Sunday Stuff
Posted: May 15th, 2011 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Tags: Howie Roseman | 13 Comments »My new PE.com column is about how the lockout will affect the first 5 picks and their ability to contribute right away. It really is hard to quantify the importance of good coaching by the positional coaches in the NFL. They can have a huge impact on young players.
If you’ll scroll down in the comments section of the article you’ll see that one of our Eagles brethren has put together some highlight videos for Brian Rolle and Casey Matthews. It’s always fun to watch the young guys in action and try to imagine what they’ll do when they put on the Eagles uniforms and play in the NFL.
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There is still a great deal of angst about RCB. I understand the worries. The Eagles haven’t developed a young corner since…Rod Hood? They did hit a home run when they signed stud free agent Asante Samuel back in 2008. He has provided the Eagles with a playmaking force at LCB. Now the hole at RCB must be filled aggressively.
The Eagles passed on CB Jimmy Smith in the 1st round. He was as NFL ready as it gets. That is a sign that the Eagles have another player targeted. They have a plan that they’re confident in. There are no guarantees, of course. You can’t make a player sign with you. You can’t make another team trade with you. I do think that the fact the Eagles took a CB in the 3rd round that everyone sees as a project is a sign that the team feels confident in their plan for RCB. There isn’t much of a safety net in place.
The one good thing about this situation is that Howie Roseman has proven to be an aggressive GM. He will go all out to get his target. Howie isn’t as value oriented as Joe Banner and Tom Heckert. It will be interesting to see who Roseman has targeted and how quickly he gets the ball rolling on making the deal. Howie was very disappointed the Eagles weren’t able to get Julius Peppers last year. He will do whatever he can to make sure that scenario doesn’t repeat itself.
The Eagles want a stud at RCB. They will not give the job to Trevard Lindley or Dimitri Patterson or some low level player from another team. I can’t promise you Howie will land Nnamdi Asomugha or a Pro Bowl player, but we won’t go after a project. We’ve already got projects of our own. The goal is to get a player you can plug in immediately and expect to play at a reasonably high level.
People have asked me about who some targets might be, aside from Nnamdi. It really is hard to say because of the uncertainty with the rules of free agency. Let’s wait until we find out who will actually be available before we get into who fits and how they fit.
Agree that it appears ‘something’ is planned for RCB. How many rookie CBs start all season for playoff teams?
The Kolb for 1st and DRC still seems to make the most sense to me. Seems like a price the Eagles would accept. Talking heads seems to think Peterson will step in right away so that lessens the loss of DRC who is not much of a tackler either.
Speaking of LB rookies, I am curious to see where the LB’s get work. I am not sure how much the defense will change. With a short preseason and similar scheme I could see Chaney at WILL, Bradley at MIKE and Fokou at SAM. Matthews to learn MIKE and Rolle to learn WILL. I guess Chaney also WILL but mostly nickel. Replacements would go to WILL and others move over so Bradley would need reps at SAM.
He will go all out to get his target.
What is the above comment based on?
Howie showed an ability to acquire players last year despite less than ideal circumstances. He aggressively moved up for Brandon Graham. He traded for Darryl Tapp. He traded for Ernie Sims. He traded a future pick so he could take Jamar Chaney when he was still on the board in the 7th.
Howie paid a good price when it was necessary. He aggressive and creative in finding targets he liked and teams to deal with.
Howie wanted to land a big time free agent, but once Peppers went off the market there was no other player he had major interest in. I suspect this year will be different.
Offseason intrigue is one of my favorite parts about the NFL. Moves, gettin your best 22 on the field, making sure your next 22 are able to step in, managing the cap.. love it.
I think that’s what has me upset the most regarding the off season.
Not impressed thus far with Howie Roseman. At all.
So far, the things I am happiest with during Roseman’s reign are him finally convincing Andy to trade McNabb, and the firing of several coaches, though I don’t know how much he really had to do with either…
Isn’t it a little early to say whether we’re impressed with Roseman or not? I mean there haven’t been many draft classes where he has been the main guy (other than AR of course). In fact it’s only last year and this year. We can’t judge this year b/c no one’s played yet, and our top two picks showed flashes last year before they got hurt. Furthermore, there was decent production from the lower end of the draft for us (Cooper, Chaney, Coleman)
If you want to go back to when he was VP of player personnel (2008-2009) then you have to give him credit for DJax, Maclin, McCoy, Fokou, and McGlynn. I’m not saying that everyone should stand up and applaud for him, but I think it’s way too early to call on this issue of whether he’s been impressive.
@Jason
Glass half-empty or half-full, I think we can agree its not full, right? Howie hasn’t been some cataclysmal failure. I just greatly preferred Heckert. In my opinion, we’ve downgraded at GM. The sample size isn’t large at this point, nobody would argue that. However, every single decision should be able to be judged on its own merit. Sean McDermott was fired after one year. If you are suggesting a feeling out period for our GM, how long should that last? This isn’t some 3rd round CB prospect like Curt Marsh, whom we hope will grow into an NFL starter, or better. This is the GM. He needs to be good from day 1, especially from the Pro Personnel side of things.
@mcud
I think you’ve said it yourself. He hasn’t been good, he hasn’t been bad. I think that there has to be some time where we allow the decisions to pan out. I don’t think there has been enough time to judge whether he is a downgrade over Heckert or not. You tell me – when we say Heckert was better, are we judging him decision by decision, or are we judging on the general state of the team over his tenure? I think as fans we are just a little too impatient.
Take the McDermott problem for example. If they get better players, and Castillo turns the D around and we’re a legit SB contender on D in 2 years, how will we look back on the McDermott decision? If Graham, Allen, Cooper, Chaney, Watkins, Jarrett, and Marsh turn out to be good to great players, how will we see Roseman as an evaluator of talent?
My point is that this early in his tenure it’s unfair to judge Roseman against a predecessor who has years of bankable results to examine. I don’t know what the grace period is. But what I do know is that you can’t look at every decision in a vacuum. You do have to examine how the team does from year to year, how the players drafted by the exec. do from year to year, and then you can make a judgment call on whether someone has done well or not. Based on that criteria, it’s way too early to tell. And that doesn’t even take into account the fact that AR has a big hand in these decisions too, so we don’t know exactly how much of a stamp Roseman is putting on this team, and we had those same questions about Heckert when he was here.
Re the RCB, I like Tommy’s comments some days ago of DRC (Rodgers-Cromartie) of Arizona. He is still young but already 3 years in NFL. Good size. We could get him as part of the Kolb trade, probably not straight up, but part of the package.
We are not privy to the thinking of FO. But DRC has to be one of the better choices out there. It will fit nicely with the criteria of this team idea of FAs.
mcud – McDermott was fired after two years, not just one.
Matt,
You’re right. The sheet I was looking at had JJ for 2009, but obviously he didn’t even coach the first game. Good catch, my apologies.
Something that might interest only me is that when looking at our roster for 2010, we are the only team in the league that didn’t have a single player start all 16 games for us on defense (Trent and Q came close with 15). Every single team had at least one defensive starter for all 16 games, and most had several. Lots of factors there, but interesting nonetheless to me.
I still have major heartburn with Roseman and how he dealt with the RCB last year. In my opinion it was a huge mistake and miscalculation to rely on Ellis Hobbs. Even when he was not hurt the guy was killing us with his play. Roseman never addressed RCB and kept pimping Hobbs, although most fans were not buying it. For this reason among a few others, Roseman lost me from the beginning.
Dey gon sign me.