The Kansas City Chiefs pay a visit to the city of Brotherly Love to face the Philadelphia Eagles, with who they share a mustached common demoninator now, as the two teams meet each other for the first time this season in week three of the NFL 2013 football schedule on Thursday Night Football. The Chiefs come in undefeated with a strong defensive unit shining, while the Eagles lost last week in part due to an ineffective defense struggling to get its act together. The bigger story is the return of former Eagles head coach Andy Reid to Philly wearing new colors. The game has a start time of 8:25pm EST on NFL Network (not ESPN, Fox or NBC) on TV. Watch Thursday Night Football online live streaming instructions for NFL Network can be found below.
The Chiefs have put on an offensive clinic in their first two games as new quarterback Alex Smith has comfortably settled into Reid’s schemes. He isn’t lighting up the stats sheet like some other quarterbacks in the league, but Reid and the Chiefs staff will take four touchdowns to zero interceptions for every two-game stretch for the remainder of the season. Smith has also rushed for 82 yards, though Reid has yet to really test him down the field with a 31-yard pass as his longest thus far.
Smith likes to spread the ball around and one of his favorite targets this season early on has been running back Jamaal Charles. The back who can break one open at literally any moment has caught 11 passes through two games, a team high, and has 71 receiving yards thus far against 132 on the ground. The Eagles defense will need to keep an eye on Charles and not let him burn them on the ground and through the air.
The Chiefs defense will have their hands full trying to stop the Eagles offense. Through two games, the Chiefs defense have only given up 18 points, but they also haven’t faced an offense as prolific and deadly as the Eagles. Tonight’s Thursday Night Football game will be a measuring sticks for the Chiefs to see if their defense is real, or if they benefited from lopsided match-ups in the previous two games.
Chip Kelly has turned the Eagles offense into one of the most dangerous in the NFL after only two games. They have averaged 31.5 points per game, third in the league, and 477 yards per game, second in the league. Micahel Vick has turned out to be the right choice at starting quarterback, and the Eagles offense is clicking on all cylinders.
One concern for Kelly on offense is how well his team plays for a complete game. They have shown burnout issues in the third and fourth quarter after running hurry up sets in the first half. The fast-paced plays keep defenses off balance, but they are also wearing out the Eagles offense long before the final whistle blows.
LeSean McCoy has become not just a bright spot for the Eagles, but the main cog in their wheel. When the Eagles won in week one against the Redskins, he had a huge game with 184 yards. When the Chargers stuffed the box in week two and the Eagles shifted to a more pass-heavy attack, McCoy only had 53 yards on just 11 carries. DeSean Jackson and Brent Celek had great games, but the Eagles ultimately lost with McCoy not able to chip in more offensive output.
Kelly teams in Oregon struggled on defense and this season’s Eagles fit right into that mold. Last week the defensive unit coughed up a whopping 539 yards of offensive to Philip Rivers and the Chargers. Rivers had his way through the air with the porous Eagles secondary, and Alex Smith might do the same tonight unless the Eagles can find a way to slow Smith down and get the offensive unit back on the field rather than watching the majority of the game from the bench. Cornerback Bradley Fletcher will return from injury tonight so that’s a definite plus for Philadelphia.
Tonight’s NFL Thursday Night Football game will be televised in high definition (HD) exclusively on NFL Network. Subscribers of NFL Network on a handful of select cable or satellite providers have the ability to watch a free live online streaming version of tonight’s Thursday Night Football game here on Xbox 360, cell phones, laptops, tablets, iPads or any Internet connected electronic device where Internet streaming would work. I predict the Eagles pull this one out against their former coach by a 26-24 final score as emotions run high on both sidelines.
