Thoughts on the Pre Season

The pre-season is winding down, and I thought I would give some of my honest opinions about some players on the team. Outside of the two turnovers forced, the Eagles defense did almost nothing right against Pittsburgh. Jim Johnson's aggressive blitzes, seemed to get destroyed by screen plays. Overall I think the team has been average during the pre-season, and they need a lot of things to come together for this season to be a success.

Things that worry me:

Chris Gocong- He had a terrible game against the Steelers. He took bad angles, missed tackles, did not move well laterally, and just seemed very lost at linebacker. This is very disturbing to see, because he is expected to be a starter, and Jim Johnson has praised him all camp. Maybe he just had a bad game, and he can work some things out for the regular season, but right now he is making me very nervous. I also don't like the fact that his backup is a rookie. They could move Takeo Spikes to SAM, and possibly start Matt McCoy at WILL.

Sean Considine- Did anybody ever explain to Sean how to wrap up, and tackle? I keep seeing this guy jumping on opponents backs, and be taken for a ride. That was terrible, and so was that wimpy hit on tight end Heath Miller. It looked like he hurt himself, more than he did Miller. To his credit, he did have two nice blitzes, one that caused an interception, and the he tipped a pass on the other. I heard all this talk, of Sean bulking up, but it does not seem to make a difference on the field. Every time I even look at him out there, I remember Duece McAlister running him over in the playoffs.

Mike Patterson- Mike got pancaked on that Willie Parker touchdown run. A lot of guys were at fault for Parker to go untouched into the end zone, but it all starts up front, and you can't get pushed around that easily. They paid Patterson a lot of money last year, and I think they may have jumped the gun on this one. Not only has he been a liability against the run, but I have not seen much pressure on the QBs from him. Time to step it up.

Jeremy Bloom- After a good game at Baltimore, Bloom has not played well since. Reports are that he is slowed by a toe injury, and John Madden proclaimed that Bloom "did not belong on the field". Ouch. Rumor is that Andy Reid is fed up with Bloom, and he is on the way out. It was a very bad sign for him, to see Greg Lewis returning punts, and Correll Buckhalter returning kickoffs for the entire first half. Bloom had better do something great on Thursday, or he is out of here.

Deep Threat?- Where is it on this team? Kevin Curtis has looked fairly good so far, but he, and McNabb have not hooked up deep yet. I also have not seen Curtis get any big separation, on any of the deep routes he has run. Reggie Brown has had a very poor pre-season. It almost seems to me like he is disinterested. Jason Avant has done a good job, but he is a possession receiver. The only deep pass, has been that big play to Matt Schobel. I wonder if maybe losing Stallworth is a huge loss for this team. Even though he was injured some of the time, and caught only 37 balls, you always had to respect his speed on the outside. So far I have not seen anybody on the team show they can do that.

Shawn Andrews- How bad is this injury? Are the Eagles just taking the cautious approach? I definitely know that the offensive line has looked really bad without him. Scott Young has looked really bad, and Nick Cole did not seem much better. Right now if Andrews could not go, I would feel best with Max Jean-Gilles in his spot.

Things I am glad to see:

Donovan McNabb- Five is healthy. I don't care if he says he is 75%, or 85%, he looks fine to me. He is throwing fairly well, he is moving fairly well, and most importantly he seems to have no problem planting that right leg. It was also good to see him bounce right back up from getting hit. While the national media may focus in on Donovan's health being a major issue, I think there is nothing to worry about.

Brodrick Bunkley- Despite the defensive woes, Bunk has been impressive. He made yet another tackle for a loss, and got passed All Pro Guard Alan Faneca. I think now that he has his head on straight, we will start to see a big impact from Bunkley on this defensive line.

Takeo Spikes- Some People have ripped Takeo Spikes, but I think he has played really well. I've seen him shed blocks to make tackles, he forced a fumble at the goal line, and has been the best linebacker the Eagles have so far. It is also great to see that he looks 100% healthy, and is running full speed all over the field. I think Spikes is going to be a play maker for this team.

Young Guys Who Have Impressed:

Kevin Kolb- He has really come a long way in such a short time. The kid is accurate, seems very poised, makes smart decisions, goes through all of his reads well, and spreads the ball around. I have have come a full 180 with Kolb. At first I hated the pick, and did not understand. Now I see that whenever Donovan McNabb's time comes, they will have a good QB follow him. I would like to see Kolb connect with somebody deep, but really no receivers have been able to do that so far this pre-season.

Brent Celek- This guy seems for real. Every game he makes some nice grabs, and he has now been running with the first team offense. Celek has made the team, and should be rotating in every now and then with the starting unit this season. This pick falls into the Eagles history of taking risks on late round draft picks, on guys who have a lot of potential. Well this pick looks like it will be paying off big time. I wonder how this will affect L.J. Smith's contract negotiations. Will this be the leverage the Eagles need to get him signed, or is Celek good enough to make the front office just let Smith walk?

Punting Dual:

I am officially on the Sav Rocca bandwagon. The Aussie can just flat out boom the football. Dirk has played very well this pre-season, but Rocca has just been better. He barely even knows the rules, and he seems to be learning very fast. I heard that the winner of the punting job, will get all of the punting duties this Thursday. So if you see Sav out there, then you know he won. I feel bad for Dirk, because no matter how great he does, it seems like fans will hate him, if he wins this job. Andy Reid said it the other day, that no matter what Rocca will have a job in the NFL. If the Eagles cut him, somebody will definitely pick him up.

Birds Defense Rebuilt

Chris Gocong glanced at an old photo the other day and couldn't believe what he saw.

“I was at home and picked up last year's linebacker team photo,” Gocong said. “And it was unbelievable. I'm looking at guys and thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember him.' ''

Shawn Barber? Jason Short? Greg Richmond? Dhani Jones? Jeremiah Trotter?

Gone. All of them.

“And that was just last year,” Gocong said. “It just goes to show you how quickly things change in the NFL. Year to year and day to day.”

How quickly things change? With the Eagles' defense, change is constant.

None of last year's starting linebackers are starting anymore. Only one is still here.

No linebackers remain from the 2004 Super Bowl season.

Only one defensive lineman remains from 2004

And only four starters from the 2005 opening-day defense are still Eagles.

“That really is amazing,” defensive coordinator Jim Johnson said. “That is something.”

The 2004 Eagles weren't bad. They won 13 of their first 14 games to clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs, they won the NFC Championship Game and they lost by three points to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville.

From that starting defense, only defensive backs Brian Dawkins, Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown and defensive end Jevon Kearse are still Eagles.

“It is pretty crazy,” said Quintin Mikell, now entering his fifth year with the Eagles as a backup safety. “I still consider myself a young guy and I look around and a lot the guys I came in with are gone.

“But that's how the league is now. Guys can make more money somewhere else and they're going to take it. The thing is, we have good schemes here, and you can find guys who fit the schemes. Not to be rude or negative, but we lost the Super Bowl, so obviously we needed to get better. If we won, maybe more of those guys would still be here.”

..Continue Reading at the Burlington Times>>

Coaches eager to see Gocong

The tether connecting Philadelphia Eagles strongside linebacker Chris Gocong to defensive coordinator Jim Johnson and linebackers coach Sean McDermott will be severed Monday night at Baltimore, and Johnson is eager to see the results.

So are a lot of other people, because the 6-2, 263-pound Gocong is the player whose selection with the 71st pick of the 2006 draft created a stir for several reasons, including:

He played at Division I-AA Cal-Poly, where football is, at best, an afterthought.

The Eagles traded up five places to make sure they got him.

The Eagles almost immediately disclosed plans to convert him from defensive end to linebacker.

Gocong's debut as a linebacker was delayed a year because he was placed on injured reserve after suffering a neck stringer early in last year's training camp.

And the Eagles made yet another curious move along the way: They released the starting strongside linebacker of the previous three seasons, Dhani Jones, and installed Gocong as the No. 1 linebacker before even seeing him against live competition.
..Continue reading at the Morning Call>>

Run Defense is Key to Success

I think more than any other area, the Eagles run defense will decide how successful they are this year.

Here's an interesting article by Dave Spadaro of PhiladelphiaEagles.com about Jim Johnson and the Eagles run defense .

The Eagles will run the football well if they choose to do so. If they run it well they will destroy teams on the ground and in the air. McNabb has an outstanding group of young recievers, who I think will turn heads this year. I've got a lot of confidence in the Eagles offense. But the defense I'm not as sure about. They will destroy teams on 3rd down with their coverage and pass rush but they'll struggle if they can't stop the run, so I consider the run defense, the key to their season.

Jim doesn't plan on making any major changes when it comes to stopping the run. He's going to rely on bigger, better players doing a better job of executing their defensive assignments in order to stop opposing running games. Jim plans on rotating his defensive linemen and he'd better follow through with it. The run defense went into the tank when Johnson stopped rotating his smallish defensive line. If the Eagles defensive line unit gets tired, they'll get destroyed because they're undersized. Andy needs to look over Jim's shoulder and make sure he rotates that line each and every game.
..Read More at GCobb.com>>

Gocong hopes he meets Birds' linebacking needs

By LES BOWEN

bowenl@phillynews.com

IF CHRIS GOCONG can emerge this year as a starting-quality linebacker, the Eagles might not need to address that position in this weekend's NFL draft.

But the Birds can't really gauge Gocong's readiness until minicamps and training camp. Where in the draft to look for a linebacker, or whether to look for a linebacker, might be their toughest call this weekend.

Gocong would like to make it easier for them.

"My goal is to be the starting SAM [strongside]," Gocong said recently after a workout at the NovaCare Complex. "I'm looking forward to seeing what they're going to do, so we know what's going on in the future."

When they selected Gocong in the third round from Division I-AA Cal Poly a year ago, the Eagles thought they'd have a much better fix on how he fits in by now. But Gocong, transitioning from defensive end in college, got off to a tentative, slow start in training camp, then was dogged by a neck injury that led to him being placed in injured reserve. He never played a snap, even in the preseason.

Obviously, this was difficult for Gocong, healthy by midseason, who noted recently that it was "not like I had some huge, visible injury."

"I almost wished I'd had one - then I would have had something to show for not being able to play," he said. "It was real frustrating, kind of like a redshirt year. But I think I made the best use of my time," attending meetings and learning the nuances of the Eagles' defense.

This offseason, it has been hard to get a fix on what the Eagles think about Gocong. They seem to envision him challenging the much-lampooned Dhani Jones at the SAM; the big offseason acquisition, Takeo Spikes, is working out at WIL, or weakside linebacker, for now. But defensive coordinator Jim Johnson also has talked about moving Gocong back to defensive end.
Gocong's perception is that it is up to him to show the coaching staff very quickly, when minicamps begin next month, that he is now a linebacker. Otherwise, he thinks he could get tossed into the jumbled picture at defensive end, where his route to playing time would be less clear.

General manager Tom Heckert said recently that Gocong's perception is accurate - it will be up to Gocong to convince the Birds he can be a linebacker. Heckert said Gocong, 6-2, 258, will get every chance to do that, but "we know he can play defensive end," where Gocong set a I-AA record with 23 1/2 sacks in 2005.

It's probably fair to say that if the Eagles draft an inside linebacker anywhere in the first three rounds Saturday, Gocong will face an uphill fight to avoid playing with one hand in the dirt. Even though the linebacking corps might have been the team's most disappointing unit last season, and even though Spikes and middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter have hit 30, the Birds have quite a few LBs under contract.

Right now, the starters would seem to be Trotter in the middle, challenged or complemented by promising Omar Gaither, Spikes at WIL, backed up by Matt McCoy, and Jones and Gocong at SAM, with former practice-squad members Tank Daniels, Dedrick Roper and Greg Richmond lurking on the fringes. Indications are that Daniels will be given every opportunity to win a spot. So if you draft a linebacker, somebody must go.

As every Eagles fan knows, finding linebackers who are a good fit for Johnson's defense has been a tricky pursuit. In addition to the litany of failed second-round draft picks (Barry Gardner in 1999, Quinton Caver in 2001, very possibly McCoy in 2005), there are the veterans the Eagles have brought in who haven't been everything they'd hoped. That list includes Nate Wayne, Mark Simoneau, Jones, and even Keith Adams, who played well as a backup, but was a disappointment as a starter.

One factor in all that transience is how the Eagles traditionally have seen linebackers - as less crucial than, say, defensive ends or corners, who tend to get drafted in the first round. Yes, this is the point in the story where we insert the obligatory reference to Jerry Robinson, the last linebacker the Eagles tabbed in the first round, in 1979.

"The positions we have drafted [in the first round] are the positions we feel are really tough to find," Heckert said. "Especially the offensive tackles, the defensive ends, even to a certain extent defensive tackles. Linebackers, in theory . . . the first-round guys might be solid players, but they're not impact players. I don't know if you need all that."

Heckert said the Eagles certainly are open to taking a linebacker when they make their first selection Saturday, 26th overall. That might be right around where Penn State star Paul Posluszny ends up going. Heckert has said only that he thinks Posluszny will be drafted somewhere in the first round. Florida State's Lawrence Timmons probably won't last that long, but Miami's versatile Jon Beason might. If the Birds opt for a linebacker much later in the draft, an interesting possibility is Zak DeOssie, son of former NFL linebacker and long-snapper Steve DeOssie. Zak DeOssie, from Brown, is a middling linebacking prospect but a highly regarded long-snapper, which could interest the Eagles now that it seems Mike Bartrum is retired. That might depend on how they view Jon Dorenbos, whom they signed as Bartrum's emergency injury replacement last season.

Heckert said he doesn't think there is anything about Johnson's defense that is particularly difficult for linebackers. Gocong has a different perception, perhaps because his background is at DE.

"It's just a large volume of things [to keep track of] - it's not really things that are so complicated, it's just high volume," Gocong said. "Especially transitioning from defensive end, it's kind of tough, because you never think about coverages or anything, it's just, 'Go get the quarterback,' 'Go get the ballcarrier.' "

Gocong saw Gaither take over McCoy's starting weakside spot at midseason, McCoy having worn down in the wake of a shoulder injury. Gaither, a fifth-round rookie, ended up being the Eagles' highest-profile first-year player. Obviously, Gocong wished he'd had that chance.
"Definitely. I was watching [even] the kickoff and punt teams, thinking I could be out there hitting people. It kills you; you can't do that every play. It's a long season. I had to stop myself, because it was just hurting me," Gocong said.

Gocong said this has turned into a long offseason already, since his season was pretty much offseason, as well. He's very anxious to see where he ends up. Asked whether he would be more comfortable at end, he said he might be, at first, because he played there so much in college. But he said he would be very disappointed.

"I want to say my role in this defense is at linebacker," Gocong said. *

If Gocong pans out, the Eagles linebackers looks pretty good actually. They also will have a very big group, if Takeo Spikes starts at the WILL, Trotter at MIKE, and Gocong at SAM. That is a recipe for stopping the run. Bunkley will also have to play big, but I really think he will. Then you have Gaither, McCoy, and Daniels as 3 good backups, that will rotate in for different packages. This looks like a pretty good group. I think it's time to part with Dhani Jones. He is just a below average linebacker, who almost never makes a play. When he finally does make a tackle, he brings out that stupid air guitar. Enough of the bow tie guy. Get your banjo, and beat it.