The Running Backs, Wide Receivers and other offensive questionmarks...

[Munson]

The other teams in the east are not invulnerable powerhouses. The very notion of that is retarded. The Skins are going to have trouble scoring. The Giants defense is weak. The Coybows have less question marks than the other two but they will need to protect Bledsoe in order to move the ball.

My point is that all three are dangerous for different reasons (Skins defense, no matter what you think of Rumph who should only be their nickle if anything and Archuletta, will be very difficult to score on. The Giants' offense should be silly good and they can get after the QB on D. Dallas' offense can be scary good and their defense is young and talented and well coached.) and the days of this team cruising through the division are gone.

Why are we even talking about Rumph anyway? The dude sucks. But he isn't going to be asked to do much because that's not the way Williams' defense works. That team's weakness is offense and they improved. Period.

You can come up with little holes in any team. When the 'little' hole on a team are an utter lack of talent at WR and an utter inability to run for tough yards by the RBs, the hole does look so little any more.

Read the bold, you said thier defense, with Rumph and Archuletta, will be tough to score on. That's like saying our defense, with Hood and Mike Lewis, will be tough to score on. But you'd never say that. Our defense is essentially stronger then thiers, and yet you consentrate on the positives of thier defense and the negatives of ours. Thier d-line isn't that good with the exception of 1, MAYBE 2 players, NO DEPTH, thier secondary isn't that good, ESPECIALLY without Springs. Now Rumph has to start.

Woo, I'm terrifed of not scoring on them.

But our defense, with Trotter, Dawkins, Brown, Kearse, Howard....Nah, they won't be good enough to carry our "sorry" offense. You know, the offense with the Pro-Bowl QB. But the taterskins D will be able to carry Mark Brunell underthrowing Santana Moss. I even left off the young guys who are showing promise so you wouldn't do your usual negative spin of "they havn't proven anything yet, so I won't get excited about them because they won't be good." You know, guys like Mike Lewis, Patterson, Bunkley, McCoy, Trent Cole....And the role players/depth guys like Walker, Ramsey, etc...

BTW, you're nuts if you Santana Moss will put up those numbers again. He was a dissapointment for...forever...then had one good year, and suddenly everyone's scared of him.

Oh, and Jim Johnson is a pretty good defensive coach....I think I read that somewhere.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Laughable. They got Rumph for less than nothing. They over paid for two WRs, yes, but they are better WRs than they had last year, not to mention a better return man. They improved. Not by a ton, but they improved. Portis is a legit issue, but everything else you just wrote are not valid points.

But they still will be relying on Shawn Springs to get healthy to help out there. And wil Carlos Rogers be ready to play? I like him as a CB but what can he do? Do we know? If Springs can't get right then the top 3 CBs in Washington will be Rogers, Kenny Wright and Mike Rumph.

And my point still stands about the taterskins pass rush. They have to get pressure from the DB's and LB's to help there. And we, as fans of a blitz reliant team, know what its like to watch the DC have to continuously bring pressure and leave guys on an island.

The Eagles don't have RBs, WRs or LBs who can play.

Look, I understand the questions about Westbrook's health. But the guy can play football. He's a pretty good running back - better than you're willing to give him credit for. He can run inside as long as he has the holes to run through. And that is the case with any RB - small or big. If a 240lb back has a few guys waiting on him he'll get hit just as hard as the mini-back will. He might fall forward a few inches or be able to rock one defender but it all comes down to the commitment to the run and run blocking.

Trotter is a stud. Dhani Jones is farging horrible and Matt McCoy has some promise. And even if he doesn't pan out they have Shawn Barber there ready to step in.

i know you hate the WRs. But I think that Reggie is going to be a stud, I've said it before and will keep saying it until I'm right or wrong. I know what the deal is with Baskett. Its extremely abnormal for him to do what he's done so far. We're not used to seeing that stuff here. But I still want another WR too. I need that field stretcher.

Ridiculous. If that's all you can come up with about the Cowboys you must be more scared of them than I am.

The OL questions are HUGE. How can you downplay that? Bledsoe is not good when pressured. Their LT is coming off of ACL surgery and is still behind a little bit. They have two guys fighting it out at C who are both disappointments in Andre Gurode and Al Johnson. They have Marco Rivera coming off of a poor season when he had back troubles. They picked up Marc Colombo last year. He was a #1 pick by CHI out of BC who blew his knee up big time. They also have Rob Pettitti a low draft choice fighting at RT with Columbo and Jason Fabini. Oh, and that excellent FA signing Kyle Kosier to replace Larry Allen.

They still have no FS to speak of. Is Pat Watkins their guy? He's a rookie so its tough to tell. Is Keith Davis going to keep bullets out of his body long enough to play? And when he does he's not very good. Or do they rely on old Marcus Coleman? Either way if they have to drop Williams back into coverage then it helps us and hurts them. He's horrible back there in coverage.

Can Greg Ellis make the change from 4-3 DE to 3-4 OLB? Who is their other ILB next to Bradie James? Scott Shanle or do they move Bobby Carpenter inside? And if they move Carpenter inside does Al Singleton keep his OLB job?

What about the most important piece of a 3-4...a dominating NT? Is Jason Ferguson done? He looked like it last year.

And kicking is a big question mark too. Vanderjerk is still shanking balls and cannot kickoff for shtein.

And how much will the TO circus affect that team?

There are questions there, bro.

Finally, something reasonable. Andy Reid doesn't put any value on the outcome of preseason games. Never has. All of this means nothing. But the first teamers could have not played a single down and we would all still know that their WRs, RBs and LBs are HUGE question marks. This doesn't have anything to do with it being pre-season...

Let's just see, shall we? Like I said - I know the Eagles are not without questions. But my whole point is that as hard as you can dig for questions about the Eagles I can find questions about the other NFCE teams. Legit questions too...not some stuff I've made up.

[ice grillin you]

of course you can find problems on all the teams but out of the four teams in the division the eagles have more and much easier to find problems than the other three...does that mean they cant win the divison no...but right now they are clearly not as good as the skins and giants and i think id put them on par with dallas

[phillywin2k5]

at halftime Peter King says he thinks there is a good chance Bledsoe is replaced by Romo during the season if not by the beginning.

[rjs246]

Read the bold, you said thier defense, with Rumph and Archuletta, will be tough to score on. That's like saying our defense, with Hood and Mike Lewis, will be tough to score on. But you'd never say that. Our defense is essentially stronger then thiers, and yet you consentrate on the positives of thier defense and the negatives of ours. Thier d-line isn't that good with the exception of 1, MAYBE 2 players, NO DEPTH, thier secondary isn't that good, ESPECIALLY without Springs. Now Rumph has to start.

Woo, I'm terrifed of not scoring on them.

But our defense, with Trotter, Dawkins, Brown, Kearse, Howard....Nah, they won't be good enough to carry our "sorry" offense. You know, the offense with the Pro-Bowl QB. But the taterskins D will be able to carry Mark Brunell underthrowing Santana Moss. I even left off the young guys who are showing promise so you wouldn't do your usual negative spin of "they havn't proven anything yet, so I won't get excited about them because they won't be good." You know, guys like Mike Lewis, Patterson, Bunkley, McCoy, Trent Cole....And the role players/depth guys like Walker, Ramsey, etc...

BTW, you're nuts if you Santana Moss will put up those numbers again. He was a dissapointment for...forever...then had one good year, and suddenly everyone's scared of him.

Oh, and Jim Johnson is a pretty good defensive coach....I think I read that somewhere.

Once again you're responding to what I wrote without actually reading it. Our defense has just as much if not more talent. They had more talent last year too, and the year before. The taterskins defense as a whole was still better. I'm not talking about individual players you illiterate sack of shtein.

[Feva]

Jason Davis tore his ACL... done for the year.

[rjs246]

Hurray! Another excuse for Andy to not keep a real fullback.

[Munson]

You're basing the taterskins offense as a whole better then ours on what?

Last year was the first time in a long time our defense played like shtein. We all know that. They had zero pass rush and the secondary was torn apart. But what about the year before that? And the year before that? I would have taken the Eagles D over thiers in a heartbeat.

And you fail to realize thier defense has been LOSING players and talent over the last few years, where we continue to gain young up and comers...and even spend some good money on the DE's. Patterson/Bunkley should be good for years to come....Patterson showed promise but hit the rookie wall, and Bunkley so far has looked good, even being out of shape. Matt McCoy, whether you want to admit it or not, has shown...well at the least he's shown he's better then Keith Adams. That's an instant upgrade over laast year. Lets see how he does when thrown into a real game before we proclaim him the suck.

No IGY, white LB's don't always suck.

[ice grillin you]

You're basing the taterskins offense as a whole better then ours on what?

is this a trick question?

how about talent

portis
cooley
moss
randel el
lloyd

you wont find many teams with a better set of skill position players than that...granted they have old man brunnel trying to get them the ball...and that could be the equalizer...but if brunnell is even average which he was last year with much less talent they will be better than the eagles on offense this year

[phillywin2k5]

Cooley is an HBACK not a TE so how can you even include him, especially now that Al Saunders is running the offense?

[ice grillin you]

Cooley is an HBACK not a TE so how can you even include him, especially now that Al Saunders is running the offense?

saunders doesnt use an hback...cooley is going to be tony gonalzez for him

anyway that the stupidest thing ive ever heard that you wouldnt include him because of his position...does that mean his 70 catches and 7 td's last year didnt really happen?

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

The Eagles have a slight edge on the OL, a huge edge at QB, and roughly a wash at TE if you consider Cooley the TE (because he basically is).  The skins WR's are easily superior and their RB's are better even if you assume Portis is not better than Westbrook, which is a dangerously sketchy assessment.

I'd say the two offenses are basically a wash, unless some Eagles WR's seriously step up.

[ice grillin you]

the eagles have a huge edge at qb if the eagles qb had weapons...mcnabb isnt good enough to overcome bad wr's and no running game...clearly mcnabb is better than brunnel were all things equal...but this year with the respective offenses around them you can make a case that brunnell will have a better year...tho it has to be admitted that its possible brunnel could have NOTHING left...and if thats the case it changes everything

[Dillen]

Cooley is an HBACK not a TE so how can you even include him, especially now that Al Saunders is running the offense?

Um...just because Saunders doesnt/wouldnt use an "HBACK", that means they'll just take Cooley out of the offense?

[Drunkmasterflex]

the eagles have a huge edge at qb if the eagles qb had weapons...mcnabb isnt good enough to overcome bad wr's and no running game...clearly mcnabb is better than brunnel were all things equal...but this year with the respective offenses around them you can make a case that brunnell will have a better year...tho it has to be admitted that its possible brunnel could have NOTHING left...and if thats the case it changes everything

, name me one QB that ever has been?