Pretty impressive stuff from Wentz overall. Several people made the comment on the early drops (and drops generally) that ina Bradford game we'd be giving him excuses due to the drops. Wentz didn't need those. Didn't look like a rookie at times.
The two TDs oh my, were just wonderful. Neither is a throw Bradford even attempts, let alone makes. He stood in there and took a hit to convert the 4th down attempt, frankly he is a bit TOO willing to take the hit to make the play.
I don't know you could have asked anything more from him. Very encouraging, but still expect some mistakes and bad games - and it was against the Browns!
Matthews still drops too many passes, but the guy is a very very good receiver overall, expect a decent year from him. Agholor's TD was good to see, nice route, good catch. Was clear the whole team was happy for him too.
O-line was pretty good, Johnson of course played and that will be the big question mark
Beau Allen at FB! Amazing. Though didn't they keep Gordon in part for that?
Defensively, RGIII was bad. The TD was a gift, a dubious PI call on told of one of the most blatant holding calls you'll ever see. Two big plays were boht about the wR not the throw. In particular the very long play was underthrown so badly the wR had to come back over 5 yards, there were three eagles there but none of them located the ball well as it was so so off target!
I was concerned by the lack of pass rush but it came on in the second. There were some bizarre calls like taking Cox out and putting Destiny in at DT with the Browns pinned at the one.
Hicks played great, Mckelvin hurt his hamstring (same our depth is so bad due to trading away a good cheap corner) but Mills came in and played well.
The safeties are monsters.
Not sure how much we can learn, that Browns team is probably the worst team in the league (again) but Wentz is probably as encouraging as you could ask
I think you nailed it here. Only a few things to add from being at the game:
- The NFL are smarter than you and me by a fair margin. We have the possibility of athletes kneeling for the anthem on 9/11? We're going to open every game (according to my friend who is involved with the Eagles in a gameday capacity) with Obama giving a speech and the players, mixed in with cops, firefighters and military, holding a massive field-sized flag. Good luck getting on your knee. Whoever thought of that was a genius. Let this be next week's headache for the league.
- Wentz played well. He made a handful of bad throws where he missed wide open guys or threw to the wrong receiver, but generally he moved in the pocket well, he made good adjustments, he made good decisions and he threw a handful of beautiful passes. If nothing else he made you feel like he will be OK in the NFL, which was really nice.
- The O-line looked a bit confused at times. Peters played like a grizzly bear and Brooks made some nice holes for the RBs, but they struggled a bit at times. Wentz was generally pretty clean so maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill before I have watched the tape.
- Darren Sproles was godawful. I hope this was just an off day.
- Our defense. So......I can honestly tell you that there were probably 10-15 plays on defense where I had no idea who the fuck was supposed to do what. Scwartz's wide 9 combined with the way that he lined up the secondary at times made me scratch my head. That can be a good thing, but on a few of those plays it was clear that at least one, if not two guys weren't real clear on what they were doing either. Watch the all-22 and you will see what I am talking about. Overall we played well, but we also got a bit lucky with the Browns making some big drops and RG3 missing on a few throws. I will take it.
- Mcleod is a player. I have to say, he doled out a few big hits and did pretty well in coverage I thought.
- If you believe that kickers and punters aren't on PEDs then you weren't at Lincoln Financial Field yesterday. Sturgis and Jones were crushing the ball. Just crushing.
- OK, I know this is going to sound weird, but alot of RG3's errors weren't his fault. His team is terrible. His best receiver was the starting QB for an NFL team two years ago and it showed. They were never open....like.....at all. The Eagles secondary is not good enough for the draping that was going on. Their center was snapping the ball all over the place, and while they did a decent job of protecting him, his line struggled to establish the run. Plus, their special teams did them no favors.
- The Linc was relatively sober yesterday. Not somber, but sober. It was the first time in many trips that the crowd seemed to be in good spirits without being shithammered. There were a handful of folks passed out, but no vomit, only a few broken bottles that seemed more like randoms than people acting out and I didn't see anyone get tossed (although I was sitting in the shade, not in the sunlight, so who knows).
- Per my friend, the temperature on the field was around 85-90 ish, and the Browns were in that sun the whole day, so you have to take that into account when tempering exuberance.
- I wasn't focused on the LBs all that much, but it was great to see Hicks have a good game.
- I loved, loved, loved Pederson going for it on 4th and 4 at the 40. I liked the play, I liked Wentz hitting Ertz quickly despite a guy being in his face, I liked the aggressiveness.
- I wasn't focused on the WRs as much as I was mainly focused on Wentz and the O-line, but Agholor was open a decent amount. I was glad that he got the TD and hope that that gets him fired up. Matthews......actually looked like a WR1, which was pretty awesome to be honest.
- I liked the fact that Pederson gave Matthews the touchdown carry as a reward for his hard work. He really did a good job of establishing the run and killing clock on that drive.
All in all, I liked what I saw more than I didn't. Let's not go bananas yet, but there were some signs that these guys could be halfway decent this season and beyond.
