In looking at the battle between rookie defensive end Brandon Graham and Eagles starting right tackle Winston Justice, I don’t know whether we should be be excited or fearful.
Is Graham’s occasional domination of Justice reason to believe that the rookie is headed for a big year or that Justice will wake up from last year’s solid season and start playing like that six-sack performance against the Giants earlier in his career?
At times, the rookie has been giving Justice the fits. Sometimes he comes off the ball and runs around Justice with his quickness.
Other times he comes off the ball and gets underneath Justice and runs him back into the face of the quaterback.
There are numerous times where Justice gets the best of Graham but if a offensive tackle loses five out of forty pass plays, he might have given up three or four sacks. All I know is Justice must be able to block the left defensive ends around the NFL better than he’s been blocking Graham during this training camp.
How exactly are Graham and Justice going to play this year? We’ll just have to wait and see.
W Justice has not looked all that solid or confident in a lot of the 1 on 1 drills that I have seen so far.. He looks to be “catching” the rusher too late and is not extending his arms to beat them to the punch, He also seems a half-step slower and basically just not playing with a lot of confidence right now which does not bode well for him or the Eagles O/Line… He needs to snap out this funk and become more aggressive in my opinion..
Update on Injuries around the NFl
Giants – WR S Smith pulled a Groin muscle and is day-to-day
Starting Guard R Seubert broke a bone in his hand and may be out 4-6 weeks depending if he needs surgery…Center S O’hara sill out with swollen/sprained ankle.
Broncos lose another player in DE J Moss who broke his hand and coule be out 2-4 weeks, they were counting on Moss to step up and fill in for Dumervil who is likley lost for the season
Obviously, this is both good and bad. You want this guys going back and forth with getting the best of each other. How is Justice doing against the other DEs? How is Graham doing against the other lineman? I’d be interested in that because that could be an indication of what’s really going on here. If Justice looks bad against everybody then he’s clearly not right and if the kid is good against everyone then that’s a good thing. On the other hand, if Justice is doing well against the others and Graham is just ok against the other, maybe it’s just a matchup problem. Those are bound to happen in the NFL. Some guys have trouble with certain types of players and do well against others. For instance, he may not be able to block a Dwight Freeney but can block a Jared Allen. Both are beasts but different kinds of players. We won’t really know until they start playing real games.
I am not sold on Justice becoming a pro bowler. In watching him in games his footwork and speed seem
bad at times. We’ll have to wait and see this season.
Justice did a horrible job against Spears and Ware when he lined up over there….When the Cowboys molested our Eagles last season….With no real replacement for Runyan or a good center we can expect this mugging to continue.
Let’s see who we blame this disaapointing season on now that Mcnabb is gone.
I think this is sort of an oxymoron cause you can take a team like the saints and look at their camp and say ” Man Drew Brese is passing all over the saints defense” and think this is going to be another year where their defense will be bad but as we all know that wasnt the case. This is why we have camp Justice had for the most part a pretty good season last year give the man a break.
The only thing that can be said is that at least Graham isn’t getting handled regularly. Justice will probably be average to below average, but consider that this will only be his second year as a starter in all of this. Granted there will be second year starters that are better, but there will probably be quite a few that are worse. My best guess with Graham, at this point, is that he’ll be decent against the poor to mediocre RTs and well…you know the rest.
My point is that I do expect a guy that the team moved up in the draft to get to just man handle a later round pick guy that’s a ‘Late Bloomer” and still suspect as a starter. It sounds like the guy looks impressive and almost gets there a lot of times but isn’t really forcing coaches to make personnel decisions on the O-Line. I’m not sure whether Todd Herremans really can’t play yet or whether he’s a “Milk Man”, but I would like to see him matched up against Graham. I don’t know how good or bad he is right at this moment, but I’d wager he’d be a better RT over the long term.
Justice was a 2nd round pick who had a shot of going in the 1st round, was considered a steal when they got him. He was never, however, a left tackle, and since he has gone back to the right side he has more than held his own. I do not expect a rookie to school him, and the rap on Herremans is he has the height of a tackle, but does not have the wingspan, which makes him vulnerable to edge rushers. I think you are grading Justice a little too harshly, he is average or better, not below that.
How did justie do against Dallas the last 2 games of the season?