“I love his toughness”, Pederson said.
Advertisement
We all figured a return to the age of Andy Reid beat the alternative of another year under Chip Kelly.
Doug Peterson’s team ended up taking the win by a final score of 17-9.
Perhaps even more important was the moxie he showed in keeping plays alive and the spotlight didn’t seem too bright for him. The new-look secondary had a nice outing, and the pressure up front obviously contributed to that.
“Offensively, from a speed standpoint of calling the plays directly to the quarterback from myself, that is probably the biggest issue”, Pederson said. Even second team guys like Akeem Spence and Howard Jones got in on the sack party.
Cleveland sent Philadelphia the second overall pick to draft Wentz, along with a conditional day-three pick, for two firsts, a second, a third, and a fourth round pick.
Johnson has started all 44 games in which he was eligible in his National Football League career.
Wentz finished out the series, then came out of the game. “Noah, like our entire D-line, affected the quarterback all night”. He hit seven-of-nine passes for 97 yards, a rating of 148.6. The players need to perform better.
Other than quarterbacks, I would say defensive backs have the toughest adjustment from college to the NFL.
You had to like the way he got back up after being somersaulted to the ground by Javien Elliott after picking up five yards on third-and-six. “I thought some plays were left on the field”. He made a nice catch, ran a nice route, spun out, had a good run. When the first team group was able to get their bearings, here’s what they did.
-Kenny Bell, the starting kick returner, fumbled the opening kickoff before immediately being replaced by Donteea Dye. However, Koetter actually praised Bell’s play when it came to the offense. “Just wanted to protect him, so he didn’t throw”. “It was chance for him to get his feet wet and see if he could get the 2-minute drive going”. The Eagles called quick slants, running back checkdowns and occasional comebacks for the rookie as the game progressed. “By no means was he, or anybody, ideal tonight, but I was pleased for his first outing and we just need to continue to work with him to get him where he needs to be”. “We have to just take over games and be disruptive”. After the Pittsburgh game, the Eagles have two more preseason games, one in Indy and one at home against the Jets. In fact, McNabb is one of the best quarterbacks of his era. The rookie did have an impressive play in coverage when he perfectly anticipated a deep post route, breaking on the expected cut before it was ever made, but he had more negative plays than positive ones tonight.
Running on Empty: The Bucs simply couldn’t run the ball against the Eagles.
Advertisement
Pederson said after the game that it was great for Wentz to get that experience of getting tackled and absorbing hits, something that can’t happen in practice because quarterbacks wear red jerseys and are thus off limits from contact. That led to the Eagles’ first touchdown 55 seconds into the game.
