Prime example of Redzone offense killing the Eagles last year.
The first-team defense handled the first-team offense in a live drill inside the five yard line during today’s morning practice.
The offense had three plays to get into the endzone, or they essentially “lost” the drill. Personally I think they should have just practiced having four downs, because if I see David Akers kicking field goals from within the five yard line I’ll lose my mind, but that’s neither here nor there.
On the first play, the entire defensive line was breathing down McNabb’s neck. He threw the pass to Kevin Curtis who slid for the catch in the endzone. However, after some protesting from the defense, Big Red stepped in and ruled that it would have been a sack, no touchdown.
On the next play, LeSean McCoy shuffled his feet a little bit, causing Asante Samuel to jump up and down and waving his arms screaming, “He moved! He moved! He moved!”
Reid agreed, so they caught the rookie moving and were forced to re-do the play.
The offense then got a little tricky with a shovel pass, but it was stuffed after about two yards. There were about nine white jerseys piled together to stop that play in its tracks. Then an incomplete pass on their third and final try gave the defense their win.
It was only a drill, but it was not good to see the offense get handled as easily as they were. Seeing the defense hold up was good, but redzone defense is not really an issue like redzone offense is.
It also doesn’t help that potentially your best redzone target in Cornelius Ingram was out of practice again today because of some knee swelling. He’ll have an MRI for precautionary reasons, but no one seems to be too worried about him.
The other worry was that the offense really didn’t try to run. The second and third team offenses ran the ball, and ran it pretty well, but the first team guys didn’t try to run it inside the five. Hopefully that’s not a sign of things to come for this season.
Something has to be done about the redzone offense if the Eagles want to live up to the expectations this year. That includes getting guys like Jason Peters in the live drills, getting Shawn Andrews back in any capacity, and having Ingram on the field when they’re in the redzone.
