‘Banged Up’ O-Line the Focus After Birds Fall in San Fran

By Adam Hermann, Eagles.com

Suffering one offensive line injury in the NFL is plenty. Two can hinder a team. Three is just plain hard to overcome.

Chip Kelly acknowledged as much after the Eagles’ 26-21 loss to the 49ers Sunday evening. With three of the Eagles’ five starting offensive linemen sidelined by injuries, backups center David Molk, left guardMatt Tobin, and right guard Dennis Kelly started in San Francisco Sunday.

Going up against a talented defensive front seven, the young linemen were simply outmatched, which allowed the 49ers’ defense to settle in and stop the Eagles’ run game all afternoon.

“We’re not very good up front right now; we’ve got a lot of guys banged up, and that’s not an excuse, that’s just the reality of it,” Kelly explained after the game Sunday. “[Left tackle] Jason Peters was the only guy who was playing the position he started the season at. Todd moved out, we’ve got three new guys.

“When you play against a front like that, with [defensive end] Justin Smith, one of the best players in the game, and [linebacker] Patrick Willis, [defensive tackle] Ian Williams, [defensive end Ray] McDonald, that group – we got beat. And when your front can stop the run game and generate a pass rush, then you can sit back and play zone and not give up a lot of big plays, and that’s kind of been their M.O.”

The 49ers only notched three tackles for loss during the course of the afternoon, but the front seven stifled the Eagles’ run game. LeSean McCoy and Darren Sproles combined for 21 yards on 11 carries on the ground, leading to a number of short drives that kept the Eagles’ offense unbalanced.

Kelly said it wasn’t a function of either McCoy or Sproles not doing enough with the ball. It was hard for anybody to get momentum behind the team’s banged-up offensive line with the 49ers getting penetration almost at will.

“We couldn’t get anything going up front, and it was very tough sledding for anybody in there,” Kelly said. “It wasn’t like, if you put Darren in there, Darren’s running up and down the field. Running the football’s a cooperative deal; it’s got to be everybody, and we just didn’t get it done.”

With the running game slow to find its feet, the offense looked to quarterback Nick Foles, but once again the San Francisco front seven was a factor. With the 49ers’ ability to answer the rushing game, the front seven turned its attention to pressuring Foles, who attempted 43 passes Sunday.

Foles finished 21-of-43 for 195 yards and two interceptions, both of which came under heavy pressure.

Kelly said that the Niners’ ability to play zone defense after stopping the run early on contributed to their defense’s success against the passing game.

“They played a lot of zone, which we hadn’t seen a lot of,” Kelly pointed out. “They cushioned back and played a lot of zone, and they generated a pass rush with just four guys. A couple of times Nick was getting hit at the top of his drop. I think the one interception he was getting hit so he underthrew it. It causes him to not get enough on the ball.

“A couple of times it looked like something was going to develop in the pass game, but he couldn’t set his feet, couldn’t throw the ball in time.”

Even the screen passing game, which worked wonders against Jacksonville and Indianapolis, and saw mild success against Washington, wasn’t able to bail the Eagles’ offense out of a tough matchup against a skilled defensive unit.

Kelly said the coaches thought that they could counter the San Francisco rush with screens, but were proven wrong by Jim Harbaugh’s defense time and time again.

“We thought, when they’re rushing us and Nick doesn’t have time to throw the ball, then let’s get the screen game a little bit and maybe we can slow the rush down,” Kelly explained. “But they did a good job, especially on the running back screens. We got the outside receiver screens going, but the running back screens they did a really good job of (identifying) the back, finding out where he was, and sticking to him.”

Right tackle Lane Johnson will eligible to play next Sunday against the St. Louis Rams after serving his four-game suspension, which Kelly says the Eagles are eyeing as potential help coming for their beaten-up offensive line.

But in the locker room after Sunday’s game, Kelly wasn’t discouraged. His special teams played a great game, his defense played an excellent game and his offense was just shorthanded from the start. He still liked what he saw from his players in terms of effort, and he told them as much.

“I just told those guys in the locker room very simply, I said, ‘I love your effort, I love how hard you played,'” Kelly said. “There’s going to be times where the ball doesn’t bounce your way, but as long as you stick together as a group and continue to play this hard, you’re going to end up on the right side of things.”