The Eagles Shine on MNF in Chicago

Wentz Walking off Soldier Field as the mob of Eagles fans wait for him to pass through.  Image Courtesy twitter.com/ESPNNFL

The Philadelphia Eagles went into Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears, as a 3-point Underdog on Monday Night and walked off a 15-point winner bringing their 2016 record to an undefeated 2-0.  To me personally, the pulse of the entire game felt very similar to that of last week's win over the Cleveland Browns.  I feel for my girlfriend, who watched the game with me, as I went from elated to frustrated in a matter of seconds, but I warned her just about three years ago that this is how it is during Eagles games and she understood.  The Eagles started off the game strong in the first half of the 1st quarter, followed by somewhat of a lull in the 2nd quarter and a little into the 3rd quarter, then it seemed at some point in the 3rd everything clicked for the team and the Eagles pulled away and took over the game convincingly.  This Eagles have a lot of growing to do as most of us expected that this would be the case.  They showed signs of growth and improvement from the week before but they made mental mistakes on both sides of the ball.  At the end of the day they got the W and that is all that matters, but there is much to be improved upon.  Below I will go over key players/units and what they did right, wrong or both.

• Carson Wentz! Carson Wentz! Carson Wentz!  What can we say about Carson Wentz?  Two weeks ago, Wentz was looking at being the 3rd string QB who wouldn't even dress on Sundays to now having a record of 2-0 while making headlines across the NFL.  Wentz for the most part had another flawless game as he did not surrender any turnovers for the 2nd week in a row.  Carson was 21-34 throwing for 190 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT's and a QB rating of 86.6.  Now you could look at that line and say that's just an average stat line but in this situation it is far more than just stats, it is what he did on the field as a rookie to lead his team to victory.  He lead the offense down the field for 3 TD scoring drives, as he threw his only touchdown pass to TE Trey Burton and handed-off two rushing touchdowns to RB Ryan Mathew, and 3 FG's.  The kid did it all again as he was able to call audibles and make adjustments to protections when he saw something in the defense, contained ball security, stood in the pock with poise even when the pressure was coming, and made all the throw even though there were many costly drops that could've helped his stats that would've more accurately depicted the kind of night he had.  The only issue I had with Wentz on the evening is that he tends to put his body in harms way at times by going for the extra yard taking on a linebacker or not side stepping out of bounds avoiding a hit, but that is instinctual and hopefully he will learn to avoid at all costs.  You gotta like his guts though because he can only play the way he knows how to.

•  Doug Pederson for the 2nd week in a row has impressed many with his play calling ability.  He put his rookie QB in the best position to succeed and he called a game that kept a better Chicago defense on their toes.  He continued to show how he would take chances on 4th down and he showed that he will continue to let Carson be Carson by not putting limitations on him.  A little aside, I have to eat crow right now because he has, SO FAR, exceeded my expectations as the Head Coach for this football team.  With another well coached game I did question his running back usage in certain situations.  I love RB Darren Sproles, do not get me wrong, and maybe this is just Doug experimenting, but why was he using Sproles in situations where he would run up the middle or when they were in the Redzone at times.  Eagles #1 RB on the depth chart Ryan Mathews should've been used more in these key situations.  Now in the first half this was more of the issue, because in the second half Mathews got more rushing attempts in the 2nd half and in the redzone and wound up scoring 2 rushing TD's on only 37 yards rushing.  Hopefully as I said before this was just experimentation with Sproles and we will see Ryan Mathews for those types of situations and Sproles as more of a catch the ball out of the backfield, change of pace type of runner.

• Wentz does need a little more help from his offensive skill position players.  WR's Jordan Matthews and Nelson Agholor had key catches helping the offense move up the field but both also had key drops on plays that would've helped the Eagles to seal the game up earlier putting less pressure on the defense.  Matthews dropped a perfectly thrown 40 yard touch pass from Wentz into the Endzone right before halftime that would've made the game much more comfortable.  Matthews has been great at times but he still needs to work on making sure he catches the ball before making a big play, unfortunately this has been a problem with him for over a year now.  Agholor had an abysmal 2015 rookie campaign but so far 2016 has been promising as he is starting to at least look like a halfway competent WR.  He even made a couple tough catches over the middle on Monday night, but Agholor had a key drop that kept the offense in a lull when this play would've woken the team up.  Wentz rolled out of the traffic of Bears defensive linemen to his right and pointed to a streaking Agholor to continue on a Go route, who had a couple steps on the Bear covering him, and as the ball got to Agholor it hit off his fingertips and was incomplete.  In Agholor's defense there was interference from the Bears CB who was covering him that was not called and the ball was slightly under-thrown by Wentz but that hit his hands and has to be caught.  Agholor also dropped a contested fade route in the redzone that most WR's are able to catch.     Now, Dorial Green-Beckham I beleive needed to be more involved in this game as he made 2 completions on the first drive of the game, including the 4th down conversion, but then was not looked upon much the rest of the game.  Hopefully this is just still DGB learning the playbook and Dough easing him into the system, but the guy has all the potential in the world and I think his attributes need to be shown ASAP.

• One element of this game that has me very worried for the rest of the season, especially on QB Carson Wentz, is on the offensive line.  They have shown continuity with their current set-up but the dynamic will soon change.  We were already expecting that RT Lane Johnson would miss 10 games at some point for a second offense for taking a form of a PED (Performance Enhancing Drug) in which now we know that after next Sunday's game against Pittsburgh that we probably won't see him for the next 10 games following.  His appeal of the suspension will be on October 4th during the birds bye week where his suspension should be confirmed soon after.  Not only will Johnson's presence be missed as the line will be shaken up as LG Allen Barbre will be moved to Johnson's spot at RT and rookie LG Isaac Seumalo will be thrown in the fire but Center Jason Kelce has been awful these first two weeks continuing on from last season.  Let's face it, Kelce is too small to be an NFL starting Center because he is getting man-handled by defensive linemen across the league, which is endangering Carson Wentz.  Wentz has been taking unnecessary hits to begin with and it has mostly due to the poor play of Kelce.  Kelce likes to talk and is a fan-favorite and a leader in the locker room but his play on the field has been detrimental.  I believe that G/C Stefen Wisnewski was brought in to eventually fill in for Kelce due to poor play and I already think the time is now.  The Eagles will be facing much better DLines as the season goes on and it will be a challenge keeping Wentz on his feet and healthy, we all will just have to cross our fingers and pray everytime Carson surveys the field.  

•  The Eagles defense showed pressure early and often in this game.  Jay Cutler and the Bears only had one or two possessions that really worried me and had me thinking maybe there is something in this defense to expose, but rest assure the defense had short term memory when it came to those drives and were able to shut down the Bears offense.  Going into the game I believed that Bears WR Alshon Jeffery would go off on the depleted corner backs of the Eagles, but the Eagles corner backs (including Rookie CB Jalen Mills who lined-up with Jeffery most of the night) stepped up to the challenge and held the star wide out to a sub-par night even though he did have 5 catches for 96 yards(49 of those on one jump ball reception).  Surprisingly after that catch by Jeffery the Bears did not look to him that much more which I thought they would exploit the Eagles corners but never did but that was due to the Eagles defensive line being able to beat up on the Bears offensive line and the defensive line eventually knocked Bears QB Jay Cutler out of the game injuring his thumb on a sack-fumble.  Another strong and solid performance by Jim Schwartz's bunch only surrendering 7 points to the Bears with the other 7 coming on a punt return by the Bears Eddie Royal at the end of the game when the game was already out of the Bears favor.  The first huge test comes for this defense on Sunday against Pittsburgh but I will get into that more later in the week.

All-in-all another good performance for the team all around and against a greater opponent than the Cleveland Browns, but this week will really pose a great threat to their undefeated record against a superior team, not only on offense as I mentioned before, but on defense as well, as the Pittsburgh Steelers come into town.  I do believe the Eagles will give everything they have to give against Pittsburgh and it will be a closer game than most think, but it may not be enough as the Steelers have been a contender year-in and year-out and have all the talent in the world.  I will dive into the Steelers game as I mentioned later in the week, so Eagles fans please enjoy this win and enjoy the fact that the Eagles will go into the bye with a winning record guaranteed.  

#FlyEaglesFly Go Birds!