It seems ridiculous now, as the dust settles on the Philadelphia Eagles’ 45-17 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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I’m certainly not one to get caught up in the media entitlement idea that the players (or coaches) owe much of anything to reporters after the game, but there’s an element of not talking after a game like this, especially if you otherwise would, that speaks to a locker-room that is quitting on the season.
“We lost a football game“, Kelly said.
The wide receivers don’t get open or catch the ball almost enough. “We’ve had situations like that in the past where we’ve had a couple of penalties and all of a sudden everything goes awry”. We’re all in this thing together.
By the time the Eagles showed any real emotion, it was over except the math. On the next-to-last offensive series for the Eagles, a twist-your-arms-in-the-air-and-shout dispute broke out between quarterback Mark Sanchez and Darren Sproles.
But Winston led the Bucs on a 13-play, 80-yard drive to make it 28-14 at the intermission.
Tampa Bay looks like it is going places, maybe later than sooner, but still, has the arrow pointed in an upward direction, with a quarterback of the future in Jameis Winston and a pair of rookie offensive linemen in Ali Marpet and Donovan Smith. Winston, who became the first Bucs rookie quarterback to toss four TD passes, finished the half 13-of-18 for 147 yards and a 135.9 passer rating. On third down, Sproles busted a screen pass for a 35-yard touchdown cutting the gap to 21-14 with 6:04 left before intermission. “But they hit us with a few big plays”.
Martin has runs of 58 and 84 yards, but was tackled short of the end zone on both. We just have to go out there Thursday and try to get a win.
At some point, it was imperative that the offense persevere.
“This is the first time we’ve really had the ball run on us”, said Eagles coach Chip Kelly. At some point, he said, the defense was going to need an extended breather if it hoped to finish the game off properly. That’s the fourth time in team history the Bucs have scored at least six touchdowns in a game, and the first since the aforementioned Oakland game in 2012.
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I wonder if he realizes how lucky he is that he faced this incarnation of the Eagles defense instead of the one that was lead by Jimmy Johnson and featured Brian Dawkins, Hugh Douglas and others. NEP, for the uninitiated, measures the value of each play on the field based on how an average team would be expected to score in each scenario using historical data. Four straight wins, dominant defense and efficient offense-without the services of star running back Jamaal Charles-has Reid’s team back in the race. 500 mark for the first time since the second week of the season. In the chart below, also provided by the site, the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons – teams in the NFC South – are far more likely to earn a playoff berth than Tampa Bay. My thing is when you come into a game thinking about stats, “I have to get these stats, get these touchdowns”, you then force things and you just can not naturally flow with the game. “A lot of you didn’t want to hear that”. You just have no clue as to what you’re doing. “It’s hard to beat a team that controls the line of scrimmage”.
