THE SILVER AND BLACK HAND THE BIRDS A 13-9 STUNNER!

Just when I was ready to start talking about how good this Eagles team looks something like this happens.  What a shocker the Eagles head into Oakland and the 1-4 Raiders send them home with a 13-9 loss.  I think there is plenty of blame to be handed out here.

First I would be writing a very different article right now if the normally reliable David Akers had gone 5-5 on his fg attempts instead of 3-5.  Akers kicked 5 FG’s all of which were about the same distance, the shortest of his attempts was 43 yards and the longest was 47.  Akers goes 5-5 and the Eagles win this game 15-13.  Akers went 3-5 though and even with the two missed field goals this is a team that the Eagles should have beat.

Number two on my list is a combination of Donovan McNabb and the offensive line, McNabb was sacked 6 times and Richard Seymour spent most of the game making Pro Bowl lineman Jason Peters look like a rookie.  However even when McNabb had the time to throw he wasn’t exactly effective.  McNabb finished with a qb rating lower then Jamarcus Russell.    McNabb completed on 48% of his passes and averaged just 5.8 yards an attempt on his 46 passing attempts.  The 5.8 yards per attempt almost a full 7 yards per attempt less then McNabb posted last week.

both McNabb and Akers could be used as a scape goat for todays upset loss to the Raiders.  However the real problem here was offensive play calling!  Coach Reid has got to mix up the run and the pass some more especially when the passing game is as ineffective as it was today.

As always I will back up my opinion of Coach Reid’s play calling with some stats.  The Eagles ran 66 plays today, of those 66 plays only 11 were designed running plays.  that means 55 plays were designed passing plays of those 55 46 turned into a passing attempt, 6 resulted in sacks, and 3 resuted in a QB running with the ball.  When 5 out of every 6 plays are a passing play it really makes things easier on the Raiders defense, at some point you really don’t even need to worry about the run.  The Eagles completely lack of establishing any kind of running game is exactly why the Raiders were able to shut down their passing game even without their best defensive back for most of the game.

What is most upsetting about this that on the 6 carries that he did get Brian Westbrook ran for 50 yards, thats 8.3 yards per carry.  Clearly Westbrook was successful with the meager amount of carries he recieved, giving him the ball more could have only resulted in the Raiders being forced to pay some attention to the run which could have opened up the passing game for McNabb.

Hopefully todays loss was just a fluke, next week the Birds go to Washington to play the Redskins who have another defense that could make the Birds pay if they refuse to establish a running game.  Hopefully Coach Reid will realize that he has two talented running back and next week use them more then once every 6 plays!

(written by Ryan Ely-Vice Maniac)