Post#174 » by Jikkle » Mon Sep 20, 2021 5:10 am
Some blemishes but given that it was another 10am east coast game against a better than expected Eagles team I'll take the W. Not all games are going to be master classes of execution and in the NFL you'll have to grind out some tough wins.
Defensively, it was a mostly strong day and I feel as fans we just overreact to every time an offense has a good play and act like the defense is horrid.
But aside from that 91 yard pass and a couple of somewhat iffy PI calls the secondary held up pretty well especially when we're putting out our 3rd and 4th CBs out there.
Run defense was still leakier than you'd like to see but I thought it was an improvement over last week and it's not like the Eagles RBs ran all over us.
Would've like to see a little more QB pressure but the Eagles have a good offensive line so it wasn't realistic to expect having Hurts run for his life the entire game either.
That goalline stand was a thing of beauty though. Most defenses would've collapsed and given up after a backbreaking 91 yard reception and even moreso when you have a PI call that gives them the ball 1st and Goal at the 1 but to continue to fight is a good sign for things to come with the defense.
The one huge issue I had was with the Eagle's last TD drive. The one thing you absolutely couldn't do was give up a quick TD and they did precisely that. I thought the flag on Ward was bogus but they were still driving even before that and it's a mystery as to why they didn't better contain Hurts as the Eagles had to have the sideline and Hurts would've gladly scrambled for yardage and got out of bounds to stop the clock.
Offensively it was a mixed bag but the good moments were really good.
Having those two long 90+ yard scoring drives was huge. Especially that one in the 3rd that went basically 9 minutes and to me that was the drive that really broke the Eagle's defense and their defense only got life back when the 9ers gave up that quick TD.
Jimmy had some bad especially a couple of terrible misses and almost INTs but he had some pretty good throws and was solid overall. He seems like he's navigating the pocket much better and looks more like his 2017 self in that regard and in general.
The right side of the offensive line was just getting blown up and I credit to Shanahan for calling plays around that fact with tosses and screens but I really hope Banks isn't Joshua Garnett 2.0 because Brunskill just isn't a starting caliber guard. This is the game you wanted a big body like Banks to be able to hold his ground and I hope they can get him up to speed at some point this season. Pass protection was pretty good though while Jimmy helped them out they still didn't give up a sack and very little QB hits.
Despite Jimmy's solid outing I felt this was the game that showed why you draft a guy like Trey Lance. The Eagles defense sold completely out to stop the run and this is where you want a QB that can consistently threaten the middle and deep parts of the field with his arm and where you want your QB to be a threat to run the ball to apply more pressure on a defense despite it selling out to defend the run.