Cake or Death: Historic

[Goaldeje]

Thank God I don't associate with any Eagles fans. Whew. That was awful last night. Good God. I know everyone hates fantasy stories, so I will keep this under 10 seconds of reading time:

Up 63 points with no one playing going into the game. Lost to Vick and DJax. Ouch.

Our "defense" (for you, BB) looked completely lost. Missing tackles, out of position, not seeming prepared at all to account for Vick.

Ouch.

And yet I can't help but think this morning, as I try to repress that terrible loss, that we witnessed something historic last night. It sucks that we witnessed it against our team, to be sure. But it was historic, wasn't it?

More Here

 

[China]

But I challenge you to name me one team in the NFL that could have held him under 40 last night. I'm not seeing it. I sincerely doubt there is a team that could have held him under 50.

I think any number of teams could have. Don't forget 21 of Philly's 59 points came off of 3 McNabb interceptions, including a pick 6.

He was good last night, but against a team with better talent, better scheme and sans turnovers, I think they could've been held to 31 points.

 

[Goaldeje]

31? Really? Not seeing that. Vick was on fire. The first two INTs were not McNabb's fault, and the last one came when we were down by a billion. Regardless, with the explosiveness of Philly's O, especially early, most offenses in the league were gonna have to throw early and often. And turnovers will almost certainly ensue.

Sorry China, not seeing it. I think a perfect storm of an explosive offense + a powerful defense could possibly have contained Vick a little better. But not holding them to 31 points.

 

[China]

31? Really? Not seeing that. Vick was on fire. The first two INTs were not McNabb's fault, and the last one came when we were down by a billion. Regardless, with the explosiveness of Philly's O, especially early, most offenses in the league were gonna have to throw early and often. And turnovers will almost certainly ensue.

Sorry China, not seeing it. I think a perfect storm of an explosive offense + a powerful defense could possibly have contained Vick a little better. But not holding them to 31 points.

It doesn't matter whether the picks were McNabb's fault or not. The end result was points for Philly. Take those away and you're already down to 38 points. Add a team that keeps Philly's offense off the field by moving the ball themselves and you can take more away. I think the 59 points was the result of a perfect storm of Redskin turnovers, bad defense and great offense from Philly.

Notice two of those three items are bad play by the 'skins. Substitute that with good play by a decent team, and the results aren't nearly so overwhelming.

 

[Henry]

China, you also might want to factor in that the Eagles only played offense for two-and-a-half quarters before running out the clock.

 

[Goaldeje]

Yeah, but it wasn't like they had no sustained drives. They weren't all 88 yards in 13 seconds, or whatever it was. Vick pretty much did what he wanted against us, short passes, long passes, rushing, whatever. I'm not sure if you replace the INTs with punts that the outcome is any different.

I will reconsider the Colts, because of their ability to sustain long drives and keep Vick off the field, combined with their fast sideline-to-sideline defense. That may be the one team, but even then, Vick tore through them like tissue paper.

The nice thing is, and I meant to put this in the blog, this league changes week to week this year. Who the hell knows what will happen next week? I would argue that 3 of the top 5 teams (NYG, Pitt, Bal) lost Sunday, with Pitt and NYG looking especially bad.

That's parity for ya.

 

[China]

Again, if it were a decent team (not the Redskins) things would have been different. They aren't running out the clock if they're not ahead by much in a different scenario. The time of possession was almost 2:1. A team that can stay on the field without three and outs keeps Philly's offense on the sideline. They can't score from there.

 

[Elephant]

One factor that is being over looked in this discussion is the continual holds against Orakpo. If at least a 3rd of those calls were made, things would have been much different. We stood little chance of winning, but they would not have seen 59 points.

 

[ntotoro]

One factor that is being over looked in this discussion is the continual holds against Orakpo. If at least a 3rd of those calls were made, things would have been much different. We stood little chance of winning, but they would not have seen 59 points.

I brought that up in another thread. I know he was held on the first TD. He was held on at least one of the next two, also. I stopped paying close attention after that.