All 22: O Barwin, Where Art Thou?

Apologies guys, no film room from me today. My screen recorder decided to stop working yesterday and I had to try a few new programs. Sadly the one I used that I thought worked, starts playing in 3x speed when uploaded to as a GIF so it's unwatchable. If anyone knows of a great free screen recorder for windows 10 let me know, finding one that can capture gamepass appears to be tricky. Seeing as I have watched the all22, I thought I'd just list my observations without any film to back me up. Hopefully all will be back to normal next week.

Luckily, this game wasn't very interesting. This game wasn't much more fun than last week. Actually, it could have been worse. The game had so few drives I felt like nothing much happened, especially on offense. I think the game highlighted the Eagles weaknesses a lot, the Eagles cornerbacks obviously played really poorly and this Eagles offense just can't come back in a game where they have to throw the ball a lot with these wide receivers.

Offense

Passing Attack

I thought this was Carson Wentz' best game in a few weeks, he was really sharp early on. When Jordan Matthews went down, you had to feel the guy. He had a makeshift offensive line, basically no wide receivers and he had to throw the ball almost every play. If you look at the score and say, 'we only scored 13 points at home to the Packers so Wentz must have played bad?' - he didn't.

This was a weird game overall. Keep in mind the Eagles only had 7 drives the entire game I think. The Packers kept the ball for so long. The Eagles did have quite a few shot plays called to try and go down the field but the protection couldn't hold up when Wentz dropped back. Losing Brandon Brooks was a massive blow. It did give us a chance to see Wentz make some plays with his legs which was good to see. I'm glad Wentz isn't making too many plays with his legs because the coaches are making him stay in the pocket, but it's good to see the athlete in him come out sometimes.

The makeshift offensive line performed okay but not great in pass protection. Jason Peters probably had his worst game in a while. I thought Isaac Seumalo played fairly well considering it was his first start but he wasn't great. If you do want to watch some film, I actually broke down his film after we drafted him here. I said he wasn't a flashy guard and his upside is limited but he normally gets the job done. He played like I thought he would in his first start, he didn't get beat much and when he gets his hands on you it's hard to get him off. He can be beat initially at the line though when he lunges forward, something he did too much in college.

Carson Wentz did make some beautiful throws too. There was a deep corner route right at the end of the game to Dorial Green-Beckham that was awesome. He throw a nice deep in to DGB earlier in the game too and made a couple of nice throws to Jordan Matthews too. The interception was bad, but except for that there wasn't many bad plays at all in total.

Running Game

The Eagles didn't really get the running game going on Monday night but we did get a chance to see Wendall Smallwood. I thought he played well and ran really hard. As you know, I don't see him as a 25 carry a game 3 down back still, but he can certainly handle a larger workload than he has been getting. He needs to improve his pass protection though if he ever wants to be in on 3rd down.

In the limited snaps I saw, I thought Seumalo run blocked pretty well. He made a couple of nice blocks where he helped double the defense tackle and then showed good athleticism and foot quickness to be able to peel off and take the linebacker out at the second level.

I know that everyone wants the Eagles to get a stud running back, but I was wondering the other day, would it be a disaster if the running backs remained the same next year? It's obviously not ideal, but the Eagles have quite a lot of needs to fill. If they can't get to the running back position, I wonder if Mathews, Smallwood and Sproles can carry the load for just 1 year, the running game hasn't been terrible this year after all.

Defense

Pass Defense

Oh boy, the pass defense was bad this week. Weeks after I said Nolan Carroll was playing well, he put up a really poor performance. He made Davante Adams look like Antonio Brown on some of those plays. Adams killed him off the line of scrimmage a few times. Leodis McKelvin just isn't good. He had to play off coverage because he couldn't press, that led to Rodgers just throwing it to Jordy Nelson and Nelson picking up 8 or 9 yards with ease. McKelvin has to be come downhill quicker and turn those plays into 3/4 yard gains. When he did press, he got killed at the line of scrimmage.

Jalen Mills was much better than the other two, he needs to be starting now even if he gets beat a few times. McKelvin isn't better and Mills is younger, just let him play so we can see what we have. He made some really nice plays on Jordy Nelson and he came downhill and tackled better than the other two.

Another thought I had watching the game, it's weird how everyone has just accepted that Malcolm Jenkins is a slot cornerback right now. I think it's such a waste of his talent and Jaylen Watkins didn't have a really good game. I think Watkins is a safety you maybe use in certain plays on 3rd and long or in certain packages but he shouldn't be playing as much as he has been. He can't come into the box and make plays and isn't very aware to outside runs. Some of Aaron Rodgers outside scrambles, Watkins could have done a much better job.

The pass rush just wasn't there but to be honest it barely had a chance. Connor Barwin is doing nothing out there, I thought Logan had a really poor game too. Cox was getting double teamed on literally every single play and the other guys just couldn't win their matchups. Yes, Cox should be beating double teams at time but he's playing well. I saw him beat double teams a few times, and sometimes the running back would block him too! There was one play (that I can't show!) where protection slid towards Cox so he had the center and the guard on him, and then the running back came in and helped too. Curry, Logan and Barwin were all left one on one. Curry got close, but the other 2 did nothing. Rodgers had ages to throw and eventually found Jordy Nelson for a long gain.

Run Defense

Not much to talk about here really seeing as the Packers don't run the ball much. Cox was a beast in the run game, I thought Logan was fine as usual. Jordan Hicks and Nigel Bradham were good as always too. The defense was fine against the run, but it was really poor against the pass and that cost the Eagles the game in my opinion.

Hopefully back to normal next week guys, apologies once again.