Game Thought Pack/Eagles

• Wow – close one. I was seriously worried we’d lose and be haunted by the lack of aggressiveness on that last offensive drive (or, for that matter, by the mysterious decision to not try to get a FG at the end of the first half with a timeout left and being in reasonably good position for it).
• James Starks deserves the game ball. He was absolutely huge. He breaks tackles, he’s decisive and he gets yards on plays where most RBs probably would be stopped for a loss. He ran hard, held onto the ball and even had some nice catches. James Starks MVP.
• Rodgers was decent but he wasn’t lights out. He was hurt once again by a few key dropped passes. How James Jones dropped that sure TD in the first half I just don’t know. Unreal.
• The O-Line did have some nice holes for Starks, though Rodgers didn’t have too much time it seemed back there.
• Driver, despite his drop, came through as Rodgers’ trusted target today. It almost seemed that Rodgers was looking for Driver today more than anyone else. He is the most experienced.
• I loved the play calling for most of the game, except in the final quarter I suppose. McCarthy had a very good offensive strategy going into this game. It was one that made sense and frankly, one that I also thought we might go to – getting the ball to TEs, RBs, and FBs in the passing game. 7 of our 18 passes were completed to our WRs – the other 11 to RBs, FBs, TEs. But by coaching up James Starks and preparing him to absolutely dominate – McCarthy and staff deserve huge credit for this win. Huge.
• Capers drew up a great game plan as well. Vick spent much of the game not sure what was coming. We didn’t blitz like crazy like recent teams have done to Vick (with success) and instead we put some decent pressure on him while plugging up his passing lanes. We also held LeSean McCoy in check throughout – only 46 yards rushing and 36 yards receiving. He’s a darn good player who didn’t have much of a role in this one.
• Erik Walden may be one of the top mid-season free agent pick-ups ever. Honestly. Unreal pick-up by TT.
• Interesting that Akers was a big reason Philly lost. I know kicking into winds like that is really tough, but he has been one of the best kickers in the NFL in recent years – just odd that he would be the goat today.
• Why in the world did we get the ball at the 3 yard line after Tramon Williams’ interception? He caught it clearly in the end zone and didn’t try to run out. Made no sense – also didn’t matter at that point, but why did that happen?
• Philly just looked off tonight and when a team looks like that it’s often because they are confused – Dom Capers gets the credit for setting that up and the players get the credit for executing it.
• Defensively, we did look like we were wearing down on that last drive there – if Vick hadn’t thrown it deep on that one, I would have been really concerned.
• I still do have a problem with just cashing out at the end of the first half. We had plenty of time with a timeout to try to make something happen. Even a terrible mistake like a pick six would have left us with the lead. It just don’t like that kind of attitude. Sean Payton would NEVER have done that.
• I also have a problem with the decision on 2nd and 10, on our final drive, to not try a play action play. Philly was stuffing the box to stop Starks – and while I’ll admit, they had been having trouble stopping him today – 7 guys against 10 guys isn’t going to win most of the time. Meanwhile, there was a favorable match-up on the outside and even with Quarless. Play action could have been money there. I realize that the clock was another factor and we wanted it to keep running but a play action play would have been a very high percentage pass at that point. Just something to keep in mind as we go forward – we need to stay aggressive and go for the kill – not come up short and hope.
• We seemed vulnerable over the middle tonight. I wonder a bit if Woodson’s roaming, and he was roaming all over the place, may have been a bit of a challenge for his fellow teammates. But for some reason, Vick to Avant was pretty much automatic over the middle tonight.
• We appeared to win the battle at the line of scrimmage for much of the night. The O-Line’s run blocking was actually a bit better than the pass blocking it seemed.
• Hawk was noticeably absent tonight. He may have been staying with assignments tonight – like Jenkins…something that does happen when opposing Michael Vick – but he really was quiet tonight and didn’t seem to contribute much.
• One thing I noticed was lots of shuffling by Matthews, Bishop, Hawk and Walden – lining up on different sides – essentially giving Vick lots of different looks.
• Overall, solid effort. Again I wish we could close out games better and we’ll have to going forward – but solid effort and quality coaching overall. I’m pleased and looking forward to this next game, a game I think we can win.