Eagles Evaluation: Vikings Top Birds

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By Paul Bowman, Sports Talk Philly Editor

Big wins in Green Bay and hosting the Jets seemed to have the Eagles back on track, but their road trip first took them to Minnesota, who houses two great receivers to match up with the Eagles depleted secondary.

A loss is nit what we hoped for, but it certainly isn’t surprising, especially when the Eagles really only have one corner on the roster with the speed to even have a chance at keeping up with Stefon Diggs and he was ruled out ahead of the game. Ronald Darby has the speed, if you were wondering. Whether his coverage skills would have been enough is another story.

On the opposite side, the offense that was not great against the Jets was similarly ineffective on Sunday with a struggling run game and a rookie running back being the only really solid option in the passing game. Alshon Jeffery and Nelson Agholor are making big bucks to be mediocre players at this point.

With Sproles out and Clement on IR, the Eagles used Boston Scott as their punt returner. He also got Sproles’ offensive snaps and did not disappoint. At this point, he might be the third running back on the depth chart.

As Doug Pederson said earlier this week, Jordan Howard got the bulk of the carries, but with a lack of success in the first game doing that, the Eagles may go back to a more even share to keep defenses on edge.

Sidney Jones was benched in this one and Craig James took his spot, but the two swapped spots again later. Jones needs to step up now or he might be without a job next season.

Jason Peters left this game early and, unsurprisingly, Andre Dillard was his replacement. Dillard was ok, but he will need to improve or the Eagles future is not nearly as bright. Maybe he’ll do better against defensive ends not up to the level of Everson Griffith in the short term. The move was also a bit surprising as the team allowed the rookie to take on Everson Griffith rather than Big V who man-handled him in the 2017 playoffs.

Nigel Bradham was ruled out of the game with an ankle injury and Nathan Gerry saw a lot more snaps as a result.

Buy: Miles Sanders

Sanders received only three carries in this one as the struggling Howard received the bulk of the team’s carries. The rookie, however made a large impact on this one by making just three catches. He averaged 28.7 yards in this game and was the Eagles leading receiver. He scored his first touchdown in the NFL and managed 86 yards on just three targets. To put that in perspective, Alshon Jeffery needed 12 targets and 10 receptions to get to 76 yards while Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert turned 17 targets into nine catches for 102 yards. Sanders has been the Eagles best receiver for a few weeks now, so it is fair to be concerned about these “dominant” weapons the Eagles were supposed to have going into the 2019 season.

Sell: Rasul Douglas

After a week of being ranked as the 20th best corner overall this season by Pro Football Focus and nearly every Philadelphia media outlet praising how good he has been and how he is a key to this team, Douglas came into this game and silenced his fans. While he was fine for the first drive, the Vikings took advantage of his lack of speed and burned him often. The officials also called him for pass interference that was not called on the Vikings corners, but let’s stick to Douglas.

Of note in this game is that Douglas seemed to play further off the line than he had been for much of the game. Perhaps this was meant to account for the speed of Diggs, but Douglas is a physical corner. The Eagles will need him to be able to play to that going forward, especially if he and Jalen Mills are on the outside next week. Both are best when they can contact receivers early and get in their heads and both lack the speed to be waiting downfield and get a late jump to try and keep up with a receiver breaking away.

Buy: Nate Gerry

Gerry came up with six tackles in this game, including 1.5 for loss. He has been among the league’s best linebackers in coverage and always seemed to be around the play even if he wasn’t credited with the tackle. With Zach Brown being a near total disappointment and Nigel Bradham injured, his play will be key to this team and so far this season he has not disappointed.

Sell: Alshon Jeffery

Jeffery had a touchdown. There isn’t much else good to say. He dropped a fourth-down conversion. He needed seven more receptions and nine more targets to total 10 yards less than a rookie running back receiving. Jeffery has a cap hit of $18 million over the next two seasons. With the way he’s played so far this season, he hasn’t been worth anywhere near that. Jeffery has dropped as many passes as Agholor has, they’ve just gone less noticed because they aren’t all on a deep ball or key situation. He has also struggled to get open much at all with so many of his receptions coming within two yards of the line of scrimmage.

With Desean Jackson out, the Eagles need a deep threat and the Alshon that was making 16-yard receptions with ease over the last two seasons is nowhere to be found.

Buy: Brandon Brooks

While an argument could be made that Wentz is playing at an elite level, the only player on the Eagles roster unquestionably doing so is Brandon Brooks. In reality, Brooks should probably be the weak link of the squad while he recovered from an Achilles injury suffered in the playoffs last year. Instead, he is the only lineman that has played consistently well for the Eagles. An argument could be made that the Peters has done that, but he has missed parts of two of the six games so far, so the consistency is in question.

Brooks has been one of the greatest free agent signings the Eagles have made and, in my book, is probably the player I give the most thought to extending this season.

Sell: Josh Sweat

Sweat was a first-round talent selected in the late rounds. At least, that’s what we were sold. Instead, Sweat has been almost a non-factor. Six games through the year, he has a sack and 11 tackles. Shareef Miller has yet to be active on gamedays and Daeshon Hall has a sack and tackle of his own in just a few games of reviving minimal sacks. Where Hall recorded a quarterback hit in his limited snaps, Sweat was noted more for failing to contain runners against the Vikings than he was for actually making plays. At this point, it might not be a bad idea to move him down the depth chart and see if one of the other two young guys could contribute (or at least not lose contain routinely).

• The Eagles failed to convert a fake kick at the end of the half. Going for it was a fine call – Doug is always aggressive and that is how the team has controlled so many games. The issue was that Dallas Goedert released into the only area with a defender and didn’t immediately change his route. Elliot had no chance, especially when the rest of the offense stood up and no one even thought to release to the right side where there were no defenders.
• Kirk Cousins is not a great quarterback, but he also isn’t bad. He is capable and, with his the targets he has in Thielen and Diggs, it should be expected that the Eagles secondary would struggle. With Diggs’ speed, the Eagles had no good match-up for him. Luckily, the Eagles should get Jalen Mills back next week and he and Douglas, if they are allowed to play at the line, should be able to give the pass rush time to get home.
• The Eagles run game was atrocious with newly-made lead back Jordan Howard suffering far too many negative plays that were not helped by his falling forward. Some of that may be his fault, but it is certainly in part due to the play of the offensive line.

The Eagles travel to Dallas to take on the Cowboys next week in the midst of their road trip. You know, the team that just handed the lowly Jets their first win of the season.