A bad tempered affair at Lincoln Financial Field between the Philadelphia Eagles and Baltimore Ravens ended in a hard fought 24-23 victory for the home side. An explosive passing game from the Eagles was too much for the Baltimore defense to contain, as their offense failed to keep up their form from their Week 1 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Given Michael Vick’s poor performance the previous week against the Cleveland Browns, most people were expecting LeSean McCoy to be used extensively on Philadelphia’s opening drive. Head Coach Andy Reid had different plans, however, and Vick looked in tremendous form early on, finding receivers in space and marching the Eagles down the field. He finally came undone when he had to escape the pocket due to pressure and fired a pass into the hands of safety Bernard Pollard in the end zone.

The Eagles were able to open the scoring shortly after, when Trent Cole stripped the ball from Joe Flacco on the quarterbacks own 15-yard line and regained possession for Philadelphia. This time the Eagles decided to run the football and McCoy went over untouched from one yard out.

Baltimore hit back quickly though, as their new no-huddle offense had the Philadelphia defense on the back foot, with the Eagles unable to substitute their defensive personnel as much as they would like. The drive culminated in a rare rushing touchdown for fullback Vonta Leach after some impressive blocking from his offensive line.

The Ravens took the lead early in the second quarter following another effective drive involving large doses of running back Ray Rice, and Flacco found Jacoby Jones, who ran an excellent route to beat cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha for a 21-yard pass. Rookie kicker Justin Tucker later extended the Baltimore’s lead, knocking over a kick from 56 yards, which ties him for a franchise record as well as bettering any successful kick he made in College Football, leaving the score at 17-7 to Baltimore at the half.

The third quarter saw a Vick-inspired comeback for the Eagles,  as Philadelphia quickly leveled the score at 17-17. Jeremy Maclin was found by Vick in the end zone after the quarterback rolled out of the pocket and showed great composure to still hit the waiting Maclin, and a field goal shortly after tied the game.

The Ravens offense struggled consistently throughout the third and fourth quarters, but two further field goals from Tucker put Baltimore back into the lead as time began to become an issue in the game.

Almost in identical fashion to his performance last week at Cleveland, Vick once again led his team downfield with just under two minutes left in the game, rushed for a 1-yard touchdown himself and give Philadelphia a lead that they would not surrender on Baltimore’s final drive of the game.

It was a game of two halves from the Baltimore offense, who looked in great shape during the first half in their no-huddle offense, but were poor in the second half, failing to utilize their fast paced offense. Flacco’s development towards becoming an elite quarterback certainly took a step backwards in the second half, and the Ravens had to rely on Rice to consistently earn them yards in both the rushing and passing games.

Philadelphia showed flashes of brilliance in the passing game, but Reid will be worried with the amount of turnovers they have committed in their opening two games. A very banged up offensive line will also be a worry as he hopes to hear good news on injuries to both King Dunlap and Jason Kelce.

Baltimore will now face the prospect of avenging their AFC Championship loss to the New England Patriots next week, whilst the Eagles will make the long trip to Arizona to play the Cardinals.

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With the Giants defeating the Jets just moments after this game started, one would have expected the Eagles to be the team that would play uninspired football after their playoff hopes had diminished. Ironically enough, the Cowboys, who at the very least could have played for the sake of guaranteeing a better seed than the Falcons, were the team who did not show up. One can easily point towards Tony Romo’s injury early in the first quarter, sidelining him for the remainder of the game, but the real reasons for the loss leave plenty to be concerned about.

Going into the game, the match up that was likely to be the most critical was the Cowboys’ tackle tandem of Doug Free and Tyron Smith vs. the Eagles’ DEs Trent Cole and Jason Babin. Being able to keep these two pass rushers in check is what was going to allow the Cowboys to rely on the deep ball in order to expose the poor safety play that has plagued the Eagles all season long. Unfortunately, both Smith and Free had their hands full for seemingly every play.

While Stephen McGee did not play badly considering he was under duress for a majority of the game, the lack of pass protection is ultimately what led to his being unable to let the deep routes develop. It obviously did not help that the Cowboys were unable to establish any type of threat on the ground as the ancient Sammy Morris managed just 29 yards on 13 carries.

An Air Coryell offense like Jason Garrett’s is the type of offense that needs a decent running game and good pass protection to work. As much as this may be true for any type of offense, it is especially so with an offense like Jason Garrett’s, since the Coryell offensive system relies on stretching the defense with the running game in order to open up vertical passing lanes.

Without any type of running game the defense will never feel obligated to stack eight in the box at the expense of being vulnerable to deep passes (a staple to Garrett’s offense being effective). Lack of pass protection will without a doubt, make it very difficult for deep routes to develop, and as such both, elements of the Cowboys’ offense were rendered ineffective. Ultimately, this is the reason that the Cowboys struggled to move the ball on Saturday.

On the defensive side of the ball the Cowboys seemed to be favoring a lot of zone coverage, as Rob Ryan often likes to do. Unfortunately, there were several instances in which various defenders looked completely lost, which is a recipe for disaster for a zone defense. Often times a receiver would be passed off only for someone to blow the coverage, while other times it would appear as if nobody in the secondary even knew what they were supposed to do.

While the Cowboys did do a half decent job at getting pressure, they did not do quite good enough in order to contain an elusive, mobile QB like Michael Vick. As a result, Vick was able to expose all of the poor discipline by the Cowboys’ defense whenever they were in zone. This would prove to be so effective for the Eagles that anyone who watched the game would completely forget that the Cowboys managed to contain LeSean McCoy in the running game.

The lopsided nature of this game is of course bad for the Cowboys’ momentum going in to next week’s game against the Giants for the NFC East divisional title. However, the concerns that arise from this game transcend both momentum as well as Tony Romo having to play next week with an injured hand. There are also question marks surrounding Rob Ryan’s ability as a defensive coordinator due to the inconsistent play of the defense in recent weeks.

Even if Ryan is not the one who deserves the blame, the quality of the talent that the Cowboys have on defense contributes to these concerns. Lastly, it remains to be seen whether or not Doug Free and Tyron Smith will be able to keep Jason Pierre-Paul and Justin Tuck in next week’s game, especially after the poor job they did at protecting Stephen McGee on Saturday.

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