When Sam Bradford said earlier this week that he was looking forward to getting hit once or twice, he probably didn’t mean as hard as he ended up getting hit -- twice.
He engineered a single, productive drive before getting pulled after Chip Kelly saw enough. What he saw, he liked, as the Eagles sank the Ravens 40-17 on Saturday in both club’s second preseason tilt.
It was the first time Bradford appeared on an NFL gridiron for 364 days after suffering his second-career ACL tear, and his reaction to getting hit was first and foremost in Kelly’s mind in the debut.
Baltimore had faced a precise and confident quarterback in each team’s joint practices over the last week, so were eager to make a statement with him out of that red “Don’t touch me” jersey.
The Eagles went 84 yards on that drive over 11 plays, culminating in Ryan Mathews’ 14 yard touchdown rush to take and hold the advantage for the duration. It wasn’t easy.
Bradford ended up on the field on his face twice. He was taken out first by linebacker Terrell Suggs, who charged through weak protection and went low for the quarterback’s knee, twisting him down to the turf and drawing a penalty for his efforts.
Bradford was visibly upset with the tenor of that play and Ravens coach John Harbaugh was visibly upset with the presence of the flag. He had no right to be; Suggs was rightly called out for what certainly appeared a dirty play.
“It got our guys fired up,” Bradford said afterwards. “There’s no doubt about that. I thought we responded well after that, put together a nice drive. When things like that happen in the game, you can’t dwell. You’ve just got to keep going. I was a little upset. I can’t probably repeat what I said to him.”
Two plays later, on a 2nd-and-7 snap from the Ravens 49, the Eagles’ signal caller was plastered in the chest on an unchallenged (and legal) rush from Brandon Williams. He stayed down for a second, grimaced, put his head back on his shoulders, shook it off, and carried on.
His toss for Darren Sproles went for 12 yards and on the resulting 3rd-and-6, Bradford put one on a line after Jordan Matthews snuck through some uninspired zone coverage on what became a 15 yard gainer to the Ravens 14. Then the Eagles went to the ground.
Led by Suggs, Baltimore came with power over the left side on the following snap, but Ryan Mathews took the handoff through the middle and fooled them all over the middle untouched for the first and only lead the Eagles would need on the night.
The concern for Kelly and his cohorts is not so much Bradford himself, but the men blocking him. The tackles are not under suspicion on either side. Lane Johnson to the right and Jason Peters to the left held their own, and Peters’ work on both the Eagles’ early scoring pushes were pivotal.
It’s the guard spots that leave something to be desired. Philadelphia lost Evan Mathis and Todd Herremans this offseason and replaced them with Allen Barbre to the left and, for the time being, Andrew Gardiner on the right. Bradford was on the ground those two times because the interior of the line failed to seal the pressure from Suggs and Williams.
But, overall, everything went according to Chip Kelly's plan. That's all he asks.
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