My short story after watching the first half 3 times... On Defense...I don't understand many things from this game. First and foremost the 2-4 is not a good base nickel defense with the DL we currently have on the roster(no dominant 3-4 DE Ngata, Mcphee). I would personally run 3-3 and move D. Smith outside on third downs. Daryl Smith played like a rookie mlb, jumping the first route to come across the middle only to leavehe middle WIDE open for any other receiver crossing into the middle of the field. Playing in the same gap as the dl a couple of times. Then there is Dean Pees... I was completely lost at what his planning or thought process was for most of the game. He kept overloading to the weak side in their shotgun formations, only to have them run to the strong side where there was no one there to impede the ol from getting to our mlb's. Daryl Smith played like a rookie mlb, jumping the first route to come across the middle only to leave the middle WIDE open for any other receiver crossing into the middle of the field. Playing in the same gap as the dl a couple of times. Timmy Jernigan looks utterly disinterested in anything that does not involve rushing the passer... Brandon Williams is a NT and nothing else, so why does Pees keep trying him at 3-4 DE. CJ Mosley is going to have be the savior of this front 7 run defense against most option offenses. Lawrence Guy is probably our best overall DL at this point. Our secondary can be really good if our lb's show at least a little interest in helping out across the middle. Will Hill played horrible but it's only one game. Carl Davis and Zadarius look decent... it'll take at least another year before they are impact players. Rashaan Melvin is Cary Williams 2.0... Tray Walker is my favorite rookie because he's the only other big strong corner besides jimmy smith. Arrington is hot and cold, but an upgrade nonetheless! Without Mcphee, Suggs is going to bring his A game on a much more consistent basis in the pass rush department. Doom...is still Doom. Upshaw does a good job setting the edge, but rarely does anything else. I don't see a competition at mlb that everyone else does... Arthur Brown is by far and away better than Orr and Mcllelan, maybe not at special teams which is important as a backup, but at actually playing Mlb... go watch the film and i'll leave it at that. On Offense... I would put no stock into this film because 1.) Trestman was trying to test his running potential against a very underrated eagles front 7 2.) They never got the tight ends involved in the first half, which i'd like to think won't be the case in real games 3.) The flats were open all game and flacco almost seemingly intentionally ignored it (after lighting up the saints in the flats on the first drive last week) 4.) Osemele, Zuttah, and Wagner were out (Zuttah played later...idk if he got benched or what?!) Otherwise Joe Flacco learned nothing from the Patriots loss a year ago. He continues to take unnecessary chances downfield on EARLY downs into tight coverage. Steve smith was wide open on the first interception on 1st down btw... but he decides to chuck it 50 yards into tight coverage to kamar aiken who cannot be considered a deep threat at this point. Which leads to my next point... Where are our deep threats at wr? We have a logjam of possession wr's... like 8 or 9 to be exact. This would be fine, except for the fact that Joe Flacco is never going to stop throwing the deep ball because of his amazing arm strength. So if Perriman isn't ready to go it could be a really bad first half of season with all the road games they have. Overall, a bad game for the offense, mainly Joe Flacco. I expect them (him) to be better next game. Defense is worrisome, against runs out of shotgun we looked especially clueless and helpless. San Fransico, Seattle, Cincy, Denver (week 1), KC all love to run out of shotgun. I have no doubt in their ability to stop traditional offenses, with FB's going extinct Pees has to learn how to stop the modern running game.
