“What stands out to me about that offense is their inability to run the ball”, the scout said.
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What did you think of the Eagles offensive line play? Their only first-half first down in Week 2 came on a penalty.
“Gaining yards forward, not backwards”, Kelly said.
So the takeaway here seems to be that Sanchez isn’t going to start for the Eagles this week.
Reporter: “Why no thought of starting Sanchez this week?” “We still need to block and tackle”, Kelly said. “I think that’s what we have to try to do as a defense, to try to keep them out of the up-tempo mode”. He is just one piece of the puzzle, though, in New York.
The only surprise is that Kelly actually guaranteed it. He doesn’t do that around here, citing how there’s no accounting for injuries and such.
“I just asked him about that, he didn’t say that to us”, Kelly said before practice began Wednesday. The predictions for that first season were for the Eagles to be average at best, 8-8, and we as a fan base would be okay with that. We have four running plays. Connor Barwin, Malcolm Jenkins, Bennie Logan, DeMeco Ryans, Darren Sproles, Lane Johnson, Zach Ertz, etc. Those guys have been some of the best Eagles players. They are running a similar type system. He’s a downhill, one-cut runner.
Hamstring issues can be particularly tricky when it comes to skill players. Here is an example from his days at Oregon (via YouTube user Charles Fischer). Mid-week injuries are always concerning, given how little time there is to get over them, as well as the practice time players will miss because of them. The blitzes have been frequent and fierce and they’re meeting their mark in the backfield.
It’s the classic thinking of many great coaches, including Vince Lombardi and John Wooden. A team that no longer have the services of Le Sean McCoy, De Sean Jackson, Cary Williams, Jeremy Macklin, and Trent Cole. But that’s not working with the Eagles. The number of advantages an offense has over the defense is minimal and it doesn’t help when Kelly decides to do things like cut All-Pro guard Evan Mathis this past offseason. Granted, his porous offensive line wasn’t doing him any favors, but he was missing open receivers left and right.
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Now Huff is reportedly now walking back his previous statement. (Why not both?) But it’s getting hard to back Murray in that debate now. So terrible, in fact, that head coach Chip Kelly needed to give his quarterback a vote of confidence following Sunday’s loss to the Dallas Cowboys, and Murray needs immediate production to escape historical levels of inadequacy.
