mattwill

The road our two teams have taken to get to this Saturday's game has been very different. It is a testament to Payton and Brees how quickly they built the significant level of cohesion they did ... especially in their O-line. The Eagles took longer to come together, but the end result is remarkably similar.

Now, lets talk about the Eagles Defense vs. the Saints Offense. I'm one of the people who believes the Eagles steal a page from Bill Bellichick and pretty much eliminate their blitzes in this game. In the Superbowl vs. Marshall Faulk and the Rams, Bellichick put a LB or CB on Faulk every play he lined up wide and knocked him down. When he started in the backfield and wasn't carrying the ball, the Pats didn't even let him get to the LOS. They knocked him down on every single play they possibly could. That strategy worked effectively against the Faulk and the Rams, and then worked again two years ago in the Super Bowl against the Eagles and Westbrook. The Eagles should legally knock Reggie Bush down every single play, no matter where the ball is on the field.

I would also have three of the four D-linemen consistently mush rush and get their hands in the air. The fourth D-lineman (Rayburn and Bunkley would rotate in and out to spell one another in this role) would line up each play over Faine and bull rush him (to the ground whenever possible) to wear him out. The reasons for doing this are two-fold, 1) Brees is incredibly difficult to sack, and 2) Duece McAllister can eat a team alive if he gets open holes to run through. Bottom-line, the Eagles need to disrupt Brees timing, as well as control and cut down both the passing lanes for Brees and the running lanes for Duece.

Even if the Eagles execute this to perfection, Brees is still going to complete a lot of underneath passes, but as long as the Eagles keep their safeties deep they will make Brees have to work very hard for their passing yards.

The beauty of the mush rush is its excellent gap discipline. The three Eagles LBs will be responsible for controlling and/or blowing up the three gaps between the D-linemen. Those are the gaps that Duece will be going through. Blowing up those gaps will be the major responsibility of the LBs (especially Trotter) when Duece has the ball in his hands. Head on collisions between Duece and Trotter are what football is all about. The biggest reason the Eagles Run D was so bad during the middle part of our season was over pursuit, which resulted in 1) poor gap disipline and 2) Trotter's relying on "guessing" regarding the hole the RB was going to go through. With good gap discipline, the LBs have a clear line of sight to the RB, and a well-defined gap in which to meet the RB with both a good tackling angle and a good head of steam.

One reason the Eagles D has surrendered so few points in the six game run is that when the opposition gets down toward the Red Zone that soft middle becomes foreshortened, and it takes a very accurate passer to complete the same passes then that he completes earlier in the drives. As a result the opposing Offense frequently has to settle for a field goal ... or in the case of the Cowboys on Christmas Day, a loss of the ball on downs. However, I don't expect that Brees and the Saints O will have as much Red Zone problems as other teams have.

What all this boils down to is two very good teams playing a classic win or walk away game.