Terry Glenn Ruled Out

INJURY UPDATE: RUNYAN, KEARSE PROBABLE; GLENN OUT FOR DALLAS

For the third day in a row, neither defensive end Jevon Kearse nor right tackle Jon Runyan participated in practice on Friday. Runyan is still battling a tailbone injury that has prevented him from practicing in each of the last two weeks.

He was able to play against both Chicago and Minnesota and is listed as probable for Sunday's game against Dallas, as is Kearse.

Wide receiver Jason Avant is listed as questionable with a groin strain that he suffered during practice this week.

"Jason Avant has a groin strain that he's working through. We think he'll be able to go, but we'll just see how he does here in the next couple days," Reid said.

The Cowboys are once again going to be without the services of wide receiver Terry Glenn, who has missed every game this season with a knee injury. Dallas could, however, get back cornerback Anthony Henry who has missed the last three games with a high ankle sprain. Henry is listed as questionable, but he did have limited participation in practice every day this week. Henry had four interceptions in the first three games of the season. He became only the second Cowboy in franchise history to have back-to-back games with multiple interceptions.

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Must Win?:

This has been said a lot so far this year. This term gets thrown around a lot, but really a game is never a must win, unless it eliminates you from contention. If the Eagles want to be serious about possibly making the playoffs, then almost every remaining game is a must win. You figure they have to go 7-3 during the remaining ten to do so. Is this possible? Yes it really is. The Birds have to stop stalling in the red zone, and stop giving games away they should have won. Minnesota is a team that a good team should beat.

Birds Improved Run D Gets Major Test:

One positive of this Eagles season, is the improvements to the defensive front. A run defense that was considered the teams weakness, is now one of the teams strength. Brodrick Bunkley, Takeo Spikes, Omar Gaither, and Chris Gocong are all new starters. They are a huge reason for the run defense being much better. Trent Cole emerging as a premier DE, Jevon Kearse being healthy, and the improved play of Mike Patterson are also big for this defense.

Now they get to face their biggest test yet. The NFL's leading rusher Adrian Peterson. This kid may be a rookie, but he plays like a seven year vet. He is a great combination of power, and speed. Once he breaks into the second level, he has moves, and great field vision.

He also has one of the best left sides of an offensive line in the NFL. Matt Birk a multiple pro-bowl C, Bryant McKinnie a very good run blocking LT, and Steve Hutchinson. Hutch is widely considered one of the best guards in football.

Mike Patterson, Brodrick Bunkley, and Trent Cole will have their hands full this game.

If the Eagles want to slow down this attack, their linebackers have to be gap sound, and everybody has to play contain well. If everybody does their job they can tame this beast. Much easier said that done.

Pupil Against His Teacher:

Another side story for this game, will be the coaching match up. Andy Reid versus the Eagles former Offensive Coordinator Brad Childress. Childress has had mixed reviews in Minnesota. Many question his play calling, and also wonder what his plan really is. Winning would certainly stop all the Vikings doubters.

While many felt that the Birds would be missing something without Brad. Well I feel they have been better off without him. Marty Morningweg has done a great job here. He may forever be remembered as the coach who chose the wind in overtime, but he is also one heck of an offensive mind. Some guys are just not meant to be head coaches. That was clearly the case with Marty, and may or may not be with Brad Childress.

I wish the best for Childress, just not this week. Hopefully this will be the first match up of many more to come.

QB Holcomb Likely To Start:

What a bizarre series of events for Kelly Holcomb this year. First he gets dealt to the Eagles along with Takeo Spikes for Darwin Walker(good riddance). Then the Eagles surprisingly draft Kevin Kolb, and Kelly went into training camp knowing he was the odd man out. The Eagles eventually sent him to Minnesota to backup Tavarias Jackson. Now he may be making his first start as a Minnesota Viking against the Eagles.

This is not quite the same as TO vs the Eagles story, but it is still pretty interesting. Kelly has never been a great QB, but at times he shows flashes. I pray those flashes of greatness do not occur this Sunday. After what another veteran QB Brian Griese did to the Birds last week, I would not be able to stomach another blow like that.

I think Tavarias Jackson would be a much easier opponent for the Eagles, because of his inexperience, and likely hood of making mistakes. There is a small chance that Jackson does play, but be ready to see Kelly Holcomb under center come game time.

Fix The Red Zone Mistakes:

If you haven't noticed the Eagles stink in the red zone. They have converted only one touch down in their last eleven trips there. They will continue to lose football games if the mistakes don't stop.

McNabb has to be on target more, the receivers have to catch the ball when given the opportunity, the o-line has to finish their blocks, the play calling has to be good, and everybody needs to eliminate the penalties.

Mistakes haunt this season, and it is time to correct them. Andy has spoken about them, the players have too, and every media outlet in Philadelphia has focused on them.

Eliminate the mistakes, and the Eagles offense takes off. When the offense gets near the goal line, they need to punch it in for six.

Injuries:

Looks like L.J. Smith will play again. He is listed as probable. Andy Reid said he looked good in practice, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. He may be limited by how well he feels during the game. I wonder why they just don't shut him down, until he is completely ready? This rushing him back constantly seems to be re-aggravating his injury.

The biggest surprise was that Jon Runyan was listed as questionable with the broken tailbone. Knowing the iron man streak that Jon has going, you should bet that he will play. He played through the injury last week, and is too tough a dude to let this slow him down.

Brian Dawkins is listed as doubtful, and that means he wont be out there again. Some people think stingers are small injuries, but they can be career threatening. The Eagles are being very cautious with this, and I am sure Brian is too. Any injury that deals with the spine is serious. Quinton Mikell has done a nice job filling in for Brian, and will start again this Sunday.

Prediction:

Eagles win 27-10

Runyan Has Fractured Tail Bone

Reuben Frank, of PhillyBurbs.com, reports Philadelphia Eagles OT Jon Runyan (tailbone) said during his weekly radio show that he broke his tailbone when he slipped Thursday, Oct. 19. He is expected to play Week 8.

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Giants Sack Eagles

Giant Loss Puts Birds In 1-3 Hole



Under Pressure:

"It's frustrating," said McNabb, who finished 15-of-31 for 138 yards. "For an offense that has had so much success over the previous years, for us to come out and play the way we played today is embarrassing."

Embarrassing? No. Embarrassing is when you accidentally let one rip when you are on a date. This was atrocious, mind boggling, horrific, and just disastrous.

The Eagles offense did not even have a chance today, as they were outplayed, out numbered, and flat out out coached.

The Giants sacked Donovan McNabb 12 times, tying an NFL record. Former Eagles linebackers coach Steve Spagnola called a brilliant game, and he kept heavy pressure coming all night. The Giants who have tremendous depth at defensive end, knew they would get a good pass rush from the edges, and blitzed the Eagles A gap constantly, to get after Donovan from all angles.

One of those great ends, Osi Umenyiora lead the way with six sacks, and was a Giant pain all game. Even when Donovan was not getting sacked, he was being chased, or forced out of the pocket. This lead to many of the sacks, rushed throws, and errant passes. The pass protection scheme definitely failed tonight, and the Eagles game plan was very poor. Early in the first quarter, on a 3rd down play, Reno Mahe was responsible for picking up Umenyiora blitzing from the linebacker position. That is a match up I hope I never see again, as Osi easily pushed Mahe away to get a sack.

The Eagles offensive line was supposed to be a strength of the team, but tonight it was a major weakness. You will not see many victories with pass protection this poor. Throughout the game, the Eagles used a shotgun spread formation, that had minimal pass protection, and this seemed to play right into the Giants blitzing defense. It seemed like the Eagles were getting beat by their own defensive scheme.

Another thing that the Birds offense tried, was switching to a no huddle offense. They have used this several times this year, and it has failed miserably. When you have an offense as complicated as the Eagles, it is very difficult to operate this way, because you are constantly changing personnel packages for different plays. Teams like the Colts can run it so efficiently, because they will use the same exact personnel, and the same exact formation for an entire drive. Using the no huddle has killed a lot of Eagles drives this year, and they need to just give up on it.

Justice Was Not Served:

The Eagles streak of 19 straight games with the offensive line intact, was broken Sunday. With Tra Thomas sidelined for the game, second year tackle Winston Justice got his first career start, and it is sure to be one he would like to forget about. To be blunt about his performance, he was just absolutely terrible.

To make matters worse, John Madden made sure to point out how bad 74 messing up. Then ripped the Eagles for not helping him out more in pass protection. If only Andy had listened to that advice, because Justice was responsible for four of the six sacks that Osi Umenyiora had. Osi ran around him, ran inside, and bull dozed him to get to McNabb. Everybody knew this would be a big test for him going into the game, but nobody expected he would get schooled this bad.

Justice also did poorly in run blocking. The Eagles had tremendous success running the ball to the left last week, and this week they were very inconsistent. Justice was not holding the point of attack, and a few runs got blown up for no gains.

As the game progressed Justice even seemed rattled, as he was repeatedly called for false starts, and possibly was lined up incorrectly one play. (could have been Brent Celek, one of them messed up

The only positive thing I can say for this lousy debut, is that things can only go up from here. It can't get any worse. Osi seemed to agree.

"It was like a video game out there," Umenyiora said. "Winston Justice is a very good football player. Tonight was just one of those nights. He'll learn from that experience."

Justice accepted responsibility.

"I am going to shoulder the loss for the team," he said. "I got out of my technique, tried to make adjustments and they just didn't work."

Strange Miscue Costs Birds:

With one minute, and fifty six seconds to go in the third quarter, McNabb took the snap from under center, and then it appeared that he just dropped the ball. Which was then recovered by New York linebacker Kawika Mitchell, and returned the ball seventeen yards for a score.

With a slow motion replay, you could see that as McNabb was about to hand the ball off to Correll Buckhalter, Thomas Tapeh accidentally bumped into the ball, and created the biggest play(mistake) of the game.

Andy Reid tried to challenge the play, but to no avail. The play would stand, and this would be a back breaker for the Eagles, as they were unable to comeback from a 16-0 deficit. The Picture I found, shows that Schobel contacted him, with his knee down. Way to go refs. After further review you blew it!

I am not sure if the mistake was on Donovan, or Tapeh, but with the way the Eagles offense was sputtering, I knew the game was over right there.

Injuries Keep Piling Up:

Now I know it is lame to use injuries as en excuse for an NFL loss, and I will not do that. However it is alarmingly scary at how many of the Eagles better players are injured.

None scarier than Brian Westbrook's torn abdominal muscle. When Michelle Tafoya described in detail how Brian's ribs would actually poke through the tear, It became clear to me that Westbrook's injury was very severe.

My guess is that Brian will be on the shelf for a long time, and not just a few games. There is no way he is going to be able to perform with this type of injury, and if he does, it will only get worse. The only realistic solution is probably going to require surgery, and a long rehab process. This could mean no Brian Westbrook for most of the remaining season.

As shown tonight Westbrook is sorely missed on this team, and without him they are just not the same team.

Other players out include Brian Dawkins(neck), Lito Sheppard(knee), L.J. Smith(sports hernia), and Tra Thomas(knee). Sheldon Brown suffered a stinger in the first quarter.

The Eagles desperately need these guys back soon, because the team is not performing without them. You will not see this offense be explosive with Brian Westbrook wearing a tee shirt.

Does Plax Own Sheldon?:

Don't get me wrong, I am a huge Sheldon Brown fan. He is one of my favorite players, and I even have his jersey. There just seems to be a huge mismatch problem with Brown covering Plaxico Burress.

He has beaten Sheldon Brown for a Touchdown as least once in each of the past three seasons. I feel like Brown is one of the most fundamentally sound corners in the game, but Plaxico just seems to have his number. His size, and speed make him extremely difficult to defend. On many of the plays Brown even has pretty good coverage on Burress, but Burress, just uses his size to out jump Brown.

Brown also seemed to be getting picked on after he suffered an injury early in the game. He did not have one of his better games, but I know Sheldon will put in the work to improve.

Will James Is Horrible:

Will James is the worst corner back on the Eagles roster, and he is the worst current starter on the team.

James once again got torched deep, and this time he was penalized for blatantly taking Amani Toomer to the ground. The penalty lead to a Giants field goal, but more importantly it once again showed the NFL that James is a bum.

Every QB in the league will pick on number 21, when they see him lined up on the field.

The Eagles would be better off sticking a traffic cone on the field, because at least maybe the receiver would accidentally trip over it. With Will James there is no maybe, he is going to get beat every game.

Rest Of The D Was Solid:

The Eagles did a pretty good job for the most part on defense. Offensively the Giants only scored ten points, and only gave up the one TD to Plaxico.

There are some areas that could still be improved, like some missed tackles, more pressure on the QB, the ability to cover the short pass, and they could work on stopping the bootleg some in practice.

One time NFL sack leader Trent Cole, did not get any sacks, and I expected a big game from him. Juqua Thomas did very little, and Darren Howard was invisible except for a tipped pass.

The one lone sack came from Jevon Kearse of all people. Imagine that. Kearse actually made several nice plays, and that was good to see.

The defensive tackles had another very solid game, and the Eagles defense went another game without allowing a hundred yard rusher. Besides an offsides penalty, Mike Patterson played very well.

Omar Gaither got his second career interception off Eli Manning in the second quarter, and returned it 49 yards the other way. Great play for Omar, but I thought he should have scored on it. He looked really slow running with the football, and Manning was able to get an angle on Gaither, and force him out of bounds.

The defense shows a lot of promise, but there is still work to be done. Rod Hood is also sorely missed. That could be the biggest mistake the front office made this off season.

Not So Special Teams:

This has to be the worst special teams play of any team under Andy Reid. There is no aspect of special teams, that the Eagles excel at, and they can rarely even play a game without a barrage of mistakes.

"Sure handed" Reno Mahe fumbled on a punt return, J.R. Reed dropped the ball on a kick return, the always dependable David Akers missed a field goal, and almost every "decent" return had a stupid penalty.

Sav Rocca had a terrible game, and I am wondering what happened to this great leg? This guy was pinning teams deep in the pre-season, and was thought to be a weapon. Well now he is getting terrible distance, and hang time, and killed the Eagles field position all game.

Former Eagle Jeff Feagles completely outplayed Sav, and showed that he is one the best in the game. Feagles is the best in the game, at directional/pouch punting, and he pinned the Eagles deep twice on consecutive possessions.

The Eagles kick/punt coverage teams still sucked. I don't know if it is Rory Segrest, or the players, but this special teams this year just flat out suck.

At Least The Phillies Beat New York:

If the Phillies had blown the division title, that was handed to them on a silver platter by the Muts, there might be some people ready to jump off the Walt Whitman Bridge today.

You know it is really bad when the Phils are having more success than the Birds.

Props to the Fightins for managing to get through all that adversity, and still win the NL East.

It's been 14 years since the Phillies last made the playoffs, and there is a great buzz in the city about it.

Doom And Gloom:

What a disastrous start to a season filled with so much promise. The only reason I have even the slightest bit of hope, is because of what the 2003 Eagles team overcame. However is Brian Westbrook is required to go under the knife, then you can be sure that the season is over for sure. Westbrook is the teams most dangerous weapon, and without him this teams' offense is mediocre at best.

Andy Reid better have some miracles up his sleeve, or else it will be time to look at college mock drafts soon.

One line solid, but the other is dotted

In 2006, the Eagles' two lines of trench warriors could not have contrasted more.

Where the offensive line was a model of consistency and cohesion by both design and circumstance, the defensive line trafficked in chaos and got more than it bargained for.

The training camp that begins when rookies and selected veterans report to Lehigh University on Friday will be a direct reflection of that dichotomy.

Barring injuries, the next few weeks should be straightforward for the offensive line, where the starting five played every single game last year.

Right tackle Jon Runyan and left tackle William Thomas have lined up together more than 100 times now, both have made Pro Bowls and neither showed a significant dropoff in ability in 2006.
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