NFL GridIron Gab Daily Digest

Senior writer jclombardi presents Eagles scouting report.

Behind enemy lines Eagles scouting report: Rushing Offense--The Eagles have one of the best run games in the NFL statistically.  His running inflate their rushing statistics and the threat of his bootlegs keeps defenses honest and creates running room for halfback McCoy. McCoy is elusive, good in space and finished No. 14 in the league in rushing though he's a poor blocker in blitz pickup. The Eagles mediocre-at-best offensive line. Passing Offense–The Eagles are 8-3 with Vick as their starter. The offense took off when he replaced Kolb. Vick is a more refined passer. He finished the regular season with the NFL's fourth-best passer rating (100.2 points), a career-best plus-15 differential in touchdown passes to interceptions (21 to 6) and will be the NFC starter in the Pro Bowl. He has one of the NFL's strongest throwing arms and his accuracy has improved dramatically. He has excellent speed at both outside receivers with Jackson and Maclin. Tight end Celek isn't overly fast or athletic but gets open, even downfield, and usually catches well. The Eagles need Vick's scrambling talent because their offensive line struggles picking up blitzes and stunts. Rushing Defense–Second-year coordinator McDermott runs the 4-3 scheme. but isn't as exotic or aggressive with his safeties and cornerbacks on blitzes. In McDermott's defense, he lacks game-changing talent on his side of the ball. Passing Defense–The Eagles rank No. 14 in yards allowed per game and per pass, but their ability to take the ball away has saved them. Their 23 interceptions ranks second in the league behind only New England's 25. Cornerback Asante Samuel, who's headed for the Pro Bowl, is a quality cover man. Dimitri Patterson and Joselio Hanson are liabilities at the other starter and nickel corner for a secondary that's allowed 30 touchdown passes. The best rusher is defensive end Cole who is a big and athletic end. He has 10 sacks this season. No one else on the roster has more than four sacks. Special Teams–The Eagles have one of the game's most respected special-teams coaches in Bobby April, a premier kicker in David Akers, and the league's scariest punt returner this side of Devin Hester in Jackson. He's averaging 11.6 yards on his 20 returns this season. He has four punt-return touchdowns in three NFL seasons. Akers, the NFL's all-decade kicker of the 2000s, still has a strong legand has made 84.2 percent of his field goal attempts.

All along the San Francisco 49ers wanted one man to lead them into 2011 and beyond – and they got him.

The team has announced that they have hired now former Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh to take over the franchise. Reports say that Harbaugh, who narrowed his options down to either the Niners or going back to Stanford, will get a five-year deal.

He was the top name in the coaching derby this offseason, as the Dolphins, Broncos and Browns all either spoke to or asked to speak to him about their coaching spots. He did talk to the Fins, but the team decided that he wasn’t serious about the job there, and will stick with Tony Sparano.

The Univ of Michigan was also reportedly interested in having Harbaugh make the move there after they canned Rich Rodriguez. The play of Stanford QB Andrew Luck no doubt had a major hand in Harbaugh’s stock rising in 2010. Luck declared that he was staying in school on Thursday, seemingly paving the way for Harbaugh to also return to the school.

Harbaugh, the brother of Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, was a successful QB in the NFL, playing for the likes of the Bears and Colts in his up and down playing career.

When Baltimore is throwing: It’s anyone’s guess if Cam opens up the playbook and if he tries to feed the ball to Boldin. When Boldin was in Arizona, they made occasional efforts to do that and they didn’t often win but that was because they were a bad football team. His ability to break tackles to get the first down can be just as disheartening and crowd-quieting as running the ball down their throats. The passing game has been up and down all year. Even with a 13-game stretch averaging 105.1 QB rating for Flacco, they had issues on third down and punting on sometimes 3 or more consecutive drives. Cam is coaching for his job and Joe feels kind of like Ben Roethlisberger did after their first Super Bowl win: he wants to play better in the playoff wins. The Chiefs have only one pass-rusher, Tamba Hali (14.5 sacks; tops in the AFC), to speak of and only one corner – Brandon Flowers – who’s pretty good. It’s an issue of too much youth on the Kansas City defense (Eric Berry and Kendrick Lewis are rookies) going up against too much experience, anger and desperation on the Baltimore offense. Edge: Baltimore.

When Baltimore is running: All year long, the O-line has been injured and shuffled and didn’t get it going until the 14th and 15th games of the year. I expect an inspired effort against a Kansas City run defense that has struggled against good running backs. Edge: Baltimore.

When Kansas City is throwing: This will be the first game in which the Ravens have had Gooden, Zbikowski, Ellerbe, and Ed Reed at their deployment. While that could lead to some adjustments in-game, I’ve felt like the pass defense has suffered from a lack of options. That being said, the Ravens allowed a 76.4 QB rating this year. I expect them – especially since Jarret Johnson and Ed Reed are the healthiest they’ve been all year – to shut down the Chiefs’ passing attack. It will have to take someone other than Dwayne Bowe stepping up. Edge: Baltimore.

When Kansas City is running: The only factor that will matter on defense is the blitzing in the red zone. The Ravens are one of the best red zone defenses and – for all the talk about “best running game” – the Chiefs only ran for 13 touchdowns this year. The Ravens will be stout and aggressive in the red zone, but if they blitz, they need to get there immediately and bat the ball or stop them for a loss. The Chiefs might still get some yardage all the way to the 20. Edge: even.

PREDICTION: Now that Matt Hasselbeck is playing for the Seahawks, I think this is the only slam dunk pick and it was already easier to pick than the N’Awlins-Seattle. The Ravens’ physicality, experience, and talent will be enough to win this one. Their red zone defense will probably force a 4th down failure and 1 field goal. Special teams could be a factor, especially if David Reed plays and makes it two different players on the field who’ve returned one for a score this year (Dexter McCluster did as well). For the next round, my fear is that the Ravens lose a game 10-7 or 14-10 where the defensive playmakers are put in position to make plays but the offensive players other than Rice won’t be. Ravens 24, Chiefs 13.

He's won two national championships at the highest level of collegiate football, yet Seattle's Pete Carroll says this weekend's Wild Card game against the defending Super Bowl champions is a different experience.

"The fact that…you play and…the suspense and the tension of the opportunity to play again is, you know, that it's just unique and it's really, really exciting to be a part of," said the Seahawks' first-year head coach during his Wednesday press conference from his team's Renton, Wash. training facilities.

Should Carroll and his Seahawks secure a ticket to the next round of the playoffs, it will require upsetting a New Orleans Saints team that features a Super Bowl MVP and two former national collegiate players of the year, yet Seattle's head coach isn't changing a thing in regards to his team's preparation for the Saturday matchup at Qwest Field.

"From all the way back to [training] camp," said Carroll, "you know that every game is a championship game, every game calls you to give everything you got. We try to learn how to do that in the preparation, the mental process and all of that goes into that so it's not uncommon right now."

"I am not going to ask these guys to play different than they played last week or the week before. That's the whole point: I don't want them to over try. I don't want them to go beyond what, you know, 'I got to make plays I've never played before,' you know? That's the wrong mentality for us."

Something that could help the Seahawks out is the recent rash of injuries the Saints have had at the running back position.

Earlier this week, the team placed Chris Ivory and Pierre Thomas on Injured Reserve. As a rookie this year, Ivory's 716 yards and five touchdowns led New Orleans in both rushing categories. Thomas was the Saints' second-leading rusher this year and led the team the previous two seasons.

The loss of the Ivory and Thomas could be a blow to New Orleans, but the Saints won't be empty handed this weekend as they will turn to the dual-threat of Reggie Bush to handle the lead duties. In five years in the National Football League, the running back has more receiving yards (2,142) than rushing yards (2,090) and has a combined 29 touchdowns.

"He's an unusual, unusually gifted football player that no matter who watches the film, you're gonna say, 'Hey we gotta do something here because this guy can do this, this and this,"' said Carroll, who coached the Heisman Trophy-winning running back at the University of Southern California.

"We have to know where he is. We have to…take care of our matchups and things because they'll use him to beat linebackers and they'll use him to get out of the backfield and get down the field and option run and all the things he's good at as well as carry the football."

The team also has Julius Jones and, earlier this week, resigned DeShawn Wynn and signed Joique Bell.

Wynn, a fourth-year pro out of the University of Florida, spent the first five weeks of the season with the Saints before heading to San Francisco to play for the 49ers.

Bell, an undrafted rookie out of Wayne State, spent time with the Colts and Eagles prior to joining the Saints this week. In his senior year at Wayne State, the running back won the Harlon Hill trophy, an award given to the country's top football player at the NCAA Division Two level, and amassed 2,084 rushing yards while scoring 29 times.

The Seahawks won't be able to focus their defensive pressure solely on a relatively new-look ground game, though.

"We're playing against one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL," said Carroll of Drew Brees.

In helping guide his team to last season's Super Bowl victory, Brees was named the game's MVP. This year, he was among the league's top passers in yards, completion percentage and touchdowns.

However, the season wasn’t perfect for him. Brees threw 22 interceptions, a career high.

The Saints won't be the only team Saturday using a quarterback that had a forgettable season in terms of ball security.

Thursday, Seattle head coach Pete Carroll tabbed 12-year veteran and long-time starter Matt Hasselbeck as the one who will be under center for the Seahawks.

Hasselbeck missed the team's regular-season finale, a 16-6 victory over St. Louis to clinch the NFC West championship, due to a left hip injury sustained on a one-yard touchdown run by the quarterback two weeks ago in Tampa Bay against the Buccaneers.

Now recovered, Hasselbeck will need to focus on his decision making to beat the Saints. This season he's thrown 17 interceptions, tying his career high he set last year.

The quarterback position hasn't been the only issue for the Seattle offense.

"The red zone's going to be very critical for us," said Seattle's Pete Carroll.

Seattle's struggled inside opposing teams' 20-yard lines, scoring points just 42 percent of the time.

"They're going to make it very difficult for us," said Carroll of the New Orleans defense who kept the Seahawks off the scoreboard two out of three times when Seattle was within the Saints' 20-yard line earlier this season.

"We got to find some ways in to, you know, to get our scores. They're effective like they've been with their offense, we're gonna have to keep with them and of course we'd like to keep the score down, but they're going to be very difficult. So, we'll have to find our ways to get in the end zone."

Saturday's kickoff at Qwest Field between the Saints and the Seahawks is set for 4:30 p.m. Eastern and will be televised on NBC.

Can't get enough NFLGridironGab? Follow SeahawksGab Editor Devon Heinen on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DevonHeinen.

After meeting with Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has decided to forgo that route and retain Tony Sparano, according to Jay Glazer of FOXSports.com. It is believed that Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland continued to push Ross to retain Sparano, but that Ross insisted upon exploring the Stanford head coach.

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross courted Harbaugh in a meeting in the San Francisco area on Wednesday, a day after he met with the San Francisco 49ers about their head coaching vacancy, two other people with knowledge of the situation said. But after the meeting, Harbaugh was still considering staying at Stanford, one person said.

Harbaugh also met Thursday with the president of the university and the provost. The school made an amended offer to the coach with enhancements from an offer presented in early December.

Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett announced Thursday he will declare as an underclassman for the NFL Draft. Mallett's decision came two days after the Razorbacks completed their 10-3 season with a 31-26 loss to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl, and within hours of Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck's announcement he was returning to school next season.

Luck had been projected as the No. 1 pick in April's draft. Mallett had been expected to make the jump since announcing Jan. 8, 2010, that he would return for his junior season, one he vowed would put Arkansas back on the national scene.