I highly recommend you add them to the list of blogs you peruse on a daily basis.
That having been said, I read Chip's analysis of tonight's Cowboys-Eagles preview and I can only assume he thinks Brian Dawkins and Lito Shepherd still patrol the back end of Philly's defense.
Yes, I know the failures of this team when the pressures been on have been well chronicled. I know parallels have been drawn all week between the failure in 2007 and this matchup with the Eagles, knowing that Andy Reid is 7-0 in first round games.
But I have to take umbrage with the statement below, and not just because he predicts a Philly win:
Prediction
Eagles 27, Cowboys 23
All I can say to Romo, Phillips, Jones and Co. is "prove it!" The Eagles have over the last decade. Forget what's happened the last four weeks and consider the last 10 years. Or what happens tomorrow night. If a 13-3 Cowboys team can lose to the underdog Giants, an evenly-matched Cowboys team can lose to the Eagles.
They're not. Especially on the defensive side of the ball for Philly.
Like I said at the beginning, Lito Shepherd and Brian Dawkins are no longer providing that shut down defense on the back end of the field. And to take it a step further, Jim Johnson, God rest his soul, is no longer putting together the blitz packages that made this unit one of the most feared defensive units over the last decade.
As they've proven in the first two games, the Cowboys can generate big plays on this defense when they need to.
In the first matchup, they stemmed the tide twice with long throws to Patrick Crayton on their final drive of the first half and a 3rd and 14 conversion to Miles Austin for a 49 yard TD in the fourth quarter that broke a 13-13 deadlock.
Then last week, they proved they can methodically drive down the field on the Eagles en route to a 24-0 win that, in spite of what some mediots might suggest, was not a case where Sean McDermott intentionally pulled back on his blitz packages because of the rematch this week.
Philly had a first round bye and home field in the second round on the line so you can kiss that theory good bye. Rather, they played back because Dallas burned them in the first meeting.
On the other side of the ball, I will concede that Philly's wideouts and Donovan McNabb have had chances to make big plays.
In the first meeting, Jeremy Maclin had a chance to extend a drive on third down but let a ball slip right through his fingers. Last week, Desean Jackson got behind Terence Newman but McNabb over through him for what surely would have been a game tying TD...in the first half.
But what else ya got?
Because to hear some mediots tell it, the Eagles offense was dominating the Dallas defense in the first two meetings. They just weren't putting up the points to show for it.
If only DeSean had hauled in that catch and taken it all the way or Donovan hadn't have bungled that snap at the Dallas 20 in the first half, the Eagles would have surely won.
That's assuming the Eagles defense would have instantly found a solution to slowing down the Cowboys' offense.
Now about those parallels to 2007, I'd submit to you that the Cowboys team that is entering these playoffs is vastly different from the one that limped in two years ago.
Against the Giants, we were hoping to see the Cowboys flip the switch on offense and it never happened.
This time around, the Cowboys offense which struggled for much of the year has scored a touchdown on it's opening drive of the game in three straight games. The switch is definitely on.
And it's definitely on on the defensive side of the ball where the Cowboys, for the first time in franchise history, posted back to back shutouts against the Redskins and Eagles. No small feat to be sure.
They also don't have Jacques Reeves playing opposite Terence Newman. And they certainly don't have Roy Williams sucking the life out of the defense at strong safety.
What they do have is a nice replacement in Gerald Sensabaugh and Mike Jenkins, whose gone from being the guy who won't try to lay a finger on Brandon Jacobs as he strolled into the end zone at the Meadowlands last year to being a ball hawking, play making corner, as evidenced by his momentum stopping pick against the Eagles back in Week 9 with Philly leading 13-10 late in the third quarter.
What this game boils down to is two offenses.
One that's really hitting it's stride and shown in the past two games that when a play needs to be made, it can make that play versus another offense that's banking on it's ability to break out. Because, you know, that's what they did against the lesser lights of the NFL.
I'm obviously taking Dallas tonight and I don't really think it'll be all that close.
Cowboys 24, Eagles 10
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