Domowitch: Eagles' Peters back to old self

I'M NOT GOING to lie to you. Eight months ago, I thought I'd be writing Jason Peters' career obituary right now, not the tale of his resurrection.
But that's what this is.
In this, the 13th season of a remarkable career that one day will take him to Canton, the 34-year-old Peters is again playing like the best left tackle in the NFL.
That wasn't the case a year ago. Slowed by injuries that caused him to miss more than 300 snaps, Peters had the poorest season of his career.
"He's getting older" Howard Mudd, the Eagles' former offensive line coach, told me in late July. "When you pass 30, sometimes Father Time starts getting a hold of you and you're not as athletic."
The Eagles' offensive line has had some hiccups in the first eight games. It lost right tackle Lane Johnson to a 10-game PED suspension. His replacement, fifth-round rookie Halapoulivaati Vaitai has had his ups and downs.
Center Jason Kelce hasn't played up to his high standards. Left guard Allen Barbre is on the shelf with a hamstring injury. And right guard Brandon Brooks allowed the penetration that sabotaged Darren Sproles' fourth-and-1 run near the goal line in the second quarter Sunday in a five-point loss to the Giants.
Over at left tackle, though, Peters, amazingly, has been as dominant as ever.
"People were counting him out last year," teammate Matt Tobin said. "But that (Chip Kelly tempo) offense is a little tougher on older guys, I'm guessing.
"You watch him and it's pretty obvious that he's got a lot left in his tank. He's doing well too. He's not just out there fighting through. He's playing well."
The slower pace of Doug Pederson's offense certainly has helped Peters. So has the way Pederson and offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland have managed him during the practice week.
They have reduced his practice load, allowing him to skip some drills and even some of the team work so that he'll be fresh for the game.
"We have to be smart," Stoutland said. "He's played a long time. I mean, how many times can you ask a guy to kick-slide a defensive end in a one-on-one drill?
"You pick and choose the things that you think he really needs to develop on and you group them in clusters so that he gets that cluster, gets that rack of plays. Then you kind of pull him out.
"That's hard sometimes because you want the chemistry. You want the timing of the five guys (out there together). But believe me when I tell you, getting him to the game feeling great and fresh, that's the key to the whole operation."
So far so good on that. Peters has missed just 17 snaps in the first eight games. Fifteen of them came at the end of the Vikings game when he was pulled in the fourth quarter with the game in hand.
The other two were against the Giants last week when he hurt his thumb and came out briefly to get it taped up.
"I love the way he works," offensive coordinator Frank Reich said. "At the end of the week, you go back through the practice film and I'm just amazed.
"You look at how hard he practices on the reps that he's taking. From a coaching standpoint, you look at the athleticism that he still has in his body. I mean, it's really astounding to me.
"He still has a lot of athleticism left in that body. I don't know how many plays he has left. But I really don't see any signs (of decline). I wasn't here when he was in his prime, but he might be the best offensive lineman that I've ever coached. The guy is awesome."
Last year, Peters purposely dropped weight, thinking that playing at a lighter weight would save some wear and tear on his body. It didn't. This year, he took the opposite approach. He added weight. He's playing at somewhere close to 350 pounds.
"Sometimes, when players take off weight, they take off muscle," Stoutland said. "I think he found a happy medium. I think he found the right weight and is moving great."
Going into the year, it was assumed that this would be Peters' final season in Philadelphia. His cap number this year is $9.7 million. It jumps to $11.2 million next year.
Johnson, meanwhile, who is supposed to be the heir apparent to Peters at left tackle, signed a $56 million contract extension in January that includes a $10 million cap number next year.
The plan was to squeeze one more year out of Peters than tell him thanks for the memories and move Johnson to left tackle. But with Johnson one sip of an illegal supplement away from basically the end of his career, and Peters playing like he's 24, might that change the Eagles thinking? Too early to say.
When I asked Stoutland how much Peters has left, he said, "I don't know the answer to that question. I don't know if anybody does. I think that depends on him.
"How long does he want to continue to play? But I'll say this. You show me a better player around right now at left tackle who can do what he does. He's still as good as anybody in the league doing what he does."

In Carson Wentz's first seven starts, the Eagles were the epitome of a dink-and-dunk offense. He attempted 228 passes in those seven games. Just 24 of them were 20 yards or more.
That changed Sunday against the Giants. Twelve of Wentz's 48 pass attempts traveled 20-plus yards. Just four of them were completed, including a 58-yarder to rookie Bryce Treggs. But hey, you have to walk before you run.
"We definitely thought the opportunity (to air it out) would be there, mainly because of what New York did on defense," Wentz said. "We thought there were some things we could take advantage of down the field with them.
"Obviously getting Bryce out there, getting a speed threat like that, was huge for us."
Said offensive coordinator Frank Reich: "It was just coverage-based. I mean, honestly, some of those plays we hit downfield had been in previous game plans. But when a defense plays a soft two-deep zone, some of those aren't as good.
"On the one to Bryce, they were in a blitz-Palms coverage, which is kind of a four-across, two-under (coverage). We just hit the right call at the right time."
For the season, Wentz is 13-for-36 on passes of 20-plus yards. Three of his nine touchdowns and two of his five interceptions have been on deep balls. A game-by-game breakdown:
Team........Cmp.....Att.....Yds.....TD...Int.
CLE........3........4.......76......2.....0
CHI........1........4.......32......0.....0
PIT........1........4.......73......1......0
DET........2........3.......48......0......1
WAS........2........4.......76......0.....0
MIN........0........5.......0.......0.....1
DAL........0........0.......0.......0.....0
NYG........4.......12......153......0.....0
Totals....13........36......458.....3.....2

* "This is a brutal game. I'm at a position where you're getting hit constantly in the head. It's one of those things where I know what's going to happen to me someday. I signed up for this a long time ago, and I love this game more than anything."
— Vikings OL Alex Boone on the risk of long-term brain damage from playing football
* "People were like, 'That's so wrong. He's going to build a wall.' I'm like, 'Everybody goes under it anyway. Build it as tall as you want.' I've never seen in all the videos I've watched anybody go over (the wall). They always go under."
* Panthers S Michael Griffin, who grew up in Texas, on Donald Trump's plan to build a wall to keep Mexican immigrants out of the country
* "I haven't talked to a college since I've been in the NFL and that's not my goal. My goal is to be the head coach of the 49ers and that's what I want to do. It surprises me that that continues to be a new story. It's been the same story since I left (the University of Oregon) four years ago. I'm not looking to go back and that's what I've always said."
— Chip Kelly on the never-ending speculation that he's going to bolt the NFL for a college job

* In the last 25 years, a quarterback has thrown three touchdown passes of 25 yards or more in a game against the Eagles three times. Eli Manning has done it twice (Sunday and in 2011), and his brother Peyton did it in 2002 with the Colts.
* Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott leads the NFL in rushing with 891 yards. If he rushes for 109 yards Sunday against Pittsburgh, he'll become just the third player in history to rush for 1,000 yards in his first nine career games. The other two: Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson and the Vikings' Adrian Peterson.
* Andrew Luck already has been sacked 33 times this season. No other QB has been sacked more than 25 times.
* Chargers kicker Josh Lambo has missed more PATs than field goal attempts. He's 20-for-22 on FG attempts, and 26-for-29 on PATs. He's one of just two kickers in the league with three PAT misses. The other is the Vikings' Blair Walsh.

The Eagles are seventh in the league in run-play percentage (42.1). They've run the ball on 213 of 506 offensive plays. A breakdown of their run and pass plays by formation:
WR/RB/TE....Total Plays....Run Plays...Pass Plays
3/1/1.......319.............109.........210
2/1/2........106............57.........49
1/1/3........54.............35.........19
4/1/0........10.............1..........9
3/2/0........7..............4..........3
2/2/1........6..............3..........3
0/2/3........3..............3..........0
1/2/2........1..............1..........0
A breakdown of the rushing numbers of the Eagles' four running backs by formation:
WR/RB/TE....Mathews.....Sproles....Barner....Smallwood
3/1/1...... 31-142..... 40-204.... 12-26.... 13-72
2/1/2.......26-67...... 12-54..... 4-36..... 10-37
1/1/3...... 16-75....... 6-27..... 0-0....... 7-26
3/2/0....... 0-0........ 0-0...... 2-24...... 0-0
2/2/1....... 1-3.........0-0...... 2-18...... 0-0
0/2/3....... 2-2.........0-0...... 0-0....... 1-0
1/2/2........0-0.........1-0...... 0-0....... 0-0
* One of the odder stats to come out of Sunday's loss to the Giants: Darren Sproles was targeted a season-high nine times, but had just three catches. Running backs typically have high catch percentages. In the first eight games, Sproles was targeted 28 times and had 22 receptions.
* In the Eagles' first four games, they averaged 5.8 yards per play and scored 27 points on their first two possessions. Had 24 first downs. In their last four games, they've averaged just 2.8 yards per play, have scored just three points and recorded four first downs on their first two possessions.
* The Eagles are first in the NFL in average drive start (31.4). Twenty-two of their 91 drives have started at the 40-yard line or better. They are ninth in opponent average drive start (26.6). Their opponents have had just 10 drives start at the 40 or better.
* Over the last four games, the Eagles have converted just five of 14 red-zone opportunities into touchdowns, including two of six against the Giants last week. They've slipped to 25th in red-zone offense (46.9 percent) Carson Wentz has completed just 49 percent of his passes in the red zone, which is the seventh lowest red-zone completion percentage in the league. The six starters below him with their red-zone numbers:
Player Team.....Cmp. Pct........TD.....Int.
Case Keenum LA ......48.7 ......5.......1
Tyrod Taylor BUF.....48.4.......6.......0
Brock Osweiler HOU...48.3.......6........1
Trevor Siemian DEN...46.2.......5.......0
Kirk Cousins WAS.....44.2.......7........2
Ryan Fitzpatrick NYJ...43.2.....7........5
* Just 15 of the Eagles' 104 third-down opportunities have been 3 yards or less. That's the fewest in the league. They have the fifth most third downs or eight yards or more (55) and the fourth worst conversion rate of those third-and-longs (18.2). The three teams with lower third-and-long conversion rates: the Rams (17.9), Ravens (11.5) and Jaguars (10.8).

* After blitzing the Vikings' Sam Bradford on 27.7 percent of his dropbacks and blitzing Cowboys' rookie Dak Prescott on 34.1 percent of his throws, the Eagles sent extra rushers on just 13.5 percent of the Giants' pass plays last week. They blitzed just five times on 32 pass plays.

That was primarily because Giants quarterback Eli Manning gets the ball out so quickly. The quarterback they're facing this week, the Falcons' Matt Ryan, holds on to the ball a little longer, as evidenced by the 22 times he's been sacked.

Which means the Eagles probably will blitz a little bit more this week than they did last week. How much remains to be seen.

"The Giants threw an awful lot of three-step (drop passes) where sometimes, even when you're a free rusher, you can't get there," defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz said. "The Falcons use a lot more of (what) I would call individual routes. They try to spread the field. It's a little bit basketball-esque, I'd say, in trying to get some isolations.

"Some of those aren't exactly quick passes. Some take a little bit (of time to develop). Those kind of things give you a little bit (more) time to get there. Our pass-rush, our blitz package, or a combination of both, is going to have to affect that timing."

* If you're looking for somebody to suggest that the Eagles would have been better served letting Carson Wentz spend his rookie season watching and learning from the bench rather than playing, don't call Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan.

The Penn Charter product was the third overall player taken in the 2008 draft. Started 16 games as a rookie and helped the Falcons rebound from a 4-12 finish the year before to win 11 games and make the playoffs.

"I felt like I learned a ton week in and week out that first year," he said. "And kept getting better as the year went on, kept getting more comfortable. I don't know what the alternative is like. But for me, I felt the experience was invaluable."

* Brent Celek once played an entire season with a sports hernia and a torn hip labrum. Never missed a practice that year. Never appeared on the team's injury report either. Caught 62 passes.

So, it should come as absolutely no surprise that the Eagles' tough-as-nails 31-year-old tight end is going to play Sunday against the Falcons with a fractured rib.

"It's just football, man," said Celek, who has missed just one game in 10 seasons. "It's part of the game. You have injuries. You're never going to feel 100 percent. But I'm good.

"Pain is pain. I can live with it. As long as it doesn't kill me, it'll make me stronger."

@Pdomo Blog: philly.com/Eaglesblog