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Tag: offense

  • Donovan McNabb Honored During Halftime

    Donovan McNabb, the former Eagles quarterback was given a special ceremony from the team during their game on Thursday night. McNabb has received quite a bit of criticism throughout his career, and some do not feel that he deserves the honor.

    His No. 5 jersey was retired during a special half-time ceremony, becoming the ninth player in team history to receive the honor. Since his retirement and the retiring of his jersey, there has also been talk of a possibility of him being inducted into the hall of fame. He was drafted by the Eagles in 1999 and played eleven seasons, before being traded to the Redskins.

    McNabb had a successful career with the Philadelphia Eagles, but since then views of him have switched a bit. He finished out his career in a couple of disappointing final seasons with the Eagles and then played for the Washington Redskins and Minnesota Vikings each for less than a season. It is not easy to make a case for him to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, since only 23 modern-era quarterbacks have become Hall of Famers, and only six of those: Troy Aikman, John Elway, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Warren Moon and Steve Young, debuted within the past 30 years, according to the Washington Post. Although, McNabb’s stats match up pretty well with each of them and his biggest fault is that he never won a Super Bowl, but neither did Marino, Kelly or Moon.

    The former Eagles coach, Andy Reid, also made a return to the field during Thursday’s game as the new coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. The game ended with a final score of 26-16 in favor of the Chiefs. The Chiefs become 3-0 after the win and seem to be the real deal this year, after struggling for the past several years. Before the loss, McNabb took a stab at the new Eagles read-option offense being run by Chip Kelly, calling it “just a fad.” He recognizes that it has been working, but in some cases it just does not seem sensible. He was quoted saying, “I tip my hat off to what they’ve been doing the first two weeks, but there comes a time if you’re up by 14, up by 21, maybe with about 11, 10 minutes to go, it’s time to go into a mode where you’re trying eat up some clock.” McNabb played in the West Coast offense under Andy Reid, and believes the new speed-based play-calling is actually a detriment to the Eagles’ success, mentions Philly.com.

    The Eagles fans will have to wait and see where this offense takes the team. They are currently 1-2 after their loss.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7QuRxPkMS0

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  • Johnny Manziel Shines Against Alabama, Despite Loss

    Johnny Manziel has become quite the elite player in college football and is one of the best according to some people. Yesterday, the ultimate showdown took place between SEC offenses when the Texas A&M Aggies took on the Alabama Crimson Tide. Manziel, Texas A&M’s quarterback is able to get it done in the air and on the ground, and in yesterday’s game, he threw for 464 yards and ran for 98 yards. The Aggies ultimately lost the game in the end, but put up an incredible fight from start to finish. The final score was 49-42 in favor of Alabama.

    Alabama seemed to have no answer for Manziel throughout the game, and the only thing that they could do was retaliate with touchdowns of their own. The defense of both teams was almost not present, while both quarterbacks are also very elite players and like to rack up as many touchdowns as possible. This game was a rematch of the game that they played last year in which A&M pulled off the victory. In last year’s match A&M jumped ahead 20-0, and delivered Alabama their only loss of the season. This year was much of the same, although Alabama was able to hang on and win this one. They were finally safe from the unstoppable play of Manziel when Alabama’s quarterback AJ McCarron took a knee to end the game, leaving Manziel with nothing more to do, according to ABC News.

    The tough play of Johnny Manziel has even earned himself the nickname of Johnny Football. He has been known to get a bit too cocky at times too though, and received a penalty for excessive celebration earlier this season against Rice. He was also one of the leading candidates for the Heisman Trophy last year.

    Alabama soon found that the only solution to stopping Manziel was to keep him off the field and keep their offense on the field for as long as possible. They were executing the strategy of “best defense is a good offense” in this case, hoping to see the aggressive play of Manziel as little as possible. AJ McCarron was quoted saying that “With the type of offense A&M has, you have to eat up some clock and pound the ball.” This seemed to be the only thing that Alabama could do in order to stop him, and it eventually worked. McCarron passed for 334 yards in Alabama’s win.

    Manziel was virtually unstoppable for much of the game, setting records for passing yards and total offensive yards. He set the single-game school record for passing yards and put up the second-most total offensive yards in a game (562), second only to his own total (576) against Louisiana Tech last year, states ESPN.

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