This is my biggest fear and frustration with Gannon. He is convinced that against better QBs you play that soft shell. Well that's when you get those 70%+ completion rates and the opposing offense marches down the field. Gannon has even pulled this with lesser passers and helped make them look like all pros. The personnel is there. The scheme? That's where the inconsistencies happen. I was really hoping Gannon would get a HC job since he was being looked at by a number of teams. Perhaps he'll let his DBs play press, but I doubt it.
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He thinks that if he makes a team run 12 play drives they'll either get a penalty or they'll get sacks and that'll end the drive...

Great offenses just shred you when you do it, against bad teams yea it works.
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With Mahomes it won’t matter unless you get pressure on him early and often. Zone he shreds, as does man to man. If that Dline doesn’t get home he will have to blitz and hope.
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When was the last time the NFC had a truly dominant quarterback? In the AFC, for years it was the eternal three-headed monster of Brady, Manning and Roethlisberger reaching the heights. Now it's Mahomes, with Burrow and Allen playing also rans.

In the NFC, it's been a revolving door of flashes in the pan. Rodgers has been around forever and amassed a good deal of stats and personal glory, but at the end of the day, much like Favre before him, was one and done in Green Bay. Same with Brees in New Orleans. Wilson crapped out quickly in Seattle. Stafford won't be hoisting another Lombardi in L.A. Brady was one and done in Tampa. Warner went one out of three with two teams. Amazingly, Eli Manning is the only NFC quarterback to win two Super Bowls since the 90s but outside of being Brady's kryptonite he was an anomaly at best. And Dak Prescott? Please. He hasn't even made it to the pan to be a flash.

Perhaps Hurts will break the cycle, but obviously the jury's still out on that one. You really have to go back to Aikman or Montana to find anybody with staying power.
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MY biggest fear is that the Chiefs prepare for a heavy zone Eagles team and then Eagles coming out doing shit the Chiefs have never seen them do before, and then take an entire half to adjust.

Because that happens to them.

BUT, i do wonder if the reason ya'll are so zone heavy is because your DB's really aren't that great at man. There's a good possibility here that they're covering up a weakness.
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When you have that front 7, specifically DL, playing man just brings too much risk into play. Sit back, play zone and wait for them to get home.
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It's super easy to sit in zone when you're getting 70 sacks, why risk giving up 50 yard plays when you assume you'll get a few sacks and stop drives?

The Eagles are hard to judge because all the stuff that has worked for them, works because they played terrible competition. They couldn't do shit to stop the Cowboys at all.
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We need to watch what happened vs Dallas and Detroit etc. Did they adjust out of their zones in those games or did they decide they'd rather give up 40 points than change it up?
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Considering they gave up 35 and 40 points I doubt they changed much...
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Packers, Lions, and Cowboys all dropped 30+ on that D.
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Would love to know what % they played zone in those games.

If they sat in their zones most of those games that could mean 1 of 2 things to be true:

1. They don't like playing man because they're masking something here

or

2. Their DC is a stubborn SOB who won't change what they do no matter what.

I prefer option 2, but im happy with both.
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Washington did too..

They literally didn't trail in the in the second half of a game until week 10, they trailed to the Colts for an entire game and won at the end.

The Eagles have basically got to play their game all year, there's a lot of things they haven't even had to go to. They never got behind by 14 points and had to air it out.

Right now though they are hiding Hurts, he's running far less than he did early in the year, dude threw for 270 yards in 2 playoff games combined.
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Eagles philosophy is to simplify the schemes and fall back on superior athletes. They've never had to adjust or change what they do... They just run the same simple shit they've always done but it's hard to stop because of the O\Dline and the running QB allow their athletes to play without thinking. They probably view the Chiefs as a one-trick pony and they'll be gunning to take down Mahomes and run the ball and take deep shots. Eagles won't have any motivation to cater a game plan around the Chiefs.
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IMO, watching every game this year and last, it's option 2. Bradberry is a great corner but, admittedly, seems better in the zone. Slay can man up at an elite level, although near the end of the season he wasn't as successful. But his body of work speaks for him. Maddox, the Eagles slot receiver, is one of the best in the game when he's healthy. And that's been the issue for him.

Gannon is a stubborn guy and does not often make defensive adjustments. He trusts that his guys on the line will get home eventually and make the plays that turn the game. Rarely blitzes but does so a bit more than last year. I'll also admit that it's hard to argue against it all when the line does get home so often, and often leads to turnovers. But the scheme really does rely on the line being disruptive, which it usually is. However, my personal bias is to have a more aggressive (blitzing) defense. But I'm also not an NFL coach so what do I know?
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It's insane to me, especially considering Favre + Rodgers over 3 decades have one title each and I think that was Rodgers' only NFCCG win, paired with the complete lack of parity in the AFC over 2+ decades.

Delhomme, Kaep, Rex Fucking Grossman, Cam Newton, Grapes.... yikes.
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