First let me say that Gurley is a truly elite RB. Two things are worthy of note.
1) He can turn a seam into a long play at any time. But … almost more importantly …
2) He turns poorly blocked plays into 2-4 yard gains. I mean, it’s incredible. And incredibly valuable. When you have a RB who can wiggle for a few yards even on bad plays and avoid long yardage … you have a tremendous advantage. This is what Marshall always talks about behind the mike: “Hidden Yardage.” Fantastic.
Now, the trouble with Gurley the last 2 weeks is that his greatness makes it very hard to assess the OL. Are they gelling at least in run blocking? I dunno. Gurley is almost certainly making them look better than what they are.
‘Cause, see, they suck. I mean, they suck. The pass blocking is beyond awful. And the run blocking is about scheme more than it is about actual blocking.
It is abundantly clear that this team cannot step up without an ENORMOUS rise in OL play. They’re young, but I really doubt they’ll get there before the season is lost.
Meanwhile, our receivers have devolved back into the mire. They aren’t giving Foles anything to throw to. And that’s WITH the Pack playing lots of guys at the LOS. No one in the receiver core is able to make a defense pay for swarming up. It’s back to where we were a few years back.
And then there’s Foles. He’s got nothing to work with. But he made some damn poor decisions. Who knows.
It ain’t gonna work, lads. Not this year.
By virtue of the absurd ...
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Agamemnon
