Don’t worry, there will be plenty of Phillies talk tonight (expect a live blog during the all-important Game Two), but right now, we need a quick word on the state of the Eagles after a highly impressive 31-17 victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
Coming into this game, the Birds stood at 3-2 and first place in the NFC East, but there had not exactly been overwhelming signs that this team was really a contender…until today.
Kevin Kolb looked like a legit NFL starting quarterback on Sunday
Forgive me if I wasn’t impressed by wins over Detroit, Jacksonville, and San Francisco (though all were on the road and any road game in the NFL is tough), but in today’s win over Atlanta, the Eagles did look like a legit contender for another NFC East title. The most obvious reason for the excitement is that Kevin Kolb looked great. He continued his intelligent check-downs (for which he gets far too much criticism), but what he added this week was a downfield threat. He had deep touchdown passes to both major outside weapons, DeSean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin. And, as good as Kolb looked, he wasn’t the only one that stepped up in a big way today.
I think the most impressive part of this game was the way the Eagles absolutely dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. Coming into this game, the Eagles offensive line had been, by far, the most disappointing unit on the whole team. But, today, even with King Dunlop replacing Jason Peters at left tackle, the o-line was absolutely fantastic. There was a ton of room all day for LeSean McCoy and Kevin Kolb was given the necessary time to make the big plays. On the other side of the ball, the D-line kept pushing Atlanta’s line backwards, creating a frustrating day for Michael Turner and Matt Ryan. Trent Cole (the most underrated d-lineman in football) was all over the field today.
And, with all the pressure on Matt Ryan, it enabled the secondary to continue to develop. Asante Samuel continues to be one of the best playmaking corners on the planet, and he even made a tackle of two today. But, the two guys that have consistently developed every week this year are the two safeties, Quentin Mikell and rookie Nate Allen. These two guys are really developing into a very, very good duo.
And, finally, the special teams were highly improved. There were still a couple questionable kick coverages and three missed field goals, but the kick and punt return teams looked highly improved.
The one sobering event of the day was the absolutely wicked (and totally clean) hit that Falcons safety Dunta Robinson put on DeSean Jackson in the second quarter. Jackson left the game with a very scary concussion and did not return. He will have to go through a battery of concussion tests just to get cleared to play this week, and it doesn’t look good, considering he had a serious head injury just a year ago. So, we’ll have to see how this all plays out. Fortunately, Jeremy Maclin is looking more and more like a pretty good #1A wide receiver in this offense and after the game this week against Tennessee, the Eagles have a bye week to get more healthy.
Today, after another really nice game by Kolb, the controversy started to swirl again, but, as usual, Big Red was cool and coy with the media about his starting quarterback situation:
Our self-proclaimed "chubby coach" is pretty happy with the QB situation right now
“I promise you, we’ll have one of them out there,” he said, as the question inevitably arose. And, he finished the topic with, what I think, is the ultimate point (not so much the “chubby part”): “When you’re sitting here as a chubby coach in the National Football League and you’ve got two quarterbacks, you’re a happy guy.” That sums it up perfectly. Instead of focusing on who “should” play, let’s just be happy that we appear to have two legitimate NFL starting quarterbacks. Ask fans of Cleveland, San Francisco, Carolina or a handful of other NFL franchises what they would give for either of our guys.
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I couldn’t watch the game, but obviously was happy to see the result. Pretty shocked to hear the O-Line played so well. What about the line-backers? Did they look better or were they just compensated for by the D-Line and secondary?
The great thing is that, you look around the league this year and there’s really no great teams, so even though the Eagles are young and clearly flawed in some fairly big ways, you never know what could happen. Long, long way to go in the season though, and it seems like this team could really go either way.