How the Eagles tried to cover Tony Gonzalez
News blogs, sports blogs, entertainment blogs, and more from Philly.com, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News.
How the Eagles tried to cover Tony Gonzalez
Sheil Kapadia, Philly.com
The tale of the Eagles' defense and its inability to cover opposing tight ends has been told for years around these parts.
So Tony Gonzalez's performance Sunday night was really just another chapter. Maybe not even another chapter. Maybe just another page.
Gonzalez was by far the Falcons' most effective receiver. He had seven catches for 83 yards and two touchdowns on nine targets. No other Falcons receiver had more than three catches or 32 yards (and that was running back Michael Turner).
Through two weeks, the Eagles look like they've clearly upgraded their pass rush and their cover corners, but the tight end issue still lingers.
I went back and looked at how the Eagles tried to cover Gonzalez on Sunday.
By my count, he went out into pass routes 26 times. I charted whose responsibility Gonzalez was on each of those plays. Most times, that was pretty easy. In some cases, the Eagles were in zone, but it was clear who should have been on Gonzalez when Matt Ryan released the ball. In other cases, there were multiple defenders or I couldn't tell, so I just noted that.
Here's the breakdown:
| Player | No. of plays on Gonzalez |
| Chaney | 12 |
| Matthews | 5 |
| Page | 3 |
| Coleman | 3 |
| Fokou | 1 |
As you can see, Chaney was the primary defender on Gonzalez. From what Juan Castillo said in the preseason, part of the reason the Eagles moved Chaney to the SAM position was because they felt he could handle a variety of assignments like covering Gonzalez.
After I watched the game yesterday, I thought Page was on Gonzalez a lot. But that really wasn't the case. He just happened to be on Gonzalez on some big plays.
Also note that on one play, the Eagles appeared to be in a zone coverage, and I simply could not tell who was on Gonzalez, but the ball was not thrown in his direction.
On another play, Ryan hit Gonzalez for a 14-yard gain. The Eagles were in zone, and he found space between Chaney and Page, but I did not count that in the chart above.
Here's a look at the numbers when each defender was targeted:
| Comp. | Att. | Yds. | TD | |
| Chaney | 3 | 4 | 26 | 1 |
| Page | 2 | 2 | 30 | 1 |
| Coleman | 1 | 2 | 13 | 0 |
Both Chaney and Page gave up touchdowns. Chaney actually had pretty good coverage on his, but Gonzalez made a great play.
Page simply could not stick with Gonzalez on the 17-yard score.
Both players also gave up big third-down conversions to Gonzalez. On the Falcons' first 80-yard touchdown drive in the second half, Gonzalez beat Page for 13 yards on 3rd-and-12.
On the second 80-yard touchdown drive, Chaney gave up a 7-yard completion on 3rd-and-4.
As for Coleman, it looked like he blew the coverage on Gonzalez's 13-yard gain in the first, but again, going off TV tape, there's certainly a little bit of guesswork involved.
The Eagles came up with an interception on one play intended for Gonzalez. Ryan threw in Gonzalez's direction when Chaney was covering him, but Nnamdi Asomugha made a good read and picked it off. Asomugha was not covering Gonzalez on the play. He was on the slot receiver.
Last year, Eagles opponents targeted the tight end on 26 percent of their passes, according to Football Outsiders. That was the highest percentage in the league. Looking at the schedule, the Birds will face many more good tight ends this season, like Vernon Davis and Jason Witten, to name a couple.
Castillo will have to go back to the drawing board to figure out what the defense's plan will be to cover them in the coming weeks.
If you missed it earlier, I posted Man Up on the defense.
You can follow me on Twitter or become a fan of Moving the Chains on Facebook.
Whatever...Our linebackers are soft and/ or out of position. Chaney is a Mike, Matthews is a will. they both are playing out of position and it shows. Chaney can't cover and Mattews an't plug up a hole. i seen it 2 weeks in a row, when are we going to start valuing the linebacker position!— jaydlaw- It's hard to understand Reid's reasoning. Decent linebackers were available in free agency and the Eagles decided to go with an undersized 4th round rookie. It's obvious that he doesn't value the linebacker position. After all, they only defend against the run and the pass. Also, with their top three draft picks not contributing, wouldn't it have been intelligent to draft a linebacker before the 4th round and get a real quality player? Of course, with their track record of drafting, maybe the free agent route would have been better.— Drumgoole
- jaydlaw is right...,. these guys had always played other positions and are best suited physically for those other LB positions but for some reasons Juan knows best and is changing where those guys are used to playing. We need a bigger run stuff in the middle and fleet instinctive LB's at WILL and SAM, Plus I wish everyone would stop giving Asante a free pass for his S,,tty tackling? Like playing with 10 tacklers on D with him out there if play comes his way— connorjr
- Bring back McDermott.— bc3030
- This was a really good analysis which clearly shows why this game was lost, and predicts others will also be lost. If a reporter can spot this weakness, be assured other offensive coordinators and coaches are going to spot it. The only thing missing from this article was an analysis of what could be done. As one responder pointed out, there were good linebackers available. What other options are there?— Larry Byrd
- In the immortal words of Steven Tyler and Aerosmith, "It's the same old story, its the same old song and dance my friend."— golson@florida
- Can't blame the linebackers, they are what they are. The fat man is to blame because he buys the groceries. The fat man is to blame for not challenging a questionable interception that resulted in a TD. The fat man will not change.— Justaschmuck
- Tony Gonzales is a promising young player that looks to have a decent career.
if he keeps having big games like he did Sunday night, defensive coordinators are going to have to come up with a plan to cover him.— ekw555 - I hope you're kidding and making fun of the fact that Reid didn't have an answer to an obvious challenge. Gonzales is in his 15th season and will likely go into second place ALL TIME in receptions this season. — sw2surf
- Agreed. It's up to him to find the right personnel and play them in the right position. Eagles linebackers and safeties don't have a single player among them who can physically match up to the big tight ends.— sw2surf
- sheil, you actually called this during the off-season when you were evaluating our upgrades on defense, and pointed out just how many of the opposing teams' td's came from TEs and RBs
— poetx - Bring back McDermott. Juan Castillo?— gelang
- I'm not worried about San Fran they don't have a shot of beating us at home and Dallas are the same team as last season. The eagles stuggled with the Elite teams Pittsburgh and Atlanta so looking at the Schedule the Patroits,Chicago,Jets,Dallas are the teams to worry about with the first three teams I mentioned are home games and Dallas split home and away games. So stop worrying the post season is my concern where they will play all good teams.— PAPOOSE
- If you are watching the film, you will see that Gonzalez pushes off on the majority of his routes. When you are permitted to extend your arm that much against a smaller defender, its hard not to catch the ball.— kaiser28
- Never fear, the accounting firm of Banner, Roseman and Reid have forgotten more about football than we'll ever know. Not to mention the offensive line coach who is now our defensive coordinator. It shouldn't be any problem for Castillo to overcome the fact that he has no safeties or linebackers with his schemes.— hunglikeaton
Follow
Sheil on Twitter. And become
a fan of Moving the Chains on Facebook.
Download our NEW iPhone/Android app for even more Birds
coverage, including app-exclusive videos and analysis. Download it here.
