Eagles All-22: How To Beat The Redskins
Here’s a film review of how the Philadelphia Eagles can defeat the Washington Redskins.
It all comes down to this. After 15 weeks of inconsistent play and enough drama to fill a 15-year-old girl’s diary, the Eagles season will hinge on a pair of games against division rivals.
The first one is a must-win and not the type of must-win you hear about from analysts on TV when a team is struggling in September. No, if the Eagles lose to the Redskins on Saturday, their season will be, for all intents and purposes, over.
Despite losing to the Redskins in week four, 23-20, the Eagles actually put together one of their better performances of the year, especially on the offensive side of the ball. Here are some things I took away from watching the tape of the teams’ first meeting this year and how they could impact Saturday’s contest.
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GO DEEP
The first Redskins game was the first time Sam Bradford seemed comfortable to throw the ball down the field. After dinking and dunking his way through the Eagles’ first few games, Bradford hit three different receivers for gains of over 40 yards.
The Eagles especially had success running a deep post against the Redskins’ single high safety like on this touchdown pass to Riley Cooper:
Bradford does a great job of looking the safety off and forcing him to drift down towards Zach Ertz on his crossing route, leaving the middle of the field wide open for Cooper who easily beats the corner in one-on-one coverage.
Bradford also made a similar read on this 45-yard completion to Nelson Agholor:
Not only does Agholor reel in the pass with one hand, but he does a great job of pressing his defender to the sideline before releasing back into the middle of the field and hauling in the pass.
If the Redskins spend more than five minutes reviewing the film, they will make sure they don’t leave the middle of the field as wide open as they did in the first matchup, which could open deep routes down the sideline, like this touchdown pass Bradford completed to Miles Austin (RIP):
SPREAD TO RUN
The Eagles only ran the ball 18 times in week four, but picked up 87 yards, good for a healthy 4.8 yards per carry. Granted, that number was inflated by a few big runs, but those runs showed some promise for an offensive line that has struggled for most of the year.
On this Darren Sproles run, the offensive-line does a great job of clearing out the Redskins’ front seven and opening up the right side for the running back. Sproles is able to cut back and explode through the open field for a pick up of 11 yards.
Perhaps what was more exciting was this 30-yard run by DeMarco Murray, his longest of the season:
Once again, the offensive line gets a great push up front and Murray is given the proper time and space to select the proper hole and come all the way across the formation to pick up a huge gain.
In this game and most of the other games earlier in the season, opposing defenses slanted their linemen’s routes into the backfield in order to disrupt the Eagles offensive-linemen pulling and getting to the outside of the formation. Chip Kelly ended up simplifying the offensive line’s blocking assignments to counter it, so expect the Redskins to play more of a straight-up defense to slow down the Eagles run game.
STAY FRESH
What ended up being the main cause of the Eagles loss was their inability to stay healthy along the defensive line. The team started the game without Taylor Hart or Cedric Thornton, leaving just five linemen healthy. Then Brandon Bair got hurt in the first half, forcing the Eagles to finish the game with only Fletcher Cox, Bennie Logan, Vinny Curry and Beau Allen.
The Redskins won the game with a 15-play, 90 yard drive that saw Alfred Morris run through holes like this one:
It’s obvious that both Allen and Curry are absolutely gassed and they end up leaving a hole big enough to fit a truck in. As of right now, it has been reported that Logan will not play in Sunday’s game and he is expected miss the final two games of the regular season and hopes to be back in time for an Eagles’ playoff run.
Bill Davis said that the other defensive linemen can move to the nose guard spot to spell Allen who will probably end up playing the most snaps he ever has as an NFL player. The Eagles will have six defensive linemen active, but they will have to be prepared to play all over the line as Davis tries to make up for the loss of Logan.
However, it is worth noting the Eagles gave up huge chunks of yardage on the ground all day against the ‘Skins, such as this 42-yard run on third and 19
Chris Thompson was able to catch the entire defense on its heels, expecting pass, and blew right by them to pick up an inexcusable first down. It’s easy to write this off as a one-time occurrence and just a poor effort, but considering the Eagles defense have been sloppy tacklers three out of the last five weeks, you can’t exactly count out something this terrible happening.
The thing that is so fascinating about divisional matchups is how teams react to what happened the first time around. It is very hard to beat a team twice in the same season, but to be fair to the Redskins, they have been a much better team the past few weeks than they were when they played the Eagles in October.
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DeSean Jackson is also healthy again, although he did miss practice yesterday, and his presence gives Washington a deep threat they didn’t have in the first matchup. Factor in the fact that the Eagles may be without Byron Maxwell on Saturday and it could be a long day for whoever lines up opposite number 11.