Eye On the Enemy: NFC East Roundup

Once a week, we’ll take a spin around the NFC East to check in on what’s going on with the Eagles’ division rivals.

Week 14 Opponent: @Chicago Bears (5-8) (Thursday)
Score: Cowboys 41, Bears 28

Brandon George of the Dallas Morning News reports that Tony Romo‘s rib injury no longer bothers him:

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo has been enduring more than a sore back.

Romo said late Thursday night after the 41-28 win against the Bears that he’s also played with a rib injury for almost two months.

Romo said he had a fractured rib, but sources said Friday that the quarterback misspoke. Romo actually has torn rib cartilage, the sources said, and not a break.

 

The rib injury no longer bothers Romo, according to one source.

Romo had back surgery in late December 2013 to repair a herniated disk in his back, and for the last five weeks he’s played with two small fractures in the transverse processes of his back.

Romo said the fractures in his back are almost healed.

“It’ll be nice when it’s just about the back improving instead of all the other little junk,” Romo said.

 

Jerry Jones feels that Dez Bryant‘s passion in-game is a positive, writes Clarence E. Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has no problems with the passion and emotion receiver Dez Bryant showed on the sideline of Thursday’s 41-28 victory against the Chicago Bears.

What some people interpreted negatively via the lens of a television screen as another Bryant tirade, Jones sees as a positive for the Cowboys.

Jones said Bryant is a great teammate and loved by all in the Cowboys locker room.

“He’s a teddy bear. He’s a teddy bear,” Jones said on his radio show on KRLD-FM. “He’s the neatest guy to be around you’ve ever seen. But I’m going to tell you one thing: he’s got a passion button, and there’s no stopping him. And you just – you just can’t calm him down when he gets going. And he uses a lot of energy doing that. I’ve seen him use productive part of his energy in an early part of a game getting nuts over there.

 

 

NEW YORK GIANTS (3-9)
Week 14 Opponent: @Tennessee Titans (2-10) (1:00 p.m.)
Line: Giants (-1).

Jordan Raanan of NJ.com on how Eli Manning has performed under pressure:

The numbers for Manning under pressure this season are not good. He’s completing 39.1 percent of his passes under pressure, according to Pro Football Focus. Only Jacksonville’s Blake Bortles and Jets’ Geno Smith have done worse.

Manning was under heavy pressure in the second half on Sunday in Jacksonville, and again didn’t make enough plays. The Giants managed three points and their offense (by virtue of two fumbles for touchdowns) gave away 14. They finished a net minus-11 in the second half.

McAdoo hinted that Manning needed to hang in the pocket more and step into throws with pressure in his face.

“There are times you want to get the ball out quickly, there are other times you may have to hold onto it and it will take longer than you’d like under adverse conditions,” McAdoo said. “First and foremost, we need to take care of the football. After that we can hang in there and take a hit to complete the ball. That is part of the game.”

 

Alex Raskin of the Wall Street Journal wonders if  Manning may be following Tom Coughlin out of town following the abysmal season:

The Giants’ draft-day trade for Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning was the first major headline of the Tom Coughlin era, which had begun just three months earlier in January 2004. So it would be somehow fitting if now, in December 2014, both men were entering their final month with the team.

They have always been inextricably linked in the minds of football fans, who remember Coughlin and his staff developing Manning from a bumbling rookie into a two-time Super Bowl MVP. Making a joint exit seems like the proper thing to do, as if Manning is simply leaving the dance with the guy who brought him.

The duo downplayed the topic on Monday, a day after the Giants choked against the abysmal Jacksonville Jaguars, but the dance is almost certainly over. The one-point defeat pushed the Giants’ losing streak to seven games, topping last year’s six-game skid to open the season. Coughlin said he was “responsible for everything,” but Manning—perhaps for the first time in his career—publicly disagreed with his coach.

 

 

WASHINGTON REDSKINS (3-9)
Week 14 Opponent: St. Louis Rams (5-7) (1 p.m.)
Line: Rams (-3).

Mike Jones of the Washington Post talks about five story lines surrounding the Redskins including Colt McCoy‘s start:

1.) McCoy’s start – This represents the quarterback’s second straight start, and his first at home. But what’s most important is the way he and his offense get out of the gates against the Rams. In each of his first two starts, McCoy has struggled before eventually finding a rhythm. In the first quarters of his two starts this season (at Dallas and at Indianapolis), he has gone a combined 8-for-15 for 57 yards and an interception. The Redskins need better production from their quarterback this time around. Jay Gruden and Sean McVay have to come up with plays that McCoy is comfortable with, and McCoy must be keyed in and execute. A slow start proved costly against Indianapolis, and it could hurt the Redskins again as they face a Rams offense that boasts plenty of weapons. McCoy could be without his top deep threat, DeSean Jackson, who didn’t practice Wednesday, Thursday or Friday while nursing a lower leg contusion that knocked him out of the last game.

 

Tom Schad of the Washington Times reports that defensive coordinator Jim Haslett addressed the lapses against the Colts:

When Redskins defensive coordinator Jim Haslett watched the tape of Sunday’s 49-27 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, he saw cornerbacks sitting on underneath routes while receivers ran free behind them. He saw simple coverages — two-deep and three-deep zones — result in lengthy touchdown passes.

The mistakes are correctable, Haslett told reporters Thursday, but it’s disappointing that some of them happened at all.

“That was probably the most disappointing thing,” he said. “We didn’t do anything [complex]. We played three-deep. You learn that stuff in high school.

 

 

Philadelphia Eagles (9-3)
Week 14 Opponent: Seattle Seahawks (8-4) (4:25 p.m.)
Line: Eagles (-1).

Some links to pass along as we inch closer to Eagles-Seahawks:

It’s pretty hard to win football games when you consistently give the ball to the other team. That’s no secret gem of coaching wisdom, but even just a cursory glance at the league’s five most charitable teams shows as much: The Raiders are 1-11. The Jaguars and Buccaneers are 2-10. The Giants are 3-9. And the Eagles … are 9-3 and leading the NFC East. Lowly Jacksonville got everyone’s attention by strip-sacking Nick Foles on Philadelphia’s first two drives of the season, and the turnovers haven’t stopped — the Eagles now lead the league with 28. Like someone juggling chain saws, they’re putting on quite a show, but it seems inevitable that something will go disastrously wrong.

On the surface, turnovers might not seem much worse than punts, but it’s the massive difference in field position that changes the equation. For every wayward pass that ends in an opponent’s arms 40-plus yards downfield, there is a snap fumbled away behind the line of scrimmage or a linebacker who steps in front of a short slant route. It’s part of the reason Philadelphia has fallen to 15th in offensive DVOA after finishing third in 2013.

After Nick Foles (10 interceptions, three lost fumbles) broke his collarbone in Week 9, Mark Sanchez (six interceptions, two lost fumbles) took over the bungling. But the former’s mistakes were less excusable and the latter’s are fixable. Foles underthrew receivers on his interceptions, often while throwing off his back foot because of pressure. Sanchez has more right to blame those receivers on his interceptions; his primary mistake has been fumbling shotgun snaps, and he has recovered three of those four loose balls.

 

Peter King of the MMQB titles his NFL Week 14 preview “The Fast vs. the Furious” with the Eagles-Seahawks matchup as the main storyline:

The Philadelphia Eagles have this word they love: “tempo.” As in: “We really like to play fast.” They lead all NFL teams in offensive plays run this season, averaging 72.9 per game, nine more than the average team runs in a game. In Mark Sanchez’s three wins since taking over as quarterback from the injured Nick Foles, the Eagles have scored 45, 43 and 33 points.

The Seattle Seahawks, fortified by the return of speedy middle linebacker Bobby Wagner and anvil-in-the-shoulder-pads strong safety Kam Chancellor in the past two games, have held their last two foes to two field goals, total. Through 13 NFL weeks, Seattle has finally reclaimed its place atop the NFL yards-allowed standings, a spot it dominated last season.

Seahawks (8-4) at Eagles (9-3) Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. Great game. And great timing. Seattle’s finally playing to its 2013 postseason form. Philadelphia has its offensive line healthy and LeSean McCoy running like a rushing champion.

“We had a great weekend after playing on Thanksgiving,” said Seattle defensive coordinator Dan Quinn this week. “Got to spend good time with the family and have a little mini-bye. But this was a good week for that. Normally you get to watch four games for your scouting report. I was able to watch a little more of Philadelphia because of the extra time, so that was valuable.”

“How many of their 12 games did you watch?” I asked.

“Pretty much all of them,” Quinn said.

 

Gregg Rosenthal of NFL.com ranks all 32 starting quarterbacks with Mark Sanchez coming in at number 18.

 

Bill Barnwell of Grantland gives his NFL three-quarters mark awards and reviews his picks at the quarter and midway points:

Comeback Player of the Year

Week 4 (Quarter): Jeremy Maclin, Eagles
Week 9 (Half): Jeremy Maclin, Eagles
Week 13 (Three-Quarter): Mark Sanchez, Eagles

Eagles vs. Eagles! Maclin had been the clear choice for this award for the first two months, having overcome his second torn ACL to emerge as one of the most productive wide receivers in football. He hasn’t slipped much over the ensuing four weeks, and he was also the obvious favorite to win the award by a significant margin.

But then the Sanchize showed up. Not only is he also returning from missing 2013 with an injury, just like Maclin, but he’s also undergoing the emotional comeback from the butt fumble, which still thrills journalists on Twitter and pregame talk show hosts who need something to mention. Sanchez is quickly coming on as he rebuilds his career in Philadelphia, and because these awards basically amount to popularity contests, a quarterback with a big name is always going to win over a quietly impressive wide receiver.

 

Judy Battista of NFL.com talks about Sanchez’s revival under Chip Kelly and how he was a product of his circumstances:

It was a steep, rapid plummet for Sanchez, from beating Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady in consecutive years in the playoffs to crashing into Brandon Moore’s posterior while a national television audience watched. Sanchez’s divorce from the Jets was ugly, wrapped in the bandage that sheathed his torn labrum, and it was precipitated by an extended tailspin that took down not just Sanchez’s career arc but, it seems in hindsight, at least two full seasons for New York.

The wreckage is still plain for the Jets. They have the memory of winning the Snoopy Trophy, which was the ostensible reason for disastrously inserting Sanchez behind backup linemen in a preseason game last year, but little else. Coach Rex Ryan and general manager John Idzik might lose their jobs in a few weeks, and Geno Smith, Sanchez’s successor, has lost his way.

The only person to emerge from the smoldering heap so far is Sanchez himself, who was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles in the offseason to be Nick Foles’ backup, and who is now so far removed from the butt-fumble that he can joke about it. On Sunday, he will play in what will arguably be his biggest game since those distant playoff runs. He’ll lead Philly against the Seattle Seahawks in a matchup between one of the game’s most explosive offenses and one of its best defenses, with playoff spots very much within reach of both squads.

 

Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2014/12/06/weekend-reading-4/#OD8pAiUPZWB1vO3s.99