Zone Read: Eagles-Washington, the Day After
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN…
1. Why Bradley Fletcher was left one-on-one against DeSean Jackson on his two catches of 50+ yards?
“You can’t double him every time and you can’t [always] put [help] over the top,” said Billy Davis. “So we played our share of split safety, we played single-high, we moved in and out. And the deep balls they got [were] on single high.”
It’s been the same old story all season long. We saw it in Green Bay against Jordy Nelson. We saw it last week against Dez Bryant. And we saw it Saturday afternoon against Jackson. The coaching staff continues to trust Fletcher to cover talented receivers with no safety help over the top, and that has burned the Eagles.
“You try to get some help over the top in certain coverages to get matched up with him,” Kelly said. “We felt like our corners could stay with him, and obviously they didn’t.”
But given what we saw last week against Bryant, why not make more of an effort to give Fletcher help this week?
“We had a game plan going in,” Kelly said. “And I felt like he could match up. Obviously, it didn’t work.”
2. Why the Eagles didn’t let Washington in the end zone down the stretch?
With 1:18 left, Washington had the ball at the Eagles’ 15. They had two options there. One, they could have used all their timeouts and hoped to strip the ball or get a missed field goal. That was the Eagles’ strategy. It resulted in the game-winning kick with five seconds left.
Option number two was to let Washington score. Sure, they would have gone down seven, but they’d get the ball back with around a minute left and all three timeouts. It’s not a great scenario, but it’s better than the first.
“Never, ever, ever will there be a discussion about letting them score,” said Davis. “Never, ever. We’ll get the ball back. That’s the only thing we talk about. Rip the ball, tackle the ball, get the ball out. We won’t let anybody score.”
It seems like an old-school, NFL mentality.
Kelly often gets a lot of points for being innovative, and they probably would have still lost anyway. But why not play the odds there and at least try to get the ball back with a chance to score?
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THE NUMBER THAT MATTERS: 13
That’s how many penalties the Eagles were tagged with, and they were costly ones.
Fletcher Cox was called for encroachment on 3rd-and-1 in the second. Brandon Graham was called for roughing the passer on third down in the third. Instead of Washington kicking a field goal, it was able to get in the end zone on the drive.
Curry was called for roughing the passer on the same drive, and instead of third-and-goal, Washington got a first-and-goal. Curry was hit with a roughing the passer on the final drive. That allowed Washington to get all the way to the Eagles’ 20 and into field goal range.
On the offensive side of the ball, every lineman except for Evan Mathis was called for a penalty.
“Some of them, it would be hard to argue that you are a disciplined team and then do that,” said safety Malcolm Jenkins. “I think some of them are maybe a little ticky-tack. But some of them are just a lack of discipline or a lack of focus in the moment. Can’t do it. Nobody wants to say that [we’re] an undisciplined team, but you’ve gotta go out and prove it. I think over the last few weeks, those penalties, especially on third downs, really shot ourselves in the foot. And we can’t expect to beat anybody if we give ‘em continuous chances, especially after we get stops and we get off the field.”
Added Davis, when asked how he was feeling: “Disappointed and pissed. We can’t play like that and think that we’re gonna win. And we can’t have the mistakes, the penalties. That’s collectively, that’s all of us. We’ve gotta play better to win games in the NFL.”
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Note: Something was screwing up my post when I tried to embed Tweets today, so no “BEST OF 140” section.