Jimmy Kempski Breaks Down the Eagles Win over the Packers
After the Eagles 40-33 win over the Packers, “The Best Show Ever?” talked to Jimmy Kempski from the Philly Voice. What did he see while covering the game? Here is some of what Jimmy Kempski had to say when he joined us earlier today.
On The Progression of Jalen Hurts into a Star Player…
“He is hard to defend. If you play him the way the Packers played him in this game, he is going to kill you on the ground. A lot of teams will play a lot of zone coverage so they can keep their eye on the QB. The Packers were playing a lot of man last night. And when you play man you are concentrating on sticking with your Wr as opposed to playing with your back to the endzone. And you can’t see him when he runs. There were a lot of runs where he just had wide-open spaces. And he just gobbled up big gains on the ground.
It is a bind on defenses. You can kind of dicate what kind of coverages you will see on the back end. If you play him the way the Packers played him, he is going to beat them on the ground. And if you play a lot of zone you become predictable and they are going to call a bunch of zone beaters. He has progressed as a passer in terms of accuracy and pre-snap adjustments. And he always had the running ability and the intangibles. But he has really become a complete Qb this year. He is a legitimate MVP candidate, amongst guys like Patrick Mahomes, Tua, and Josh Allen.”
On How Great This Offensive Line is…
“There are so many different things that line can do in the run game. On the left side, you have Mailata and Dickerson and they just mash. You are basically running right at defenses when you do that. And on the right side, you can do that with Lane too. But he, Seumalo, and certainly Kelce can get on the move. You can do a lot of different things with them getting to the second level. They can beat you in a lot of different ways in the run game.
I can’t claim to watch all 32 offensive lines in the league. But It’s hard to imagine there is a better offensive line in the NFL. Particularly when it comes to rushing offense. And they opened up huge holes in that game last night. Miles did his part and hit those holes and broke tackles. But you have to give a lot of credit to the O line for the way they played…
Now they have AJ Brown, and Jalen Hurts figured out how to throw the ball. The running game is sort of the engine. And what they can do in the passing game brings them to another level.”
On If Reed Blankenship has to fill in for CJ Gardner Johnson
“It’s a downgrade. I give Reed plenty of credit for what he did last night. I actually thought he was excellent in training camp this year. Well worthy of the roster spot he earned. He showed good instincts… We saw he wasn’t afraid to lay the wood on opposing ball carriers. And we saw that in the game last night. On the interception he saw that play developing, he broke on it and made a fantastic catch. And we also saw the bad in that game. There was a ball coming across the middle, he took a bad angle, and that is why it wound up going for a TD.
There are going to be growing pains with a guy like him… I do think he is worthy of playing time. But CJ Gardner Johnson is leading the NFL in interceptions. And to just throw an undrafted rookie free agent in there, and hope he is going to give you the same level of production is wishful thinking. But certainly, he showed something last night where it is not going to be a total disaster.”
And you can listen to the full conversation with Jimmy Kempski below…