Eagles Week 1 Recap
So week 1 is in the books…
First off, when you sit your guys for the entire preseason, you’re going to start slow. That’s what happened in the first half. It was an adjustment period for the coaches and the players. Doug had some lousy play calls early on and didn’t establish dominance on the line of scrimmage.
THA D
The first-half defense was just sluggish. There was a lack of pass-rush early on and poor tackling. On that Vernon Davis TD, Ronald Darby went low; ok fine, Davis is twice his size go for the legs. Darby went for the legs and got hurdled. Problem was Sendejo who got beat in coverage and had a piss poor tackling effort. Then Rodney McCleod literally stood there and watched the whole thing happen. It was an embarrassing moment all around.
Rasul Douglas got burnt! The WR Terry Mclaurin is going to be a good player, so Douglas shouldn’t feel too bad. But we see Douglas has the same weakness Jalen Mills has; he can’t run.
Overall, the first half was rust.
Second Half
The Eagles finally woke up. Sidney Jones came in for Rasul Douglas. Sidney got beat deep too (Mclaurin can play). Luckily Case Keenum missed him. Sidney came back and had two pass breakups.
The pass rush came alive a little bit and gave Keenum less time to throw, and the coverage tightened up.
On offense, Doug decided to establish the run. That started everything. I really like this offensive line; they ran the ball whenever they wanted to and kept Carson Wentz clean. There was a lot of Sproles. Doug said he saw something in the Redskins defense that he thought he could exploit with Sproles. So I wouldn’t expect that workload every week. Jordan Howard and Miles Sanders were great. You see the vision and ability they both have.
All about the O
DeSean Jackson was phenomenal. He was unguardable. The aged veteran showed you his speed…but what is different is his route running ability. The CB was so afraid of him going deep that he couldn’t cover the underneath route that DeSean has perfected.
Carson Wentz is special. You wouldn’t notice it because it all came in the flow of the game, but he played at a very high level. His decision making is way faster than it has been, and his accuracy was on point. That 2nd bomb to Jackson was all Wentz. That wasn’t the play that was initially called.
On that play, the Washington Redskins were lined up with only one deep Safety, Carson saw that pre-snap and changed the play. He sent two deep routes at that 1 Safety putting him in a lose/lose situation. Carson stood in the pocket and stared down Nelson on the one deep route, forcing the Safety to float to the middle of the field to get Nelson. Then Carson switched to a wide-open DJax who burned his man because he was expecting Safety help. Carson manipulated that whole thing, and it was magical.
I didn’t like the slow start, and I have concerns about the defense going forward. But a win is a win is a win!