I hate to be that guy, but while sunday's game certainly shows the haters that McNabb is back it may (unfortunately) also show that he never left. Rod Marinelli, the lions coach, cut his teeth with Tampa Bay when they were developing the cover two. That system was so effective that it really became ingrained in the coaches that came out of that system (Dungy, Kiffin, Lovie Smith, Marinelli off the top of my head but I feel like I'm missing someone). Marinelli came to that team in the beginning of that, 1996, and stayed in it for 10 years (six as a D-Line coach, four as assistant head coach).
The Tampa two was how he got a name in the NFL, and it gave him a lot of recognition and success. However, its not a good basic defense against this eagles team. The T2 still can be a dominant base D and it has a lot of advantages, but those advantages (ideally forces teams into control gained, can "zone out" excellent individual receivers) are not suited to beat the Birds. The Eagles couldn't get a passing game going in the first two weeks because both GB and Washington pressed our receivers right off the line. Detroit's scheme doesn't allow their corners to bump us against us, which in turn lets our timing-based offense a chance to flourish. If Curtis can get free McNabb can throw to his spot, if not it looks like he's overthrowing WRs and CBs by five yards - which happened a lot the first two weeks.
Look, sunday was a great win, and none of Westbrook's yards can be attributed to a timing offense, but we may want to be a little more tempered before we crown these guys champions.
On the plus side the new york football giants don't play any defense at all - save hoping that the opposing team's running back trips over himself - so we may just be able to keep this up a little longer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment