Chip: no Parkey panic yet, Maxwell must tend to technique

IT IS STILL not time to panic over kicker Cody Parkey, Chip Kelly said yesterday, and cornerback Byron Maxwell's problems in the season-opening Atlanta loss boiled down to inconsistent technique.

It might be a little hard to take either declaration totally at face value.

Parkey, last season's Pro Bowl rookie sensation, missed a 44-yard go-ahead field goal Monday night, with 2 minutes, 32 seconds remaining in regulation. He missed two of seven field goal attempts in the preseason, along with an extra point from the new, 33-yard distance, before sitting down with a groin injury that Parkey says is now healed.

Last year, Parkey made 32 of 36 field goals, but two of the misses came at the worst time - in a 27-24 Dec. 20 loss to Washington that ended the Eagles' hopes of a playoff berth.

Monday night, when a questioner tried to tie those events into a trend, Parkey seemed to think that was ridiculous. He was visibly angry at himself for missing the kick, but also repeatedly exclaimed, "I'm human."

After the Eagles' first preseason game, which included the extra-point miss and an errant 34-yard field-goal attempt, Kelly said it wasn't time to panic over Parkey. Asked to revisit that topic yesterday, Kelly stood firm.

"Not now," he said. "I have total confidence in Cody Parkey. He was a Pro Bowl kicker last year. I think he's an outstanding kicker. I have total confidence, like everyone in this organization, in him."

The meter would be running on that confidence, though, even if it serves no purpose for Kelly to say so.

Maxwell, the $63 million free agent who was supposed to seal up the porous secondary, was targeted a whopping 11 times by the Falcons and Matt Ryan. They came away with 10 catches for 179 yards, the NFL Network said.

"Just inconsistencies in techniques. I think Byron would be the first one to tell you that," Kelly said. "When he was locked up in technique, he did a really good job. When he got beat, you can look at where he was from a technical standpoint . . . In terms of how you're taking guys, in press man or on the line of scrimmage, are you working lateral, are you getting hands on them, are you opening up the gate [and letting them run down the field free]?"

The biggest worry here might be that Monday was Maxwell's first taste of the matchup spotlight; in Seattle, it was always the opponent's top receiver vs. Richard Sherman. Maxwell seemed to have been caught flatfooted by the Falcons' deep crosses, literally and figuratively. If the new guy did a ton of homework on what the Falcons like to do, it sure wasn't reflected in his play.

* Allen Barbre's best block of the night was on Ryan Mathews, and it knocked Mathews into the end zone for a touchdown, after the back was stymied at the 1. Chip Kelly made a point of saying he thought his new starting guards, Barbre and Andrew Gardner, "weren't bad." Given the way the Falcons stacked up the Eagles' inside running game, and all the penalties, this might be open to debate. Adrian Clayborn just killed Gardner on an early run. Barbre seemed to lose track of a stunting Grady Jarrett, leading to the damaging William Moore interception near the end of the first half.

* Sure glad we don't have to worry about LeSean McCoy dancing around on those negative-yardage runs anymore. It was much more exciting to see DeMarco Murray run backward for a minus-12 after being hit as he took the handoff. I think the implicit part of that "north-south" runner bit was that Murray would eschew "south."

* After rewatching, still not sure what was up with Eagles' spotty run defense. This should be the one thing fans never have to worry about. For now, I'm going to put it down to rusty inside linebacking from Kiko Alonso, Mychal Kendricks and DeMeco Ryans, none of whom had much of a preseason. Kelly said the Falcons caught the Eagles in an unfortunate stunt on that 20-yard third-and-15 run by Tevin Coleman. (Rewatching, part of the problem was center Mike Person's egregious hold on Kendricks, which somehow didn't get called on Nationally Televised Holding Flag Night.)

* Chris Maragos got 36 snaps at safety in the nickel, with Malcolm Jenkins moving down to nickel cornerback. Jenkins played an excellent game except for those two interceptions that bounced off him, either one of which could have totally changed the outcome. Maragos did better than you might expect for a special-teams guy who got all of 15 defensive snaps last season.

* Vinny Curry, supposedly the third outside linebacker, seemed to be playing on the line during his 21 snaps. This was not the expanded role Curry was hoping for. The Eagles must find ways to get Curry on the field and in the QB's face, where he belongs.

Lane Johnson spoke truth about the Eagles' offensive line, in the cramped Georgia Dome visitor's locker room late Monday night.

"We can't be committing so many penalties and just putting ourselves in \[bleepy\] field position," said the Eagles' right tackle, who noted that he was flagged for holding on the team's fourth offensive snap, though the penalty was declined because the play was such a disaster, a 12-yard loss for DeMarco Murray. "That's what we did, and we cost ourselves the game."
Lotsa stuff to scratch your head over from the Eagles' season-opening loss. The sloppy, shaky play of the o-line must be right up there.

"We had seven penalties on the offensive side of the ball. Not only did we lose 60 yards, but we negated 98 yards of gain," Chip Kelly said yesterday. "You can't do that, especially when you're the away team."

Kelly said it wasn't only one player or one problem that kept recurring. Every Eagles o-lineman was flagged for something.

"It's everybody doing their job," he said. He added that on some of the holds, "we're in proper position, but then we stop our feet. When we stop our feet, then we've got to grab and hold on."

On Twitter: @LesBowen