Week 6 - Detroit Lions - Discussion Thread

[Geowhizzer]

they were UP BY TEN WITH FIVE fargING MINUTES TO GO & THREW IT TWICE!

I literally thought game over when Maclin scored the TD.

So did my 9-year-old son.  He learned a hard lesson about what it is to be a Philadelphia Eagles fan today.

[hbionic]

I think Ramses would have been happy with his first born taken if being an Eagles fan was the other option.

[ice grillin you]

6. i didnt think i could hate jason babin more than i did last year but jesus christ is he a waste of life...shouldnt come as a suprise....hes a journeyman second rate DE....the money he got was laughable

5. while a lot better than babin trent cole didnt exactly deserve a new deal either...hes a player that perfectly personifies the thick cloud of apathy that covers this franchise

4. the hiring of juan castillo continues to be as sickening today as it was when it happened...more than run/pass ratios....playcalling or in game adjustments this to me is why andy reid should be fired today (he should have been fired in 2003 but thats another discussion)....ill ask again why will this dumb farg not blitz...oh yeah because hes completely and atrociously overwhlemed in his position

3. after the game i got to thinking about how no matter how unlikely id like to see foles get first team reps next week and have him start after the bye...and then i started to feel real sad and depressed when it hit me that nick foles could exclipse his personal celing as an nfl'er by 10 fold and he will still never be half as good as robert griffin

and the two things that made the biggest impression on me yesterday...

2. the crowd....the stadium was at best half empty in OT...a first place team in an amazing football city and its a ghosttown in the stands...ive never seen anything like that at any philly sporting event and ive been going to them for the better part of 40 years....after andy is gone this will be what will have ultimately gotten him fired

1. can someone explain to me how a team that is supposed to contend for a superbowl has colt farging anderson on their two deep...a god damn pos special teamer who is just coming back from a year long hiatus due to a destroyed knee is playing farging safety against calvin johnson....WHAT THE farg!!

[SD]

Regarding #2 most people who left did so after the Maclin TD [or so I'm told by people who were there]. They thought the game was over. Silly them

Regarding #1 Who in their right mind aside from yourself actually thought this was a Superbowl team? My impression was you made that declaration and decided to stick by it but deep down you knew they had no shot.

Reasons why I knew they had no chance in order:
Vick
Reid
Castillo
The O-line

They have talent in some spots but unmotivated talent with no leadership is useless.

[SunMo]

i left after the maclin TD, but we had a time sensitive issue and i couldn't get stuck in traffic coming home

[Tomahawk]

shteinbreak?

More to his point, SD, why is Colt Anderson even on this team. Or Riley Cooper.

[SD]

shteinbreak?

More to his point, SD, why is Colt Anderson even on this team. Or Riley Cooper.

Or Brandon Hughes...he was abused yesterday.

[SunMo]

there are so many things that went wrong for the eagles to lose, and 99% of them self inflicted.  and i'm not saying that this cost them the game, but that OPI on Celek in the endzone was a pathetic call.  they get 7 there instead of the 3 they got and they can probably hold on, but who the farg knows.

[ice grillin you]

Regarding #2 most people who left did so after the Maclin TD [or so I'm told by people who were there]. They thought the game was over. Silly them

i didnt see that at all but that would be even more strange....unless the weather is terrible and the eagles are up by four touchdowns ive never seen a mass exodus from a win

i noticed most people leaving at two different pts...after suh batted the vick pass down when the eagles went three and out with three minutes left and as the lions drove for what would be the tying fg and after they kicked the fg...

it was all about the stadium knowing they were gonna lose and not wanting to see it...i mean even the people who stayed knew they were gonna lose...but it was just bizzaro world seeing the stadium empty like it was a december game where they are getting blown out and already out of the playoffs

i bring it up more because it was amazing to me and because of the statement it made to lurie than i am ripping anyone for leaving

[Sgt PSN]

i bring it up more because it was amazing to me and because of the statement it made to lurie than i am ripping anyone for leaving

Lurie doesn't feel it in his pocket when the stadium is half empty with 5 min left in the game. He already made his money for the day. But if the stadium is half empty 5 min into the game.....

[PhillyPhreak54]

Know what will really get your hackles up? Go read how Trent Cole said after the game that they were getting pressure and "we all saw it".

What? In what dream world are these fargers living in?

The STs are terrible, the DC is terrible, the depth is terrible and its infuriating to watch

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Every one of them says "We're a better team" and all that shtein. It's so obviously driven from the coaching staff down to the players. There just seems to a complete and total lack of accountability. Nmandi's quotes about the scheme changes were telling as shtein.

[PhillyPhreak54]

http://delcotimes.com/articles/2012/10/15/sports/doc507b1ff13e4a2251904450.txt

nly the seasoned veterans seemed to know what happened, including wide receiver Jason Avant, who delivered a scathing, wide-ranging indictment.

"It's just undisciplined," Avant said. "That's the bottom line. It's undisciplined football and an undisciplined team at this point. And six games in, it's embarrassing. That's the word. It's definitely embarrassing for coaches and for veteran players with the mindset of 'me' before the team in certain instances. And we need to address that before we play another ball game."

[reese125]

Farg Trent Cole. Guy didn't make 1 friggin tackle yesterday and on top of that the $11 million man and his beloved d-line haven't had a sack in 3 straight games. Joke. 3 straight games- the most since 1983

Juan once again doesn't blitz all game until i think the last 5 min of the game (not coincidence they lost in those last 5 min) because he's petrified as a coach, then changes course of Assy on Calvin in which Calvin explodes for over 100 yds in one quarter.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Rich Hofmann: Asomugha questions Eagles' late-game defensive strategy

Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
Email Rich Hofmann, follow Rich Hofmann on Twitter
AND SO, the Eagles enter the bye week with a stumble - and, maybe, some rumblings.

The stumble, you saw - in fantastic technicolor, when the Eagles blew a 10-point lead in the last 5 minutes of the fourth quarter and lost to the Detroit Lions in overtime, 26-23. The rumblings were more subtle, and much more interesting.

Because it was after the game that cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha made the following point, with neither rancor nor accusation: that the Lions' Calvin Johnson, perhaps the NFL's best receiver, went crazy in the fourth quarter and overtime because the Eagles changed some of their defensive scheme, adding blitzes and altering the coverage that had Asomugha chasing Johnson around the formation most of the time in the first three quarters.

Johnson had one catch for 28 yards in the first three quarters, without much blitzing and with Asomugha mostly assigned to run around with him. Johnson had five catches for 107 yards in the fourth quarter and overtime, when Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was more involved in the coverage and the blitz was more of a tactic.

On the blitzing:

"The fourth quarter was a lot of blitzing," Asomugha said. "So, the fourth quarter, they were able to find the matchups they wanted amidst the blitzing. You could say, 'You should blitz more,' but we did that and it didn't help us in the end."

On the coverage:

"We kind of just mixed it up," he said. "I was on him most of the game. I think when we got to the fourth quarter, there was a lot more trying to give him a different look. We talked about, 'Let's give him something else,' so that he doesn't get comfortable with the one guy or however it is. So we just wanted to give him a different look. So there were some times that Dominique, especially in the fourth quarter, would go to him. But it wasn't something in particular."

Asomugha is a veteran player. That is what he said. The words mean something, especially in a town where Juan Castillo is still a controversial figure as the defensive coordinator. To openly question a coach's tactical decisions like that will not go unnoticed by the organizational hierarchy.

With that, enjoy the bye week.

Another thing: Asomugha, who also had an interception against the Lions, made it pretty plain that he did not agree with the change in tactics at the end. He knew exactly what the questions were about, and he knew where reporters were headed with their follow-ups, and while he did not pile on, he did not flinch, either.

Question: "As a player, when things go so well for three quarters, is there a sense of wanting to make the other team prove that they can beat what you're doing before you start trying to change things up?"

Asomugha: "Um . . . yeah."

Question: "As a veteran guy on this team whose opinion is respected, is that a spot where you go to your coaches and say, 'Hey, this is working, let's try to use more of what's working.'"

Asomugha: "Um . . . yes."

Question: "Nnamdi, you did change what was working."

Asomugha: "Well, I don't know if we changed what was working. I would just say that I know that we blitzed a lot more toward the end of the game and we didn't do as much blitzing the first 3 1/2 quarters . . . "


Interpret it as you will. The game was an abomination, and there is no denying it. In the NFL, in the last 10 years, a team that held a 10-point lead with 5:18 left in the fourth quarter won the game 205 out of 215 times, which is 95.3 percent of the time, which is a boatload. (All hail the database at pro-football-reference.com.) We all just watched the Eagles get flattened by Halley's comet, or the football equivalent.

But now all of the defensive issues from 2011 are also back on the table. They have now blown leads at the end of the last two games. They are beginning to mimic the historic beneficence with which they started last season. They thought they were past it, but they clearly are not.

"It's very difficult," Asomugha said. "It's very difficult, especially with a bye week. You're not treating the bye week the same as you would have treated it had we come away with the victory. That's why you just see a lot of heads hanging in here, because we know it's a different bye week now. Three-and-three is behind the eight-ball. We've got to now pick it up."

But now there is this business about blitzing and coverage schemes to chew on. Is it real or just a guy groping for something in a losing locker room? No one knows, not yet. But after an ending as bad as this one, this bears watching - because this game should have been unlosable.

"One hundred percent, you have to win that," Asomugha said. "If you can't win those games, then you've got to go back to the drawing board and see what's going on. You've got to be able to close out a game like that. I think we all feel like that on defense."

One hundred percent. Or, at the very minimum, 95.3.