It's game day! Or as the Eagles call it, New Injury Day. Ugh! It's been one of those years yet again.
My early game today is the Browns at the Cowboys. Expect this to be a high-scoring game. That Cowboys secondary is very porous and the Browns have great receivers who can exploit it. The Cowboys are averaging scoring about 29 points a game, but giving up about 32 points a game. The Browns are averaging scoring 25 points a game and giving up 29. I'm not sure how long the Mike McCarthy era will be in Dallas, but if the Cowboys lose this week JJ may start to rethink that decision. The good news for the Cowboys is they have the Giants next week. While the Giants typically play the Cowboys hard, that's just a mess of a team this year.
My second game today is the Colts at the Bears. Eagles fans will get a chance to see Nick Foles again. Will it be the good Nick or the bad Nick? You never know. He's generally good for several weeks in a row though so I expect to see the good Nick today.
The night game features the MASH units of Philadelphia and San Francisco. The Eagles were forced to make seven, count em seven, roster moves this week to field something resembling a team. Our wide receiver corps consisted of Greg Ward before the moves. Now we've got Greg Ward, John Hightower, Travis Fulgham, and Deontay Burnett. That Niner's secondary is shaking in their boots over facing that imposing lineup. Uh, no.
Adrian Killins was also called up and signed to the big roster which is kind of interesting. He's blazing fast (low 4.2's) and has good hands. Officially he's a running back, but the Eagles also had him at wide receiver in training camp. I suspect the Eagles are hoping to get him matched up on a linebacker on a swing route out of the backfield and watch him just run away from the coverage.
The Eagles offensive line lost another starter with Jason Peters going on IR. It was a weird week for Peters. We were told he was just tired at the end of last week's game, then it was a shin injury, then an ankle, then a foot, then he was just "sick", and now a toe injury. As poorly as he played last week, he may be done. He was just awful. Jordan Mailata our converted Australian rugby player gets to start in his place. Mailata has looked okay in training camp and has a ton of potential, but he'll get a good test tonight.
On defense, injuries have decimated the cornerbacks once again. We have three healthy guys which is good. The bad news is two of them are slot corners. Unless the Niners cooperate by playing two slot receivers each down, and they probably won't, then we'll have a slot receiver trying to play outside. That could prove interesting.
The only good news for the Eagles is that the Niners are nearly as badly injured. I'm not wildly optimistic about the outcome of this game. The Eagles could win, but I don't think they will. We'll find out tonight if I'm right or not. Right now coming out of a game without any new season-ending injuries would be a win.
Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!