Game Thread: Vikings vs Eagles: Thursday Night Thread

[fightinfunbags]

I'm just giving them a hard time, but they should certainly improve over the season luke KC.

I agree. They’re going to war with two inexperienced coordinators. They better figure it out quickly though because once the Eagles hit week 7 it gets much tougher.

Dolphins
@ Commanders
Dallas
Bye
@ KC
Bills
Niners
@ Dallas
@ Seattle

 

[Iggloo]

The Birds have like 8-12 million in unspent cap. It bothers me to see that knowing that Epps and Edwards didn’t get much per year. They maybe should have signed one of those guys. I still think Dean will be alright. He needs reps.

One thing that does bother me though is I loved Alabama safety Brian Branch going into this past draft. He was sitting there at 30 when they take Nolan Smith. I like Smith a bunch but I think safety was the bigger need. Real kick in the dick seeing him making plays last week vs the Chiefs.

And of course…they never addressed the slot corner role. And sure as shit, Avonte Maddox is hurt again as he is every fucking season.

But you know Howie will use that $$$ before the end of the season, either to re-sign an existing player or make a trade.

 

[fightinfunbags]

But you know Howie will use that $$$ before the end of the season, either to re-sign an existing player or make a trade.

A guy I would look at is Patrick Queen. The Ravens are paying Roquan Smith a ton of money. They could be looking to get a draft pick for him. The Eagles have a ton of 5th round picks next draft. I think that might get it done.

 

[ducky]

But you know Howie will use that $$$ before the end of the season, either to re-sign an existing player or make a trade.

That's not true on either account.
1) The eagles dont have cap space.
2) The Eagles and Howie were one of the first team that made cap carry over SOP. So taking a big chunk and carrying it over to the next season is just part of how they operate.

NFL 2023 Salary Cap Tracker

Sort by total cap. Notice that the Eagles this year have more cap space than any other team in the league. That is because they always leave a good chuck of money unspent in the current year in order to carry it forward to the next year. I am reasonably certain the reason they have zero cap space left is that they have already done the accounting tricks of pushing it forward into next season.

The Eagles are who they are this year. You wont see them add during the trade deadline. They have pulled ever single financial trigger that they can pull already. Wouldnt shock me if Howie has something up his sleeve in case of emergency but it really looks completely unlikely.

Philadelphia Eagles 2023 Salary Cap

Sort by base salary. Notice how virtually no one on the team has any money in base salary left. That means there arent any tricks left to play. The only real move that they would have left if something went funny and they thought they needed to add something is if they cut Quez Watkins.

 

[ducky]

The Eagles have struggled and are fortunate to be 2-0. The good news is, they are 2-0 and do not play again until Monday, Sept. 25 when they face the Bucs on the road in what should be a winnable game. If they can start 3-0 I will take it.

It sure seems like the new offensive coordinator is struggling to find a rhythm calling plays. The one smart thing he or Sirianni did last night is ripping up the play sheet and just running it down Minnesota's throat for a while until the team settled down.

I was impressed with D'Andre Swift running the rock last night. He showed great vision and speed. He looked pretty good in camp but primarily as a receiving back. If he can stay healthy behind our line, he could do some things.

Swift looked good but there were peewee teams that could have run the ball against the Vikings defense last night. Flores decision to not counter by formation or personel the Eagles run game was mind-boggling stupid. Refused to walk down a safety into the box and stuck with his exotic nickel packages the entire game. I am honestly a little shocked that an OL like the Eagles couldnt have gotten them more yards than they actually did.

 

[fightinfunbags]

Swift looked good but there were peewee teams that could have run the ball against the Vikings defense last night. Flores decision to not counter by formation or personel the Eagles run game was mind-boggling stupid. Refused to walk down a safety into the box and stuck with his exotic nickel packages the entire game. I am honestly a little shocked that an OL like the Eagles couldnt have gotten them more yards than they actually did.

48 carries and 259 and 5.4 per carry is pretty dominant as it is.

 

[jarntt]

Yeah, I am not sure if he is still injured but Reddick has not done much so far this year. Thankfully, we have plenty of other guys to sack quarterbacks. I am more worried about the middle linebackers and safeties at this point.

Honestly wasn't a dig on my part. I knew he was banged up at the end of the preseason and didn't realize he was back

 

[Iggloo]

Swift looked good but there were peewee teams that could have run the ball against the Vikings defense last night. Flores decision to not counter by formation or personel the Eagles run game was mind-boggling stupid. Refused to walk down a safety into the box and stuck with his exotic nickel packages the entire game. I am honestly a little shocked that an OL like the Eagles couldnt have gotten them more yards than they actually did.

Well, you are right that many backs could have run through those holes, but Swift had a lot more vision an burst than, say, Rashaad Penny who we saw later in the evening.

Also, Philly had 259 yards rushing, not too shabby. The NFL average last year was 121 per game, to put it in perspective. But I guess you were expecting Swift alone to have over 200 yards rushing instead of 175?

Minny did have people in the box all game btw, they showed cover zero looks the entire game and then sometimes pulled out of it to a tampa 2. You are right that this is a two safety look, but they had a free guy (usually Jordan Hicks) just attacking at the line most of that game. After a while the Eagles just kind of ignored it in the run game and played simple man on man blocking and let the runners find holes.

 

[ducky]

Well, you are right that many backs could have run through those holes, but Swift had a lot more vision an burst than, say, Rashaad Penny who we saw later in the evening.

Also, Philly had 259 yards rushing, not too shabby. The NFL average last year was 121 per game, to put it in perspective. But I guess you were expecting Swift alone to have over 200 yards rushing instead of 175?

Minny did have people in the box all game btw, they showed cover zero looks the entire game and then sometimes pulled out of it to a tampa 2. After a while the Eagles just kind of ignored it in the run game and played simple man on man blocking and let the runners find holes.

Even in those sets it was just a nickel double A gap alignment. It was only 6 in the box on those plays. They just have all 6 right at the LOS.

And the real kicker about that is that most teams when they go double A gap have two LB's in the A gap. The Vikes have one LB and one safety in the A gaps.

The amount of safeties that Flores plays is crazy. Most defensive snaps last night, we had 3 if not 4 safeties on the field.

We faced 77 snaps.
Both Cam Bynum and Harrison Smith (our starting safties) played every defensive snap.
Then we had Josh Metellus play 56 snaps and Theo Jackson play 21 snaps.

And then to make matters worse when it came to stopping the run, the middle LB that played most of the game Ivan Pace JR is not a run stopping LB either. He is an undrafted FA from this season that is GREAT at blitzing. But he is undersized, a touch weak (as most rookies are) and inexperienced when it comes to taking on the run in the NFL.

Eagles did a great job obviously by the stats you see. But again, they were not facing personal or defensive alignments that were designed to stop the run. You can count on 1 hand how many times the Vikes had 3 DL and 4 LB's on the field. And almost all of those plays were from the 1 yards line where the Eagles ran their unstoppable QB push play anyway.

 

[PDay8810]

is a j brown ok?
hope he gets to contribute real soon.

imagine the field day you would have today IF that were Lamb leaving without speaking to anyone.

nothing?

cmon @Iggloo

lets play

 

[PDay8810]

nothing?

cmon @Iggloo

lets play