Eagles quarterly report: Defense
With a quarter of the season in the books, here's a look at where the Eagles stand on defense.
Eagles quarterly report: Defense
Sheil Kapadia, Philly.com
With the first quarter of the season in the books, it's a good time to take a look at where the Eagles stand.
I'll go over the defense today and the offense on Saturday.
DEFENSIVE LINE
Bright side: Let's start with the Eagles' best player on defense: Trent Cole. He creates havoc on a consistent basis at right defensive end. Cole has three sacks and has been responsible for several more. He was fairly quiet against the Redskins, but overall has been playing at an elite level.
Juqua Parker has also been a bright spot. He's playing less than 40 percent of the snaps, but has been extremely productive with four sacks. Word out of NovaCare today is that Parker has won back the starting job from Brandon Graham in the base defense.
Downside: It's not fair to blame all of the Eagles' struggles against the run on the tackles, but they have not had a strong start. Brodrick Bunkley was very good in the opener, but has not been heard from since. Against Detroit and Jacksonville, he and Mike Patterson weren't on the field as much, but against the Redskins, they saw their most playing time this season. Patterson got manhandled at times against Detroit and has not made much of an impact overall. Last week, the Redskins were able to get their linemen to the second level and block the Eagles linebackers quite a bit. The linebackers haven't been good, but they could use some more help from the tackles.
Graham has been OK. Everyone (myself included) probably got a little carried away with his performance at Lehigh and in the preseason. He's had some good moments against the pass, but Graham has not impressed in the run game. It'll be interesting to see if teams continue to run at him. Graham's played exclusively on the outside the last two games. Even though he's not starting this week, Graham will be on the field quite a bit.
LINEBACKERS
Upside: Hmm... anyone got something for me?
Let's put on our kelly-green spectacles for a moment. It's reasonable to assume that Stewart Bradley will improve as the season goes on. He's only played 10 quarters since tearing his ACL a little over a year ago.
Downside: I would argue that the performance of the Eagles linebackers has been the single biggest disappointment in 2010.
This unit was bad last year, but the We don't have Bradley excuse was a relevant one. The Eagles thought the addition of Ernie Sims would help, and Akeem Jordan seemed capable of manning the strong side.
Four games in, and Sims has been average at best. He's struggled quite a bit against the run. Sims has been the Eagles' most frequent blitzer, but sending him after opposing quarterbacks has not proven to be very effective.
Bradley was good against the Jaguars, but bad against the Redskins. The Eagles are probably leaning too much on him, considering Bradley's still recovering from injury, but as we saw against the Lions, they are in big trouble if he goes down again. Omar Gaither does not look like a capable fill-in at this point.
As for Jordan, it looks like he'll be losing his job - for this week, at least. Moise Fokou will get a shot to be the starter on the strong side. Fokou finished last season as the starter, replacing Chris Gocong. He began training camp with the first unit too before Sean McDermott moved Jordan over.
Aside from the Jaguars game, Jordan has been invisible. However, looking back at last season and this season, the best performance the Eagles got from a weak-side linebacker probably came from Jordan at the start of 2009. If Fokou plays well, it'll be interesting to see if Jordan takes away some snaps from Sims on the weak side.
SECONDARY
Upside: Before the season, I targeted the cornerbacks as the biggest concern on this defense. Through four weeks, I've been pleasantly surprised. Asante Samuel has been very good in coverage, and opposing quarterbacks seem to be throwing at him less than ever. Ellis Hobbs has had ups and downs, but has not been a liability. And Joselio Hanson has done a good job as the nickel corner.
Nate Allen has probably been the biggest bright spot on defense. He leads the team with three interceptions and has looked solid in all aspects. Big upgrade from a year ago at free safety.
Downside: Hobbs has been called for three penalties in the last two weeks, and he's given up a couple big plays in the passing game. He'll be tested a little more this week as the No. 1 corner (with Samuel out) and even moreso in the second half of the season against a strong group of quarterbacks.
Quintin Mikell has had ups and downs. He got off to the horrible start in last week's game and has dropped multiple interceptions. Mikell's been called on quite a bit to help in run support, and overall, he's having a better year than he had in 2009.
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This will be the worst Eagle team of the Reid era. Poor coaching, poor drafting and trading, poor game management. McNabb was lucky to get out of this mess.— kd45music- Bradley and Q keep talking about teams using our "speed" against us in the run game. Keep dreaming boys. Big, tough and fast beats small and not very talented every time. But AR thinks you need to stop the pass, which is very difficult when you have to walk 8 guys up to the box and get run over anyway. When the All Star QB run starts we will also see we can't pass defend either. Fire Sean, get some real DEs, DTs. This is difficult to watch. A work stoppage will be a relief. Get well Mike, so rag arm can go back to the bench. Hopefully, Kaftka will play, at least he can throw some NFL routes. As long as uncle Joe is president, we will lose.— oldBird
- Bradely and Q keep talking about teams using our "speed" against us in the run game. Keep dreaming boys. Big, tough and fast beats small and not very talented every time. But AR thinks you need to stop the pass, which is very difficult when you have to walk 8 guys up to the box and get run over anyway. When the All Star QB run starts we will also see we can't pass defend either. Fire Sean, get some real DEs, DTs. This is difficult to watch. A work stoppage will be a relief. Get well Mike, so rag arm can go back to the bench. Hopefully, Kaftka will play, at least he can throw some NFL routes. As long as uncle Joe is president, we will lose.— oldBird
- yanks 2-0.. thank god for baseball! 50 years and counting,,, why,, why? lol— osi is hurt boohoo
- I'm almost looking forward to a work stoppage next season. This is murder.— mccloudmj
- Sean McDermott is no JJ. To me that is where it all starts. Perhaps that is an unfair comparison, but I do believe that if JJ was coaching this defense, it would be performing 50% better.— JBP
- Of the three DEs in the draft rated as first round talent, of course the Eagles trade up and take the smallest one and are surprised he gets run over in the running game. They trade for a much smaller guy than they had last year at LB (Sims) that was a bust on one of the worst defenses in the NFL and are surprised he's not really contributing anything. They trade the only guy in the secondary that could tackle (Brown) instead paying him and pay Asante "El Matador" Samuel. What a bunch of geniuses we have running this team.
- Oklahoma Joe
Memo to Jeff and Joe: The gold standard in the city plays across the steet and they are called the Phillies. You need to reconsider where your organization is. I believe you can start at cooper. Opps that's up to $4.00 a pound. Galvinized at 55 cents a pound is more like it.— jacapps - Jakster.. we had a great defense in Lehigh because we were going up against Kolb and our whack offensive line...lol— albertpa
- I have an idea. Draft a stud linebacker in the 1st round more than once every 25 years.— bobbyd24
- "At least we Philly fans have the Phillies and Flyers to soften the disappointment of no Superbowl." Like the sound effect on the Missanelli show goes "HANH?" Flyers? PLEASE! They will huff and puff and get blown away again this year. Much like the Sicksers, the Flyers are a tease. Count on the Phillies to be this city's "Gold Standard" as per usual.
- Defense, deschmense. Unless our so-called 'defense' step up big time this Sunday with the loss of Asante, count on a slaughter to the lowly 49ers. Kubb will get smashed, Koffka will be forced to play and Frank Gore will gore our team to shreds. I'm glad the Phillies will be on at that time. I would hate to be forced to watch the Eagles lose. Yes, I said "lose"! San Fran is in a desperate situation and the 49ers dee alwasy plays us tough. Oh well, maybe they can bounce back next weekend against the Falcons. Please hurry up back, Mike Vick.
- Unfortunately again this summer, the triple threat (Andy, Joe and Jeffrey) had us all drinking the kool-aid and believing this was a solid Eagles D. As a whole D and O this team is quite mediocre and barely a shadow of it's former self in the 2002 to 2006 era. However, Jeffrey is making more money than the US Treasury so what's the problem. At least we Philly fans have the Phillies and Flyers to soften the disappointment of no Superbowl (again!!!). FIFTY years and counting with no relief in sight. Thanks Jeffrey - you da man!!!— jakster
- Eaglesbleedmoney: LOL It's good to be able to laugh at yourself! I meant, of course watching the game on replay, which I confess to have done on at least one occasion (though I didn't inhale)— jimmyj
- jimmyj - are you really "watching tapes" of the Eagles defensive sets? If so, I suggest you get a life, or at least apply to the Eagles front office.— EaglesBleedMoney
What I don't quite understand is why Clayton isn't playing more. In the preseason he made a hugh impact, he made some plays! The current group of starters really has not done much in any game to distinguish themselves. Knowing you have a young LB with blazing speed, who has a nose for the ball, when do you think it might be a good time to get him on the field? I say the time has come to play Clayton so he has a chance to make the same kind of impact he had in the preseason games.- Nobody is going to take snaps away from Sims, McDermott's big summer bromance! I'm going against the grain and say that the Eagles ends probably make the tackles look worse than they actually are. If you watch the tape, the ends invariably work to the outside against the tackles. This is because the ONLY advantage they have is speed. This forces the play more to the interior than if the ends held steady or took an inside track. Twenty years ago the DE's and the T's were about the same size. Now there is a difference of about 50 pounds or so. What you have gained in speed, you have lost in ability to control the line of scrimmage and force the play to go in your favored direction.— jimmyj
- The D has been tough to watch. When the Birds were good, they had a defense other teams were afraid to play, and an O-line that snarled and left bruises. I'm starting to hate this team - no grit, no personality, so mediocre— dragoon6
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