{"id":239,"date":"2009-01-15T22:39:05","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T03:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=239"},"modified":"2009-01-16T22:09:42","modified_gmt":"2009-01-17T03:09:42","slug":"the-march-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=239","title":{"rendered":"The March Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"giant\"Well,\u00a0let’s remind ourselves to enjoy this. It had already been the best sports year for Philly fans in a generation, and now we have the events of the last few weeks.\u00a0 Not only do the Eagles find themselves in the\u00a0NFC Championship Game, but the script couldn’t have been written any better.\u00a0 They embarrass the Cowboys in a winner-take-all (ok, winner-take-#6-seed) showdown in the final game of the regular season.\u00a0 In the Divisional Round, they go to the Meadowlands and beat up on the Giants, and now they\u00a0get a very beatable\u00a0Cardinal team, with a ticket to\u00a0the Super Bowl on the line.\u00a0 It’s been perfect, thus far.<\/p>\n

Before I get to my keys for the NFC Championship game, let’s\u00a0take a quick look back at some thoughts on\u00a0last week’s win:<\/p>\n

-I loved that the Eagles\u00a0came out running the ball, even with the\u00a0wind at their backs.\u00a0 Have to keep defenses honest.<\/p>\n

-The vaunted Giants pass rush did not\u00a0sack McNabb once in their 3 meetings\u00a0this\u00a0year.\u00a0 That’s the first time\u00a0ever (since the sack became a stat) that a team didn’t register any sacks against a\u00a0team they played 3 times in a season.\u00a0 The injury to Justin Tuck certainly helped.<\/p>\n

-How about the Eagles running a successful two-minute drill at the end of\u00a0the 1st half?\u00a0 With 1:24 on the clock and 1 timeout, they took the\u00a0ball from their own 25, all the way to the Giants\u00a07-yard line for a chip\u00a0shot field goal as time expired.\u00a0 That was very encouraging, and something that could really come in handy this week.<\/p>\n

-Here’s hoping that Plaxico Burress parts ways with the Giants.\u00a0 It’s amazing how much impact a great wide receiver can have on an entire offense.\u00a0 The Eagles know that all too well from what T.O. did for them four years ago.\u00a0 When teams have to focus so much on one receiver, it opens things up for EVERY other skill player on the field.<\/p>\n

-I think I enjoyed looking at Eli in the final minutes of the game a little too much. It’s not right to take so much pleasure in other people’s pain, is it?\u00a0 Oh well, that was great.<\/p>\n

And with that, onto my Keys for the Game against Arizona on Sunday:\"fitzgerald\"<\/p>\n

-Contain Larry Fitzgerald:\u00a0 <\/strong>This may seem like the ultimate no-brainer when going against the Cardinals (especially with Anquan Boldin hobbled, if he even plays), but the Panthers weren’t able to do it at all last week.\u00a0 As I mentioned above, a great wide receiver can make all the difference in the world for an offense.\u00a0 I’ve read and heard numerous NFL experts out there that are ready to give Fitzgerald the mantle of “Best Receiver on the Planet”.\u00a0 He may not have elite speed, but he is elite in every other aspect that a receiver can be.\u00a0 He’s the best I’ve ever seen (topping Randy Moss) at coming down with jump balls.\u00a0 The guy is a force of nature, and the Eagles will need to keep him marked with two defensive backs at ALL times.<\/p>\n

-Put Kurt Warner on the ground<\/strong>:\u00a0 Jim Johnson will have his boys gunning for the Cardinal quarterback, and they need to get to him and put hits on him.\u00a0 This will go a long\u00a0way towards\u00a0keeping Fitzgerald in check and\u00a0could also lead to turnovers, as Warner is famously prone to fumbles.<\/p>\n

-Don’t turn the ball over:\u00a0 <\/strong>I think the Eagles are the better team in this matchup.\u00a0 Their defense has been dominant and the main thing the offense needs to do in this game is take care of the ball.\u00a0 The Cardinals forced 6 turnovers last week, but this isn’t a fearsome defense.\u00a0 If McNabb, Westbrook, and company just play a solid game, they should be able to put enough points on the board to take the W.\u00a0 The Eagle defense\u00a0looks ready and able to carry the team to the conference title, the offense just\u00a0needs to keep the defense out of short-field situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’m not discounting the Cardinals, or saying that the Eagles are suddenly unbeatable, but I just think the match-ups really favor the Eagles in this one.\u00a0 The Cardinals are a pass-heavy team with an immobile quarterback, which is just the type of offense that Jim Johnson defenses tend to dominate.\u00a0 I’m not expecting a blowout like on Thanksgiving night, especially with the game being in Arizona, but I’ll take the Eagles by a score similar to their first two playoff wins this year, let’s call it 24-13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well,\u00a0let’s remind ourselves to enjoy this. It had already been the best sports year for Philly fans in a generation, and now we have the events of the last few weeks.\u00a0 Not only do the Eagles find themselves in the\u00a0NFC … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[83,63,4,292,177,421,410,425,360],"class_list":["post-239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl","tag-cardinals","tag-donovan-mcnabb","tag-eagles","tag-eli-manning","tag-giants","tag-jim-johnson","tag-kurt-warner","tag-larry-fitzgerald","tag-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}