Castillo: It Wasn't THAT Bad
Eagles defensive coordinator Juan Castillo met with reporters Sunday for the first time since his first-team defenders struggled badly in the preseason opener Thursday against the Steelers.
Castillo: It Wasn't THAT Bad
Les Bowen, Daily News Staff Writer
BETHLEHEM --- Eagles defensive coordinator Juan Castillo met with reporters Sunday for the first time since his first-team defenders struggled badly in the preseason opener Thursday against the Steelers.
Specifically, tackling and getting off the field on third-and-long proved to be a challenge, just as they were last season, which made it more alarming than the first few series of a preseaon opener might normally have been.
"There are some things we have to improve on," Castillo allowed. "Initially just the third-down package, you saw that we worked on third down [Saturday], really some of the scenarios we had in the game, trying to get some things in and work on some coverage things."
Same problems as last year? Castillo pointed out that the Eagles weren't doing a lot of those things during their 4-0 stretch run to end the season. (Which might indicate these are correctable problems, but also would seem to be pretty darn frustrating, implying the defense has to relearn last year's painful lessons.)
"We want to go ahead and start where we finished," Castillo said, kind of ignoring the fact that his defense did not, in fact, start the way it finished 2011. But in fairness, maybe he was saying his goal is to start the real season the way the defense finished last seaaon.
"There were some good things, there were some things we need to work on, and that's what we're doing," Castillo said.
The biggest red flag might have been the performance of second-year safety Jaiquawn Jarrett, who started and looked lost. Jarrett got mixed up in coverage and took poor tackling angles, two reasons he had a hard time getting on the field as a rookie. An offseason of tutoring was supposed to have corrected those problems.
"JJ played hard. He did some good things, and there were some things we'll correct, with a [practice] tackle circuit, with the angles, understanding where your leverage is. The way we want to tackle, we want to run through everything, but there will be some things we'll correct and we'll be OK."
Castillo said Jarrett "has had a good camp."
Jarrett, a 2011 second-round draft pick from Temple, said the film pretty much showed him what most of us saw live Thursday night.
"I took poor angles on tackles. I didn't play with the sense of urgency I needed to play with," Jarrett said Sunday. He said he needs to take another step before launching himself, to avoid missing so much.
Jarrett said the coverage mixup between himself and corner Nnamdi Asomugha on the first Steelers touchdown was completely Jarrett's fault.
The Eagles' wide-nine-aligned defensive line seemed to have unlearned last season's lesson about paying proper respect to the run as it tees off on the passsr. That was not the way Castillo saw it -- the back-to-back 14 and 33-yard Pittsburgh runs came off a draw play and an Eagles blitz, he said, with the Steelers experiencing little success otherwise.
LURIE RESPONSE
RE yesterday's Eagletarian post, in which Andy Reid's agent, Bob LaMonte, vigorously defended his client's record and deflected reporters' queries about a new Reid contract by declaring team chairman Jeffrey Lurie told him Andy would coach here as long as Lurie owns the team -- Lurie issued a statement in response:
"Bob is a great agent who we have an outstanding relationship with. As much respect as all of us have for Andy Reid, it is the nature of the profession that all coaches, executives and players are evaluated each year," Lurie said. "That's the way we have always operated. But our focus right now, and I know Andy feels the same way, is solely on the 2012 season."
MACLIN RETURNING?
WR Jeremy Maclin, who sat out Thursday's game after suffering a hamstring tweak in warmups, participated in Sunday's walkthrough and said he plans to practice this afteroon.
Maclin mentioned preparing for the next preseason game, at New England Aug. 20, as if it were the third game, which is the one starters usually use as their regular-season tuneup. This year the third game is just four days after the second game, and is at Cleveland, where the Birds open their regular season Sept. 9. The Eagles probably don't want to show the Browns too much in a preseason game.
You can't FIX "delusional" which is what both Reid and apparently
Costillo are?? I mean, I am so tired from Juan last year and this
year playing down a defensive debacle, insulting the fan's intelligence, which is usually a Reid specialty! I saw all the same problems as I did with the Pittsburgh preseason game of 2011? The
defense can't stop the run and the offense looked totally confused.
They keep going back to how they finished last year, which NONE of
those games meant anything to their opponents, as Lurie said,
"Fool's Gold." When they play the better NFL teams like Pitts,
NE next week, GB, N.O. the better coaches EXPLOIT (UNLIKE Reid)
all their WEAKNESSES. I don't think Reid ever beat a Bellichic coached
team?— mikey48- I came into this season with renewed optimism. And while I didn't see Thursday's game, from all accounts, the defense played much like it did when it surrendered last season's 4th quarter leads.
Supposedly, this team is set up for the offense to score quickly and for the defense to play with a lead. While the offense failed to bring the team back after the D surrendered those leads last season, they at least did their job in terms of getting the lead.
Last year's failure, in large part, was on the D. And this year's D is starting the same way as last year's. If the Rams' Stephen Jackson hadn't pulled up a lame on an untouched touchdown run, the Eagles would have been 3-9, not 4-8.
I'm not so sure about this wide-9 alignment.
If a team can run the ball on you, it sets up every other phase of the game. Once a running back gains a few first downs, the safeties and corners begin to inch toward the line of scrimmage, and this is truly a game of inches, especially considering that players are bigger and faster, while the field remains the same size.
Once the secondary inches closer, it's a wrap. A quick slant quickly becomes a 70-yard TD scamper, and a receiver with speed becomes exponentially more dangerous. - coach probably thinks if he comes in at 3Am and works on it that it will all be fine. Stop giving Jarrett excuses and passes…if he said he wasn't playing with a sense of urgency (especially after how his career is going so far and getting a shot a starting) then thats a huge red flag! Eagles coaches need to work 100% just on tackling and angles between now and the opener!— connorjr
- Are u insane? Come in at 3AM? There's no going home. Juan sleeps on a cot in the office.
- I thought all the posters on the wall would dramatically increase the defenses performance.— CharlieGarner25
- I hear ya!! I remember getting ripped for saying Juan needed posters to get the players attention because nobody was buying into him being a DC. I was told they were, 'Motivational Posters" by a fellow "know it all" — Geno D
- yea, its funny that the same guy possibly critisized you again today. Maybe he makes motivational posters or something and cant take a joke about them. I dont know.
- I must be in a cloud; giving up over 20 pts. whether 1,2,3 squads were out there and the D wasn't that bad?? The old TimeOUT, getting guys on the field again has haunted this team for almost a decade. And the D has some guys who can play. Thus, did the coach get them ready ? That is the real question.— Koons
- Some of you guys! If Reid hard hired Granny Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies as the defensive coordinator, you'd say it's okay, she's going to teach the defense how to cook vittles, brew XXX, serve it up to the opposing offense and watch them fumble the ball and finally go to sleep while the Eagles romped all over 'em.
Some of you. - Old, and most relevant adage: If you can keep you head while all those about you are losing theirs, maybe you don't understand the situation!— russpete
- Juan Says, " stay calm, and carry on."— camasbud
- Castillo is in the denial stage. The seven stages are: sucking, sucking worse, continuing to suck, denial, angry denial, no one believes your denials, fired. Only three more stages to go!
- I remember hearing Baldinger on the radio after last years season ended talking about the defense. He was commenting on how the coaching staff was saying how much it improved the last 4 games. He said that there were still so many holes, that a good team with a good QB would have been able to make several big plays against them, and that this new found improvement wasn't a reality when you watch the film. If you listened to his broadcast against Pittsburgh, he was pretty critical of what he was watching.
— watsonmr - If a player needs a coach to motivate him then he isn't worth much to start with, just sayin'...— DJ
