Quick Note
Posted: July 3rd, 2012 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 21 Comments »Sorry for the lack of recent activity. I’m on vacation. My goal was to get a post up each day anyway, but I was kidnapped by a bartender and she forced me to down numerous pints for hour upon hour. Oh, the agony.
There isn’t a whole lot of news going on right now. I’m reading the John Feinstein book Next Man Up, about the 2004 Baltimore Ravens. Really good book, if you love pro football the way we do. I’d love for a book like this to come out about the Eagles, but I don’t see Andy Reid ever embracing such a project. Reading the book has got me to thinking about the Eagles in some different ways. I’ll write up some posts to share the thoughts. Hopefully I’ll have a few spare minutes tonight. Definitely tomorrow.
One note from the book…Dan Snyder comes off as a huge jerk in the section on the Skins. I’ll share some of the stories. I could not believe just how dumb he really was.
How dumb was he?
Oh wait, that might not have been an invite to comedy schtick.
So we are waiting for invites now?
Is any owner more of a target for getting kicked like Dan. We make fun of Jerry Jones because he is a Cowboy but most would say he is pretty good owner although he got fleeced on his salary cap games. WIth Dan, he gets killed for everything because it would appear he just does not know any better.
As an Eagles fan I can always cheer myself up just by thinking about Dan Snyder
and Jerry Jones.
But then there is Jim Dolan. Yes, I’m also a Knicks fan.
It looked like for a shining moment that Snyder was going to be hands off, and the Skins had a fairly good draft in ’11, trading down three times. The Race For RG3 seems to have enabled Snyder’s relapse into meddling.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40063/the-cranky-redskins-fans-guide-to-dan-snyder/
Fantastic read. Like many of the commenters who were fans of other teams, I actually felt bad for ‘Skins fans after reading it. I enjoy them being the perennial basement dwellers of the NFCE, but at least they deserve to suffer under a hapless owner who is a decent human being.
Frankie says RELAX. Well he did in the 80’s.
Anytime a guy says, “She forced me,” there’s bound to be more to the story.
I read the same book Tommy and Dan Snyder could not possibly be a bigger tool. Which isn’t surprising, he comes accross that way anyhow, especially with his penchant for trying to sue anyone who prints anything negative about him in the D.C. area. Only an insecure twit would do something like that.
I love books like Next Man Up because it really shows that stuff going on behind the scenes, that fans will never know about, really has just as big an impact on gameday as anything else. Unfortunately all the armchair analysts out there will never know about this stuff so their uneducated opinions get to be reinforced with ignorance of whats affecting the players behind the scenes.
The ice cream crap he pulled with Mike Nolan was just embarrassing to read.
Yet somehow it fits. I’d love to see a behind the scenes story of A.J. Smith. That guy seems like he’d be a *huge* douchebag.
Fantastic book! First NFL book I read as a UK fan, really interesting insight into the real world of an organisation.
Enjoy your vacation. You certainly earned it. Hopefully the bartender works at a swim up bar and hopefully the drinks are only the start of her forcing you down.
On the plus side for ‘Skins fans, Snyder can’t sabotage a first round pick through his meddling for years to come. I think London Fletcher will be eligible for Social Security the next time the ‘Skins pick in the first.
Don’t you dare write an article on vacation. Enjoy it sir, you’ve earned it.
Feinstein’s a great, tell it like it is kind of guy. He’s on sports talk radio down here in DC a couple times a week, and it’s must listen.
His books on golf, particularly “Open,” about the US Open at Bethpage, are great reads too.
. . . or Feinstein’s “The Last Amateurs,” about my beloved Patriot League, humble as it might be? The best sports writing ever, IMHO.
This new development of a Lurie divorce has raised some hopeful Internet talk of a reversion to the kelly green uniforms. I, for one, hope that such a thing never happens. Those uniforms remind me of losing, while the midnight greens have been synchronous with the team’s ascension to continued competence.
No offense Tommy, but being as you’re on vacation I needed to look elsewhere for some Eagles stimulation…
http://bloggingthebeast.com/2012/07/03/cowboys-draft-the-lowest-of-players-in-the-trenches-in-the-nfl-skins-and-giants-right-behind-them/
This article really got me thinking… I definitely buy into the the mentality the Eagles have employed that games are won and lost in the trenches. If anyone is an Eagles fan and doesn’t have that mentality he/she is probably shitting a brick over the quantity and quality of draft picks spent on the D-line alone.
I tend to believe that draft picks have more than a shade of “rolling the dice” to them: new lifestyle, injuries, playin with the big boys, coaching, and other things factor into whether a draft pick pans out or not. But it may be fair to ask the question of whether quantity or quality is more important.
In recent drafts the Eagles have nabbed “potential” star talent with Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, Vinny Curry, Trevor Laws… Seems safe to say that Laws isn’t going to pan out in any meaningful way, Graham was a potential star bitten by injury, and the other two are raw rookies.
I don’t follow other teams drafts closely enough to know tons of names off the top of my head, but Redskins got: Orakpo and Kerrigan Giants got: JPP and Tuck Cowgirls got: basically no one. I’m guessing that each of our rivals have also drafted some players who didn’t pan out. Though another one of Jimmy’s articles seems to show that the other NFC East teams don’t draft D-line as prolifically as the Eagles do.
To me the argument of quantity vs quality is hard to bear out. How many Trent Coles are there? How many Daniel Teo-Nesheims?
The one thing that stands out very seriously over the last 5 years is this… Eagles 51 draft picks Giants 38. And we all are painfully aware of the SB count between the two teams during that time. So now, I’m torn… I have been a huge proponent of “if you cant get your guy move back.” Is that philosophy slightly bogus? I mean obviously it’s an over-simplification, but I wonder if the Eagles draft resources had been deployed somewhat differently (as in taking more risks to trade up) would have produced a more dominant crop of talent.
Tommy you can read?! Appalachian State provides better educamations than I thought.
Tommy please come back! I need ya for my NFL/Eagles fix. All these other writers are piss poor compared to the knowledge that you give us. Come back soon!