The Eagles 1st half against the Redskins was a complete fluke. They should be 0-3. It's going to be a very long season in Philly. Just wait until Vick gets hurt and Foles has to play. Maybe they can draft a "franchise QB" next year. I bet Vick and Foles are both goners.
They have a pretty good defense and a decent offense that doesn't turn the ball over. That's always a good recipe for winning.
Nobody wanna blame the Philly defense? If there's been one thing consistent with all 3 games, it's that they can't stop anything. Between them and Washington, and probably the Giants, worst defensive division in the league.
The defense isn't at all to blame. The offense put in horrible positions time and time again with turnovers. Many of those times they held the Chiefs to FG's. Bad coaching(Clock management). Second time in 2 weeks they've been dominated 40/20 in time of possesion. Just about any defense would be worn down by the 4th quarter when that happens.
Time of possession is a dumb stat to use with Philly. Plays run would be more effective. Philly will lose the TOP battle often simply because they don't stand around and run clock between plays, but it's not like that makes opposing defenses less tired. TOP is a horrible stat in general, and its especially so when you have a hurry-up offense to distort it even more.
What's dumb, is to think that type of wide margin doesn't mean something. An NFL spread offense will often lose TOP battles, sure. Typically, by 35/25 split max. Great spread teams can score quick when they need to, and can also slow it down when burning clock is more important. 40/20 TOP means that after 3 quarters, one defense has nearly played a full game & will be tired. You can think it doesn't matter all you want, but the numbers don't lie. NFL teams who play defense for 2/3 of the game lose about 2/3 of the time. They don't lose because of TOP, but it's indicitive of why they lost. Welcome to the NFL Chip. Still a great way to avoid major sanctions.
Geez, I've never seen a schedule harder than what the Texans have this year. add the chiefs to our list of tough games
A great offense that scores quickly may have the same TOP as a bad offense that never scores. So both offenses could have 25 min TOP but for different reasons. Also, the TOP for the entire game may not mean anything if one team scores a lot of points quickly and then slows down the pace after they get the lead. Numbers definitely lie in the NFL. The same way a running back racks up carries late in the game with the lead and a quarterback racks up yardage when his team is behind. The stats are highly situation dependent.
What the hell are you talking about? Of course stats are situational. We're talking about a situation where a defense played 80 minutes of football in 5 days. Not about using TOP as the barometer for every outcome. The text you quoted was going over odds for Christ sake. Not declaring, "Any team who does X will lose, every time, without exception". A defense playing 40 minutes in a game will be particularly fatigued during those last 10 minutes. If they're fatigued, they're more vulnerable. If a huge lead is built before every 4th quarter, that's great. Otherwise, they are susceptible to losing 1-2 score leads, or being controlled through the 4th(like tonight) to minimize opportunities for their offense to mount a comeback. Major calling these kinds of details to be "dumb stats" is just d....... stupid. For him to suggest that a defense that plays twice as long the other wouldn't leave them more fatigued by comparison is even more ridiculous. Laughable even. Using a hurry up offense doesn't render TOP meaningless, despite what he may think. Why a few people felt the need to latch on and argue the validity of a single stat (Which happened to be exceptionally lopsided in consecutive weeks) is beyond me.
when you can generate turnovers and not turnover the ball, you have an advantage over your opponent. And if you out score them, you will likely be victorious. (serious face) The chiefs defense is nothing to mess with. they had their moments last season but had a turnover machine under center so it would go unnoticed.
loving everyone hate on my eagles.. i guess your only ripping on them because you KNOW they would torch the Texans if we where scheduled to play you guys. lulz
TOP is a dumb stat, period - and it "lies" regularly. It counts time that is wasted between plays - Kelly's offense wastes less time, so he's going to lose that battle for reasons that have nothing to do with the game or the quality of the team. Losing the TOP 40:20 doesn't mean Philly was playing defense 2/3rds of the game - it means they were on the field for 2/3rds of the running clock, most of which involves standing around rather than playing defense. Take 2 examples: Team A: 3 running plays, 0 yards gained. Time off the clock: 2 minutes, 20 seconds. Team B: 3 passing plays, all incomplete, 0 yards gained. Time off the clock: 15 seconds. Team A won TOP by a ratio of 7:1. Does that really show anything? In Kelly's case, they try to run plays within 18 seconds. Most teams use 30-35. Assuming about 75% the plays have a running clock, then with 60 plays, that's about 8-10 minutes of clock time that Kelly's offense just isn't standing around that everyone else is. Why anyone uses TOP as a measure of anything is beyond me. It doesn't measure what people try to use it to measure. Even sillier, there is a proper, easier measure of how tired a defense is: plays run. Why not just use that?
As an example, in Oregon's last game vs Tennessee, they won 59-14. They racked up 700 yards of offense vs 300 for Tennessee. TOP? Oregon: 25 minutes Tennessee: 35 minutes vs Plays Run: Oregon: 76 Tennessee: 67
