This the tenth of a 16-part series where Hog Heaven looks at each game on the Washington Redskins 2013 season. We are three days away from the start of Training Camp.
Sunday, November 17, Redskins at Eagles
Quarterback Match-Up: Ten weeks after these teams tangled in Washington, we come to the second big quarterback question of the season. Will Michael Vick and Robert Griffin III last the season?
There is no certainty that Vick will start for the Eagle, though Chip Kelly would be an idiot to start anyone else. Kelly is not committed to Vick who hasn’t been a durable quarterback anyway. If the Eagles are out of the playoff chase, Kelly will be tempted to see what he’s got in Nick Foles or Matt Barkley before setting his 2014 Draft strategy.
The question about Robert Griffin III is in two parts. Part 1 is when will he start; part 2 is can he last.
Rivals will game plan the Redskins’ offense, but there is no mystery in what they will do to Griffin. Hit him hard and hit him often, as often as they can within the rules.
There is nothing new about that. Quarterback kill shots are as old as Buddy Ryan bounties. The knock out blows the Falcons and Ravens dealt RGIII were clean hits. As Nick Bergeron points out in a recent Hog Heaven story, Griffin was tackled on 55 percent of his runs last year, 10 were hits while out of bounds (clearly not legal).
I won’t call it a prediction, but shall we say there is a one in four chance that the starters in this game will be either Nick Foles, or Kirk Cousins, or both.
Coordinator Match-Up
Pat Shurmer vs. Jim Haslett
Kyle Shanahan vs. Billy Davis
We covered this at length in our July 1 post, Eagles: International Team of Mystery.
Nothing will have changed, but each team will get one advantage that will cancel each other out.
The Eagles will have 10 weeks of live play to absorb Pat Shurmer and Billy Davis’ schemes. They should begin to jell in the second half of the season.
The Redskins will have 10 weeks of video to break down Eagles tendencies.
To read the full breakdown of the coordinator match-ups, click here. Go take a look. We’ll be here when you get back.
Storyline: Andy Reid and Eagles fans last season figured out that Michael Vick is no Donovan McNabb. I get the sense from Eagles stories and blogs that fans could be brutal to Vick if things do not go well.
McNabb will retire as an Eagle during a September home game. What if McNabb and Philadelphia waited until this game in November? Awkward.
Way too early prediction: Washington will sweep Philadelphia. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Redskins.
Next: 49ers at Redskins
Read the complere series. Click 2013 Game by Game.
“Way too early prediction” means we reserve the right to change our minds after we see these teams in preseason games. Look for Hog Heaven’s stake-in-the-ground prediction the week before game one.
This story idea was inspired by the Big Ten Network Tom Dienhart who is running a similar series for the B1G football season.
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