Smith, a talented pass catching TE in Pita who will line up in the slot some and then one of the most dynamic Running Backs in the league in Rice. We will see if our corners in press are the real deal, we’ll see if the LB core can handle coverage responsibilities and we’ll definitely get to see if there is real improvement in the run defense. This will be a very telling matchup for Juan Castillo and company.

Special Teams:

The Eagles had one of the best coverage units in the league last year. I thought they do a good job dealing with Cribbs and that was without Colt Anderson.

Field position is a huge aspect of a game that often times gets overlooked and I was very impressed that the Eagles overcame terrible field position all day long to win this game.

Chas Henry had a great game and did a lot to flip terrible offensive field position into decent defensive field position.

I didn’t like seeing Alex Henery miss a pressure FG, hope that isn’t a pattern going forward.

Final Thoughts:

The Eagles do not win this game last year, last year’s team was somewhat soft, the team I saw yesterday looked gritty and tough and stepped up when they had to, that sounds nothing like the 2011 Eagles.

Bottom line is this, the Eagles won a game on Sunday they had no business winning, they overcame self-inflicted adversity and they’ve now won 5 regular season games in a row and nine total games. Confidence is as much a part of success as talent is in sports. Fans were getting nervous because the Eagles let the Browns hand around and as the saying goes “you let a team hang around and they start to believe they can actually beat you.” Confidence is a big deal and this team is winning, that’s going to build confidence, no matter how ugly the win. They must play better offensively if they’re going to be able to beat contenders like the Ravens, there's no doubt about that, but we should be happier about this win than we've been. 1 win down, 15 games to go.

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