Eagles vs. Panthers: Behind the Numbers

Yeah, I'm a week behind, but who cares. I've given up on the season like the rest of you, so there will be very little commentary on this one:

Pretty obvious here discrepancies here, namely offenseive plays, net yards, first downs, third downs, and turnovers. You could throw penalty yards in there (101 is pretty damn high) but it doesn't matter since the Panthers won. The only bright spot for the Eagles was their rushing yards, thanks to Bryce Brown. But he was responsible for 2 of the 3 Philadelphia fumbles, so that's a bit of a moot point too. Oh, but they average more yards per gain!

 



Since I'm doing this a week late, I don't remember too many details from the game. Like I touched on above, the Eagles rushing game was superb, even without LeSean McCoy: go figure. Nick Foles didn't turn the ball over this time, but he made some BAD decisions that somehow he got away with. Regardless, the Birds passing game was nearly non-existant. And I sound like a broken record, but the inability to make a big play on defense coupled with turnovers doom the Eagles week after week. They will never be able to overcome their turnovers if they don't force turnovers for themselves; the Panthers only scored 3 points off of them, but more importantly it stalled drives that were promising for the Eagles.

As for the defense, they performed MOSTLY well. Again, no big plays, and they allowed far too many drives to continue for the Panthers (50% conversion rate on 3rd downs!). They had no answer for Cam Newton, who was probably shocked he was even sacked twice. Secondary has left way too many people wide open... this isn't high school, coverage shouldn't be blown this many times in the NFL.

Brandon Boykin, who has done NOTHING this year, finally has a great kickoff return towards the end of the game, giving the Birds a great shot at tying Carolina with a touchdown and 2 point conversion. But it was too good to be true, and he fumbled. Perfect. Should have just gotten tackled at the 22 yard line like you always do!

Miscellaneous
-Not sold on Nick Foles yet.
-I was quite surprised by the running ability of Bryce Brown, but good lord he needs to cover that ball up. Inexcusable at this level.
-Kinda surprised the Eagles got rid of Jason Babin before the end of the season. Sure, he was underperforming and not worth the money (this year at least) but if anyone should have been let go mid-season it's Andy Reid.
-The team seems to play well for a while, but fades down the stretch. The offense was unable to score during the last 18:30 of the game.
-They can't put anyone away once they have a lead, and they sure as hell can't come from behind.
-After 3 weeks of being wrong, time of possession correctly predicted the outcome of this game. 8-3 for the year.

(Panthers at Eagles PDF)

Last week at Redskins: L, 31-6
This week: at Cowboys, Sunday 8:30pm