Eagles are starting down a dark road
Usually, top tier quarterbacks in the draft are taken by bad teams. The one’s who always seem to find themselves drafting in the top 5; teams like the Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans, or Jacksonville Jaguars. This is never a recipe for success, because few rookie QB’s could play well with a team that has an inconsistent offensive line, bad receiving weapons, and a weak run game. These QB’s are expected to step in and magically fix everything. So while the long list of QB’s who have come and gone from places like Cleveland continues to grow longer, the key to finding your franchise QB has become building your team first and then drafting your QB. It appears that this was the strategy the Eagles were following this offseason, when they traded up from 13th to 2nd overall to draft Carson Wentz. They felt they had a stable O-line, and home-grown, talented defense, and weapons to give him the chance the succeed. Now, 5 games into the season, the Eagles and Doug Pederson are dangerously close to replicating the mistakes of all those bad teams.
For 3 games, the city of Philadelphia and Eagles fans everywhere remembered what it meant to be dominant again. The offense clicked perfectly. Carson Wentz looked like a 10-year, pro-bowl caliber quarterback. The defense was smoldering, holding what was considered to be on of the best offense in the NFL to 3 measly points. The Eagles sat atop the NFC East, with praise coming from every corner of the country. And then, the Lions happened. You could blame the loss of so many different things. Bad officiating, poor linebacker play, loss of momentum, whatever. Then, the Redskins. With Lane Johnson suspended, rookie Halapoulivaati Vaitai started and had one of the worst games I’ve seen from a NFL tackle in a long time. And this is where the Eagles started down the wrong path.
Despite multiple sacks, allowing pressures on what seemed like every play, and not being consistent in the run game, Doug Pederson stuck with the Vaitai, and will start him again against perhaps the scariest defensive line in football. And while I am by no means ready to give up on Vaitai, I am concerned that Wentz will start doing what all those rookies taken by bad teams tend to do. Always looking over their shoulder, forcing the ball out too quickly, throwing the ball too high, and in general getting scared and make bad decisions. This is what happens when a young QB doesn’t have a good team surrounding him. We saw it start in small pieces on Sunday, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it again against the Vikings.
This is where Doug Pederson needs to be careful. The role of a “players coach” is both a blessing and a curse. Doug needs to learn when to stop being a friend, and start being a coach. If a player is struggling like Big V, Jason Kelce, or Connor Barwin, Doug needs to step in, bench that player and put the team first. This is often of of the hardest things a rookie coach has to do. Whether or not Doug Pederson can do this will go a long way to showing if he’s the next franchise coach, or just another stop gap.
Photo: Keith Allison (via: Wikimedia Commons)
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Categorized:Eagles