Game 9: Redskins (3-5) at Eagles (4-4)

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The Redskins officially enter the second half of the season tomorrow when they travel to play the Eagles at 1pm in the luxurious Lincoln Financial Field. After one half of the season, the Redskins have established themselves as a 'control' offensive team, with more weapons than the passing game can use and an uneven-but-still-ranked-8th running game. The defense has been characterized by players flying around all over the place behind the play while opposing offenses just rack up easy yards. Need a big play? Throw the ball. Stuck on 3rd down? Lucky you. The Redskins rank 30th in 3rd down defense. The team has no real identity.

Meanwhile, the Eagles are on fire in the passing game. Dono leads the league in passing yards and has 16 TD passes over 5 INTs. And one story of the Eagles has been no consistent running game, with Andy Reid calling running plays only 28% of the time (you know it's Eagles week if I'm running a story about Jaws on Philadelphia WIP) yet somehow the Eagles are ranked 10th at 120 yards per game.

Curly R aside: looking at these running stats and thinking about all the handwringing in Washington about consistency on the ground and in Philadelphia about playcalling, there is some reason to believe these teams can finish strong. Win-loss record aside, I'd always rather go into December with a top running game over a top passing game.

The Eagles are ranked 14th in defense, but the way to beat the Eagles appears to be to hang around and hope for a break at the end. The Eagles have lost to the Giants, Saints and Buccaneers after playing well, and the Tampa Bay loss was so random and galling that it may have spilt over into the Jaguars game the next week, when the Eagles got basically shut down by the backup QB. There is an interesting column in the Washington Post by Tom Boswell arguing that the Redskins poor turnover ratio simply has to reverse itself just because of the law of averages. It's a truthy kind of hope-in-one-hand-shit-in-the-other snark, but it's probably true, and in the same vein, the Eagles have probably lost all the improbables they will. If the Redskins are going to win, they will have to win it themselves.

Although Tony Romo had a great day against the Redskins last week, and the Cowboys ran for almost 120 yards, it only produced two touchdowns and 19 points, which is an improvement for the Redskins' defense. If you are an optimist, you just might want to think that last week was the turning point for the defense. With Carlos Rogers and Shawn Springs back on corner, teams will not be able to pass with impunity. It remains to be seen if 35 year old ex-Eagle Troy Vincent is really any better at safety than 30 million dollar backup Adam Archuleta. Then again, Custer had presidential aspirations so there you go.

The gameplan for the Redskins is simple. Don't let Dono pass all over the place. This has to be done with a combination of coverage, confusion and pressure at the line. If the Redskins were to accomplish this though, it would be against type, so this is a 'get better' game, not a 'keep doing what you're doing game.' Santana is probable, so that can only be good news. Mark Brunell would rather throw to a one-legged Santana that a wide open anyone else.

The Eagles gameplan, courtesy of Curly R reader/lurker Wilbert Montgomery:

"Every team's defensive structure is different," Mornhinweg said. "There are particular games where we go in and think that's going to be part of the game, taking shots. Other games, it's not so, because of the defensive structure. So every game is just a little bit different there. I do believe that our opponents have game-planned just a little bit to take away the big plays and the shots downfield, with some success."

Think we're going to see the Birds go deep a few time on Sunday?

Wilbert Montgomery and I will be attending the game tomorrow (we've been to 13 of the past 14 Eagles-Redskins games, regardless of venue). I'll be snapping some pics and I'll post them in my gamewrap. Talk amongst yourselves. This is a gameday open thread.