Eagles better than Cowboys? (Continued)

Week II vs the Falcons, 13:01 in the 3rd quarter with 1st and 10 for Eagles offense. They trail 10-14 in the game at this point. The Eagles offense often would begin a series in shotgun highlighting their attacking mentality but defenses initially would not just sit back and let Vick tear them apart.

The Falcons show a safety blitz coming off the left side, but watch what the Eagles offensive line do to protect their QB. The RB McCoy can pick up the safety but that linebacker next to the safety will blitz as well if McCoy stays in to pass protect.


The offensive line slides their protection to the right even though the TE 87 Brent Celek stays in also to protect. That gives the Eagles 7 blockers to take on the 6 defenders coming for Atlanta. Advantage Eagles but 71 Jason Peters follows the end as he collapses inside but the left guard Evan Mathis does not slide over to pick up the LB. Argument can be made that Peters should have let his man go to Mathis so he could pick up the LB.

From view behind Vick, the RB McCoy is left with 2 blitzers and makes the proper decision, pick up the most inside defender as the safety has a longer path to get to Vick. 


The point is the failure in the offensive line protection call that Vick should have seen pre-snap that the safety was coming especially coming from Vick's left. He does manage to juke out the safety but steps up into the blitzing LB forcing a inaccurate throw across the middle for an interception. Two plays later, the Falcons score on a pass to Tony Gonzalez to extend their lead to 21-10.

Vick was later knocked out of this game in the 3rd quarter putting in Mike Kafka into the lineup. The Falcons offense scored two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and a 35-31 point victory.