Boy oh boy, that preseason hype bubble sure did pop pretty fast.
The kick ass Eagles were suppose to come out week one and demolish the crap Falcons, but naw. The Eagles earn their first 0-1 start of the Chip Kelly era and have already dashed the dreams of a perfect season.
The Eagles got off to a glacially slow pace in the first half that let the Falcons get up early, this led to Hotlanta carrying the majority of the momentum for the duration of the game. The Birds were able to fight back and make a game out of it, but the Falcons proved to be just a little too much. yeah, the Falcons…
This game definitely serves as a reality check for the Eagles. After week three of the preseason everyone was thinking the Eagle’s shit smelled pretty damn good, but we all know how the Outkast song goes. So now that it’s September and the games actually matter, maybe we should slow down the Eagles hype train just a bit.
When you really look at it, week one was a QB and two RBs playing in a new offense for the first time after having played very sparingly in the preseason, with the QB playing his first professional game in nearly two years. Expectations were running pretty high leading up to week one, so maybe everyone took the preseason a little too seriously, me included.
Now part of me is definitely overreacting. There was just as much good game tape as there was bad, but it’s the stuff that was bad that has me worried.
The offense did improve a lot once the second half came around, Sam Bradford looked much sharper and they actually had something of a run game. The guards calmed down a little bit in the fourth quarter, but God, it was like Allen Barbre and Andrew Gardner were trying to see who could get the most flags for the first three quarters. Outside of the guards, the offense did end the game on a very strong note.
Cool, the offense looked good, there was never anything wrong with the offense though, Chip Kelly has good offenses, duh. Defense on the other hand, that was definitely in need of some retooling. It got some revamped in the offseason, but this was a unit that went pretty untested through the preseason, they looked good against some soft competition but that doesn’t really mean much. After week one though, I do not feel very confident.
That run defense that was so stout in the preseason, nonexistent. Ball hawking corners who were all over the field in August, burnt toast. Any type of a pass rush whatsoever, not present. Some of the great things from the preseason are already going missing.
Some of the defense does look good, Kendricks and Kiko look like they could be the leaders of this D for a good, long time. If Malcolm Jenkins ever gets the cement off his hands, him and Walter Thurmmond could be a solid tandem. Oh yeah and Fletcher Cox is still pretty great.
While there are some bright spots on the defense, outside of Walter Thurmmond, they were all at spots that were never really issues before. Cornerback looks to be as weak a position as ever, only twice as expensive now. Nolan Carroll is starting to remind me of Ellis Hobbs, the Eagles gave him the starting job not really because of his skill but rather because the team just didn’t find anyone better. I really hope Byron Maxwell was just doing his best Bradley Fletcher impression because WOOF this was one of his worst games as a pro.
The pass rush was hella shakey, Matt Ryan finished the day with a pretty clean uniform. If the Eagles want to find success on defense, it starts with the pass rush because I think the corners are gonna need some help, last season proved that. The Falcons have a bad offensive line, like worst in the league, its downright offensive and the Eagles rush couldn’t do squat. I probably should chalk this up to early season jitters, but this is a pretty poop line, if this carries on in to future weeks, this could be very dangerous.
The worst player of the week goes to Cody Parkey, he did the least but hurt the team the most. Parkey has looked the farthest think from his former automatic, pro bowl self from last season. As of right now, I don’t really feel confident seeing Parky line up from anywhere. I’m not sure if its an injury thing or just something with his confidence, but the kid needs to get his shit straight before the team has to bring Kip Smith back on as some added encouragement #LaserShow.
Luckily, the rest of the NFC East looked pretty bad this weekend, so the Eagles didn’t really hurt themselves too bad. Next week against Dallas should serve as a good Litmus test.
This team needs to congeal that’s for sure, but if it does it should be more than enough to handle the schlubs that make up the rest of this division.
Snowballs & Batteries 