It took me a few days to get over this game, and even though the Eagles looked good doing a few things against San Diego on Sunday, there were certainly some issues out there as well. It's clear that Chip Kelly's offense isn't perfect yet, and the defense...well, that's not that good right now. Let's dive in and see how things went.
What I liked:
Michael Vick: For the second straight week, Vick looked right at home passing the ball in Chip Kelly's offense. Chip relied on him more against the Chargers, and Vick did well, passing for a career high 428 yards with two touchdowns through the air and one on the ground. He did miss a few passes that he needed to make, with the poor pass to James Casey inside the ten yard line being the biggest example of that. However, Vick has been very good in two games so far. He's yet to turn the ball over and has passed for over 600 yards with a completion percentage of over 60%. In an NFL that's becoming more and more pass happy by the day, that's what the Eagles need from Vick at the moment.
DeSean Jackson: It's clear now that DeSean Jackson is going to thrive in this offense. After having a very good game against the Redskins in Week 1, Jackson came out and had an even better game against the Chargers on Sunday. He caught nine passes for 193 yards and a touchdown, and could have had even more if a few of Vick's passes had been more on point. He still needs to think a little better on the field, as a taunting penalty cost the Eagles field position late in the game, but if he can keep playing the way he has so far, he's going to be a huge game changer this season.
LeSean McCoy: This is going to be a theme this year, I think. Vick, Jackson and Shady all put up solid numbers against the Chargers, and though Shady didn't get to carry the ball as much as he did against Washington, he did catch five passes for 114 yards to go along with his 53 yards on the ground. The run/pass ratio was pushed heavily in favor of passing last week, but Shady did what he had to do to make an impact on the field.
Donnie Jones: I'll say it again this week: does it feel good to have a reliable punter, or what? I know that Eagles fans don't want to punt the ball with this faster offense, but when the team has to, it's good to know that they have a solid punter back there that's going to pin the opposing offense as far back as he can. Considering how the defense played on Sunday, a good punter is going to be a useful asset this year.
What I Didn't Like:
The Defense: Now, this could be broken down into every aspect of the defense, but it's easier to just take care of things this way. For as good as the offense looked against the Chargers, the defense looked even worse. Phillip Rivers picked the Eagles apart on defense, and he looked better than he had in the last four years. Washington showed that the Eagles can be beaten on the defensive side of the ball with intermediate passes, and the Chargers expanded on that. I don't remember seeing Rivers even throw a pass longer than 30 yards, yet he finished with 419 yards passing. Add into that the fact that the Eagles only got pressure on him maybe three times during the entire game, and it's a recipe for disaster.
The run defense wasn't much better, allowing over 100 yards on the ground from a mixture of Ryan Mathews, Danny Woodhead and former Eagle Ronnie Brown. None of those names should ever remind you of Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith, but the Eagles certainly did what they could to make that group look good on Sunday. San Diego came in with a plan on how they were going to attack the Eagles on offense, and it worked very well. The Eagles need to make adjustments, or other teams are going to do the exact same things that the Chargers did.
The Run/Pass Ratio: Obviously, Chip Kelly is going to change his playcalling around based what the other team is doing, but there should still be a balance between running the ball and passing it. On Sunday, there was not much of a balance. LeSean McCoy went from carrying the ball 31 times against the Redskins to just 11 times against the Chargers, and the Eagles only ran the ball 19 times, compared to 37 passes. Bryce Brown needs to get more involved in the running game, and the Eagles need to run the ball more just to have a longer time of possession. The defense was tired in the fourth quarter, and it showed. San Diego had the ball for twice as long as the Eagles did, and while the Eagles have a lot of quick strike weapons, there are times when a good running drive can be even more useful than a quick score.
The game tying drive in the fourth quarter was a perfect example of that. The Eagles need to run the ball more, eat up clock, and give opposing offenses less time to get back down the field. They didn't do that on Sunday.
Chip Kelly Not Knowing the Rules: This was even more important than some people think it was. With just over two minutes left in the game, the Eagles were driving and had the ball at the San Diego 14 yard line. They were down by three, but a touchdown would have put even more pressure on the Chargers. Vick dropped back to pass and was hit hard by Jarius Wynn. The pass was incomplete, and Vick was shaken up on the play. Rather than call a timeout to give Vick time to get his wind back, Chip Kelly brought Nick Foles into the game, because he was following the college rule that a hurt player must sit out the next play.
That's not the case in the NFL. Had Kelly used one of his timeouts that he had left, Vick could have come back into the game, and the whole flow of the next play might have been different. I still think that Foles should have either handed the ball or run a quick pass to LeSean McCoy rather than throw it towards DeSean Jackson, but that's neither here nor there. The bigger issue is that Chip Kelly needs to know what he can and can't do in the pros. This isn't Oregon anymore, some of the rules are different. Had Andy Reid done this, there would be calls for him to be fired just for that. Of course, there's no guarantee that Andy would have had any timeouts left at that point anyway.
The Breakdown:
This was a painful game to lose, for a few reasons. First, the Eagles defense was painful to watch at some points of this game, and downright bad at others. Every knew coming into this season that the secondary was going to be a work in progress, but I don't think many people believed that it would look this bad. Somehow, Bradley Fletcher missing this game hurt a lot more than it should have. Phillip Rivers picked apart the middle of the field at will, and threw more eight to 15 yard passes to Antonio Gates than I even want to think about. The Chargers did exactly what the Redskins did in the second half of their game against the Eagles, only they were able to do it for the entire length of the game.
The secondary on this team leaves a lot to be desired. Any time a defense gives up three touchdown passes to Eddie Royal in one game, there is a serious problem. It's going to take more than a few new players this year to fix it, too. This secondary is going to need to be broken apart and built back up again, and that's going to take another year or two to get it to where it needs to be. With that in mind, the defensive line and linebackers need to both be able to make stops on ball carriers and provide coverage on linebackers and running backs out of the backfield to help cover up the problems in the secondary. They didn't do that on Sunday, and the Chargers were more than willing to reap the benefits of it.
That's not to say that the defense was the only thing wrong with this game. The offense had it's share of problems as well, even though they scored 30 points. The time of possession battle was easily won by the Chargers, and it's something that Chip Kelly needs to figure out how to balance, and fast. The last drive that the Eagles had tied the game at 30, but it took less than two minutes off of the clock and put a defense that couldn't stop anything at that point back on the field with way too much time to play. That falls on Chip to make those adjustments and call more running plays to eat up time and keep the opposing offense off of the field.
Michael Vick had a good game, but he wasn't perfect either. The Eagles called the same play to DeSean Jackson maybe four or five times, and each time, Jackson had his defender beaten down the sideline and was open for either a big gain or maybe even a touchdown. Vick only completed one of those passes, and a second one reached Jackson, but he was out of bounds when he caught the ball. Vick has to put more touch on those throws and get the completions when he can. Plays like that don't happen all of the time. He also missed James Casey on what should have been an easy touchdown pass in the first quarter. Had Vick been able to put a little more touch on the ball, Casey would have had a touchdown, and the Eagles may have very well won this game.
It may seem like I'm being rough on the Eagles for their showing this week, but I'm only pointing out what I saw. There were some good things on offense that I'm happy about, but for the most part it's clear that this team is still a work in progress. It's not going to be perfect yet, and it probably won't get there this year with all of the flaws on defense, but adjustments can always be made. The Eagles need to be able to make those adjustments and learn from the mistakes that they have made so far if they are going to get better.
I think that this team is heading in the right direction, but there is a lot that still needs to be done. Hopefully, Chip Kelly can take what he learned against the Chargers and use it the rest of the season. I certainly hope that the time of possession can be turned around, because that will help with the run/pass ratio and the defense at almost the same time.
Tonight, the Eagles play on Thursday Night Football against the Kansas City Chiefs. In case you didn't know, it's Andy Reid's return to Philadelphia as head coach of the Chiefs. This should be fun.
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