Does the System Work?
Posted: December 19th, 2014 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 236 Comments »Jeff McLane asked Chip Kelly and Bill Davis questions about the defensive scheme this week. I haven’t spoken to Jeff on his thinking, but he seemed to be getting at the notion that the Eagles might be too centered on run defense. He also seemed curious about whether Davis really wanted to run the 3-4 that the Eagles currently use.
The Eagles have had issues on defense over the last 2 years so I think these are fair questions. That said, I think they are flawed questions. Unless a team uses a highly unorthodox scheme (like what the Eagles used with Castillo/Washburn), things are really going to boil down to talent and execution.
The Steelers run the 3-4, just like the Eagles. The Steelers are 20th in yards allowed and near the bottom of the league in pass defense. Last year they were 13th in yards allowed and 9th in pass defense. You can have a great 3-4 defense. You can shut down the pass or the run, based on what you do, the personnel you have and how well they play in a given year.
I don’t have a problem with the Eagles scheme. I think Bill Davis and the coaches have put together a good playbook that allows them do mix basic things and creative defense.
One thing the Eagles don’t seem to do a lot of is coming up with a tailored gameplan. When the Pats played the Saints last year, Bill Belichick used a big CB to cover Jimmy Graham. This year he’s been creative with Darrelle Revis, moving him around to create favorable situations. Belichick gets creative each week. That puts pressure on his players to learn a new mini-scheme each time out, but that can help the Pats to shut players down.
If Belichick were coach of the Eagles D last week, he probably would have put Bradley Fletcher and Malcolm Jenkins on Dez Bryant. He would have had Nate Allen and Mychal Kendricks take turns on Jason Witten, who he would have jammed at the line over and over. Belichick would have had Cary Williams to go cover Terrance Williams with no help.This wouldn’t have shut down the Cowboys, but it would have altered what they did. And it would have challenged Eagles players.
Davis did some creative stuff, but he comes from a background where you tend to stick to the scheme rather than making changes from week to week. There are positives to each method. Monte Kiffin ran a simple scheme with the Bucs, but his players did a brilliant job of executing it. It wasn’t hard to teach or learn, but it was tough to master. Belichick is able to craft his gameplans in part because he’s a freak. He comes up with great ideas and knows how to teach them. Rob Ryan spent several years with BB and has also tried using complex gameplans. Ryan’s fail more than they work because he’s not the same level of teacher.
My concern with Bill Davis isn’t about the scheme. Rather, it is about the number of blown coverages over the last 2 years. Are the players not learning well? Are the coaching not doing a good job of teaching? We have seen some growth with the secondary’s ability to handle complex pass plays better, but there are still too many simple breakdowns. That must change in 2015 or it won’t matter what scheme the Eagles run up front. The guys in the back will continue to get burned.
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As to the question of what scheme Davis truly believes in…we have no idea. He coached for the Steelers, that’s a 2-gap 3-4. He spent time working for Wade Phillips, that’s the 1-gap 3-4. Davis was the DC in SF and ARZ. But it was Mike Nolan’s scheme in SF and Davis inherited Clancy Pendergast’s system in ARZ. Davis talked a lot about the 4-3 Under, but we don’t know for a fact that’s what he truly wanted to install. Davis talked about that in part because he was asked about it since he used it with the Cardinals. But again…that system was already in place when he was promoted to DC. Davis was smart enough to know that it was easier to keep the scheme and fix certain areas rather than putting in a whole new system.
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There will be changes coming to the secondary this offseason. It will be interesting to see if the Eagles go young or old with the DBs they bring in. This team doesn’t need Deion Sanders, but they need better CB/S play. Malcolm Jenkins is safe. Everyone else needs to be worried about their job. Not all will go, but no one should feel safe.
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Jimmy Bama and I recorded a new show last night. I’ll add the link as soon as I’ve got it. Check Twitter for the fastest link to the new show.
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Are the players not learning well? Are the coaching not doing a good job of teaching?
I agree that these are the questions to ask. And some details have to be discussed too, like 3rd down conversions.
It’s a bad defense that sometimes shows good signs.
And we can’t fool us with the “secondary reinforcements” and forget about the Front Seven, which also surely suffer changes next year.
I don’t want to think that it’s just the coaches. When Fipp tells the players on the sidelines to watch for the short kick, then Brad Smith doesn’t get the ball – that’s not the coaches, but the players.
Fletcher is too slow, that’s not speed. Allen is late to his spot, yet he falls for the same fake each time.
So my question is, at what point do we say the players aren’t coachable? Or that the talent isn’t there?
I agree that we have a lack of talent in the secondary. There is a reason Cary and Bradley were available in 2013.
We have to build the secondary through the draft, and that’s going to take time. Unless our pass rush gets home, they will get exposed.
we don’t have to build through the draft
Well, the current defense is the result of not building through the draft, so…
we suck at evaluating DBs. They need to pay for someone, preferably maxwell, to be a long term option at CB.
Belichick literally always sells out to stop the strenght of the opponent. What was the strenght of the Cowboys? Running game. Davis sold out to stop it, he stopped it, but the talent wasn’t there to stop the pass. We can debate the late change of Wiliams for Fletcher, we can debate why Fletcher isn’t on the bench and Carroll is in there by now (I’d totally agree with that), but the Dallas game wasn’t bad from a gameplan perspective, imho. Adjustments should have been made, but the gameplan was ok.
Davis worst game was against the Packers. He admitted that he was wrong, so give him credit for that, but I don’t know how you would even come up with the idea to focus on stopping the running game against Rodgers. That’s like a bad joke at the beginning of the first gameplan meeting: “So guys, we know what we have to do, right!? Stop this Lacy guy, he’s the real deal, isn’t he.”
I’m all in favor for the Belichick way of adjusting to the Offense rather than always playing the same way. You can do that if you’re the Seahawks and have one of the best secondaries ever. But if you have players with limited talent out there, look for the strenghts of the Offense and do everything you can to stop it. This way, Belichick can even use Patrick Chung out there, lol.
I do think Davis is doing that more often than not, though. Saints was the right move to sell out to stop the pass, imho. He did it against the Colts, too. But if you play against the Panthers, Texans or Cowboys, you sell out to stop the run and we did that. Like I said, I just don’t get the Packers game.
it’s almost like he went back and used last years game tape when we played the packers to base his game plan on. It worked then!
Well said. I agree pretty much across the board.
Davis has not been perfect, but you can find plenty of examples on that defense where players have either broken out or overachieved. We’ve all known the CBs were bad since they signed; great QBs, however, will dissect them. I’m sure if we had played the Broncos this year, they would have scored at least 40.
I wish I had more confidence in the FO to draft a good, let alone great, DB. Lots of prayer and booze for me this spring
I hate drafting CBs. It’s crap shooting, maybe even worse than QBs. Not worth it, imho. Nothing against drafting Watkins and Boykin in the 4th, you have to gamble with those picks. But investing a 1st rounder can give you Revis or Peterson, but also Milliner or Claiborne.
I give Davis credit for the run D and the development of the D-Line. You have to think Azz plays a role in this, too.
I really hope Revis walks in New England. I’d go all in with him. He has two years left, I think. With him, we’d be a contender imho.
A lot of our struggles as everyone knows is lack of secondary talent. I think this defense hinges on 2 possibilities. A. you make your front seven so great you can afford to have a shoddy secondary or B. you allocate some of the resources to find at least one good, borderline great, corner.
If we had one good/great corner now it would be easier to slide coverage to other areas on the field and help our less talented members of the secondary.
these questions really go to the gms failure to get backend talent. we had these exact same convos last year. i don’t think it’s howie’s fault, probably chips.
I don’t trust Chip with player evaluation that much
When you write Bellichick sells out, I think that is not exactly the case. He loves to entice, and get the QB to think something is there when, in fact it is not. He may telegraph certain coverage, but usually that is more enticement that a QB has to guess on. He isn’t always right, but the games within the game can be incredibly effective at getting QB and OC to question everything their doing. Brady is HOF QB, but I don’t know if he’d have any rings were it not for this guy.
Well, Belichicks sometimes doubles two players. That leaves one on ones for all the other receivers with no help whatsoever. I’d call that selling out, to be honest with you.
That he’s a great defensive mind overall, doing a lot of good things on D, isn’t debatable, imho. Just like Kelly uses tempo, but is a great offensive coach overall, not just because of tempo.
Here’s what I got out of your post: “Belichick literally always sells out.”
For me football was always about finding and attacking the other teams weakness and attacking that and hiding/masking/disguising your own (and then the execution of your game plan). It always confounds me whenever we get slow starts we hear the offensive players/coaches say “they didn’t do what they showed on tape”. Like no crap, unless you have tape of the opponent playing the Philadelphia Eagles (the benefit of playing division opponents), it’s going to look different, particularly if you’re scouting the opponent’s defense. If a team has a gap in their armor, they aren’t going to hold still and let you hit them there over and over under the hope that maybe no one would notice. Great game plans happen in the nfl, and just because pro’s can have poor execution of the vanilla stuff doesn’t mean they would be god awful doing anything else.
the insistence on single high S coverage seems to be the big one. i’m not saying it should always be a cover 2, but at least make them guess. Romo knew there wasn’t going to be safety help on bryant. if you love single high, fine, but it needs to be mixed in with 0, 2, 3, and 4 coverages, or at least look like it.
Or have a safety with more speed and instincts than Allen. lol
well yeah. but until he mutates or we find an upgrade, maybe acknowledge that allen has no business playing center field. hell, maybe take allen off the field and ask carol to take a deep zone on 3rd down.
So any other safety except Chung, lol
so two weeks ago we had an article about how you’d rather keep smooth billy d than taje rex ryan if he were available. are these two articles unrelated or are views changing.
on scheme — we need players with more talent. sometimes the d looks really good. but i think anyone on this board would agree that good qbs will roast us.
also doesn’t ck make mini game plans or do we run the same thing regardless?
Just give me one upgrade at corner to replace Fletcher and I think this defense gets substantially better. We can already shut down run games well. We can generate turnovers. We can sack the qb. We’re getting there.
Can’t,start Nate again…I’m open to starting rookie safety next to Jenkins, but I hate rookie CBs
I think the coaching staff hoped Wolff would have won, but the undiagnosed knee injury ruined that. My guess is Polinski gets first nod and Wolff once healthy wins it.
Yeah they def wanted wolff to beat out nate. I know NOTHING about Prosinksi. No IDEA if he is a player they would even consider a safety, or just a special team player categorized as a safety. I know nothing about that kid… Doesn’t look like many opportunities for safety in Free agency, unless we are lucky enough to snag McCourty… Saving grace is its easier to ask a rookie safety to play, then a rookie corner, if we have to play a rookie at Safety we can count on Jenkins to hold his hand and walk him thru games make sure he knows his assignments…..
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Who knows, maybe we get lucky and one of our young 5th round picks surprises us,,,
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Also, full disclosure I don’t agree with this statement, but I heard rumblings that Jaylen Watkins future is looking like it will be at safety, and that Eagles didn’t like the way he runs enough to play CB, which I find hard to believe because he is supposed to be a fast kid. I have no idea how true that is… But I assume, Watkins could go 1’of 3 ways:
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Safety
Dime corner moving Nolan outside
Nickel corner eventually if we don’t pay Boykin
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I like the kids ability… Hopefully we start to get an idea soon of what position he will settle in at. Too young to be worrying about a bunch of positions. Pick one and groom him!
I do not buy the Watkins thing, because not like they didnt have his combine or pro day and havnt seen him in practice.
I think Carroll will take over on the outside for Fletcher and Watkins will be a dime CB next year.
Good QBs roast all defenses. Except maybe Seahawks.
This is so frustrating. Riley Pooper is such hot garbage.
wow this angle really will get ya upset.. huge hole and he ran right into the back of the blocker.. stick to blocking and catching a few passes down the field.. give that touch to HUFF or the POPE
You give that to Huff and (if he doesn’t fumble) he shoots that HUGE gap stiff arms #42 in the bottom left of the picture and scores.
Huff doesn’t stiff arm 42. He waits for Kelce to blow him up and moonwalks in for the TD.
That 44 yard gain was a thing of beauty as well.
Wish we gave hs money to Randall Cobb… Dude is still a baby. He like 24-25yrs old and a Baby BEAST!
WR talent is becoming easier and easier to come by. We could have paid eric decker as well, looks the same but way more talented.
agree, for a team like the Eagles, no need to ever spend money on another teams FA WR again.
We already have 3 good young guys in Maclin, Matthews and Huff, why use money in FA?
(to be clear i’d love to have vjax here). But i agree, plus im sure we can grab another in the draft. Wonder if our practice squad guys are terrible.
I wonder what practice is like. Do we just take turns roasting our secondary?
Totally agree. Didn’t mean to go out and sign Cobb. Since we invested that money in Riley, I meant I wish we would have gotten that type of ability for what we paid Coop. But going forward we would be stupid to ever pay big money for someone else’s WR
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The only OK WR to sign would be if you can get a high quality 30yr old WR with a year or two left as a stop gap TIL young WRa fully mature.. For example, Vincent Jackson on a similar short veteran contract like we gave Sproles…
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But I see the WR position going thru a transformation. I think 5 years from now, becoming a free agent at the WR position will be a dreaded punishment…I think the NFL is about to getflooded with tons of quality WR talemt, that there will be such a big supply of WR quality, that price tag on WR is going to nose dive in the future.
..Look at last offseason, we spent every day arguing to the death about which WRmprospect we each wanted the Eagles to draft. Fast forward to December, and did it really matter which WR we drafted? So many rookie WRs are killing it!!! It used to be out of like 10 top WR prospct,it would be a good draft if 3 grew into studs… Now they are coming into the league as freak athletes, more prepared them ever, playing in college offenses that don’t run the ball 50 times… Think of all the time we spent arguining about WR prospects, yet we couldn’t really have gone wrong with any of them, they are all balling: Sammy, Mike Evans, ODB, Cooks, Kelvin, Moncreif, Jordan Mathews, MAtevis, Jarvis Landry, John Brown… We could have thrown a rock at the combine and it would have hit a great WR prospect.
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Last year was supposed to be this epic special WR class, and it didn’t dissapoint, yet fast forward a year, and this next WR class is equally as awesome… Another 3 years of this and teams will have so much young Wr talent, that the demand for quality WR will nose dive, it will be easy to get quality WR…. Might as well take advantage of the WR Boom we are in the middle of and keep drafting them for cheap
Not if your GM is FREAKING clueless. See – Riley Cooper , 5 years $ 22.5 million …. SMH.
to be fair, those yellow lines aren’t actually on the field for Coop to see… so…
i wonder what the WR coach said in the film room
Maybe…”Hey Riley, as far as your catching & running goes, you’re a real good blocker.”
Ya but… oh never mind. That’s so bad I can’t even crack a joke in good conscience. Oy.
Two things I take from Chip. He wants versatility for the very purpose of keeping the scheme looking vanilla, and forcing QB to use an extra second or two. He knows he doesn’t have the personnel able/ready to play all over the field. When you talk about Belichick, he gets physical linebackers who have good feet and can rough up any receivers in the 5 yard zone. They also can run, and very seldom are they smaller than the players they’re hitting. No DC that I have seen comes up with a defensive alignment where he knows ahead of time player X will not beat us on this play – LeBeau sometimes, Bellichick whenever he wants to apparently. Kelly has said he wants to get bigger on D, and he has begun that, but he can’t snap his fingers and have versatility at every position. Connor Barwin is a mauler who can disrupt receivers, cover in space and basically frustrate a game plan. If he was chipping on Dez all evening I don’t believe Dez would have accounted personally for 18 points. But if you take Barwin out of his pass rush, who covers for him? I think when Chip says pick your poison, it is obvious that he doesn’t have enough pieces to juggle. But I believe he wants to be as exotic and particular about the D as he is with offense.
I think chip tries really hard to have the scheme and execution so good that if the opposition knows what what’s coming they can’t stop it. Then he makes small wrinkles to make it unpredictable. But he really walks the fine line of doing what his players are best at and not moving far from that line.
Chip said that he doesn’t put McCoy and Sproles on the field at same time because who is lead blocker, and then your just down a man blocking. Then he put then both on the same field and had McCoy lead block on Sproles touchdown.
I’d chalk up the criticism more to two big losses and being out of playoffs. Switching the DBs all around May easily have brought far more weaknesses, injuries and lack of talent are constraints on being creative for the sake of shock. NFL teams will adjust fast, find weakness and exploit it.
But I don’t think he makes it unpredictable. The teams that beat us all said they knew what was coming.
they say it doesn’t mean its really that true
I bet you a bunch of teams whos asses we kicked knew what we were doing too… No one is tricking anyone these days,
Doing an unpredictable, power run, might catch defense off guard but if the Oline isn’t very good at power runs, probably not a good idea. I think if chip sees that a defense can’t defend a power run, he might try it even without the players, but it’s a trade off.
Here’s a really good article on the scheme and execution from the Dallas game. I have to believe Chip when he says it’s execution, not scheme that’s the problem.
http://www.thechipwagon.com/eagles/2014/12/no-chris-collinsworth-this-is-not-the-read-option.html#more
Colts will be without TY Hilton vs. Dallas. Playoff hopes getting even slimmer.
Ugh.
Stupid year.
Murray may not play either. So we’ll see. Maybe Santa will come through one more time and make sure Dallas gets an extended vacation from football. again
Everyone know you don’t need a speed guy to be successful.
But do the Colts . . . in that pass-pass-pass-again offense?
(If I understood what you wrote correctly.)
Dallas might have the entire right side of its line out… Both zack Martin and Doug Free n
Been missing practice due to sprained ankles. I’d rather lose a WR than OL
I think Colts will be ok, their rookie Montcrief is good, and Nicks will have one last time to shine before he’s out of the league.
No shit donte Moncreif is good. I spent the entire offseason typing and drooling all over my key board over him…smh!!!!
Speaking of scheme, a few Dallas players in interviews this past week were commenting on how they started to get the hang of Chips offense. They claim that because the eagles move so quickly, there are fewer plays they can utilize and there are only so many options on any given play. Could be interesting to see how it plays out…
The offense left a lot of points on the board. Chip is right about execution, but bad QB play and sloppy play from everyone else (i.e. fumbles) is why we lost that game.
don’t you think it has to be pretty embarrassing to chip to play teams that roast his defense and we can’t roast their defense? an offensive genius leaves the field after the other teams score at will almost, while we were stuck going 3 and out in 10 seconds? it sucks.
which is probably why he is dreaming up scenarios to get Mariotta in here, which will never happen, we know….
Talent vs scheme. He’ll learn though. Pete Carroll gets a qb wins sb in 2 years. Bb gets a qb wins a bunch of sb. People say it’s suicide to jump up. It’s suicide not to.
Yet neither of those teams jumped up.
that’s true one has a killer defense and the other got really lucky getting a HOF qb in the 6th round. rare
Lady Fortune blessed both Seattle and New England.
The most crazy thing about Seattle is that Carroll never wanted Wilson, but his GM insisted on drafting him.
haha could you imagine them with Matt Flynn? History would have been a lot different.
There’s a picture below that sums it up. Sometimes the play calling leaves a little to be desired.
As the picture below shows, Cooper missed daylight and that play to me set the tone for the drive and gave momentum to Dallas. Why you would go to Cooper on a screen on the first play of your first drive is beyond me. The slowest skill position player you have, and you go to him first.
In the Seattle game, he was pinned inside his own 8 yard line for the first drive. He called 3 pass plays to Sanchez, who gets rattled and emotional. He never recovered. The offense has to find a groove, especially against a good defense like Seattle, and Sanchez shouldn’t be the first option.
Look, he’s in his 2nd year, and he’s going to make mistakes. All coaches do, it’s just that the lack of talent at key positions has made it look worse than what it is.
Kelly is not worried about the defense so much IMO. He knows his weaknesses, but the offense is his baby. Better QB play and we win both Dallas and Sea (AZ and SF too). Sanchez missed a ton of throws vs Dallas, and didn’t take advantage of the opportunities vs Seattle.
They’ll get this worked out, and when they stop having stupid TOs, this offense will be lights out. We just need our QB back to do it.
AG asked:
“Why you would go to Cooper on a screen on the first play of your first drive is beyond me.”
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Because Chip Kelly and Shurmur spent a good part of last week defending Cooper.
Seemed to me the call for Cooper was Kelly’s way of saying to everyone, “STFU.”
Just didn’t work.
and Cooper has in general been good on screens and not like it was a bad call, Cooper just made a bad play
I’m wondering if this was the reason too. But I can’t be too mad, because he’s had more success (Kelly) than not.
I don’t think it made anyone STFU…
it just made us ask more questions
You’re making my point.
There’s an argument to be made that Kelly’s choice to go with Cooper on the first play was his way of telling all those who think Cooper’s an underachiever that THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THE F**K THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT.
So on that very safe X screen, Kelly wanted Cooper to take the ball up the alley, put some yards on the board, and shut up his detractors.
so do you think as the play ended Kelly whispered to himself, “they were right”
do you?
I hope so. Huff would have torn thru that gap. He runs angry.
I don’t see why people are arguing this was a bad choice (aside from it failing) Cooper was the one who failed to execute. From a play calling POV this was great call
he does say “execution” at every press conference. I wonder if he watches the tape at night and is like who TF is on my team.
Thank you that was my point. He is telling the truth when he says “we have to execute better” but not when he says “Carroll and Boykin are really starters”
That seems like an awfully “rabbit ears” coaches’ decision. I would hope he wouldn’t do it because of outside talk, and if he did, I hope he feels like the idiot he was for that call.
and it was open, should have been a big play.Safe throw for Sanchez too. For the most part I believe in Chip. The only tie I don’t is when he says “Boykin and Carroll are considered starters” when they only play 25-60% of the snaps in a given game
I was all for bringing riley back, because of his chemstry with our young developing QB…..what a disaster. Our young QB is hurt, coop barely did anything for him when Nick was still healthy, key drops in games we lost to Niners and cardinals….
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Riley had some great and very important blocks, but he has been a disaster at WR this year..I can’t even think of what his best game was. Did he even have a best game? Afraid to check his stats… Too depressing
This seems to make Chip’s point about playcalling. You don’t do something unpredictable, because the player is unlikely to execute it well. It appears that Cooper just doesn’t execute anything well.
I think the defensive scheme is fine, they just need better talent/depth at LB, CB and S. Where I would be questioning Chip is on offense where we have seen most of the problems. The team plays much better with a lead so Chip has got to find ways to arrange the first drive or two and maximize the ability to score points. There is plenty of talent (with the exception of a deep threat at WR); its more play calling, execution and a lack of adjustments to how defenses played us this season and in-game if they were stopping the run or pass. Several players were rarely used or used less during the year (Sproles, Polk, Ertz, Casey) for whatever reasons and our run attack was inconsistent. Some of that is injury-related, but we’ve been healthy now at RB and OL for weeks and the issues remain. The offense needs to be the engine of this team and if Chip is the guru we’ve been told he is, he needs to find ways to make it work better.
Re: Belichick’s Defensive Philosophy vs. Eagles’ D-P
I’ve always understood that Bill Belichick’s defensive game plans are focused, foremost, on attacking the opponent’s weakness. Not trying to stop their strength.
Belichick’s purpose is to force the other team to lose. (Chains and weakest links, etc.)
Whereas most D-coordinators — by challenging an opponent’s strength — try to make the other team “not win.”
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Belichick’s approach is a foundational rule of war (per Sun Tsu):
“You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are undefended.”
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All that said . . . whatever D3FB says on this subject is dispositive for me.
Actually Belichick often puts Revis on the no. 2 WR and then have Browner+Safety double team the great WR, at least that what he did against Lions and for the small part I saw of the Packers game.
He also does these split Zone/Man schemes that confuse the heck out of QBs
Sounds like, by doing that, Belichick completely eliminates the lesser of the opponent’s 2 WRs w/ one defender and then double-teams the opponent’s best receiver the rest of the game.
How does an offense respond to that?
His point was that Browner+saftey> Revis much as #1 WR>#2 WR Strength against Strength. He saw that principle as a contradiction to you perception. But I think your principle more applies to the front 7 (which attacks, so I don’t think either of you are wrong)
A87:
I understand the argument Anders was making.
But I come out the other way . . . with Belichick using his best defensive back to attack a weaker offensive option which allows his defense to use two lesser players to cover the opponent’s better option.
Most coaches seem to use a CB like Revis to man-up against the opponent’s BEST wide receiver. Why else pay all that money?
What Belichick did struck me as counter-intuitive — and very, very smart.
I think part of that is simply there are almost always more db’s (or atleast defenders) than receivers, anytime you can leave a CB alone with a WR and cancel him out, that’s a favorable trade off for the defense. Which is why the Seahawks don’t care who is sacrificed on Sherman. Any situation that turns a 3 v 4 into a 2v3 is awesome. But that is personnel driven (or 2 v 3 into a 1 v 2, 4v5 to 3v4 etc). So you can either match your best against best and have some even exchange and have to pay attention, or aim for a 1v1 cancellation anywhere you can get it, and take the number advantage.
The problem is even the best cb will most likely lose to the greater wrs unless they get ton of help from the front seven
The great coordinators leave their players on islands no matter who they cover and just cross their fingers that QBs can throw our that our pass rush gets there in time.
yea but Belichick often leaves Revis on an island with the lesser WR like Golden Tate and then let Browner+safety take the matchup nightmare with bracket coverage.
haha yeah i was saying that about our DC, smooth billy D. I watched some of the plays we got beat on — unclear to me if people took the wrong guys, but sometimes our scheme puts our players in bad spots b/c we’re trying to disguise something (remember the boykin blitzes).
Belicheck’s primary strategy is focused, foremost, on cheating. But his secondary strategy is either attack the strength or weakness. I’m not sure.
I wonder if any other teams ever tracked defensive signals with play calls.
Seems so obvious that the answer is “yes.”
But if you don’t win a SB, who cares. Right?
? you`re defending BB because others(that we know of) have not been investigated,convicted, and punished? Wrongly,he did not have his prize(SB) taken away as well as draft picks taken away– similar to olympic winners being stripped of their medals due to doping-,the organization as a whole should have been punished.
If you`ve noticed, no SB`s have been won by the cheating coach`s team since.
I’m not “defending” anyone.
I only asked a question.
As for “no other SB wins” . . .
Tyrell makes a “helmet” catch and Eli drops a 1-in-100 pass over Manningham’s shoulder.
Heck, it’s not like the Pats haven’t been BACK to the SB and haven’t been about 90 second away from 2 more titles.
Heck, it’s not like the Pats haven’t been BACK to the SB and haven’t been about 90 second away from 2 more titles.
wudda cuddda shudda…if Chip challenges Polk`s TD run,if Cooper had caught the TD pass in SF, if the refs had not blatantly made some calls…the Eagles shudda been having a 1st round bye.
There really are no if`s in life, for what didn`t happen, cause it didn`t.
I will not agree with you that it was ok or that everyone was doing it or that it didn’t have any effect. The NFL burned the tapes for a reason. There are quotes from Marshall Faulk saying the Pats knew their plays, and from the Steelers too (AFC championship game the year we lost to the Pats). I firmly believe they were doing something above and beyond the norm.
Re: Pats knew Rams/Steelers’ plays
Tape-Gate was allegedly about the Pats steeling DEFENSIVE signals — not offensive signals.
I guess the 49ers and Seahawks cheated against the Eagles this year, ’cause they were also calling out the offensive plays.
the fact that other teams beat the Eagles in 2014, or that the Pats were historically good after getting caught, does not mean at all that the Pats were not effectively cheating.
allegedly is the key word in your 2nd paragraph.
Nearly six months after the incident, the Boston Herald reported, citing an unnamed source, that the Patriots had also videotaped the St. Louis Rams’ walkthrough practice prior to Super Bowl XXXVI in February 2002,[8] an allegation denied by Belichick[7] and later retracted by the Herald.
In addition several other teams including the Steelers and Packers also
accused the Patriots of signal stealing with former Steelers wide
receiver Hines Ward stating that when the offense would audible to
another play the New England defenders would move to the new alignment
before the offensive players arrived leaving no question that they in
fact already knew what play had been called in the audible.
No… The steelers offense was furious, they said the Patriots defenders were calling out the steelers offensive playcalls before the steelers QB could relay the call to the rest of the offense….they were stealing offensive play calls from the coach to the QB… Steelers are convinced Super Bowl should have been steelers vs, Eagles if it weren’t for the cheating..
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Another part of SPYGATE thatt never gets talked about is the Patriots taped Terrell Owens private practice running his routes the week of the Super Bowl.
.l
People usually just associate spy gate with the SUPERBOWL, but those cheating bastards where doing all types of slimey crap the league had evidence of……. First time in the HISTORY of crime, that someone thought that it was a,good idea to Immediately BURN the evidence LOL… What a joke… And years later that scumbag commissioner is going to survive RICE-woman-beater-gate.. Bunch of slimey crap
Eagles players have noted that in the SB loss, New England seemed to know every time they were blitzing in the entire second half. I don’t yell about the Patriots being cheaters as much as say, Cary, but I believe it impacted the game while they were taping.
did he win after he was caught?
nah but he got that a bunch of times, honestly, i’d be happy with that at this point.
From what I’ve seen, Belicheck loves to attack weaknesses and deny your biggest strength. If he finds a weak link, he’ll hammer it all day, and he is a master at scheming to take away your biggest strength. What he was able to do to the Saint’s Jimmy Graham comes to mind as an example of hamstringing a teams biggest strength.
I’ve always been of the school of thought that you find what you do well. Create your defensive identity around that. You control what the other team does, not the other way around.
Billy D and Chip have decided we’re about stopping the run. Force teams to be one dimensional. We dictate to them what they can do. If they want to run it, go ahead, you will have marginal success and put yourself in poor position on third down. Force them into bad position and then let your pass rushers pin their ears back.
https://twitter.com/EaglesRewind/status/544601788201312257
just need a secondary that can stop the pass.
one dimensional is good if we can stop that dimension I guess…
for good QBs it’s like ok, let’s just do what you’re best at.
Don’t get it twisted, great QBs ARENT happy about being 1’dimensional and letting the defenders pin their ears back, they only like it when they can get rid of the ball before the hits come…Peyton always worked best with a run game
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Eddies Lacy been banged up, bet Aaron Rogers didn’t enjoy having to pass against the bills all game
Depends on the secondary, Geagle. He was thrilled to pass all day long on ours. Bills secondary is a bit better than ours.
and better pass rush.
if every team treated every down against us as 3-11 they might blow us out. I feel like that’s what Greenbay did.
Fletcher needs to take lessons from Cary in how to play man off and Davis needs to start calling it in third and long. Clearly, Fletcher’s just not talented enough to take away the deep pass in man press with any consistency.
This is from a couple months back, I wonder if you agree with any of them
http://insidetheiggles.com/2014/07/22/2015-free-agency-targets-eagles/
Terrible article. Makes no sense.
Demarius Thomas likely doesn’t hit FA.
Torrey Smith is going to cost alot of money, wouldn’t be an upgrade over Maclin, Would be a poor use of resources for a #2 in a draft deep with WR talent.
Jordan Cameron plays the Flex TE, we already have Ertz.
ON D:
Avril and Burfict have been extended, plus Burfict is a sociopath.
Fairley is at his best when allowed to attack.
Tramon Williams is going to be 32.
Revis is his own bag of issues.
Brandon Flowers is 5’9.
The author basically looked up players he knew who were going to hit free agency and said the Eagles should go get them, absent size, scheme or financial impact of building a team.
Maxwell and McCourty is really the only two good options if they hit the market on defense.
On offense, we only really need a backup quarterback and maybe ad a veteran OL
Off the top of ANYONEs head, what teams run similar OL blocking schemes as us?
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If we pay for OL, he needs to be starting caliber in my opinion… We have 5 needs, G.WR,ILB,S.CB, eliminate two in free agency and we have a good shot at adding quality at the other 3, in the top 100 PF the draft…
Kubiak went to Baltimore and he uses a similar scheme right? Anyone from there?
Assume the Texans still have some of his OL too
Camron is a concussion away from being done!
yeah f—ed me on fantasy.
**sarcastically** “the author basically looked up players he knew who were going to hit free agency…absent size, scheme or financial impact…” Isn’t that how you are supposed to write an article on free agency or run a sports radio show?
Apologies if this has already been brought up, but McClain has an article up today talking about Graham who said something that doesn’t sound good for our chances of being able to re-sign him
I know we’ve been told in here that this will get done, but the Eagles are going to be truly f’ed if he does leave.
he’s outta here
what a liar said he wants to stay now he sees money and wants to go..
can’t blame him
I have no idea why he would stay. He’s better as a 4-3 end. Will make more $ as a 4-3 end. Will start and not be a backup as a 4-3 end.
plus he’s getting stiffed on that $2.5, that’d be a gating item to any contract discussions.
I agree. But a certain someone here has all but assured us he will.
You do realize when we rush the passer he is usually a 4-3 DE?
From his comments I take it to mean he would like to do it all the time. That won’t happen here.
your last paragraph was the same thing as last year regarding our safeties…..now this year it has extended to the the CB position…..excepting out Jenkins as he has been a very good S for us this year…..gee we did not really address it very well if FA or the draft last year and here we are with the same issue……problem is that safety play is bad on a lot of teams so scooping up guys through FA is not going to give us measurable improvement next year at least not without it costing us picks and/or money…..the CB position…..no one will be available that is worth the money…..this will take a few years to fix…..
It’s been the same issue for YEARS, regardless of scheme. Tons of DB talent available the last two years i don’t understand why they didn’t do something. Did they really think Cary and Fletch would be that good? Maybe they did, we were only 32 against the pass last year.
takes time to build a defense, can’t rush it. end up with the dream team if you try and skip steps and patch everything through FA.
don’t think you should shy away from FAs, or not get FA stars. Dream team was as much about the staff as it was about the players.
I agree, but the lesson still needs to be learned. Being a star on one team doesn’t guarantee anything – case in point look at the FA Safety class from last year, Jenkins was not consider in the same class as Byrd or Ward yet made a much greater impact. That sentiment is echoed with Barwin, Ryans, Mathis etc. Finding the right FA is more important than over paying for a star.
Jenkins played very well earl on this year, but as the season has continued, his warts have shown as well. He doesn’t have a great feel for zone coverage and while he has ok man skills, he’s been abused more and more lately thanks to Billy’s desire to stay in base.
When evaluating players for FA, you have to not only consider how good they are in their current system, you have to carefully consider how their skills will translate into what you run. Jenkins is a good fit because we demand our safeties to be able to single up man to man on 3rd receivers and tight ends. Chung was a disaster because he lacked those skills. Byrd and Ward would have been poor fits as well.
Jenkins graded out as one of the worst coverage TEs last year, but he graded out as a great blitzer / run stopper, which we don’t do too much of.
Looking at his overall skills as an ex-corner, not necessarily how he graded out. How a player grades out has a lot to do with how comfortable he is doing it. The one thing I’ve seen with Jenkins this year is he doesn’t seem to have a knack for playing the ball in zone coverage. His man skills are good for a safety, but poor for a corner. I know he struggled with tackling in N.O. and he’s been fairly sound here in Philly.
That’s very true — i’m glad that generally our team has had great tackling the last few years.
Especially after the travesty in 2012 where the Eagles couldn’t tackle at all.
Problems on defense the past two years? WTF??
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Our starting point was a historically bad Washburn defense, we added a bunch of new free agents, to mix with a bunch of unexperiwnced young player, some of which had to learn a new scheme they never played before…we got better as the year went on, showed penty of improvement, added Jenkins in free agency,and went on to continue to grow and improve all year…our defense carried us most of this season….
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Of course it doesn’t take a genius to know we aren’t Done building it, I guess it does take a genius since our media is starting with bullshit like this already. You start from the trenchesk and build your way back, we invested in the front 7, THUS YOU see a much IMPROVED FRONT 7 capable of playing at an ELITE level…what we invested in, we have grown into an elite level… Jeff McLane should be smart enough to know that we couldn’t build it all at once. While we built up our front 7 we were putting stop gap secondary in place. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR IN LIFE, why would McClane or anyone expect NOT to see problems in the secondary when we barely started building it?
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We just added Jenkinsl he is a building block. The hope was that some of the stop gap guys could surprise us and grow into fixtures like the 5th round picks and B level free agent corners… ITS NO SECRET THAT WE HAVENT BUILT THE SECONDQRY UP a YET, so why would McClane be surprised to see the problems in the backend? Sometimes we can hide them or overcome them, but other times they will bite us in the ass. The front 7 has been built up, I’m sure it’s time to build up the secondary, if you saw these same problems next year, after we built up the secondary, THEN ITS FAIR FOR A HACK REPORTER TO QUESTION SCHEME….now it just makes him a typical DONKEY media hack!
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Why the hell would anyone expect to see the next coming of the legin of boom? YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR, WE ARE BUILDING A PROGRAM, that doesn’t happen overnight…. Wait til we build the secondary, before you start expecting to see some lockdown secondary! What a joke
How are we going to build these DBs, not much in FA this year. Do you see us taking DBs first next year and them having a meaningful impact?
Maybe Nolan Carroll will move outside, but that’s been rather unclear. Boykin’s 2014 struggles aside it’s not like they’ve really thought about moving him outside, it’d be hard for me to think carroll wouldn’t get the same treatment especially if we have questions at ILB next year.
I can tell you right now how we will build the secondary. It will be a two year plan…
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We will try to find corner upgrades in FA but we won’t drastically overpay, and it seems like it will be an anorexic DB market so we may not be able to sign FA DBs, but we will try… I have no clue how they been playing because I haven’t followed them at all. But all the young corners from San fran hit the market, Culliver(he is a jackass, Prob not chips cup of tea, the kid parish cox… But good chance no DBs for us to sign, although you never know if some unexpected player gets waived…whether we sign a corner or not, I assume we draft outside corner with size in the top 100… Nolan and Cary start outside next September as placeholder Cuz rookie corners suck… Whenever,the corner is ready he will take over be it middle of rookie year or year two.l Nolan starts outside opposite Cary as stop gap, Jaylen watkins moves into the Dime spot…. After next season, we say good bye to Cary, so the rookie will be projected to take over for Cary, so it’s the young corner and Nolan in 2016 September on the outside, but who knows maybe we can sign a corner next year… If Not, e draft another corner, who will learn on the bench while Nolan and the second year corner start in September of 2016… After that year we lose Nolan, and the year two Corner, will play opposite of the year 3 corner in September 2017
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That’s a 2 year transition to new era of corners, (worst case scenario if we can’t sign upgrades).. This two year transition allows us not to start rookie corners right away, so we can continue to compete, without having to take a few steps backwards to eventually take steps forwards…
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So, bradley walks after this season, Cary Walks after next season, we cut Nolan the following season… By then we have a bunch of young 1st, 2nd and 3rd year corners to take over…and this plan could accelerate of we are lucky enough to sign veteran upgrades, or we draft a Gem who happens to be ready to play right away
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Safety is easier, just have to hit on 1, DONT mind playing a rookie safety next to malcolm. But I despise rookie corners
then they need to adjust the defense better. If 2 years from now we are starting Nolan to start the season, and he can’t start now behind Fletcher who is AWFUL, then that means for 2015-16 and 2016-17 we keep getting crushed by good QB’s and/or WR’s, and there are a lot of them.
I’m not blaming you, just saying we can’t just stick to a scheme and get nowhere for 2 more years.
Nolan would have probably beaten Brad if,he didn’t get hurt in preseason..l wouldn’t be surprised if he provides a nice upgrade to Brad…..
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You can’t put a gun to other GMs heads and demand they give us a,good corner…it’s a terrible year to need free agent corners… We have to many of our own players to resign to win a bidding war against all the bad teams that throw so much money at free agents, to sign Byron Maxwell. I pray I am wrong, but I just don’t view him as a player who will be an eagle next year..l some bad team will throw STUPID money at him, if seattle even lets him get to the open market
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Hopefully next years free agents corner market provides an upgrade and helps accelerate the plan, or. Hopefully the rookie corners we draft transition well and are ready to take over after the buy weeks of rookie year….mBut THATS our worst case scenario/realistc blue print for how Howie will build this
right I’m not crying that other team’s should give us their players, I’m frustrated that Dez beat the same guy 3 f’ing times for TD’s including twice on the same exact play.
my’frustration/question is…… What does an eagle have to do wrong to get himself benched?
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I loved the depth we built this offseason, yet it seems like there is nothing an eagle could possibly do, to get himself benched… I’m all for continuity, but Im not sure being completely against benching pLayers is a healthy approach
Think that’s part of team building philosophy, if they are giving effort don’t want to ruin confidence. Same must apply to Josh Huff, i see the logic but don’t know if I agree.
They are equally as frustrating about letting certain guys on the field.
I find it somewhat baffling. Obviously, attitude is considered more important than actual play because otherwise there is no way Fletcher wouldn’t have been benched after the travesty in Dallas. Considering the training camps that both Carroll and Boykin had the last two years, I am also confused on how exactly the coaching staff evaluates corners.
LONGSHOT: TRADE FOR A CORNER!! Hindsight wish we,trade for Miamis Vontae,Davis,who seems to be holding it down on the Colts..
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Maybe we can explore a trade for a corner, maybe a good corner that fits our scheme gets waived, heck Cheifs cut CB Brandon Flowers coming off a Probowl year…. Who knows maybe we can trade for a young corner like the colts got Vontae davis. Or a quality veteran gets waived that fits us, we can scoop him up and he would be an upgraded stop gap while the two year plan of Draftimg and developing young corners unfolds
like groundhog day. Yet nate allen is playing center field like terrence williams is going to get the ball, ever.
Just mentally Nate just doesn’t get it i don’t think.
parrish cox is the man, he killed us.
Is he any good? I don’t know the kid, but he is young, and becoming a free agent..Chris Culliver too, think he was the idipt that said the insensate gay comment or somethin…forget what he did, but he is an idiot…NO IDEA IF they were any good this year.
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Antoine Bathea, was a steal. No clue he had so much left in the tank… Gotta see how expensive he was, we would be nice if we had him next to Jenkins
Since it’s friday I had a friday thought. Did Chip jettisoning Djacc10 have anything to do with Josh Huff. We know Huff’s background and they seem to have a really strong relationship, easy to assume that Djacc wouldn’t have the best influence on him. I can’t see Djacc being a bad incluence on JMatt or any of the other rookies.
Am i crazy?
djax is a bad influence on everyone it seems. he’s just childish kook.
he’s fast though….
and as Al Davis has proven time and time again, Speed is the only trait to consider with wide receiver… oh wait – James Jett wasn’t an all pro?
Who was the guy they got a few years ago w/#8 or 9? They had him projected in the 2nd or 3rd round, but he had speed and they picked him?
I remember that pick, but don’t remember who it was. I just always remember Jett from Techmo Bowl.
Darius Heyward-Bey.
Yep. He is the only reason that maclin slipped all the way to us that year.
yeah he must have done his pro day at the track, brick hands.
Stephen Hill?
Fred Biletnikoff, the greatest ever slow receiver.
Huh… I thought Djax had a relationship with what’s his name, the black mamba, not huff… What’s his name, oregon RB
not because they had a relationship, but that’d he be a bad influence, “street character” and all. Same position group, similar backgrounds, etc.
Oh gotcha..thought you meant that Huff and DJax already knew each other….. But I gotcha,
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Yeah little De’Anthony Thomas
Yeah that dude!
I had to sit there a surprisingly long time like “yeah who-tf was that anyway…..dammit!
Yeah I gave up, my mind was completely blank
DAT
if this was a reason, it wasn’t top 50
Chip did not like DJacc. Really, simple concept. Character and buy-in is everything to Chip. Does not matter if you’re God”s Gift, if you don’t buy-in then you are OUT.
Eagles have to have better seasons then this. When the Eagles aren’t great, Philadelphians start losing their minds….turned on the radio today lol, Eagle fan stayed on hold for 45minutes to go on the,radio and suggest to IKe Reese that we switch Josh Huff to cornerback!
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Lol Bradley is,getting roasted so bad, that fans are cracking up, becoming so desperate, that they want rookie WRs moved to cornerback…LOL
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I,haven’t heard it yet, but Kelce allegedly did a good interview with Jack ass Cataldi this morning
i don’t understand how any real fan can listen to Philly sports radio. The hosts are so bad, and the callers worse. I gave up on them many years back.
Smart man.
I think that sentiment can be extended to sports talk radio. If you think Philly’s is bad, you should come spend time in Charlotte.
Honestky, I swear to you im not capable of listening for more than 5 minutes at a time. I swear! Usually within the first 5 minutes I start laughing hysterically at what I’m hearing, or im furious that fellow eagle fans could be so dumb…either way, within the first 5 minutes, I always reach the point I can’t continue to listen to such innacurate nonsense… It’s pointl
Yes i hear you, it is totally frustrating, i used to do that, listen for 5 minutes at most, but now i don’t even do that. Could not take it any longer. I can’t even listen to Ray D. because he is with that moron. Ruins the whole show because of the stupid questions.
Now I would tune in, if you Geagle had his own show- that would be informative.
Right now they are all everyone has.
Sixers need to get their 2 draft picks from this past draft playing. I think Embiid is going to be a stud, but I also think that Saric is going to take the NBA by surprise. We have at least one lottery and hopefully pick #11-15 from the Heat. They’ll be fine next year and should win north of 30 games, but this year there’s not much excitement.
Holmgren killed the Flyers with his dumb contracts and they have a sub-par group of Defensemen. With Timonen’s injury, they really took a hit to an already weak defensive core. It’s going to take Hextall some time to get out from under some of those bad contracts and get the young defenseman in the minors up here. They are competing seriously for two years.
That leaves the Phillies. RAJ is a joke of a GM and has wrecked both the team and the farm system. There’s no indication they know how to evaluate talent and they’ve got nothing in the system. This team may not be watchable for the next 5 years.
So yeah, the Eagles are all we have this year until the Sixers get everyone in house. Sad state of affairs our teams are.
Anyone see any info on how the bryce brown trade is looking for us yet? Two games left, we should be able to get an idea on what type of compensation we will recieve…..what does stevie have to do in the last two games to make it a pick in THIS YEARS,draft?
Thankfully it doesn’t depend on Brown since he has only played in 7 games this year with 36 total rushing attempts. Stevie Johnson’s stat line for 13 games with 1 start: 35-435-3 (catches-yards-TDs). I can’t find the conditions for the pick though.
They consider stevie a bust so it can’t be that great..
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Yeah I have yet to see the official stipulations of how compensation will be determined… I’m not going to be greedy and care if we get a 3rd or a 4th….but I do want it in THIS DRAFT, NOT next years or the year after!!
Haha, if it is for next year or the year after just keep telling yourself that Howie moves so many pieces during the draft that even a pick next year may be packaged to move around this year…
It’s probably just going to be a 4th this year and probably a mid rounder because it’s based of either buffalo or San Fran. Root for those teams to lose lol.
terrible. Have you seen SF’s passing number generally?
Yeah he is considered a bust for them
I couldn’t find any exact stuff on the conditions that have to be met.
http://www.prosportstransactions.com/football/DraftTrades/Future/Eagles.htm
Yeah, you won’t find them… I been looking for a year, I assume they were NEVER made public… You would thinkj that out of all the stupid, repetitive questions the media asks all year, one beat reporter wouLd have taken the time to breakdown the bRyce trade for fans… Only trade we made in a year, and our media didmt feel it was important to find out the exact parameters of the trades?
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Is reporting really telling your fans that sometimes in the next 3 drafts, we will eitjer get a 3rd, 4th or 5th round pick for trading away our 2nd string RB last year?…. Really? That’s acceptable reporting?
Cliff Avril was,extended 4yrs 28mil, 18mil guaranteed…. Those were similar figures I had predicted we get BG signed too… Avril is better than BG, maybe we get him a tad cheaper….I know the recent quotes, no need to re-post
BG is younger though hasn’t been a starter for an extended time recently, so there’s an unknown quantity there. That’s always the wild card, that will definitely lower his value to smart teams, but a poorly run team can always fall in love with a projected dream and make him an offer he can’t refuse. He’ll definitely get a very nice chance to do some serious damage with all the opportunities he could want in these final 2 games. If he gets 3 sacks in these next 2 games, someone will offer him foolish money if we let him get to free agency.
yeah KJ and Avril contracts are about what we should give to BG
GE’s three random Friday thoughts:
1. If the Eagles don’t win by at least 2 touchdowns tomorrow, I’ll be very disappointed. The Skins have the worst passing D, give up the second most sacks and in addition will be without key starters (Hatcher, Merriweather, Robinson). Also OT Trent Williams is banged up, which in total could mean a monster day for
2. Brandon Graham who is in the final year of his contract and more than likely to test free agency. With another edge rusher off the open market (Seahawks just re-signed Avril to a 4 year extension), BG and his agent are licking their chops already. The longer BG is not re-signed by the Eagles, the more likely he will be wearing another uniform next year.
3. Don’t get your hopes up for the Colts winning in Dallas. Although the Cowboys D isn’t any good, Andrew Luck most likely will have to throw to Nicks all day long. TY Hilton is nursing a hamstring injury and is a very pessimistic ‘questionable’.
Regarding #3. Thanks for ruining my day. Also, you’ve got to get into a more homer mindset. This is Dallas, it’s December choke-time, and they are 3-4 at home, The big news is it seems Murray is going to play, and it’s going to cost them. He won’t get his yards, he can’t block, and they’ll be lucky if he doesn’t fumble twice. They can’t afford to sit him because they know Romo and his overly-exalted O line can’t carry the day without him. It’s going to be a great Christmas with the Eagles atop the NFC East and the Cowboys sulking towards elimination. Remember, the key is a homer mindset.
I just got Simpson’d.
You are dead on about Murray being a liability. Without Murray being able to pick up blitzes – Romo will probably just crumble when pressure comes like he did on Thanksgiving to avoid injury.
If the eagles win by less than 2 TDs but 2 or more of washington’s scores come in garbage time, will you still be disappointed?
yes. Because I would like to see the Eagles play a complete game after two lackluster performances in a row.
Regardless of how good/bad Graham plays, we kinda need him because a 34 year old Cole isn’t gonna do much for us next year in my opinion. If we cut/ rework Coles deal we have more money right? Regardless of the pass rusher we get we are gonna have to fork over some dough. It might as well be to Graham and hopefully we can get a bit of a home town discount. We need 4 Olbs and I just dnt think Cole is gonna be the answer. That leaves us with Barwin, Smith and Long coming off an ACL. In summation I think we sign Graham.
For those looking for the Kempski-Lawlor podcast
http://www.libertybroadcast.co/#/inside-the-eagles/
THANK YOU!
yeah on the closing question posed by Kempski (they ended up talking about progress and where we go from here they talked about CB and QB being the main questions for us going forward) I couldn’t help but find myself wondering what Tommy thinks about the running game, big picture. Is Shady really special or does he need an excellent line to get him to the second level clean to really show his specialty. The o line is aging, what will we need to do to make sure that doesn’t drop off, etc.
QB isnt a real issue…. It’s just a issue in fans and media minds.. Chip is a realist, bet he is so at peace with not getting Marriotta, that he doesn’t even think about it, nor are they even discussing it at Novacare. I assume Chip is just as confident in Nick as he ever was. Chip knows what needs to be in place around a QB to be successful, he knows how banged up Nick was…
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I’d bet the only QB conversations at Novacare are about who will be the backup. Think Chip is just as Commited to Nick as he ever was. I 100% belíeve that…
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Chip knows how many other factors were screwed up that let do bad performances…
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Btw, NFL games almost always come down to the 4th quarter…How many times have we found ourselves in the 4th quarter and Nick didn’t give us a chance to win? How many times has nIck FOles EVER LOST a game for us in the 4th quarter? I’ll wait lol….
I think we’ll take someone in the 3rd round or later if he’s there. If Barkley’s ready to be a back up so be it, if not, goodbye. See if Chip’s magic can turn a lower pick into something special in case Nick doesn’t work out. I don’t think Chip rules Nick out either, but health and decision making need to hold out for a year before we make a commitment, I expect the front office to hedge their bets like all good teams. But no major resources just yet.
I think we look at CB, inject 1 decent player into the lb interior and ideally a significant talent for the interior of the O-line. Through the draft or free agency.
So my list of things to do with our resources:
CB (like atleast 2 and hope 1 works out)
Interior O Lineman
ILB depth possible starter (if meco doesn’t make it all the way back)
Depth Pass rusher depending on what happens with Trent Cole and BG
Safety is obviously a huge priority BUT, that is an epidemic, you can throw crazy resources at it if you like, but there’s a high probability you are burning your money and draft pick. Take some shots at it, roll the dice in the 3rd round on a guy you like, but don’t throw the mortgage at it.
S,CB,ILB,G,WR
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I’d sign VJax to a two yr Sproles like contract, cut Cooper, resign Mac.
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Sign James Carpenter 25yr old Guard from Seattle, Guard experienced running zone reads with seattle offense
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Go into draft needing ILB, S,CB
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When you draft in the 20s often you are stuck choosing between players with second round grades, so what I would do is the same trade we did last year, trade back from like 22-26, get an extra pick and draft Kendrick brother, that eliminates ILB and our Front 7 is pretty much set,,,
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Round two, Jaylen Collins 6’2 195lb long arm, bump n run corner from LSU..
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Trade up from round 3 back into round 2 and take care of safety..
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Spend the rest of picks on a WR(strong WR draft) another OL whatever other positions we want…
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Problems solved
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I’m not sure Chip is down on Barkley like most assume. I owuldnt mind if we groom him on our bench without even seeing him like GB did to Aaron Rogers for 4years .at the very least maybe he can grow into a quality backüp…I wouldn’t be mad if we cut him and draft a 3rd round corner, I just don’t know why everyone assumes this when we have no data to suggest Chip is done on Barkley just because we haven’t played the young Qb in year two….
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Wouldn’t be surprised if all theQB tallk is a waste and we have the same 3 QBs next year
That’s not gonna work out perfect cause Chip is drafting Coates.
I like the kid… That won’t bother me… But they do have an option to prolong Draftimg anotner young WR to fill other holes, by signing Vjax to a short term veteran contract like Sproles got, and just draft our next young Wr next year, but I like Sammie…. Draftimg him would excite me
With another year of Huff, I do not see any reason spend more money on WRs then just keeping Maclin (I wouldnt hate Jackson at all, I would have loved to have trading for him this year)
It’s tough b/c i can’t see any way that a starter would get straight benched for poor plan on this team. He was asked if they considered MB and he said no one has discussed that.
I could tell after the Dallas game that he was excited to get Nicky Stixx back but that didn’t pan out.
It’ll be interested to see how they alter the gameplan for sanchez. Some of those throws i was like WTF is going on. He was whipping them just a couple of weeks ago.
Geagle, I admire your loyalty and confidence in Nick Foles. He’s going to be a fine player, I have no doubt about that. He’s had some great moments, and some bad. All QBs do. However I do think his play this season has hurt him. Every young QB should be allowed to play through his struggles, Nick couldn’t play through his struggles. Why? Because of his durability.
In the words of Chip Kelly himself: “The number one ability is durability.”
Foles has had issues staying healthy in each of his first 3 seasons. For a big guy, he sure does get hurt a lot. That alone makes me believe that Chip may not know if he’s a sure thing for his team. Why was Foles ruled out these last two must-win games? Tomorrows game, understandable, but next week? Why rule him out two weeks too early? The guy was back on the field throwing passes with a helmet on this week. With the playoffs still a fair possibility, it’s fair to question Chip’s confidence in him. Rust or no rust, if Foles gives us the best chance to win, especially in the playoffs if we make it, why isn’t he playing against New York next week? You mentioned the 49ers game where Cooper dropped that pass, if it wasn’t for STs we wouldve been shutout that game. I, like you, am a believer in Nick Foles. I just think a commitment to him from the organization is unclear.
so eloquent.
I hear you on the durability, but I think its too soon to go there witj Nick. He took a fuckin BEATING this year and played thru bad contusions where his entire shoûlder was a giant black bruise for like 3 or 4 games, before his clavicle or collarbone snapped…
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The injuries he suffered so far are pretty common injuries, par for the course of playing the QB position.. Think every Qb has jacked up his throwing hand hitting it on a helmet… Name a player who hasn’t had a concussion… Collarbone injury, aaron Rodgers suffered last year.
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While I hear your durability concern, this ain’t the time to question it, his OL was unacceptable. And he took a friggin beating and lasted longer than like 90% Of QBs would have lasts…big, strong, durable kid…if he got hurt after all those hits, imagine how soon smaller Barkley or Sanchez would have been hurt playing behind a mess of am interior OL?
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I really see it in Nick. I really really do…. Only two young QB’s in the NFL I have more confidence in, Wilson, and Luck…. I Genuinly mean that… And Id bet money chip is still extremely high on the kid…but we’ll see.
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What in Nick’s play during 2014 have you on that belief?
2 games left – 1 more way to score a TD to rule them all. Will the special teams pull off that elusive blocked field goal TD return?
It’d be nice if they get it.
What possible says can we still do?
….In the playoffs 🙂
I think since Sanchez is most famous for the butt fumble he needs to find a way to score a butt touchdown. I’m not sure how that would work but it would be epic.
That would be amazing, and sounds like a typical Giants game ending
I have found our S for the future men. I NEED you to watch this video of Jeremy Cash and tell me what you think. This dude is freaking EVERYWHERE. 6’2″ 205 lbs, no character flags (at least on the Google), EXCELLENT in stopping the run, so many TFL’s, while he did give up a td to tight coverage, he forced 2 fumbles!!!!! He does play almost exclusively nickel which is interesting but he seems like a piece you can move around. D3FB, tell me what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8BX9Jv7LbA
He looks like he has no hips.
I’m pretty sure he has hips, they might be stiff as a brick though.
ha ha ha ha ha. And we don’t need any more players missing anatomical features. Last Sunday showed we have quite a few guys missing key portions of their groin and/or backbone.
Meh, not the worst I’ve seen. He’s gonna have his problems cause he is so big. Makes up for it in other areas.
I am not so sure about the “no character flaws” part. I heard he shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.
Getting Mariotta is a pipe dream but to me the real issue is what to with a secondary that has shown no improvement despite a notably better pass rush this year. Not like it has been only an issue in a handful of games or that hasn’t been an issue all season long. Players in the secondary/LB aren’t rookies either. Not a single inexperienced player back there nor were they hit by any real injuries this.
Personally, I do hope the Eagles look for a coaching change at defensive coordinator this offseason although I highly doubt they will. Davis has never shown anything beyond mediocrity in his career and you could make the same charge here against his first 2 years here too.
[…] Does the System Work? – Iggles BlitzJeff McLane asked Chip Kelly and Bill Davis questions about the defensive scheme this week. I haven’t spoken to Jeff on his thinking, but he seemed to be getting at the notion that the Eagles might be too centered on run defense. He also seemed curious about whether Davis really wanted to run the 3-4 that the Eagles currently use. The Eagles have had issues on defense over the last 2 years so I think these are fair questions. That said, I think they are flawed questions. Unless a team uses a highly unorthodox scheme (like what the Eagles used with Castillo/Washburn), things are really going to boil down to talent and execution. […]
I’m not quite sure where I fall in the Bill Davis debate. I don’t think he’s a great DC, but the limits we have with no talent at 3 of 4 spots in the DB group would challenge the ability of many folks to scheme up some help.
The lack of the pass rush getting home last weekend was more of a problem to me than our DBs getting toasted. Even though we only had one less sack on Sunday than on Thanksgiving, Romo had way too much time to throw early in the game when Dallas was jumping out to that lead. I’m not remotely interested in hearing any excuses about Romo “looking better” or “looking healthier”; it’s the job of our pass rush to make him worse and unhealthy.
Billy Davis also isn’t the unfocused bunch of clowns on the offensive side of the ball who have been lazy and careless with the football all year. Turnovers are 100% a product of a lack of effort and attention to detail; yet we continue to give the ball away (largely unforced) in spades.
Again, to throw away our division title (or at least control of it) to a crap factory like Dallas represents such a lazy and unmotivated approach to football. There need to be a lot of fingers pointed if we’re not division titlists in a division we should have won by 4 games.
Is there a game today?
yes
Eagles/Skins at 4:30 and then SD/SF at 825
Thanks.
Bwahahahahahahah the Bears are so screwed up, that front office people are saying that if they want to trade Cutler and get a team to take on his insane salary, the Bears would have to also give that team a quality draft pick. Bwahahaha THATS the most dysfunction ish I ever heard. Crap like that happens in the NBA LOL
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Basically say the Texans wamt to trade for Cutler, they would trade a 7th rd pick for Cutler(because rules dictate that you have to give up something in a trade) but the Texans would get back Jay Cutler and like a 3rd round pick from the Bears….Beahahahahaha !!!!!! And they still have to fire the Head coach, FIRE the GM. And build a defense from the ground up!
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Congrats, the Bears have reached Jerruh Jones, Danny boy Snyder, Oakland Raiders level of dysfunction…
Well Cutler’s deal is pretty much a NBA like contract with a ton of guaranteed base salary
OK, here is how the “butt touchdown” could work. Sanchez is blitzed up the middle and the D-lineman bats a Sanchez down hard, but the ball careens off of Kelce’s backside and back into Sanchez’s arms, and Sanchez runs it in for an easy TD.