Reid: “Everyone On The Offensive Side, We Need To Get Better”

The Eagles had a red zone drill yesterday and the defense clearly won it.  They also had a blitz drill yesterday and the defense won that.  The team’s offense just wasn’t on the same page.  The Eagles “O” has had some outstanding practices during this year’s training camp but yesterday wasn’t one of them.

Andy Reid got right to the point after the morning workout.

“The positive, I think, is the defense is playing well,” Reid said. “That’s a positive. Everyone on the offensive side, we need to get better. We continue to push through this and normally what you see is offenses come together a little bit later than defenses, if you do have a good defense.”

It’s still very early and defenses are usually ahead of the offense because the offensive side of the ball relies on timing.  It takes a week or two or three for a offense to get their timing down on most of their plays.

“You can’t have the interceptions, you can’t have the sacks, the quarterback’s running around way too much with the pressure he’s getting right there, so we’ve got to take care of that,” Reid said. “When they’re running the football they’re getting big yards there, so we’ve just go to get the throwing part of it down.”

At the beginning of practice in the red zone period, Kevin Kolb threw the ball early and off target, quite a few times.  They lined up three receivers to the left and sent Jason Avant into the corner of the end zone.  Avant was open for a split-second but Kolb threw the ball high over his head.  He seemed to rush his throw.

Kolb had to pull the ball down a few times and scramble which means there was no one open.  Reid and Marty Mornhinweg tried to line up big receivers Cornelius Ingram, Clay Harbor and Riley Cooper outside to get them in one-on-one situations.  It just wasn’t clicking.

They ran a few plays two times to get them right.

Kolb was able to get the ball to DeSean Jackson in one play when Jackson was matched up one-on-one with Stewart Bradley.  On another play he made a nice throw to Jason Avant.

Kolb would have been knocked out on the first play of the blitz period if it were a live drill and he weren’t wearing the red jersey.  Left defensive end Juqua Parker was turned loose and he had a free run at the young quarterback.

Kolb got rid of the ball on the next play but it was behind tight end Ingram.

During yesterday’s workout Kolb was picked off a couple of times.  One pick was made by Quintin Mikell and the other by Demetrius Patterson.

Center Nick Cole left the practice because his knee was bothering him, so Mike McGlynn jumped in there at the center posiition.  This could be a tremendous opportunity for McGlynn over the next few days because Cole is expected to miss a few days.

Hopefully the Birds offense has a better day later this morning.