Grading ST And Coaching

After doing the Offense and Defense, it's now time to look at ST and Coaching. Added at the end are stats for the year.

Special teams: David Akers set the franchise mark for the most points scored and had another 100+ point season (110) but he accuracy is diminishing, as evidenced by his 1-of-6 from 40-49 yards and 1-of-4 from 50-yards plus but he finished 24 of 32 for the year. Sav Rocca, imported from Australia after many years of Aussie Rules Football, punted 73 times for an average of 42 yards a kick with 24 punts inside the 20, seven touch-backs, and a long of 65 yards. Kick and punt return coverage kind of sucked, so as a result, the returns kind of didn’t pan out, as Reed averaged 22.6 yards a kick return on 31 returns and Buckhalter averaged 21.6 yards a return on 31 kicks, while Mahe returned 31 punts for eight yards, while Westbrook had four punt returns, averaging 19.8 yards a return, including a 64-yard return which nearly won us the game against the Seahawks. Jon Dorenbos, who came on last year when Mike Bartrum got injured, proved his worth with a 5-year contract extension prior 
 to the final game of the year with spot proof long snapping.
GRADE-DORENBOS: A- (90%)
GRADE-AKERS: B- (81%)
GRADE-ROCCA: C+ (79)

Coaching: I never did a grade for coaching, but now that we are at the end of the season, I figured there is no reason not to do one so here we go: I think for the most part it sucks! Listen, not only did the percentage of pass-run plays suck (to my records, it was 60-40 pass-run) and not only did Correll and Brian NOT get enough carries (I thought anyway) but having McNabb pass as much as he did when he STILL wasn’t 100% was stupid. And don’t think for one minute that the defense is exempt from this: we need to quite blitzing all the time and we need to work some of that creative stuff that we illustrated just for New England, since they KNEW what we were going to do anyway. A couple of the board members here have talked about using a 3-4 because you can use many guys outside to linebackers (like Cole) or we could use many of our talented linebackers at once. Of course, this would be beyond the realms of reality and it would also make too much sense to pull off.
GRADE: D+ (69%)

Rankings-Offense:
-Points: 21 (17th)
-Yards: 358.1 (6th)
-Pass: 234.7 (10th)
-Rush: 123.4 (8th)

Rankings-Defense:
-Points: 18.8 (9th)
-Yards: 311.4 (10th)
-Pass: 215.6 (18th)
-Rush: 95.8 (7th)

Team Stats:
-Total first downs: 323
-First Downs: 118-186-19 (rush-pass-penalty)
-Third down: 97/229 (42.4%)
-Fourth down: 9/15 (60%)
-Total offensive yards: 5,729
-Total Rushing yards: 1,974
-Rushing: 421 Carries (4.7 a carry)
-Total passing yards: 3,755
-Passing: 350-577-15-6.9 (completions, attempts, interceptions, average per pass)
-Sacks: 37
-Touchdowns: 38
--12 rushing, 24 passing, 2 defensive
-Time of possession: 30:56-29:04 (Eagles-Opponents)
-Turnover ratio: minus-8

Who know what will happen in the off-season but I am pretty sure that a lot of people can agree on what is needed for the team. And some important decisions need made in personnel (such as to cut guys like Kearse and Jerome McDougle or to pick up Spikes’ contract for the final year) but this is going to be fun…

…I think.