Demetrius Bell Visiting
Posted: March 31st, 2012 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 39 Comments »Free agent OT Demetrius Bell is in town tonight. My sources tell me that GM Howie Roseman dropped his kids off so Bell could watch them while Howie went out to have some cocktails and watch the Final Four. After the kids time with Drew Rosenhaus, I fully expect them to start talking contract with Bell after an hour of playing Crazy Eight.
Honestly, signing Bell is probably the smart option. That gives you a viable starter at LT. King Dunlap remains a good backup OT. You have freedom to do what you want in the draft. You can also monitor the recovery of Jason Peters to decide if he will make it back for 2013 or if we do need to look for his long term replacement. Nothing is certain with Peters. He could be fine for 2013 or might seriously struggle. Every injury and every recovery is a bit different.
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In case you missed it from the last post, here is a video of Demetrius Bell in action.
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Many of you wondered why we traded for DeMeco Ryans instead of just signing Lofton or Tulloch. Easy. The Eagles wanted someone on the roster who had come back from an Achilles injury in case such an injury occurred to a current player. The answer was on page 237 of Andy Reid’s famous blue binder. This is 1 million percent true. Or more.
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Reader ACViking offered this tidbit the other day:
Who Are These Guys?
David Diehl
Chad Clifton
Jermon Bushrod
Max Starks
Tarik Glenn
Marvel Smith
Matt Light
Roman Oben
These are the starting LTs on the Super Bowl Champions for the past 10 years.
Only two of these LTs were Pro Bowlers during the SB season: Clifton, Glenn. (Bushrod and Light reached that status later).
The Eagles can win without Peters. It hurts for sure. But they can win without him.
A follow-up on this theme…the last 2 really high draft pick LTs to win Super Bowls were Jonathan Ogden and Orlando Pace. Ogden was picked in 1996 and won in 2000. Pace was picked in 1997 and won in 1999. Since then the trend has been for teams to win without elite LTs.
No one is happy Peters is down, but the Eagles can win without him. Life just won’t be as easy. And WR screens won’t be nearly as much fun to watch. Seeing #71 flying down the field and blowing up DBs was a beautiful thing.
Times like this are why we hired Howard Mudd, right?
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I know not everyone is into heavy metal, but for those who are… the new season of That Metal Show starts tonight at 11pm on VH-1 Classic. Lars Ulrich is the main guest. TMS is my favorite show on TV, even though Eddie Trunk is a degenerate Giants fan. No one is perfect.
I think Demetrius will be fine for a year. He has three months to work with Mudd and three months for the Eagles to get him in the weight room with the eagles trainers. Plus like you mentioned before, he is working with a MUCH better Oline than the bills have. Also, Vick can see the rush coming from that side!!
I can live with Eddie Trunk, but Lars Ulrich makes my skin crawl.
I am disappointed that you did nor mention my reply to that post. Those players played on teams with good defenses or elite qb. Next seasons success wont hinge on one player even if it is a
LT that is injured or not. It will be succesful so long as our D can get back in the top 10 and we get better play out of Vick.
I think a more simple way to put it is this…the team that plays the best wins the SB, not simply the most talented. I was saving this side of the situation for a separate post.
Agreed. This is tough but as long as we can fill this with someone competent we have a shot so long as we can improve our play in all facets of the game in relation to last year. At some point you should do a post on the ST and see whether the specialist need competition in this years camp.
You’re darn right nobody’s perfect. If only you sprinkled this blog with odes to hip-hop circa 1987-1994, why then, I’d never need to click on anything else.
Re: Bell/McNeill, I really want us to move decisively here. Even if it ends up being a meh signing that we overpay for, and Dunlap plays a lot of the snaps, there’s a lot of value in preserving the wide-open nature of our draft when we have so many high picks.
Not much of a rap fan. Did listen to LL Cool J on the way home from 10th grade every day in Kevin Williams rebuilt Celica. Rock the Bells was classic stuff. Also enjoyed Run DMC in those days.
Totally agree on making the move at LT.
Ever check out Pandora? I have the app on my phone, and I’m currently building a station that is predominantly 90s era hip-hop(although I skew a bit to the rap of that era like my all time favorite, early Nas). Its pretty cool.
@Tommy, I can tell you like classic hip-hop about as much as I like classic metal. I’m sure I think I’m hardcore when I blast I Wanna Rock, Cum on Feel the Noize, Pour Some Sugar on Me and Livin on a Prayer, but you guys probably laugh at those commercialized pop records. If you liked LL Cool J and Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, you’re just scratching the surface of what I’m into. I imagine you’re much the same way. I don’t get all the references but I do when I move in different circles, so I still appreciate that you drop them in there. Like you said, nobody’s perfect.
@Kammich, I fiddled with Pandora and Spotify, and while I love them both in concept, I think I’m too much of a control freak to give up being program director on my iPod. I can have it set so no bad songs come on — that’s tough to beat. And I have a group of DJ friends and music geeks that I stay in touch with online, so I still get exposed to new music. I haven’t listened to the radio except for sports or by necessity since probably 2006.
This hurts our run game the most, right?
The power of a zone blocking run scheme, is that you can plug less talented linemen in and still get good production. It also helps to have a RB of McCoys caliber there can make something out of nothing
That is why Bell makes sense….we dont need a mauler. As long as bell can position himself between shady and the defense player the zone system works. Create lanes and let Shady choose. Is Mcneil a better player..yes, but we dont need to break the bank on him. Plus howie could convince bell this is a one year audition for the rest of the NFL
True. Just like it worked out for Evan Mathis.
The only thing I worry about is if other teams offer him a longer contract.
Metal for life Hoss, the Metal Way is the only Way
I damn near fell out the wheelchair reading your intro. Holy ish that’s funny!
I got a hard time on BGN the other day for using “ish.” I think it’s a perfect way to say what you want to say but to still pretend to be too classy and respectful to curse in a forum.
Very interesting to watch the Bell video – he is clearly not Peters, but much better than what I thought would be available right now. I know that is just one game but he looked good in there on most plays against the Chiefs…
One thing that stood out was a style of blocking Bell would use on run plays away from his side – he would like punch or push the DE real quick and then turn completely towards the side line and not engage but square up facing the OLB – is this something that is used a lot vs 3-4 fronts? I have never seen this before (not that I watch the LT on every play). It seemed effective, but it looks very strange – little push, then turn to the sideline…
sitko
Breaking: Adam Schefter of ESPN reports the Eagles have traded Michael Vick and two 2012 second-round picks to the Indianapolis Colts for the #1 overall pick. Are expected to take Robert Griffin III.
April fools…
Sorry; couldn’t help myself.
I am shocked to say that this is the first time all day that someone has hit me up with a good April Fools joke. I think the people I know are just getting too old or too lazy, because no one pinched me on St Patrick’s Day, either. Bums.
Is it bad that I’d pull the trigger on that deal almost immediately? RGIII at #1 and Fletcher Cox at #15… no need for 2nd round picks after that.
It’s too damn quiet. There’s gotta be some whisperings about something going on…sheesh.
We need to make sure Peters is using T.O.’s hyperbolic chamber.
Ha! Is that how TO got his delusions of grandeur?
It’s hyperbaric I guess? Here’s TO with it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHJomBLPxmo
Good heads-up on That Metal Show. Haven’t seen that in awhile. Used to crack me up that Mike Piazza was a perpetual guest host.
Favorite heavy metal band has to be Slayer, for the record.
Meshuggah.
If I know my yiddish, “Crazy?” lol
“No one is happy Peters is down, but the Eagles can win without him. Life just won’t be as easy. ”
Did you hear that LeSean? Take the offer. It’ll never get easier than it was with Peters getting 5 and 10 yards out ahead of you knocking down tacklers like they were bowling pins.
Tommy, could Watkins slide out to tackle in a pinch? Would that play to his natural talents better? If so, DeCastro could be a draft target instead of a reach(?) like Martin.
Possible RT in future. I don’t think he is ready for that yet though. His problem was handling speedier guys I beleive, and dealing with loops, stunts, and inside blitzes. On the outside he would face that even more. He may make a decent RT someday, but I don’t think LT.
The issue with looking at how many teams have won SBs without elite tackles is that you’re looking at teams that were consciously constructed without an emphasis on an elite tackle. That means they instead allocated those resources on other positions, and were as a result stronger at those other positions. Losing a player to injury is different. You took your finite resources (salary cap, draft picks) and used a significant proportion of them to strengthen what you decided is an important position. There’s an implicit trade off when you do that to not allocate those resources elsewhere. What the Eagles have done (obviously through no fault of their own) is use a large portion of their finite resources to have elite-level production at a position from which they can now only expect average-level production, but they don’t get to reassign those resources to other positions instead, as was the case with the teams listed above.
100% in agreeance. Not to mention all the plays that we used last year due to the fact that we had an elite talent at LT. A lot of those plays we’re designed to use Peters freakish strength and speed, something that Bell and most other players do not have.
The Saints had to turn to Jermon Bushrod after Jamaal Brown tore his ACL. They had not planned on Bushrod being the LT at all.
The Giants had Will Beatty at LT for most of last year, but he got hurt and David Diehl was there down the stretch and in the playoffs.
Giants had an odd situation at LT back in 2007, but still won.
Random tidbit: The Saints drafted Bushrod with the 4th round pick we gave them for Dante Stallworth
This sounds eerily like “whatever optimistic points you make, I’m going to come up with an equally pessimistic counterpoint.” And I feel like it gets away from the heart of the issue.
First off, there are no absolutes in the NFL. There’s no past stat that proves we can’t win a Super Bowl without Jason Peters, just like there’s no stat that proves we could.
The issue really — and it seems like you guys really want to discuss the crux of it — is how badly will Peters’ loss affect us, and what can we still do without him?
Pessimism is realism when you’re talking about a season ending injury to one of your team’s best players. By no means does the injury disqualify the Eagles from contention. They’re stilly a very talented team. And one optimistic take is that the timing of the injury gives the team almost a full offseason to make contingency plans. All I did was explain why I don’t think the comparison to past champions’ LT situations was entirely relevant.
I think we can also use FB/TE to help Bell pry open a hole for Shady to get in a quick route and substantial yardage gains. I’m not too keen on Bell, his history with injuries, but if they can throw some schemes where both Dunlap and Bell can play them in near identical fashion, that’ll help alot with the rest of the line. We can’t know how many snaps per games, Bell will give us, we definitely can’t use Bell or Dunlap as full-time player in every game. Especially against our rivals in the NFC EAST, and Vick needs to move with the line to keep them healthy, as well as himself. We’ll need to try and factor in plays with WR/TE and RB routes on timings and quick decisions, to the strength of the O-Line. Imo, the unit will be fine and there will be some adjustments, nothing major. The only setback, is injuries and how we can be ready, should anything happens.
What’s your opinion of DT Brandon Thompson? Does he fit Washburn’s scheme?