Gameplan Preview: Eagles-Chiefs

This might be the hardest game of the season to get a good read on. Depending on which Chiefs team and which Eagles team shows up, this game could go any number of ways.

When the Chiefs have the ball:

The Chiefs have one of the most potent offenses in the league and can score points in bunches. They base everything off of the power running combo of Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson, the best one-two punch in the NFL. But the Chiefs are more than just these two backs. Tony Gonzalez is of course, a monster. His 102 catches for 1258 yards last year was one of the best seasons ever for a tight end. The Chiefs WRs are adequate. Eddie Kennison had a big game against the Broncos and can hurt you if you spend too much time worrying about the Gonzalez and the run. The most underrated piece of the Chiefs' offense is QB Trent Green. Green has been one of the most consistent QBs in the NFL, posting passer ratings of 92.6, 92.6 and 95.6 over the last three years. Green has been merely mediocre this year and is slightly bothered by a bruised left hand he suffered in Monday's rout at the hands of the Broncos.

The Chief's major offensive problem, as we have discussed, is their offensive line. All Pro LT Willie Roaf remains out with a bad hamstring while starting RT John Welbourn is serving the last game of a four game suspension, leaving the Chiefs thin at the tackle position. This has hampered both their run game (3.5 ypc the last two weeks) and their passing game, and will be a problem against the Jim Johnson's defense.

Despite their injured line, the Chiefs will still look to establish the run early and then use play action to get the ball to Gonzalez and Kennison. The Eagles won't be able to shut down Holmes and Johnson as they did to LaMont Jordan last week, but they should try to limit the Chief's duo early by putting 8 men in a box and forcing the Chiefs to pass. And with the Chief's weakness at tackle, Jim Johnson will look to blitz from the edges, forcing KC's young tackles to make decisions on the fly.

Eagles CBs Lito Sheppard and Sherrod Brown can handle Kennison and Samie Parker one-on-one, at least for a time. The biggest question is if strong safety Michael Lewis can cover Gonzalez, allowing Brian Dawkins to roam the field and make plays, or if Dawkins will have to take on the big TE.

When the Eagles have the ball:

In Patrick Surtain, Kendrell Bell and Derrick Johnson, the Chiefs have improved their overall talent on defense. However, as a unit, the Chiefs' D is still suspect - as the Broncos showed us last week. The Chiefs have been very weak again the run and, if they hope to be successful, the Eagles need to exploit this weakness by running the ball with both Brian Westbrook and Lamar Gordon, who has looked solid in limited time so far. The Eagles will never be a run-first team, and they shouldn't, but if they are to win this week they need to run the ball at least 25 times.

In the passing game, Patrick Surtain will line up against TO but the Chiefs will still role free safety Greg Wesley to his side most of the night. This will leave Greg Lewis matched up one-on-one against former Clemson QB Dexter McCleon for most of the night, a matchup he and Donovan McNabb should look to exploit. Denver also had a lot of success moving QB Jake Plummer out of the pocket. If McNabb is mobile enough to get outside of the pocket, the Eagles good hit some big plays to TE LJ Smith coming across the middle.

Our prediction:

As we noted, this is a very tough game to call. As long as McNabb plays at least adequately the Eagles should be able to score. But will they be able to outscore the Chiefs' offense? Looking at the Chiefs' offensive line woes, we're tempted to say yes. But with the Chiefs coming off an embarrassing win, the Eagles potentially looking ahead to next week's matchup with Dallas, the game being played at tough Arrowhead Stadium, and with a banged up McNabb yet to show his A game against any team not named the 49ers, we can't.

Regretfully, we pick the Chiefs: 24-21.

Key Matchup: Eagles DEs Jevon Kearse and ND Kalu vs Chiefs OTs Jordan Black, Kevin Sampson and Chris Bober

As we noted in an earlier post, Chiefs perennial All Pro tackle Willie Roaf is likely out for Sunday's matchup. Starting RT, former Eagle John Welbourn, is also serving the last of his four game suspension. This means that the Chiefs will have to, once again, shuffle their offensive line.

Against Oakland and Denver, Jordan Black shifted from right tackle to left. Kevin Sampson and Chris Bober have rotated at the right tackle position in place of Black with Sampson the likely starter.

Black is in his third year out of Notre Dame. Prior to this season he had started only four games on the offensive line, all at right tackle. Sampson, a 7th round pick out of Syracuse last year, is playing in only his second season. He did not start a game last year. In his 6th year in the league, Bober is the most experienced of the three. But he is best suited to the Guard or Center positions and has been hampered by a lingering toe injury, which is a large reason Sampson has moved ahead of him on the depth chart.

The inexperience trio has clearly been overmatched this season. Though Denver only collected two sacks on Monday, Ebenezer Ekuban and especially Trevor Pryce terrorized KC's tackles and harassed QB Trent Green all night. Moreover, without Roaf, the Chiefs have only managed 3.4 and 3.5 ypc in their last two games.

The Chiefs still have two Pro Bowl Guards in Will Shields and Brian Waters, along with solid center Casey Wiegmann, so they will be solid in the interior, especially with Eagles starting DT Darwin Walker missing. If the Eagles defensive line is to win its matchup with the Chiefs offensive line, it will be up to DEs Jevon Kearse and ND Kalu. The question is: are they up to the task?

So far this year Kearse and Kalu have been a disappointment, combining for only one sack (from Kalu). Kearse has not recorded a sack since last Thanksgiving. He has occasionally hurried the quarterback, but so did Mike Mamula, once upon a time. Kearse has gotten a pass from the Philly media and Eagles fans thanks to his reputation and their wish to keep considering him a top-flight DE. But the production simply hasn't been there. Last week against the Raiders, the Eagles front four got absolutely no pressure on Kerry Collins when Jimmy Johnson decided not to blitz.

If the Eagles are to win this game, then Kearse and Kalu will need to get back on track. In the Chief's young trio of OTs, they have a match up against whom they can do so. The only remaining question is if they will exploit it.

McNabb will play on

It's official, McNabb and Reid have opted against surgery. "This injury, I feel, is a minor setback," McNabb said yesterday. "It's not going to take me away from what I do. It's not going to stop me from going out and making plays with my legs and making plays with my arm."

As the Inquirer noted, McNabb leads the NFL in passing yards and TDs and his 99.4 passer rating is 4th best in the NFL. But if you take out the cakewalk over the 49ers, those numbers don't look so good. Anyone who watched the Falcons and Raiders games can see that McNabb isn't right - he certainly isn't running the ball effectively, which he needs to if he wants to be as effective as possible.

As for Reid, he was asked if he would run the ball more considering McNabb's injury: "Reid was asked whether he might mix in a few more running plays just to help his quarterback remain out of the operating room. In Sunday's win over the Oakland Raiders, McNabb threw a career-high 52 passes. 'We do what we have to do to win games,' Reid said. 'If it means throwing 50 times, then you throw 50 times. I have always said I would like a bit more balance, but if you have to win the game, you have to do that.'"

Memo to Andy: you nearly lost to a team you should have beaten by at least two touchdowns. Had you run more than 18 times you might have had a little bit more of a cushion.

Key Matchup: OG Shawn Andrews vs. DT John Browning

This offseason, the Chiefs made three high profile additions in an attempt to boost their woeful defense: CB Patrick Surtain, LB Kendrell Bell and first round pick LB Derrick Johnson. They did not, however, upgrade their terrible defensive line. It shows.

The Chiefs rank 23rd in the NFL in rushing yards allowed per game (117) and 27th in yards per carry allowed (4.5). Last week, they let a Broncos team that had only managed 84 yards per game roll up 221 yards at a 6.0 ypc clip. A big reason is their poor interior line play, especially that of 10-year veteran John Browning.

Browning, who is replacing injured starter Ryan Sims, is a serviceable and versatile back-up, but he is overmatched and undersized as a starting defensive tackle. At 6-5, 297, he is lanky by DT standards and can be pushed around by bigger and stronger offensive guards.

In 6-4, 350 lbs Shawn Andrews, that is exactly what Browning is facing. In what is basically his rookie season, Andrews has experienced some growing pains as a pass blocker, but he has been been the dominant run blocker the Birds expected when they drafted him.

If the Eagles expect to beat a good Chiefs team with a banged up Donovan McNabb (or, if they are smart, backup Mike McMahon), Andy Reid will need to get over his aversion to running the ball and let backs Brian Westbrook and Lamar Gordon carry the ball more than the 18 times they did against the Raiders. And Andrews will have to open holes for them by dominating Browning the way he should be able to.

Roaf likely out

In a HUGE break for the Eagles, it looks like All-Pro left tackle Willie Roaf will remain sidelined for this week's game with a left hamstring injury.

With one-time almost Eagle Priest Holmes and Penn State alum Larry Johson, the Chiefs love to run the football and they love to run to the left, behind 10-time Pro Bowler Roaf.

Roaf would have dominated the undersized DE ND Kalu. He should do OK with Roaf's replacement, Jordan Black.

McNabb should sit

Has Andy Reid learned his lesson?

There are a lot of good things to be said for the Eagles coach. He came into Philly with a plan and he's taken a bad team to four straight NFC title games and, finally, a Super Bowl.

That being said, the man has his faults. Primarily, he suffers from an acute case of what I call "Ray Rhodes Disease;" sometimes the man thinks he is smarter that everyone else, and he is stubborn to a fault. The biggest example of this, of course, is his absolute unwillingness to run the damn football (thus the title of this blog), but that discussion is for another post.

Last week, Reid made the inexplicable decision to play David Akers and to not activate recently acquired backup Todd France. Now Akers is out. The Eagles will only admit that he will miss this weekend's game with the Chiefs, but he's likely out for at least a month. Now it looks like he is about to repeat the mistake with star quarterback Donovan McNabb.

The Eagles announced today that McNabb has a sports hernia, or a "disruption of the inguinal canal without a clinically detectable hernia" which basically means there is a tear in the abdominal wall through which parts of the intestine protrude. The injury does not improve with rest, but can be treated with minimally invasive surgery. According to Eagles trainer Rick Burkholder, recovery from such surgery takes 8-12 weeks but according to The Physician and Sports Medicine Journal and the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, "Structured rehabilitation should enable athletes to return to sports activity 6 to 8 weeks after surgery."

This is the Eagles schedule over the next eight weeks:

Sun., Oct. 2: @Chiefs
Sun., Oct. 9: @Cowboys
Sun., Oct. 16: BYE
Sun., Oct. 23: Chargers
Sun., Oct. 30: @Broncos
Sun., Nov. 6: @Redskins
Mon., Nov. 14: Cowboys
Sun., Nov. 20: @Giants

That stretch includes some tough games, and four divisional contests, but there is no reason the Eagles could not win 4 or 5 of those 7 games without McNabb. After all, two years ago the Birds went 5-1 with Koy Detmer and AJ Feeley at the helm. The Eagles still have an excellent defense, and plenty of weapons on offense - Brian Westbrook can catch a screen pass from Mike McMahon just as easily as he can from McNabb.

What the Eagles cannot do is win a Super Bowl without a healthy McNabb. The first three games this season are evidence enough for that. They lost a game they should have won to the Falcons and then nearly blew a gimmie of game to the Raiders because McNabb's performance was obviously affected by his injuries. His injuries won't get any better and is very likely to get worse. Can McNabb even make it through another 16 games (including the playoffs)?

McNabb should have the surgery now, so that he will be healthy for the end of the season and the playoffs. Should the Eagles only manage 4-3 over the next 8 weeks (leaving them 6-4), they will still end up 11-5 or 10-6. They won't have home field advantage and might even lose a first round bye. That would hurt, but not as much as not having McNabb at 100% for the playoffs.