Week 8. the Half way mark. Eagles week. So here is the latest installment of What Will Garrett Do(WWGD)? This Week we will be Looking at the Philadelphia Eagles  In this Series of posts I am going to look at the Defenses that Dallas will be facing this year. I will give a Scouting report on each, then based off that I will try to set out what I think the Game plan that I think Garrett will employ. This will be based off my "Air Garrett" posts (Version 1,Version 2) where I set out this statement:

That is what I think "Air Garret" is all about. Attacking the Defense at it's weakest point. Study the opponents carefully. Find out where they are lacking defensively. I bet you will see alot of plays designed to target that area.

So on Sunday, October 30th, 2011, The Cowboys(3-3) will be on the road against the Philadelphia Eagles . Now with Felix and Nagy hurt, there are some questions that arise. However DeMarco Murray looked great in relief of Felix, and Montre Holland was a very good. So I doubt that there will be any significant changes. So lets Look at the Eagles Defense, shall we? 

First off they are similar to the Rams Defense. Both play a "Wide 9" set up, though Philly is better against the pass(ranked 10th @ 217.3 yards a game, better at not allowing points(ranked 21st @ 24.2 PPG) and slighlty better against the run(ranked 23rd @ 123.8 yards a game). They spent How much on this Defense? Well maybe they have just played a bunch of Good Offenses Right? Here are their last 5 games:

(Author's note: from this point on I will have to "drop a game" from my table as every team has played at least 6 games, so this week it will be Week 1 that is dropped, next week will be 1&2, and so on. IF you want I can include those Weeks, however I feel that 5 weeks is enough Information without being over bearing...I will set up a poll at the end to vote on.)

So what does this say? Well over the past 5 games the Eagles have consistent ly held Opponets to below their season Average in YPA, and except tin the Bills game and the Redskin Game allowed teams to run for higher than their season Average on a per carry basis. However they are allowing Teams to complete Passes on them,at a rate of 63%. So it looks like teams are not throwing deep on them, but Throwing short passes. The Reason for this?

These are the Top 3 players for sacks on the Eagles. If you notice that All 3 are on the Defensive line which means that more than likely the Eagles rely on them to create pressure, which allows the Linebackers to focus on the run/pass coverage. Either that or the LB's suck at blitzing...So lets look at those three:

Trent Cole:

Jason Babin:

Cullen Jenkins: N/A..as in not available. No literally I couldn't find his Draft profile anywhere. If anyone can find it, I will be happy to include it here.

Which brings us to the Secondary, Now according to NFL.com Asante Samuel and Nnamdi Asomugha are the starting CB's with Dominique Rogers-Cromartie(DRC) as the Nickel. SO lets look at those 3:

Asante Samuel:

Nnamdi Asomugha:

Dominique Cromartie:

So as you see both DRC and Nnamdi are both big corners that can matchup on Austin and Dez....so the key matchup there will be Asante Samuel. I could also see Dez vs Nnamdi in a fly or post route to take advantage of Dez's speed. if Austin gets matched up on Asante, then that is a good matchup in Dallas' favor also. So what will Garrett do? Well  look for a similar game plan as against the Rams. probably a heavy dose of Murray coupled with some play action passes down the field. Now the key Matchup will be Holland at LG vs Cullen Jenkins at RDT. If Holland can handle Cullen one on one in both the run game and in Pass protection, that will allow Cosata and Kosier to double the other DT. I would imagine that Garrett will bring out Witten and Bennett To help Free and Smith on the edges. The other key point will be if Free or Tyron and Handle Babin or Cole one on one, which would free up Witten to pull the safeties away from Dez and Miles. Which now brings us to the return of the "Funky Formation" for the week:

WR's-none

TE's Witten and Bennett

RB's- Murray, Tanner, Fiamentia

QB-Romo

The key for this "formation is not that it is just a formation but and Actual Game plan. The idea is to start the game with this and keep using it until the Eagles pull the CB's in favor for either more safeties or LB's. if that happens Romo has the option to "Kill" the play which then calls for the Murray, Witten, and Bennett, to move out to the WR spots, where they would be matched up against either a safety or a LB.....and it still allows for some play action due to the presence of Tanner and Fiamentia(both should be capable blockers)

Well that is all for this week. As promised there will be a poll at the end to determine if I should include all the weeks that have been played. As Always I welcome any comments, good or bad, and any Eagles fan feel free to let me know if There is anything out of whack.