Weird Time
Posted: December 22nd, 2014 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 414 Comments »The season is over. But it isn’t.
There is a final game to play against the Giants. But nothing is really on the line. There is the difference in finishing 9-7 or 10-6. There is the desire to end a 3-game losing streak. And sweeping the Giants is never a bad thing.
As an outsider, the logical thing is to look ahead to 2015 and think about the advantages of playing some young guys. The problem is that’s not how most coaches think and certainly not Chip Kelly. His focus is on beating the Giants. That means no Jaylen Watkins. No Matt Barkley. And so on.
I do understand where he’s coming from. The best teams in the league are extremely competitive. Players fight to win jobs. Playing time is earned. Kelly doesn’t want to send the wrong message by rewarding potential over production.
Kelly is very much a believer in process. You practice the same way over and over. You develop habits (hopefully good ones). You don’t change what you do for a better or lesser opponent. Consistency is key. It makes total sense that this type of coach would approach a “meaningless” season finale as he did other games. You want players to remain focused. You don’t want them picking and choosing when to prepare and when to compete.
It is frustrating to think that we won’t get to see Matt Barkley. No one expects him to be great and some revelation, but it would be nice to see if the guy looks better than last year. Instead, we get more of Mark Sanchez who we all ready know about. If Barkley hasn’t played well enough in practice to show he’s even with or better than Sanchez, I get Kelly’s thinking. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating for us outsiders. We aren’t seeing them in practice. We don’t know what Barkley looks like right now, good or bad.
* * * * *
This is going to be a strange week. There aren’t compelling topics about the game, but I’m also not wanting to go into full offseason mode. We have about 7 months of that. I’ll write something on the Skins game. I’ll write some kind of Giants preview. I may mix in some stuff that touches on offseason topics.
I do think it is important to let a bit of time go by in order to make some clear judgments. I saw a Saints highlight today and it hit me that they’ve had a nightmare season. And they’ve got a Super Bowl winning coach, an elite QB, a special weapon in Jimmy Graham and so on. That team will finish with fewer wins than the Eagles.
It feels miserable to Eagles fans right now for a couple of reasons. Going from 9-3 to 9-6 is bad. You never want a losing streak, but one in December is just crushing.
And seeing Dallas benefit from this collapse is truly sickening. Nothing is worse than Jerry Jones with that smile on his face and Tony Romo with that Gomer Pyle grin on his. Ugh.
There is no question that this season ended badly, but we do need some perspective. This isn’t a team that is devoid of talent and this isn’t a team that underachieved significantly. The Saints went from Super Bowl contenders to 6 wins. It is possible that Mark Sanchez could finish the season 4-4 and Drew Brees 6-10. That’s hard to comprehend.
_
I am actually fine with sticking to our starters. Also do you really think one game would change the following notion:
We don’t know what Barkley looks like right now, good or bad.
right, I don’t think so…
Let’s beat the Giants and finish the season on a lesser unbearable note.
Usually agree with you. Not sure I agree with this one though. Some of the hubris on this team (coaching, secondary) has me thinking back to the end of Andys tenure. Andy refused to bench players and Chip the same. I really honestly can’t listen to anyone who attests that there is not a better player on the bench than Bradley Fletcher. These young guys cannot be worse – and that is for certain. Roc Carmichael is probably better.
My aforementioned post should have excluded Bradley a Fletcher of course when talking about ‘sticking with the starters’. Mea culpa.
Chip is going to start fletcher out of pure stubbornness
Hope he doesn’t start him at Cornerback. Maybe at waterboy.
Amazing how people see the couple of bad plays and miss the 35 plays that were fine.
Noted. I also wanted to mention – but didn’t want to get pilloried- that I would personally like to see Polk start over McCoy. I think he is a better all around runner and will keep sanchez in manageable 3rd down situations. Let’s not forget that mccoy has left both qbs in 3rd and long situations all season long by his refusal to get up field and bury his head into the defense.
Noted. And not disagreed.
Polk stays hurt, probably why he can’t get more usage. Plus the more you use them the less effective he’ll be. It’s as much about the blocking as the back.
Just like Vinny Curry is way less effective with more snaps, same with Brandon Big Boy Gram.
But he’s not hurt now.
I think you start polk because there is literally nothing to gain my starting McCoy other than injury. You think the Fanbase is souring on Chip Kotite now, imagine if McCoy blows out a knee in a meaningless game.
Yikes. How dare you now put the Chip Kelly Rich Kotite comparison in my head during the holiday season. I am going to go drown myself in the punch bowl……
I completely disagree. The team already blew this season. There is no redeeming it at this point. Beating the Giants will do zero to erase the stink of this choke job.
I don’t want to see any more of Mark Sanchez, and I don’t want to see Connor Barwin, Mychal Kendricks, Fletcher Cox, etc. blow out a knee and set themselves back for next season.
This game is utterly meaningless and there is nothing to be gained and much to be lost by going all out to win it.
Boo to Chip Kelly.
I guess we’re happily agree to disagree then.
You play to win the football game. That’s how I see it.
I think you play to win the Super Bowl. A higher pick last year could’ve meant Haha Clinton-Dix instead of Nate Allen playing safety these past three games. A higher pick last year could’ve meant making the playoffs this year. A higher pick next year could mean a better chance to win games that matter. A win against the Giants means nothing.
Again. I disagree. Merry Xmas.
Same to you. All I want for Xmas is that the Eagles not lose valuable draft position by winning a meaningless game. Fortunately if Chip insists on running Bradley Fletcher out there again to cover Beckham I don’t think I have much to worry about.
You (and Chip) had better hope there are no serious injuries that impact next season.
Let’s keep fingers crossed.
Have a great time with your family and let’s all hope the Eagles come back stronger than ever.
Major fan of Greg Popovich here and I agree with your point. Pop seems to measure almost everything with one goal in mind, win the NBA final. Sure, the NFL is only a 16 game season, but I think your longer-term thinking does make sense for this game. I guess the bigger goal for NFL owners is: “entertain the fans right now”, and most NFL fans probably feel that way too. Look at the sixers, they are in extreme rebuild mode, and I believe most sixer fans buy-in on that plan.
no worries if we lose out. better draft pick. cue the down votes.
No down vote from me.
Unlike most football coaches, I look at these things completely rationally. If you can’t win this season, you might as well set yourself up to win down the road. Knowing more about the young guys would be helpful for that, and a better draft pick would be helpful for that (people say two spots doesn’t matter, but last year it would have made the difference between trading down for Marcus Smith or drafting Haha Clinton-Dix or Brandin Cooks).
I WANT them to lose this game.
Better draft picks so we can pick someone who was probably on everyone’s 5th rd board in the first……..
Can’t wait to see Odell this week.
I can’t wait to see Bradley Fletcher covering him one on one with no safety help!
we think our receivers can stay with them.
It’ll be a good matchup. Fletcher has played well this season.
-_-
Its gonna be weird rooting for him this week but he is gonna be my big money player in all my fanduel leagues so I’m hoping for 15 catches 200 yards and 4tds. Heres to chipper not benching fletcher
My estimates for ODB..250 yard 3 TDs. I hope we lose so hard that Chip has nightmares of ODB torching whatever CB we put on him for days.
Chip Kelly’s job isn’t (or shouldn’t be) to “win football games.” It should be to win Super Bowls. This is the first time where I have vehemently disagreed with him. He is making a decision which hurts his chances of winning a Super Bowl, and is therefore wrong.
Tommy…..if the Cowboys finish 12-4……you can bet your ass people will be saying this is Romos year to get to the super bowl……if it happens all our heads will explode…….while this week is strange, unfulfilling and kinda sad for us Eagles fan…..it can get worse if the Cowboys go deep into the playoffs or worse get to and win a super bowl……kinda like the damn Giants getting hot in 2011 super bowl…….
If they have to meet the seahawks I doubt they win. We’re the only team since November 23rd to score double digits on them which is insane.
How on earth did we score double digits on them with Sanchez? Worst part is we could easily have scored 10 points more if Sanchez was Sanchez
No….I do not want to finish the season on a four game skid……..talk about choke jobs…….
With Sanchez at QB, don’t be surprised.
How does winning a completely meaningless Toilet Bowl against the giants make you feel any better?
No way i would never want my team to win. Its not a meaningless game. First of all it is against the Giants. 2nd the team needs to win especially after losing 3 in a row. So u as a Eagles fan will root for Eli Manning so they can have a better draft pick. No f-cking way. YES of course i will feel better to win sunday.
It is a COMPLETELY meaningless game. It’s against the Giants? So what, they suck this year. If they win and we lose it means a better draft pick for us and a worse one for them so it’s ultimately better in the long run to lose. The team needs to win after losing 3 in a row? Why? Either way their season is over when the game is done and either way the end of this season is a massive disappointment and there’s no way the stink of choking away a division title is coming off it. Next year is a new season with a new team and what happens in this game has zero to do with it.
I am not going to root for Eli Manning. I am not going to watch the game at all – I have better things to do with my time at this time of year than watch Mark Sanchez and co. try to win a glorified exhibition game. But if the Eagles lose, I will not be disappointed at all. Moral victories are worthless to me.
Yes if u are not a true fan you should not watch the game or care if they win or lose. You remind me of the fair weather fans who only root for the team when they are winning. Do me a favor and don’t watch next year because they might not be in first place all year or make the playoffs.
Buzz off.
I’ve been following this team for 30 years and watched every minute of the 1994 Kotite meltdown, the 1998 3-13 Ray Rhodes death march, and the 2012 4-12 Andy Reid farewell seasons, so I assure you you’re in no position to judge my commitment as an Eagles fan. If they were going to play the young players in this game, I’d watch.
I am a person with with other interests and responsibilities, however, and I have better things to do with my time (ESPECIALLY around the holidays) than spend three hours watching guys who won’t even be on the team next year like Mark Sanchez try to win a loser bowl against the Giants.
first time here. agreeing with your posts. I’ll give you a reason to watch eagles vs gnats: giants fans are pitying the eagles for the loss to the girls
Bengals running read option, zone read plays all over denver tonight, looking a a lot better than we do.
Yup. Even with Andy Stinky Dalton.
Well, They do have a big play RB, which we do not
Better wrs and a way better defense, probably a better QB too
ouch.
I was half-joking, Kinda like the Eagles this season
Damn son
Hill is huge. Almost as big as Brandon Jacobs was.
I think what makes it equally as frustrating is the fact that Dallas’s defense has looked markedly better than ours despite having half the talent. How does that happen? I know they are extremely vulnerable, but it’s crazy to me how they’ve played this year. I thought they’d be epically bad. Not so. Can anything be learned from them?
I’m not sure how Chip can continue to put blind faith in Fletch. Does he not realize that our defense has eroded as of late and Fletch is the chief culprit. D.C. scored a total of 13 points in the previous 2 games. They had lost 6 games in a row and appeared to be a team in disarray. Yet we somehow managed to let them have their way with us. 2 of D.C.’s 3 highest scoring games came against us this year. That’s putrid.
I saw a stat earlier today that put us in a rare category. At 9-3, teams have a 97% chance to make the playoffs. Yes, we didn’t flop like New Orleans. But to say this season wasn’t a disappointment is extremely disingenuous.
This probably needs it’s own post to address, but a few quick q/s/observations:
What happened to the screen game? Why did we fail to get Shady going in the passing game all season? What has been up with Sproles’s sudden disappearance. He was our MVP at the midpoint, but has been really quiet as of late. Why has Chip been so quick to abandon the run all season long? I thought that was his bread and butter.
Their defense is on the field for Half the time ours is less time to get fatigue and exposed
Exactly, Dallas’ defense looks better than the Eagles b/c having a 2,000 yard rusher and another legitimate MVP candidate QB on offense helps cover defensive shortcomings. Add to that the Eagles D has basically played an extra game in terms of snap count.
The screen game has been one of the most worrying trends this season. With rare exceptions they haven’t worked at ALL. Most of the time defenses aren’t just limiting them to short gains, they are blowing them up and tackling the rb for LOSSES, and aren’t fooled at all. Kind of makes you wonder if there’s something to what I’ve heard from a few people that have been defending us-that the offense is predictable.
we showed it soo much during the preseason, that part was over, fake screens would have been nice. But no downfield game it’s hard for screens to work.
Sanchez’s inability to get it 10 yards downfield combined with some poor OL play and the occasional “Cooper” (runner refusing to use the sidewalk) or “Shady” (runner dancing around in the open field instead of getting positive yards) – all played a part in the failure of the screen game as the season wore on.
The way to stop the eagles is have Sanchez throwing the ball for you or to have the players not execute just like every other offense in the NFL. We had guys running free vs even the Seahawks. There’s still no real answer to Kelly’s offense, all about execution not scheme. He creates mismatches and steady one on ones, just gotta beat your man. Nothing he’s doing is really anything new either, play action off zone run game isn’t anything new. He’s doing things that have been around a long time. He dresses up plays nicely though with his universal formations, confuses defenses to where they don’t know what’s really coming til the very last second. Seahawks and 49ers can say they know what’s coming, many good defenses know that. It’s called play diagnosis before the snap. And it happens against every offense in the NFL, otherwise qb’s or defenses wouldn’t have to adjust and realign pre-snap.
We’re the only team other than I think the 49ers last game that actually scored a TD vs the seahawks, that’s like a month worth of games that no one could get in the end zone, but we did. Sherman just talks a lot of shit even when he’s wrong, we had guys open and they didn’t solve shit. Since Nov 23rd only 3 touchdowns have been scored against the Seahawks, rest are field goals. We had 2 of those 3. 49ers and cardinals couldn’t do shit twice in that span, I bet the cowboys can’t either. They’re the best defense in football.
Dallas defense: 5.8 yards per play
Eagles defense: 5.3 yards per play
And that’s with playing a ton moar plays. We have the base just need the top end. It’s coming together.
Dallas has also given 3 PPG less than us, and that’s what Chip says it comes down to, but okay that’s not significant.
They face far fewer plays, and turnovers have put our defense is some ridiculous situations artificially driving the number up.
They have a coordinator who actually knows what the hell he’s doing?
I do wonder who we will cut/restructure. Lots of candidates. Serious issues that need to be addressed
Well Casey, Williams, Cole, Herremans,Ryans are in serious danger of potentially being cut and cutting those.guys would save you nearly 29mil plus guys like Shady and Brent probably need to rework their deals
There’s no chance Shady reworks his deal.
I could see Shady get more money up front for a lower annual or a deal similar to Cole (aka wont ever see the last 2 seasons)
I just don’t see a need to restructure McCoy. With so many candidates, like Williams, Ryans, Casey, Herremans and Cole, prime for restructuring or outright release and a bunch of cap space rolling forward from this year in addition to the cap rising, we could be looking at somewhere between 20-40 million in cap space and Maclin as our only must resign. Should be more than enough to extend Cox, Kendricks, Thornton and possibly Boykin if he still even wants to be here. Just no need to restructure McCoy, add dead money to 2016 and 2017 and create animosity. I really think only two things will happen with McCoy: traded or he stays status quo.
Correct. And there also might be no chance the team wants to rework Shady’s deal. If that deal stays as is, Shady’s 2016 and 2017 numbers make him able to be cut if they wanted to after the conclusion of next season. Adding future dead money problems by reworking deals is not what the Eagles do.
This offseason will be far more interesting than the last. Lots of decisions to make. QB and secondary being the top two. Lots of aging veterans who could be cut. This offseason will affect the Eagles for the next few years and possibly decide the fate of Chip Kelly.
CB, QB, DB, ILB, OLB, OL.
WR*
Safety
I’m tentatively at Wayne’s and Coates with my first 2 picks.
I skip WR for an OL, ILB, OLB or safety in the 2nd if the right guy is there
Coates is always the right guy in the second though :). Ideal situation is being able to grab 2 second rounders somehow but that’s always an ideal situation.
If Green-Beckham is there in the 2nd, I would take him in a heartbeat. I hope Waynes puts on like 10 pounds before the draft. He’s too thin.
you(most of you) really think the Eagles brass is sitting there thinking “omg, we have to address the QB”? You think that’s air your breathing?
I share Kelly’s belief in process, but part of the process has to be critical self-evaluation. Why is Bradley Fletcher still playing, or at least still being assigned 1 on 1 deep coverage without help? Why isn’t the screen game working? Where are the running backs (especially Sproles) in the passing game? What if the 2-gap 3-4 is not an ideal defense in today’s NFL? Why wasn’t Cooper benched earlier in the year when he was playing terribly? etc.
I’m off the Kelly bandwagon. I don’t think he has what it takes to be a Superbowl winning coach. He’s not self-critical enough, and too loyal to underperforming vets. And, as stated elsewhere in these comments, hre’s starting to make lots of bad decisions that reek of arrogance. Why wouldn’t you play Smith II and Barkley this week? Every snap they get gives you more information that might be useful in winning games that matter.And players, despite what they say in public to support their buddies, understand this.
I think he’s very self-critical. It’s hard for you to really say otherwise. If you look at the all-22s on most of these sites you’ll see the problems are execution, he can’t play for the players. Maybe he’s naive to think players can execute his plays, but he can’t get new players mid season, all he can do is hope that through repetition and study and doing all the right things that they’ll play better. Now maybe you need better quality players, that’s something they’ll have to evaluate in the offseason, but who would have predicted that after last year we’d have a year like this year.
QBs missing reads, missing throws, turning the ball over, players fumbling, wrs fumbling, blockers missing blocks and the defense is letting up 30pts a game.
The evidence for being self-critical isn’t very strong. A self-critical coach benches Fletcher or changes the scheme. A self-critical coach benches Cooper a while ago. A self-critical coach changes plays that his team can’t execute. A self-critical coach figures out how to get the screen game going again. Etc.
And he does it all in midseason because that’s totally possible.
Because nobody ever considers benching non producing players. Players in the NFL are starters until they die or get injured BC continuity trumps competency. Sounds like a good way to lose.
And who would he have benched Coop for?
Huff – injured / not ready based on game film.
Matthews – has only learned slot position
Brad Smith – I’ll take my chance on Cooper…
When you are already getting terrible production, it’s always good to stick with that terrible production.
Who do you want him to put in for Cooper? Brad Smith? It’s not his fault Nate doesn’t have the instincts to roll himself to Fletchers side. He bites on fakes too much.
Well maybe he should not have let Jackson go then or, better yet, worked with Roseman to replace him with another WR of a similar skill set…most understood that Cooper benefitted from having Jackson stretch the field and it certainly is Chip’s fault if Smith, Maehl & Huff were the only other options on the roster…he put the roster together and has final say on who is on it.
And yes, again, Chip made the choice to keep Allen and play him even when it was clear he was not up for the job. Again having backup S like Maragos and Wolff are not good enough especially when you know Allen may not be able to carry the load.
No other safeties available. I dnt think Chip thought Pooper would be THIS bad. We are getting the same numbers out of Maclin as we did Jackson and better numbers from Matthews than Avant but Pooper is just so bad. #SammieCoates
Cooper might very well be the worst starting #2 WR in the NFL
He is.
But again Chip was heavily involved in PICKING these players or keeping the ones he inherited…if they continue to fail to execute, the coach MUST hold them accountable and put someone else in who CAN execute the plays correctly…if that player is not on the roster, than he needs to look in the mirror and figure out a way to scheme his way out of the problem until he can acquire the player he needs. There must be constant adjustments between and in-games. The same issues should not be allowed to occur week after week after week like they have this season.
There are a ton of issues to flame Chip, Howie, and BIlly over for this choke of a finish, but none of it adds up to me wanting to say I don’t trust the organization to continue to improve.
If I have to give a draft pick into their 3rd season to make a judgement on their value, I can do the same for a front office regime.
If were not at 11-5/12-4 and a division titlist next year at the same time, there needs to be some more drastic things done.
Chip has done well but not great. He didn’t inherit a roster like the Raiders and he didn’t get a team like the Broncos either. He’ll have two drafts behind him now next season. So far his remolding of the foundation isn’t very pretty. We can really start worrying when Chip continues to ignore patching up the defense in his 4th season.
He’s 10-6 and hopefuly 10-6. Yes we can’t beat good teams, that sucks, but we couldn’t beat teams in the years before he came either. He’s a college coach, it’s going to take him a few years. What’d you expect when you’re playing half the year with your backup QB, the other half with no o-line.
We really just played the whole season with 2 different backup QBs.
So Kelly ignored defense, that is why he drafted bought in guys like Barwin and Jenkins (and Williams/Fletcher), drafted Logan and Smith high? That is why Cox and Kendricks is now playing at a pro bowl level?
Anders. Just because you put a bandaid on a bullet wound doesn’t mean it’s being addressed. Chip needed players to fit his new scheme and he went out to get them. You’re crazy if you think this defense doesn’t need a new secondary and improvements.
I never said otherwise, but saying he is ignoring it also stupid. Currently we need at least 1 more safety and 1 more CB (I think one of Williams/Carroll is fine if we can draft a guy like Waynes or get Kareem Jackson or Maxwell in FA)
No it isn’t stupid at all. He saw first hand at how much the secondary sucked. No changes were made until it was too late.
Okay, who should we have drafted (with zero captain hindsight) in the first 2 rounds then?
Why are you bringing up the draft? Chip started the same two CBs when one was desperately struggling and contributed heavily into losing the game. You’re kicking the strawman to death here.
The defense needs further improvement, yes. But to say Kelly has “ignored” it is ridiculous. You can only rebuild so much in each offseason.
Please tell that to the Broncos.
He inherited a 4-12 team. What’s the Raider’s record again?
That team was also 8-8……before 2012.
What’s up with all these stupid personal fouls and even brawls lately?! Where is all this anger coming from?
It’s xmas for christ’s sakes… #%!^+*’$¥#!*
My anger comes from 1960, 1975, 1983, and Ruben.
I have to step away from the Phillies for a bit. I haven’t been as angry with a team since the Sixers brought in Eddie Jordan and they were going through their issues with Stefanski as the GM.
Eagles schedule next year isn’t difficult. Perfect time to break in a potential rookie QB and still compete. But what will actually happen is we will play foles until he gets hurt then tread water until our secondary gets obliterated again. Hopefully with a secondary that has a lot of continuity but very little skill if we are lucky.
Sin #8:
Never project next year’s schedule based upon this year’s performances.
Sin 8
Going into your 3rd season without a real QB and no idea what you are doing in the secondary.
Lol. You have no idea of that. Remember at the beginning of the season when we thought we had no pass rush?
I mean franchise QB’s grow on trees too, you can’t forget that. Lockdown corners, and franchise QBs, practically the two easiest things in the NFL to get.
No. I know that, duh. We’re probs just gonna jump up for Mariotta.
I mean just give em a like a 3rd rounder and Vinny Curry for Mike Evans, Gerald McCoy and the first overall pick. If Howie can’t get that done then he should be fired.
That would be a sick deal though. How about Curry this year though. Double digit sacks?!?! Do you still trade him for a hot pick? Like what 3rd/4th. He has the potential.
I don’t trade him. He doesn’t fit here long term, but another year of pass rush off the bench & a compensation pick > what you would likely get for him in a trade.
If we got a contributor who fits better here back along with a fringe top 100 pick I’d consider it.
Trade for Dion Jordan?
Josh Evans and a fourth.
Who is Josh Evans? From the Jags?
yep, go watch the matt elam tape. Then watch the safety next to him.
Give me a 3rd and we’ll talk. 🙂
Curry is worth at least a 2nd and in theory, a 6-3 280 pound 10+ sack guy should be worth a 1st for a 4-3 team
I think a second is fair. It’s just always tough to drop a 10+ sack guy, no matter the circumstance. In fact I wouldn’t even think about it if it wasn’t at least a late second.
You realize we have a few fans who actually believe this is possible? 😛
No ones that dumb
They do on Madden so like.. that’s real life too..you’re already wrong!!
Who said lockdown corners? Just looking for competency and accountability. Foles Gold threw a wrench in what they thought they had at QB. I’m not blaming them for that altering how they viewed QBs in the last draft. I’m not saying fire everybody. I just don’t want Chips Tenure to go to waste.
Quit being a prick.
In defense of D3FB, I know what it’s like to be a starved eagle fan dying for a good Eagle debate, and find my self reading 75% innacurate nonsense from fellow fans and media.. It can get frustrating
I don’t understand them talking about trying to trade up to get Winston or Mariotta.
I’m not a draft nik, but the Skins paid three 1st rounders and a 2nd rounder to move from like 8 to 2.
We are 18 right now and would have to move up to top 5. So outside of the starting bid of at least three 1st rounders, to move up it would seem like we’d have to give up Novacare, Lincon Financial, and possibly Lurie’s firstborn child.
Atlanta moved from 27 to 6 for Julio and gave up less there is no science to it
I think Julio was picked the year before RG3. I think Snyder has upped the ante and teams will want to get the compensation StL got.
Sal Palantonio said that to move up, the GMs he was speaking to said the bidding starts at three 1st rounders.
Yea that’s what people who argue don’t understand. The top two teams need QB’s. The team picking fifth needs a QB. There simply isn’t enough to give.
I agree with that, but that sword cuts both ways. No talking about difficult some game on the Eagles’ schedule next year is going to be based on how good a team was this year.
Totally agree.
A lot of us list QB as a need, but don’t mention any possible names/targets? Any draft targets not named Mariota you’d like us to get? Hundley? Sims? Petty?
I can just see Hundley getting knocked out very early in his career.
Im not really a fan of Hundley. However I do like Bryce Petty.
Ditto on Hindley but I saw Petty throw ball after ball over the head of his receivers. I haven’t watched a ton of qbs but I haven’t seen one I really liked.
Yeah he has some issues with his mechanics. This QB class sucks, man.
This last draft might have been ok for qbs.
Correct. That guy is a little short in the brains department.
All 3 look bad IMO. Mariota will cost more than the Redskins paid for RG3. Stick with Foles. If possible, trade for RG3 for cheap as a backup. Not the ideal situation, but the optimal choice. Either Foles or RG3 could return to form with more coaching from Chip. Go all out for cornerbacks and safeties in free agency and the draft.
Probably need another WR and some line projects as well.
Another WR is needed but maybe not as needed as you think. I see Huff emerging as a legit WR next year. Ideally, Cooper is gone, but we have to wait a year for cap reasons. Fine with the top 4 as it is now, but want a fourth guy to eventually replace Cooper. Definitely need OL projects but big-time draft prospects might have to wait another year. Might be stuck with lower-round players. Maybe luck out and get another Kelce.
Sammie Coates. That is all. I forget about Pooper because he is such a pooper but probably a decent 4th WR.
Legit as in a number 3? Maybe. He’ll be functional. If he’s our number 2, we’re in for a long season….
Huff has the upside to be a good compliment to Maclin on the other side. He just lacks the height, but his aggressive playing style can make up for that.
Matthews is the real number 2 even if he is the slot guy. Huff should be the third receiver (the other outside guy). This is all contingent on Maclin coming back.
Agree. Especially on the interior. Todd Herremans is just about done. You figure Mathis has a year or two left, at most. RG will be a problem for the foreseeable future. We’re set at Center and Tackle. Peters is aging, but he’s a freak of nature and has some time left.
I sure hope so too. I Get the feeling the offensive side of the ball will get more attention again this offseason, Based on the teams offseason history.
I am not taking a first round QB. Too many other glaring needs (CB, S, ILB), and I still think Foles has a shot.
I’ll look for a developmental guy in the 3rd round or so, but nobody in the top two rounds.
Developmental guys at QB work out close to 0% of the time. Dont waste that pick on a QB if you can help it.
Honestly if you don’t trade up for Mariota or take Hundley in the second and you refuse to take s sliding Winston there is not much else unless you like Grayson mid rounds
Trading the farm for a top pick so you can draft a supposed can’t miss QB prospect often fails to work out as well, and if you swing and miss (e.g. RGIII) you set your franchise back half a decade, rather than merely blowing one mid-round pick.
I’ll take a chance at finding the next Wilson or Brady over a high risk gamble like trading up for Mariota.
I have full faith that if Chip wanted to move up and grab a top talent guy(I.e. Mariota this year or someone else next year)he wouldn’t fail.
I have faith that he’d do it. I don’t have any faith at all that it would be the right move, and I don’t see why I should. Historically pushing all your chips into the middle of the table on one guy has not been a smart move. Like I said, if you do it and that one guy isn’t a stud, it’s more than a failure, it’s a franchise-wrecking disaster. Even if it succeeds, you have a franchise QB, but too many holes in the roster around him and not enough draft picks to fill them.
It’s not a good way to build a team.
Permanent purgatory of no titles. Or maybe getting a QB that opens your title window indefinitely. One way you maybe get a title out of. The other you will never win a title with
That would be a good argument, if there was any evidence whatsoever for it.
Let’s look at the last 15 SB champs (since 2000).
# of teams who won with a franchise QB they drafted after having a bad season (i.e., they did not have to surrender assets to move up in the draft): 5 (05 Steelers, 06 Colts, 07 Giants, 08 Steelers, 11 Giants)
# of teams who won with a mid or late round pick at QB: 4 (01, 03, 04 Patriots, 13 Seahawks, throw in the 99 Rams with Warner – an UDFA- if you like)
# of teams who won with a veteran retread at QB: 3 (00 Ravens, 02 Bucs, 09 Saints)
# of teams who won with a late first round pick at QB: 2 (10 Packers, 12 Ravens)
# of teams who won by making a massive trade-up from the end of the first round to draft a QB: 0.
On the other hand, we have evidence of such tradeups wrecking the ability of teams to compete over multiple seasons just down I-95 in Landover.
Doesn’t seem like at at all a good strategy to me.
Giants traded up to get Manning, because he wasn’t going to play in SD. Outside of that point taken.
They traded a 1st and a 3rd, and the Chargers also got a franchise QB out of the deal in Rivers. That’s a bit different than devastating 3 entire drafts to move up for a guy the way the Redskins did with RGIII.
I may have misread it – as they stayed put rather than trading up a spot or two. I’m not disagreeing with your point, only pointing out that they did move up. And you’re right, they didn’t give up the farm either.
Lol no you don’t get to queue up the Brady anamoly. Sure lets hope we can land a top 5 QB in the mid late rds.
Brees as a merely a veteran retread is laughable. Dude has half the 5000 Yd passing seasons ever.
1st rd QBs rule the day and its not even a question.
Brady was an anomaly, granted.
Brees WAS a veteran retread at the time the Saints signed him. He’d been injured/mediocre in San Diego, had Rivers drafted to replace him, had one good season, and then hurt his shoulder. He was a decent NFL quarterback with question marks around him at that point, not yet the surefire Hall-of-Famer he is now.
It is easiest to find a franchise QB with a high first round pick, clearly. The point is, the Eagles don’t have a high first round pick, and they can’t get one without completely torpedoing their ability to fill holes on the roster for the next several years. It is not a viable way to build a championship contender for a team in the position they are.
I’m crying watching how well the bengals are playing in a big game.
Our day will come grasshopper.
Love that show
I love you?
Just heard they benched terrance newman after he got beat few times and his replacement just got a pick 6.
Benching a corner…what a novel concept
Sacks, pick sixes, etc. defense is doing it’s think. I seriously doubt if we played the broncos again that it’d look a lot different than it did last year.
Well they have two first rounders sitting on the bench. STUPID DRAFTING!!!!!! TERRIBLE GM! WHAT BUSTS!!! THEY CAN’T EVEN GET ON THE FIELD!!!!! FIRE MARV LEWIS AND THEIR GM/OWNER!!!! I READ IN A MOCK DRAFT THAT THEY TOTALLY COULD HAVE DRAFTED THOSE GUYS IN LIKE THE 14TH ROUND! MEL KIPER TOLD ME SO!
Lol. He finally snapped.
The last 48 hours.
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/257866/keyboard-smash-o.gif
Jesus lol. It’s a rough time here as the season ends. People are upset and probably should be but there’s no need to go to such lengths of firing coaches and all that jazz. We need more talent which takes time. Simple as that.
It’s mainly that it’s essentially just a tidal wave of:
-Chip Kelly is arrogant
-Chip Kelly is glib with the media
-Chip Kelly owes the fans an apology
-Change for the sake of change
-Chris Polk (who everyone wanted cut 4 months ago) should be playing more than Shady
-We dont run the ball enough (except that Shady has the second most carries in the league, and we are 7th in rushing attempts)
-Mel Kiper didn’t talk about Marcus Smith enough, and as captain hindsight I wanted player XYZ (notice all the CALVIN PRYOR SCAREZ PEOPLEZZZ have gotten real quiet, as has the Dee Ford crowd)
-Nitpick of offense
-CHIP KELLY ISN”T A GENIUS!!! SCREW CHIP KELLY! (I apparently missed the messianic and conceited press conference where he said this, instead of blaming the journalist who wrote shit like that to get pageviews, lets hold the coach personally responsible. And then get mad when he’s defensive with the media)
Yeh I hear ya. Some are in panic mode for some reason. I mean I’m disappointed but I’m willing to see this through for a while.
Calvin Pryor is playing? Whoaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
I wonder what the reporter actually said when Chip responded with his “smart ass” reply? I couldn’t really hear it. I would call that getting offensive with the media cause he asked the media a question… lol
It was McLane
McLane’s a tool. He acts like he can coach the Eagles. Captain Hindsight.
I still think the third item is valid. And I bet we get it from him on Monday after the Giants game.
The flipside of that coin is Jay Gruden, and that’s actively hurting a team, as opposed to being a mild nuisance to fans.
How could you forget ‘smug’?
Lol… Mel Kiper… he’s a loud mouth, media caricature. If is wasn’t for the short-attention span, sound bite addicted viewer/reader he would actually need to do some real research.
bengals don’t have glaring holes on that defense
They’ve also been playing the same defense for for what 12 years?
That defense really showed up tonight
Dalton 17/25 for 2 TDs and one pick. Win over Broncos. That same stat line has lost us games against WAS and DAL.
Good defense in the secondary sure makes a difference, especially against a QB like Peyton.
Sad thing is we’ll never have guys like pacman jones, vontez berfict, etc.
and neither of them is the reason why that defense is good.
I think Madden had ten 10 win seasons. I always thought that was impressive. I want that 10-6 record for the Eagles this year for 2 years in a row.
I do as well. Winning begets winning. And I hate the Giants. I’m still livid over the choking away of our division title, but just throwing out a bobo patrol vs. the Giants doesn’t really help anything.
A better draft pick and more info on the young players helps. A meaningless win over the Giants does not.
I for one would love to see them play the young kids but still come out and try to win the game. Also, I worry more about veterans mailing it in than young kids getting their first opportunity.
I’m not saying they should intentionally lose the game. By all means, try to win with Barkley, Marcus Smith, etc. Just don’t risk the vets’ health trying to win a game that means nothing.
I just don’t see how Nick Foles is not next year’s starting QB. Mariota will cost WAY too much to trade up for. Winston too, and he has some major red flags. The rest of the QB prospects are terrible. All of the free agent quarterbacks are terrible.
And Mariota is a guy who should be in an apprenticeship system for a year anyway in order to work his way into NFL passing concepts.
You’re correct on Winston being the human red flag.
Foles, no matter who the guy we sign as a backup, should be made to compete for the QB job in camp rather than being handed the starting job again. I hope that helps him bring the correct focus and drive to clean up the flawed technique he demonstrated far too often this year.
Based on this season’s performances I’d say Foles > Sanchez.
So he did ‘win’ the competition to start.
While Winston is a human red flag, there is something to say about a kid who can constantly be in trouble, have so much crap sorrounding him Off the field at all times, yet the game starts and he has blinders on, no matter what crap he was dealing with(most of which was self imposed), never has he let it effect him on the field, all he has ever done is win, no matter what the circumstances..
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Personally, I don’t need a jackass QB like that with our joke 3 stooges local media, manny, moe and Hack… But that’s says a lot about the kid… I’d prefer the Marriotta of course who doesn’t put himself in those positions off the field
I would love to hear a credible account for the Foles backslide this past season. His footwork, his decision-making, and his accuracy all looked worse overall than 2013. Regardless of the problems around him, he did not look as fundamentally sound. I don’t remember much flawed technique in 2013.
Bill Musgrave. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. He ruined quarterbacks in Minnesota too.
– 52-43 since ’08 (.558) which is roughly ~9 win/season;
– 0-3 in the playoffs including 2 home losses
– 2 divisional titles
– Playoffs 3 out of those 6 years
Eagles like to talk about themselves as being one of the top franchises in the NFL but it has been a lot mediocrity over that stretch and over the past decade really much of the same unless you take out the unexpected ’08 playoff run.
No, they talk about how they WANT to be, not HOW they are.
If they are never going to play Barkley, than why did they spend a draft pick on him? Draft picks are precious and it is bad resource allocation to pick a guy and then never use him. I get he may not be any good, but who would know if we never see him play and why then do they not cut him and put the resources toward another position?
I want to see what Barkley does in the 2015 pre-season before we get into any pronouncements about him as a player. And how the Eagles approach QB, or don’t, in the draft will tell you all you need to know about what they think about the QB situation on the team right now.
Regardless of the rationale it pisses me off that we won’t see Barkley in the last game.
I would buy that he clearly needs to earn his way onto the field and all that nonsense if we weren’t trotting Bradley Fletcher out at corner week and week out while Boykin rots on the bench every week and Caroll only sees the field in dime packages.
Looking back on the year the mishandling of Boykin probably pisses me off more than anything. He was one of the best young DB’s in the league, a true playmaker and our best secondary player. Then this year we manage to scheme our way into playing him about 20% of the snaps every week. No wonder his play fell off this year, he was hardly ever on the field and was probably desperate to make something happen while on it.
Boykin has played 41% of defenive snaps, not 20%, so that’s wrong.
Vinny Curry 32.7% of d-snaps
B Graham 39.4% of d-snaps
Polk 8% of O-snaps
Sproles 26.5% of O-snaps
Ertz 46.4% of O-snaps
And yet despite limited snaps all of these players found ways to play well this year. Boykin didn’t. Your thesis doesn’t really hold up.
Frigging
Ass____
Correcting
That
Stuff
Given the truth of what you’re saying with all of these guys, Boykin absolutely needs to have a target on his back when I’m looking for guys who didn’t put forth the effort to play well enough to keep the division title here.
I’ll disagree about Ertz “played well” this year. Maybe it was the coaches fault? Second year in the system, I expected better things…
Recency bias, probably. He had a good last game.
He did well as a receiver, he still needs to grow as a blocker, but he’s likely to finish with 700 yards despite playing less than half the snaps. That’s a good season for a TE.
BG couldn’t have played 39% of the snaps, I’m pretty sure 35% would have kicked in his 2.5mil bonus…had he reached that, it would have been a big deal, we would see stories about him reaching the bonus he should have gotten as a rookie.
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Haven’t seen the numbers, but I assume it’s around 32-33% just short of his bonus bench mark
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I didn’t feel like looking it up, so don’t hold me to it
Dude, you just can’t help being an asshole, can you?
You think you’re right, but “don’t feel like looking it up”? Then don’t say anything. Or, for once, try using facts in your arguments.
THIS is why you’re the worst.
And, yeah, its exactly 39.4%, even though you haven’t seen “stories” about it.
Here’s the link. I “assume” you know how to use it.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/snapcounts
I’m pulling the numbers straight from football outsiders. They even seperate defense from ST so it’s not that.
Appologies, so if I am mistaken on the percentage of snaps he played? do you know if the 35% of snaps is triggering the 2.5mil bonus is accurate. Or if that number is different too?
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If that 35% number is correct, we owe BG a big congrats, and Id be very happy that the man got the 2.5mil that was really written into his contract as an incentive that wasn’t supposed to be hard for him to reach….if I’m mistaken and the number to trigger the bonus is like 40%, must be nervous as hell to be sitting at 39%’right now….
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He was the 13th overall pick. It was a bonus in year 5 that required him to only play a limited number of snaps. You’re likely not hearing about it because it fell under the “Likely to be Earned” category and therefore was already counted against our cap.
Also it’s a bonus. One based on snaps not even sacks or something sexy. It’s not the most exciting thing in the world.
Gotcha…BG worked hard, and the way it was written into the contract was something that should never have been in doubt that he would reach…would have sucked to see him miss out on 2.5 due to horrible circumstance, especially seeing how far he has come. I also kind of worried how he would feel if he didn’t reach that bonus considering how well he was playing, didn’t need him secretly resenting coaches for not letting him reach it while he was playing so well
What’s your opinion of Boykin’s season D3FB? Obviously he hasn’t had the impact of last season (which was about as good of a season as you can have from the position) and he hasn’t been shut down or anything. To me he just sort of disappeared this season, which isn’t good but isn’t terrible either.
I think he’s been dinged up, which isn’t helping, but I think he just took a step back this year. People tend to think of player development looking somewhat like a bell curve with technique and experience building to a top level before wear and tear and father time start to catch up leading to a downward progression in performance. Over the aggregate that is a fair way to look at it, but on the individual level its much more peaks and valleys. I would expect him to generally rebound from this season, but to those who argue he should have started, aren’t paying enough attention.
I suppose its back to the drawing board to figure out how one of the best young DBs in the league managed to turn invisible in the span of a year then.
One thing going for us is that a few of the young players on this team took a step forward.
Logan (very underrated),, Barwin Cox, Kendricks, Curry, Allen (great 7th round pick to get a 3-4 NT is crazy), Matthews, Maclin, Ertz, Johnson (to some extend).
What we really need is more OL depth, a QB who can execute the scheme and a real CB. Its much less then what many teams need and we still have FA and the draft to address some of it
Agree with my European counterpart. You need to add S to that list though.
If we can get one starting DB and OG via Free Agency, we will be pretty fine going into the draft. No need for a need pick ala Denny Watkins or MSII. Now should we not keep Maclin or see a surprise cut ala Desean again, this will change things dramatically.
I think a real CB is still worst more than a safety in FA.
I’d be fine with another MSII pick.
High upside, football intelligence and attitude.
Drafting for mid to long term success over short term impact.
Smart man!!
I’m not big on throwing high end resources (1st round draft picks) at safety anymore, it’s an epidemic in the NFL. Seems to be like 2 good safeties per draft (and maybe 2 more decent safeties who can be starters, then a great one every 3 years or so) and they’re notoriously hard to find since the vast majority wash out. It just seems like the surest way to light your most important pick of the draft on fire.
I agree with you though, we need to keep throwing some effort into the position every season, eventually we’ll get at least a decent second safety then lock him down.
It would be even worse with this team. Our secondary is a void where DB’s go to die. I’m convinced even Earl Thomas would have been awful here.
I actually am too. Hard to imagine him as the primary run defender for the A-gap and that not simply ruining him forever.
But yeah I don’t know if it’s a scouting weakness, coaching weakness, or just a run of bad luck on bad odds anyway. Even free agency…well at least Jenkins seems like a solid pick up, heck if he works on those stone hands he even might not leave a couple of pick sixes on the turf next season (kidding he was fine).
To agree with some people I can see not starting Barkley over Sanchez. On the other note the WHOLE secondary has played so bad other then Jenkins. That there is no way any players should think or say anything about trying other players. If they do maybe they should not be on team like we got nothing for Desean.
“There is no question that this season ended badly, but we do need some perspective. This isn’t a team that is devoid of talent and this isn’t a team that underachieved significantly.”
Both true points, but the team backslid from 9-3 and clear control of the division. To go form a division champ one season to out of the playoffs the next is also unacceptable. Those things don’t add up to fire the coach, but they do point to requiring a higher level of scrutiny going into next season. I agree with Tommy that I trust the team to make the necessary improvements.
The -33 point swing vs. Dallas and zombie time performance vs. Washington were completely gutless. There were no changes in the roster composition from the ups and downs that led to 9-3 that should have precluded the team from continuing that pace to finish 12-4 (or 11-5 if they took the Giants game to get healthy going into the playoffs after having clinched at 11-4) by beating trash like Dallas and Washington after losing to Seattle; as they did by beating Tennessee and Dallas after losing to Green Bay.
Again, I trust that Chip will know what players he can trust to play with the proper motivation and focus to not choke away games. I trust that Howie / Chip will tell us what players to really flame by the actions they take with the roster (or piping information to reporters on the DL)rather than saying anything outright.
where was the gutless performance?
I saw failure to execute. I felt the need to cry as Fletcher got beat time after time.
I also saw Nate Allan pick off RG3 and give Sanchez time to win the game.
I didn’t see players give up, lack passion, avoid contact.
This. As terrible as Fletcher is, it wasn’t from giving up. Or even blowing coverage. He was always in the proximity of the catch, just not close enough. And for me, that sums him up. Consistent, but not close enough.
[…] Weird Time – Iggles BlitzKelly is very much a believer in process. You practice the same way over and over. You develop habits (hopefully good ones). You don’t change what you do for a better or lesser opponent. Consistency is key. It makes total sense that this type of coach would approach a “meaningless” season finale as he did other games. You want players to remain focused. You don’t want them picking and choosing when to prepare and when to compete. […]
Marshawn Lynch is not an human being, he must be a marvel action hero, right?!
Oh boy would I love to see him in Philly.
“yeh”
draft gerod holliman draft him please eagles draft him Malcolm plus gerod would be a good back end
Holliman cant tackle at all
Those Louisville DB’s.
The funny part is people would refer to Bamma and Louisville as NFL DB factories lol.. While it’s true they get their DBs to the NFL, not many live up to their draft stock. mark Baron, Pryor, Milner…
I’d assume anthony Harris in round 3 is more of what the Eagles have in mind at safety
better tackler than nate allen and has better awareness to play fakes id take a rookie who makes bad tackles by trying to blow players up than one who is hesitant to hit but bites on play action
I think it is safe to say your knowledge of holliman begins and ends with his stat of 14 ints. Nobody could have watched him in a single game this season and claim he misses tackles by trying to blow people up. He is the most hesitant tackling safety that will be drafted this year. He makes nate alken look like troy polamolu. Great ballhawk who has zero interest in the run game.
people can talk all they want about how players handle meaningless games… Players simply don’t. “The best teams in the league are extremely competitive.” — Unless you’re the Colts — who just went through the motions last game…etc etc etc…
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Eagles vs. Giants is going to be as sloppy as sloppy can be…
Please tell that to the Redskins next time before they sink our season, thanks. (I blame this on you)
Why? The Redskins made our kicker miss field goals?
I think it would be wise to sign either Parish Cox or Byron Maxwell and then hopefully draft the best DB on the board when we pick. WR will be fine once Huff gets his head screwed on straight and JMatt gains a little more experience. pick up some OL help in the later rounds but concentrate on DB and ILB in earlier rounds.
I love Mccourty and Revis and Houston they are playmakers but Byron Maxwell makes too much sense for us to sign
HOWIE won’t sign Revis, he basically said so last night
I know he won’t I literally just said while I love those players Maxwell is the one that makes a ton of sense for us
And what exactly did Howie say?
Caller was hammering him about why he didn’t sigń Revis last year when we knew our corners sucked, and why he didn’t draft a corner instead of marcus… On the REVIS, he takes about scheme fit for another team, ISNT scheme fit for us neccessarily, team culture, Blah blah blah… The dumb caller was pestering HOWIE about why we didn’t draft Brashad Breeland who is a pigeon, caller just likes him cuz he intercepted Sanchez sunday, breeland had 5 penalties and gave up 3 TDs in one game against ODB
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HOWIE also says in the draft we might have durability concerns about a certain player, drop him, or take him off our board, where as another team might not have the same medical grade,.. All vague, but it sounded like he had no interest at all in revis
Ah interesting I’ll take that with a grain of salt cuz no gm wants to be too revealing but I’d rather have Max anyway. Where did you see this?
HOWIE does a weekly Monday show on the radio from chickies n Pete
Oh OK well I’m back from college so I’m in NJ wouldnt have been able to listen
Gotcha…surprisingly HOWIE is pretty good. His thing is he won’t lie to fans, so he won’t BS a caller. But the is some stuff he just admits he can’t talk about for competitive advantage.
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Off the air during a commercial, I was teasing him about how I know he must love Erik Kendricks, and that I know he was at UCLA practices the week of the San fran game, he smiled and jokingly said to Meryl, get this guy away from me, he is going to get me in trouble lol
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I try to catch the show live as much as I can, usually it’s just Howies Meryl, and shady later on, but often other eagle players stop in, like Cox a week ago
I think I have acutally heard this show a few times, i should probably watch when I get back to Philly after the break
Also I bet Erik wasn’t the only guy he was looking at 😉
Mykes Jack for next year, or the crazy african name pass rusher who’s name I will never know how to spell
do you work at WIP? how were you teasing him? who are you? haha
Anyone can go to chickies and petes on Monday and watch them broadcast live from there
ooooh that makes sense now.. chickies and petes.. good crab fries and cheese dip.. oh yeaaaa.
No one, just a fan..l.. Believe it or not basketball is my business, but my passion is football
wait revis isn’t a scheme fit? don’t we play press man? with a single high? wouldn’t he be a perfect scheme fit?
yeah it’s probably bogus, my guess is paying premier money on what, going on 29 years old on a reconstructed knee…if it didn’t work out there would be enough in hindsight to label Howie an idiot, given his recent history with Asomugha. That’s a contract you don’t offer unless you’re willing to put your job on the line.
oh that’s what me means by scheme fit, having to pay more than $5m a year, got it.
I was agreeing with you, saying Revis isn’t a scheme fit sounds bogus, he probably won’t go near that because it would be a high risk contract for him personally.
I agree, i was saying maybe that’s what Howie means when he says not a scheme fit.
To me his job is on the line with fletch and cary, hurts to even say their name — i wanted to like cary.
Even our decent safety can’t play in space which leaves nate allen to cover deep, which he’s terrible at. All CBs have to play trail b/c our LB’s can’t help underneath / are too busy being dedicated to the run..
Yeah, the progress is coming slowly. Pretty much looking like we are able to add 1 player a year. It’s funny to see Chung play competent football back at New England. Tackling fine, coming up with picks…this secondary seems snake-bitten. The Dawkins Curse?
The subject of underachievement seems to be the context for most of the comments I have read here and elsewhere. It seems that some flashes of excellence from 2013 have turned many of us into impatient authorities on anything and everything relating to the Eagles. This journey is barely out of the gates, and we hit a big snag. I expect we’ll hit a few more.
I know the silly fanboy approach is to get no instant gratification from Barkley, so he obviously must suck, but I adore having a young QB who is sitting on the bench for multiple seasons, just learning, the way Aaron Rogers did.
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I have never been a Barkley fan, but I don’t at all equate not seeing Barkley in year two, to him being a QB chip no longer likes… I have no clue what we think of Barkley or where he is at in his development.
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Here’s the way I view it, if Chip right now is down on Matt Barkley, and plans on cutting him this offseason, I would want us to play him. Never know, he could have a good game and we could end up getting a later pick for him, instead of cutting him..
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But if Chip is happy with how Barkley is progressing, and plans on bringing Barkley back next year, Id rather him not play. Keep him on the bench, no need to show him to a world of donkeys that most likely won’t judge him accurately anyway. If we plan on keeping Barkley, then just keep him on the bench, continuing his grooming. If we plan on getting rid of him, play the kid
Agreed! If Chip sees some potential in Barkley don’t ruin his confidence with a meaningless game. I hope I’m wrong but Barkley seems, to me at least, to lack the required arm strength to threaten the whole field and doesn’t make up for it with deadly accuracy or athletic ability. My feeling is that we are uniquely positioned to develop diamonds in the rough since we get our 3rd QB so many reps compared to other teams. Since we probably won’t be drafting in the top two picks any time soon and no one is sold on our current starting QBs why not utilize that spot to develop someone that has a higher ceiling. I might be totally wrong but I see Barkleys ceiling as a number 2 back up QB.
Personally I don’t have much more confidence than you, with that said, if I judged Aaron Rogers after his second year on the bench i would have been very wrong!
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Like you, I also question if he has the physical ability, but I do know that every QB makes it to the NFL has had a skill set that has been successful at this level in the past.. I don’t think Barkley is as weak as Chad Pennington who was a pretty darn good QB… What’s betweens Barkleys ears will decide how good he can be.
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I wouldbt bet on him growing into a starting QB,
I’m not even sure how good of a backup he can become
maybe he isn’t even going to be a back
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As fans we really have no clue where he is at right, what’s has his growth rate been looking like
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But even if we can mold him into a quality second string QB, who can come in and keep us afloat winning a game or two when our QB gets injured, he would be worth a 4th….I just personally have no idea if he will even be ready to go into next season as a backup.
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But it’s also possible that chip ISNT down on him at all, and wants to continue to groom him…. No way of really knowing right now, doubt chip would give us a straight answer
Keep in mind that Matt Barkley could’ve been the top QB prospect had he left college after his junior year. He was projected to go as high as top 5. He lacks some zip in his arm, but he did have better velocity on his throws in this years preseason as opposed to his rookie year.
There were teams trying to trade for the kid. I like to look at him as more than a backup, not so much for us, but for another team. He has the mindset of an NFL QB, and looks to have the tools to be a Chad Pennington type of passer, which isn’t bad at all.
still was making terrible decisions against 3s. Sanchez was lighting up twos so you can estimate what MB will look like against the 1s.
Yeah but he’s barely gotten a feel for the pro game. He’s played a few quarters here and there last year but that’s not enough for him to just go out there and light people up. Even against 3s, lack of game reps will show on game tape.
If he was decent we wouldn’t be playing MS, but it’s typical in philly to want to see the backup.
Eh, I think the decision to go with Sanchez is based on his experience. No other reason. Barkley has ways to go before being the backup, maybe next year he finally gets that nod.
QB sitting on the bench year two, tells us NOTHING!!!
Not saying he cant be the next Aaron Rodgers, i’m saying that if he was Aaron Rudgers right now he’d be playing.
While THATS technically true, we don’t know, he could have easily gotten picked apart in the predraft process.
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I honestly don’t even know what to think of Barkley. I haven’t seen enough to be able to offer any worthwhile opinion. I got to see him play in the preseason, but fans thought Samchez ressurected his career from the ashes like a Mystical Pheonix, how many fans were happy sanchez replaced FOles because they said sanchez was better? Lol only in philly….. Not to mention the preseason was half a year ago, who knows how much Barkley has grown since then? Seems like a smart, highly driven kid who will bust his ass to try and make it in this league…
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I’m a firm believer that it takes YEARS to know what you really have in a QB. Considering how dumb our fans and media are, how much they overreact, how they don’t understand player development very well, If we plan on keeping Barkley next year, because chip is stil
High on him, I see no reason to expose him to our fanbase and media….. Because that only can go two ways:
1) Barkley looks really good, surprises everyone, our fans and media will lose their minds, overreact to his greatness and most likely instantly form unrealistic expectations that Barkley probably won’t meet, basically fans expectation will set him up to fail in there eyes ATleast..
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2) or Barkley will struggle, have a bad game, and this city will rip him even more than normal, and when Chip doesn’t cut him next year. Everyone will be pisses that Barkley is still here..
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What he can gain from playing 1 game with nothing on the line, is minimal. And not worth the trouble
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If chip is still high on the kid, and has every intention on bringing him back, no reason to show him to anyone right now. HOWEVER if chip has reached the point that he no longer wants to invest in developing him and plans on cutting him, I would hope we would play him, just for the LONGSHOT that he can open some eyes enough to bring back a 7th RB pick or something.
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I don’t have much confidence in him ever growing into our franchise QB, but I wouldnt rule out him growing into a career backup for us like maybe Garcia was, but even that I don’t have confidence in betting on..
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I really don’t have enough info to even try to judge, but we should get a good idea how the Eagles feel about Barkley by how we behave in This next draft, unless we cut him of course…
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Wonder if Pete Carroll would give up a 6th or 7th for him?
Yeah I’d say he’s on his way to being an effective backup, maybe even one that’ll have some value down the road. He has starting potential, a couple more years of development should do him good.
i trust whatever plan the team has in store for Matt. Considering where he was picked, the team has to have put a lot of thought into getting him. First pick of day 3 of that years draft, could be this decades AJ Feeley, never know lol
Can’t wait to see what Coach McGovern turns MSII into. Year 1’he taught COLE and BG how to drop into coverage, year two he went back and focused on the passrush, and basically in two Offseasons he turned our career DE’s into stud LB’s
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By now we know the routine, silly fans crap on a player when he doesn’t provide instant gratification… Year later they eat their words. Doubt this will be much different
shut up, loser
If Barkley still hasn’t at minimum shown enough in practice that he could equal Sanchez’s production it’s probably time to start at least turning that 3rd QB spot over to someone that at least has some untapped potential regardless of how high you were in Barkley coming out of college.
Seeing Barkley in an (almost) “real” game situation (we all know most of these guys are already practicing their golf swings) would to me mean more than seeing him in drills on the practice field. I understand the competitive need to win, etc., but at some point (right about the 4th qtr of the Redskins game!), this season became all about next year.
The game against the Giants is, for all practical purposes, an exhibition game. Why not let some of those “bubble” guys get on the field and show what they can do. IMHO, right now Chip should be evaluating who stays and who goes this off-season and not worrying about a truly meaningless win. Are we worried about wins or losses in the pre-season?
No matter whatever happened with the Eagles, I always loved playoff football. Right now, I’m really not prepared to watch teams compete in playoffs, with the Eagles sitting at home
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Tho, our FANBASE can’t be this stupid to be prisoners of their own success. Players and coaches can’t even overachieve in piece in this city without it making the fans crazy…
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Last years team of overachieving perfect health, destroyed all logical fan expectation
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first half of the year, overcoming turnovers, screwed up our expectations, and we are now in shambles because they couldn’t overcome the mistakes they made all yera, down the stretch in December
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Eagkes drafted a very Raw RT Lane Johnson last year, but he managed to contribute immediately, which has thrown all rational expectation out the window and every one is down on Marcus because as a Raw OLB, he didn’t break into the rotation like Lane did the year before… Of course Lane didmt have 3 quasi Probowlers in front of him at OT like Marcus had with Bg,COLE and Barwin. Also, Lane was a raw RT, who we gave continuity to at Right tackle. Why would anyone think a raw rookie OLB, can jump back n fourth from OLB and ILB all season and be expected to be ready to produce better than our 3 quality OLBs..
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Rational fans remember that lthis year and last year were supposed to be rebuilding years, any success we had was just gravy… Year 3 is when it’s fair and rational to start demanding your HEADCoach to produce, t because this man did such a great job so soon, fans think they can have ridiculous expectations… I’m heartbroken to be missing the playoffs, but most teams who play 15 different OL combinations in a season, play like 8 games with a Backup QB, and a run game that struggled to get going half the season, are lucky to win 5-6 games…. It’s amazing how well we did this year, considering everything we had to overcome, all the turnovers, pigeon at left CB, Pigeon at safety…
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If Chip didn’t lose 3 games in a row at the end, win one of those games, and we could be 12-4 after Giants game, which would have bested the coaching job he did last year, with no injures and the best OL in this franchises history
lets not forget sanchize started half the season for us.
Yeah seriously. In no way was Sanchez going to win as much games as Foles.
We’re steadily rebuilding, and we are winning in the process. Not many teams can do that. We have a good program building up, and it bares noticing.
Think I included playing 8 games witha backüp in my post
I’m not down on Marcus as a player. My problem is that we used a #1 pick on him when, as you point out, there are 3 quasi ProBowlers in front of him. I agree it’s not fair to expect a rookie to jump back and forth between positions. But I do think it’s fair to question why the Eagles felt it necessary to take this guy in the first round. Maybe you’re right, he will blossom into a great player. Until then, I think it’s reasonable to question the pick. Remember, “reasonable” not “correct” is the operative word.
Cole is almost done, BG hadn’t shown he belonged, and pass rush was probably our biggest need.
It’s definitely a grey area until we see how it all pans out. I believe Billy D when he says he really really likes Trent Cole, Brandon Graham and Conner Barwin and that no rookie was going to take any snaps from any one of them (which I think was a bit of a pleasant surprise, it just happened to be at the expense of our first round draft pick, that’s one of those hind-sight things). Mid season position change may have hurt his progression and we may not see him get to where we want him until year 3 unfortunately, that would be on the coaches more than the draft process though.
I’ll say this, it’s reasonable to wish for more first-year impact from your first round draft pick but too early to forsake the pick at this point.
Well said.
can’t be short sited… We have 3 Probowl OLBs at the moment, 3 months from now, we could easily only have BARWIN. OLBs usually need a year to put on enough weight to really compete,
Not to mention, two quality OLBs is soo NOT enough… Need ATleast 3, preferably 4
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Bad teams plug immediate holes in the draft. Nothing worse than drafting a rookie who you immediately pencil in to start the moment you draft him out of necessity… If you are worried about a position a year from now, or two years from Now, you address it ahead of time, so the kid you drafted can be ready to go, a year or two down the line when you really need him.
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Also gives you some leverage when talking contracts with BG and COLE
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I hear you tho…. I can see why fans who didn’t put in the work studying the kid predraft aren’t as crazy about him as I am. But from my point of view, how could I not be high on him? He is exactly who I wanted more than any other player in last years draft. I spent the entire predraft process talking about the kid every day… With that said, even someone like me who had so much belief in this kids future, knew he wouldn’t be able to produce as a rookie.
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You can probably pick a random archive from the months leading up to last years draft, and odds are you can find a comment about me raving over how we have to get our hands on “Maaaaaaaarcus Daaaaaarling”.. Heck I gave the kid a nickname months before we even drafted him lol, and in all my predraft posts, I always included that you needed to draft him last year, so he can be ready for next year with COle and BG contract situation being in question. Anyone who raved about this kid last year, KNEW HE WOULDNT BE READY AS A ROOKIE, so how can I possibly be down on the kid when I expected him not to play this year, even before I knew COle and BG would play out of their minds this year…
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If we want to make the playoffs every year or ATleast strive for it, counting on a rookie to start at one of the most important positions in the game is very foolish. It’s such an important position, heck entire secondaries rely on that position. Main pass rusher, good enough pass rush can make average corners look reaaly good, where as non existent pass rush can make good corners get burnt
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Even if we can bring back BG and COle next year, having two waves of OLBs rotating in, would be GREAT
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No matter what me and you think, it’s clear that chip, Billy, Tom Gamble, HOWIE.. Most of these men, if not all believe they can turn this kid into a special enough player that we used a first round pick on…. I was so damn high on him, how can I be down on him when obviously the Eagles confirmed my evaluation of him, so how can I possibly not be excited of the young man? He didn’t play, but we had 3 stud OLBs in front of him, and elite ST players ahead of him
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I’d be way more concerned about a top pick Justin Gilbert, sitting being Pierre Desir and Jordan Poyer,,,
Hey GEAGLE….a few things:
1. Still looking for you to post proof of your donation to WWP (as you stated you would do on 12/16)….you aren’t hiding, are you?
2. Can you clarify your comment “even the king of one and done, Calipari isn’t doing to well this year”? For someone who claims “basketball is my business” no less.
3. It’s “short sighted”, not “short sited” as you put in the post above and you have used on other occasions. Maybe your family, you know, the one that “owns a franchise” can invest in some English grammar and spelling tutoring for you.
You are such a dope
you forgot a period at the end. And your use of ellipsis in the first sentence is….troubling.
People let things get personal on here…i don’t get it.
Apparently, you haven’t been exposed to GEAGLE’s personal attacks on people who disagree with any perspective he has on the Sixers. He knows everything about bball, and it seems as if he carries this over to football. “I can see why fans who didn’t put in the work studying the kid predraft aren’t as crazy about him as I am”. “put in the work”? Like he attended the combine, or “broke down” film on Marcus Smith? “Heck I gave the kid a nickname months before we even drafted him”. GEAGLE is a blowhard and an idiot as well as a liar. He deserves any negative feedback that comes his way.
Maybe GEAGLE is Sam Hinkie?!?!?
I think Hinkie is intelligent enough to know not to gush over college players and project them as “baby Garnett” as GEAGLE referred to Nerlens Noel after three NBA games or say that Jahil Okafor “is more advanced than Tim Duncan was as a freshman”. No, GEAGLE is a fanboy who reads a ton of articles and blogs and parrots the contents as his expert opinion….well, as George Constanza said “it’s not a lie if you believe it”.
A bit different than misspelling the word “sighted”, don’t you agree?
I think picking on anyone’s spelling or grammar on a blog isn’t needed, but that’s just me. Sometimes people are posting on their phone. Even if they aren’t as smart (and I’m not sure spelling or grammar is the right test for smarts), so what. Plenty of opinions and comments to attack without resorting to calling people dumb.
I’m not trying to pick on you, I’ve seen others do the same and I’ve tried to make the same point with them in the past. One poster does this all the time, but I don’t want to name the person.
Fair enough…
You raise some points that I would never think of because I don’t know much about college football, or even draft strategy for that matter. Even more, I have been wrong so many times in the past about Eagles drafts (my friends still bust my balls because I didn’t want Donovan and I did want Freddie Mitchell). It will be interesting to revisit this discussion in a couple years.
Biggest upside of this 3game slide is that we have something to bitch about other than marcus.
Wow, holy shit, if the Eagles had won their last two their record would be better? What an amazing insight!
Never post again and then kill yourself because you don’t deserve to live.
I’m not big on the “message it would be sending” angle. One could easily play that angle the other way. “We’ve seen unacceptable play from multiple players multiple games in a row and there’s nothing to fear. You’ll keep your job” Has Chip ever benched anyone? Hell what about the message to the young guys that there’s no depth chart mobility. Why bust your hump when the veteran who screws up all day every Sunday (or Saturday or Thursday or Monday) ain’t going anywhere.
Anyway Chip just wants his guys to play to win. Whether the locker room see’s it as giving opportunities to young players because the season is over anyway why not, or benching a player who has struggled in a major way for long stretches of the season is up to Kelly’s ability as a leader. You could waste the commodity that is an nfl game (only get 16 a season) to avoid that leadership check if you want to. I guess my point is that benching a player that has cost you multiple games isn’t the antithesis of coaching to win.
Herremans states the Eagles “Lack discipline.” Ouch… hard to argue against that.
Tons of stupid penalties, leading the league in turnovers, blown assignments at key moments? Yup, hard to argue.
think we might be leading league in penalties too (def in the last 5 games). Unsure what happened this season — probably thought we were much better than we were.
Penalties killed us this year.
Got to the point that after a good play, I’d wait to see if there was a flag before celebrating.
I did the same with every 3rd down stop the D made.
Given the source, and how easily supported his criticism is, and how hard it is to fix that problem…that one might have hit me the hardest.
well we took two of the most penalized corners in the league. everyone else is young.
That said, when OLs getting beat they hold. I think we got some ticky-tack fouls but a lot is probably frustration-based
Malcolm Jenkins said the same thing, citing how often they got stops on 3rd down only to extend the opponents drive with a dumb penalty Malcolm wasmt bashing anyone, he just wants better for himself and his team mates. When asked if it was a mistake to not double team Desean all game, he said no, at times our scheme asked Barwin to line up against a WR or Jordan Reed, and helping out that matchup is more of an immediate need than a starting outside corner against a starting WR…from DAWKINS to jenkins, no one thought we should just double Desean every single play..
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Billy believe it’s a lost confidence issue with Bradley these days and he had to give him an opportunity to play his way out “if I bench a guy Everytime he makes a mistake, I would run out of guys, and confidence of the players would be shot”… Fact is, if he had drastically better options, bradley would have never started this year…
billy says they have to look at everything after the season, every position, the schemes, the play calls, the players……I Have complete confidence in Billy
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Since last years denver game, Billy’s players have mostly been showing steady growth, up until the last 3 weeks, people forget because the wounds are fresh, but often this season our sense had to carry a struggling pffense, with help of the ST of course…
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I’m more worried about the offense than the defense, ATleast I can look at the defense and know, keep growing our young studsm get a new corner, a new safety, and Mykal KEndricks little brother, and we have a top 10 defense on our hands…
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Offensively, the performance of our OL down the stretch was alarming
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Everyone complains about our WR corp, but that’s the last thing I worry about. A coach obssessed with offense and scoring points, I’m sure will build a nasrty Arsenal of pass catchers, it just will take more than one pffseason…
If I had to point to 3 disappointments that seemed like revelations last year that I thought would be the center of this team’s success for years to come, they would be:
Sports Science: Score 1 point to the argument that 2013’s health was an anomaly and regression to the mean in the form of injuries was coming.
Nick Foles: 27-2, everybody knew that percentage wasn’t going to stay, but 13-10 was a huge drop-off
The running game: Wasn’t terrible, but it’s the engine of this offense and was not very reliable.
To me all 3 of these issues are related, Specifically ealry in the season. So for me our primary things to fix this off season is get at least 1 veteran starting Caliber CB, and a high draft pick on a CB (the outside kind (gigantic and slow as balls, apparently) since that’s a huge deal in Philly). And reinforcing that O-line for the short an long term. The offense runs on those boys, and the team runs on the offense. Lets get them some help.
Can’t really plan to be healthier next year, but we can build the depth to handle injuries better next year
I agree on offense being a bit more of a worry than D. The line is getting older, and It wouldn’t surprise me if they put a bit more attention towards that side of that ball. With glaring holes on D last year, we still used two of our first three picks on offensive players. Good thing we have some good pieces in the front 7.
very true — line was super inconsistent this year, but then again the scheme is really built on working together, pass blocking was ok i think generally, which may be why we did so much more of it.
I agree. We passed the ball way too much this year. But that’s a result of the success in progress of Kellys system; which is to run a lot of plays. We’ve seen a huge increase in pass attempts this season, while the running backs have had about the same amount of touches this season (McCoy on pace to set career high in carries). It’s a result of what Kelly has preached in terms of plays run vs time of possession. And in that concept of our offense, I’ve seen the most improvement.
plays run sort of breeds TOs, just gives the defense more opportunities for takeaways. seems like fewer game breakers than last year.
Yep, and that’s where the turnovers come in lol too many games where we could’ve put up at least 40 points and we just couldnt fully execute. Better decision making would’ve made a huge impact this year.
Honestly, without a great QB / Line this scheme is sort of shot bc of turnovers. Hard to have ball control, when you have to pass 60times a game. 1 pick in 50passes is pretty good.
It is, the timing of the pick was what screwed us. Being able to pass for that amount and having your primary back get his usual touches is pretty deadly, but what’s keeping the system to work to its full potential is the QB play. There’s no other way around that fact.
Agree, i think it won’t be a 4-5 year championship run unfortunately. I think they probably thought so after last year (didn’t we all), i think that’s gotta be re-evaluated and we gotta think about going through a rebuilding.
Once Chip has the roster the way he wants it that’ll be a good topic of discussion. I think his offense has what it takes to go deep. The problem is the pieces in place aren’t really ideal for what he wants. He would never admit that obviously, but you know what I mean.
Curious to see what chip would do if Melvin Gordon is on the board when it’s time to pick. We could also find Sammia Coates or the west Virgina WR on the board
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Koudijos little brother Arnie should be a 2nd or 3rd rd guard, has some size but touted as an athletic Guard. I bring him up, because I love when there are prospects available that could fit Our needs who our coaches have an inside track on. Stoutland and Koundinos crossed paths at Bamma.
Melvin where? In the first? Not for us
10mil for LeSean next year. After not his greatest of years…
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Silver lining to Shadys bad year? It fits his pattern of great year, bad yea, great year, bad year…and next year would be the GREAT YEARS turn again, even tho I dont know if we can really call this a bad year for shady all things concerned
bad year? He’s number 5 in rushing yds (with only about 100 yds separating him from No. 2) and that with a damaged line for first 8 games.
I think his main issue is red zone,but it’d be interesting to see what a le’veon bell would have done in this offense. $10m is too much though, unfortunately i dont’ think we have a shady replacement on the roster. CJ spiller is a FA though…
I agree.but not in the.first.too many needs maybe day two
Never got to ask this, but why don’t we have team captains? Wth.
hah now that you mention it, Should be easy to verify, If Meco doesn’t have one, no body does.
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/43c098ac098bbf730b663f27a9ab74d520701b8f/c=46-0-235-142&r=x404&c=534×401/local/-/media/AsburyPark/2014/08/20/ryans.jpg
You seem to be correct, (refresh for picture)
it seems like we major league regressed (and in some areas we major league did), but there is still the possibility that we end up with the same record as last year.
Who really cares about seeing Watkins or MS2 play in one meaningless game? They’re not playing for their jobs, the veterans are. The veterans are the players that are responsible for not making the playoffs. Watkins and MS2 will be here during training camp and that’s where they will earn the right to play – not this Sunday.
Awesome username
And he’s upside down with respect to the correct position on playing the kids next week, too. 🙂
Riddle me this….
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Let’s pretend for the sake of this Question, that Marcus smith is destined to,grow into a quality OLB somewhere between barwin/BG ability.. Basically let’s pretend he grows into an OLB who everyone thinks was a brilliant 1st round pick next year…
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as fans were we happier to get a 1st round OLB? or seeing how everything unfolded, would we have prefered trading up last year to go get MIke Evans or ODB and be ok with not having a first round pick in this upcoming draft, after we just missed the playoffs?
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I haven’t checked for myself because I’m too depressed lol, but I hear that right now, we would get the 20th pick in this upcoming draft, but that if we lose and some other teams lose, we can pick as high as #17…. 17 is soooooooo much better than 20. Keep in mind there are usually, around 20 players in a draft with true first round grade. If we had the 17th pick last year, we could have gotten one of the last round 1 prospects, Brandin Cooks, Shazier, Clinton Dix, Mosley.. Instead of trading back and taking a kid with a second round grade..
..The difference between picking 17-20 can be pretty big.
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Also at 17, if a kid we don’t expect, starts to fall to like the #12 range, much easier t go up and get him, then it would be from #20
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Picking 17 gets us within trade distance to go up and grab a kid we have a top 10 grade on, who fell to 12 range…
If we gave Evans or ODB I think we take the playoffs and honestly I might have sti done the trade even in hindsight
No no no…. The point is, you never know if you will make the playoffs or not… Rational expectation for us after last year was to ATleast make it back to playoffs, hopefully win 1 game.. The point is, would you take those high quality WR, even if it meant not having a first round pick if we missed the playoffs and had a heartbreak year?
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Basically the way you feel horrible today, with how the end of the season played out, would you be ok not having a first round pick in the upcoming draft, because you went up for ODB, Evans or whoever your favorite WR is?
Hmm, yes. Look at what ODB is doing with Manning, he’s singly handedly winning games for them.
he likes to go FAST.. and does.. maybe we can get a john brown/ODB speed demon in the draft this year.. maybe that will quiet down the djax speed stuff..
Antwan Goodley. He’s what Huff would be if he took steroids.
Still hiding GEAGLE?
ODB to me, seems like a complete game changer. That guy is going to give us nightmares for years.
I don’t disagree… I just can’t imagine how I would feel not having a first round pick after a late season collapse
unclear if there would have been a collapse, right now ODB is straight unguardable.
Omg your fuckin dense.. The point Wasnt how good ODB is, our how good marcus will be… The point is, is there any prospect that we could have added last year that we would be ok with not having a first round pick in this next draft after we collapsed and missed the playoffs?
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Is there any NON QB in this next draft, that we would be ok with trading next years first round pick away to move up and get, keeping in mind that you never if you will have an injury riddled season and miss the playoffs, even if you expected to contend?
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I ask because it’s easy to say we can trade away a future pick, but feeling the way we do now, after the collapse, not having a first round pick would be torture. Is it worth being short sited and trade away your first round pick to secure a player you really like
I’m saying if you’d jumped up maybe you don’t collapse. I don’t know what’s coming out this year so hard to say, last year’s first round WRs certainly look worth it, especially considering our QB play has been meh. Sharzier, Martin (for a rookie) and Mosley look like they will be studs, i’d tale the LBs but it’s unclear if we’d need to give a first to jump to those spots and need at ILB is hindsight, we probably thought we had that position locked up for at least another year.
Also if we lose and Buf,Mia, Baltimore and KC win we drop to 16 improbable but still possible
Picking 16th would be an awesome consolation prize for this heartbreak ending to a season.. You can really be in striking distance to move up and get a top player, without mortgaging your next two drafts,,
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When you think about it, Chip got pretty unlikely. He took over a 4-12 team, had the #4th pick in a draft with no franchise QBs…
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If we end up picking THAT HIGH (16), I would have to forget about my Kendricks and Kendricks ILB dream. Way too high for him…. You don’t take a second round grade at 16, you still find quality first rounders if you stay put. You can trade to 12 range, or you can really get good value trading back from there. Picking that high is the least we should get for our heartbreak
sigh
yeah we could move up or all the way back
The end of this season really threw a curve ball to my draft preperation. All year I have been expecting to pick in the 24-30 range, picking 20 would be much different, picking 16 opens a world of possibilities.
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You figure you could trade back twice from 16, get two extra picks and come away with a kid like Kendricks, but because you are picking top 20 of each round, you can still add a a first round talent at 16, and you can trade up from your second round pick and try i snag Kendricks or whatever player everyone had in mind when hey thought the Eagles would pick in the 25 range..,
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And if those stinking 49ers give us the draft pick from the Bryce trade THIS year, now we are talking some ammunition to do some things in this draft.
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I haven’t looked At Landon Collins at all, because I never expected to even be close to in range to go get him, but I assume he will be the first safety taken, if we take a kid that fills an immediate need at 16, awesome. .but if we like a player too much to pass that doesn’t fil an immediate need, I hope we get a pick Back by flipping a player at his position…for example, if there is a Stud 3-4 DE who you cant pass on, I would hope we could flip Curry to recouperate a pick to use on our needs… Of course, can’t be too short sited. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to keep Vinny and the draft pick and take compensatory pick down th road
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Unfortunately Kurt Coleman, and Colt Anderson weren’t quite good enough to fetch us Any comp picks last year smh
Speaking of the Bryce Brown trade, what is it going to be for us, and what are parameters? I have researched this extensively and it is impossible to find the exact conditions or stats stevie Johnson needed
Well we are st 20 now the pick can’t get worse
Things aren’t looking so good for your boy Oakman…
What the hell happened to my boy!
id take odb no matta what
He’s kinda turned the Giants season around single-handedly (literally at times), though too late. The Giants aren’t going to roll over this week. It’s funny how many players the Giants get that are frighteningly good young. But hopefully the trend continues and he burns out in 3 years.
I guess the question would be better asked to Giants fans. Would they still want ODB if it meant not having a draft pick in the first round Of this next draft after they didn’t make the playoffs?
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I don’t knock people if they do, ODB looks like one of the best offensive weapons to come into the league recently. He was as polished of a WR as you will see as a prospect. for Example, Amari Cooper is the sexy WR prize of this next draft, but I don’t expect him to be as good as ODB, Heck, Sammy and Mike Evans have their work cut out for them if they plan on being recognized as the top WR in this class….ODB ain’t playing around…
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But as awesome as he is, with the horrible end to this season. Not having a first round pick in this next draft would be ROUGH…..
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One thing is certain, if we think we need a Secondary now, imagine having to play that kid twice a year in his 3rd and 4th seasons,.,silver lining on the Giamts adding ODB is they are still a longway away from getting right in the trenches, on both sides
Dont’ forget victor cruz. Everyone in the division has all star WRS (we might have the worst WR group in the division — ironic).
dang that might be true! crap.
maclin is way better then I thought though, way better.
Matthews is the man and will be for a bit too.
so we are close but maybe last
No. Dallas has Dez n that’s it. WAS has deSean(when he feels like trying) garçon is slightly above avg. If huff n Matthews progress eagles will have 3 WRs capable of good to very good play. Giants probably the best. Not a lot of separation 1-4 ranking the teams either way due to quality/quantity differences on each team.
Garcon = Maclin in my eyes, lead the league in catches last year
I’d say Maclin is a little more explosive than Garcon, but overall not a bad comp. He’s definitely more than slightly above average.
Maclin is a bit more explosive, while garçon is more of a Boldin type. He runs much harder and breaks tackles much better but can’t break the big one deep as much.
Meh, boykin handles him well
it’s also worth thinking about it in an arms race sort of way: if smith 2 can eventually develop into a barwin-type jack LB, he can help counter NYG’s offense by pressuring eli, covering the flat, and maybe even bumping receivers at the line. all of these can help reduce the damage a guy like ODB or dez can do. let’s say we picked up a stud WR instead of marcus . . .
agree
You think a guy that literally can’t get on the field (for whatever reason) is going to b a pro bowl calibur OLB. You think he’s basically going to be Trent Cole next year? Even Cox took 3 years to explode and he was a monster from the start.
No…Nevermind dude. Clearly missed the point. I wasn’t even talking about marcus smith lol
Mosley (hard to find stud ILBs that young)
Shazier (ridiculous upside)
Cooks
C-D
Believe it when I see it and there is a chasm he has to cross to play at that level. He has show he can even get on the field and contribute next year.
i do think he is going to end up being considered a ‘bust’ even if he inevitably does get some starts at OLB eventually in another year or two.
Can we please talk about the giant elephant in the room that apparently no one wants to address…this entire season went to crap after Kempski stopped blogging in prep for his move over to philly voice. Can we just blame him for this other worldly collapse and move on?
So selfish of him
Jimmy got a billboard. He’s gone full Hollywood. He must be stopped so the Eagles can win again.
https://twitter.com/jimmykempski/status/542097322826797059
Very cool. Buy stock in Tommy Lawlor, Inc. now because he’s next.
Eagles two biggest needs that we have to get better play from to compete w the elites are QB and CB. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. But, I don’t see anyone talking about Oline. Herremans is basically done. He’ll be 32 and ended the year on IR and has been the weak link the past two years even when healthy. Mathis is 33 and never looked like the former pro bowler this year and never seemed to play all that spectacularly after his injury. Peters will be 33 in January and while still a freak is starting to slow down and struggle at times against people he used to dominate. We can’t get old at 3 oline sits all at once. And the current backups have not inspired much confidence. RG is an immediate need and counting on Mathis and Peters for more than just 2015 is probably foolish. Time to infuse some oline talent.
MIke Lupati is a FA.. Draft an OL for the future as well
He will be mad expensive
I’ve been drumming up O-line talk for a few days now (wouldn’t blame you for not seeing it, the boards have been flooded these past few days). I’ve only heard Howie truly admit regret at a mistake he’s made a few times, saying he was devastated to not come away with any linemen in the middle rounds loaded with O-line talent, said coming out of the draft with none was devastating. We have an uphill battle turning over this line in the next few years and hope to not take steps back. Kudos to him not giving into Mathis’ demands for a raise. That definitely looks like the right call at this point.
Looking to move Hroniss Grasu to Guard, chip knows him from Oregon, and how athletic he is…we could get him in round two, and he is really a Center so he would also be Kelce’s 1st backüp…295lbs, when KELCE gets hurt we get Grasus size in there replacing him. Grasu is also very athletic.
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Arnie Koundijo 310lb Guard, who Stoutland spent time with at Alabama and also knows his older brother obviously. Another kid touted as an athletic interior Lineman… RD 2-3 for him
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Jake Fisher, Oregons RT who had to move to LT this year when Tyler Johnstone jacked his knee up in the summer..He could start his career at Guard, eventually move back to RT, when Lane takes over Left Tackle for Peters (by then hopefully we can sign Kyle Long in free agency to take over at Guard)
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Sabrilio is another OT to keep an eye on, but that’s D3FB’s boy.
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James Carpenter, 25yr old free agent Guard from Seattle that runs a lot of ZR, Although I haven’t taken a minute to know how similar or different our OL scheme is to Seattles, too depressed to look things up after the loss.
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Not sure how Iupati would fit either. They do a lot of zone reads and stuff with KAp but that’s a predominantly Power based run scheme in San Fran.. No idea how he would fit, Tho he is an elite player, and elite players can often transcend schemes
He didn’t say it was a mistake he just said that teams took guys they liked before they had the chance to get them. Positional runs happen, there’s not much you can do.
semantics, his post draft interview you can definitely see the plan was to grab some big boys during the draft. Said he never saw anything like the run on linemen that happened. I’m not blaming him. But that was a bit of setback in the bigger picture.
I’m not ready to rule out Tobin having a future at LG.. But I have reached the point where I never want to see him play Guard on the right side again.,.
What’s scary is I have no clue WTF we are going to do about the safety position. Devin McCourty will be the only event option available if the patriots DONT re sign him, and if he hit such a weak safety market, teams are going to get stuck overpaying him like crazy when some bad team throws stupid money at him…
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Then you get to the draft, and we are actually bad enough to possibly be in range for the top safety prospect, Landon Collins. just our Luck the top safety happens to be a terrible fit for our scheme. I having put in the time watching him yet because I never imagined we would collapse in December and pick high enough to land him, but it’s no secret he can’t play man to man defense on NFL a slots and TE’s…
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Thinking we will be stuck Drafting someone like Anthony Harris from Virginia, or the Jalen Mills kid From LSU who switched from CB to safety late in the 2013 season… Both of these kids are the type of safeties you can ask to play man defense so we have the option of staying in base instead of having a team force us into Nickel and then try and run on us… Assume they will go in the 2nd-3rd rd range..
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Our other glaring need is an outside CB. Just like Safety, slim pickings on the free agent Market, expecting a crazy bidding war for Byron Maxwell, and I doubt we will over pay for anyone…you get to the draft, and the kid who is easily the best CB is a maniac who has been kicked out of his school for fighting with like every coach possible.Marcus Peters. Who defended Jalen Strong better than anyone, gave Stanfords TY Montgomery a hard time. This kid is a knucklehead that most mock in round 2-3 when he should easily be the first CB drafted, good games against Oregon. But he is the last player I would bet fits chips “culture”,., so I assume the 6’2 190lb CB Jaylen Collins from LSU, or Alex Carter 6’0, 200lbs from Stanford… Problem is rookie Corners suck enough on their own, Imagine a stanford CB who’s stupid graduation rules force him to miss half the offseason camps. No way we could count on him for anything TIL ATleast half way into the season, and even that is ambitious expectation..
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It’s REALLY FRUSTRATING to know how bad we need a corner and a safety, in a crappy offseason to need a CB or a safety….smh.
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Had I known this, I would have rather traded up for Desmond Trufant a little higher, and drafted Travis Kelce in round 3 instead of Ertz, but then we wouldn’t have Bennie Logan which is more valuable to our future than I think a lot Of people realize…
.,
This would be all so much easier if a healthy Wolff, or Reynolds could surprise us and take command of the starting safety spot, but can’t be counting on longshots, and we know we can’t start Nate again
Chip has to go in improving talent this season.. Culture has been built now.. CB Peters only had trouble with his new coaches not with the one who recruited him.. Previous coach was a players coach thats something Chip is so i could see him playing well for Chip.. Chip cant go in believing scheme n culture over talent.
Sounds like everyone getting on the Maxwell wishlist. Perfect fit.
Im liking Durrell Eskridge.
Hey man, as long as he doesn’t get suspended, as long as he gets along with our locker room and ISNT a selfish player, I would be so hype to see chip draft him, especially since you know how thorough we will do our homework on him.
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Another issue is trying to Mock that kid… Talent wise, I would expect him to go on the 10-15 range, but a lot of people expecting him to fall to the 3rd, which is crazy talent for a 3rd round pick if his personality doesn’t come back to bite you.
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Selfish WR is one thing, but you can’t have selfish defenders. Defensive cohesion, playing for the man next to you, is just too crucial on the defensive end
Yeah man you dont know where he ends up.. Top CB talent with issues.. That think are blown up.. Can only do your research on him as a coach i guess.
Just as long as all players have the want to win n do it for each other thats all good.
He’s going to get drafted by the bengals. And probably end up being just fine in the head case dept.
He will def end up drafted by one of the usual franchises that dint believe there is any such thing As “character concerns”…
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If amheadcase talent like him falls far enough, anyone will take a flier on his talent…but I would assume the bengals or Niners,take a flier on the talentef knuckleheads
Yep
The coach this year was Chris Peterson, not Greg Schiano.
His position coach coached in the NFL, kind of a guy you should maybe listen to if you are going to declare.
He headbutted an opposing receiver.
He threw a temper tantrum, spiking his helmet and throwing his gloves on the sideline, then yelling at coaches.
There are reports of him trying to choke out a coach.
He was seen laughing at the end of a blowout loss to Oregon.
Also the coaching staff who recruited him thought he was such a swell fellow that they suspended him for part of the bowl game.
So you saying he can help this team or not? lol
No. You’re claim that it was just a minor understanding between him and new coach is a massive undersell. If you’re going to try to push for a talented character flag CB, at least take PJ Williams. I likely won’t agree with you but there’s at least an argument to be made
What’s the level of character issues you would overlook? Would you ever give a player the dez bryant treatment? Would you ever take a pacman jones, vontez burfict type of player.
In other words, how low will you go?
Does it matter! Now that we have focused on culture for two years, and have a core in place in our locker room of high charecter close knit guys, the real question going forward is how much chip will tolerate, or how low will chip go? as you put it….it’s not a question we will ever get chip to answer honestly, but it’s interestingto keep an eye on, going forward with how this team will be built…
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I’m sure we all have different levels of tolerance for what we would offer look for a certain type of talent. Obviously I doubt chip will draft the next LT who is shocking crack before,running in the field and knccking QBs heads off, but I wonder if this high Charecter extreme is just how he is initially building the team, and we eventually see him take more chances on “problem child’s”,!the way Bellicheat did after a few years, or is chip always going to stick to the no tolerance, high character policy?
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Every kid is different, has to be a case by case,basis..
Knowing now that the Honeybadger wouldn’t get suspended in the NFL for smoking weed, how much higher owuld have he been drafted? Not all mistakes, are mistakes young players are destined to repeat, have to take everything on a case by case basis
it’ll be ineresting to see, i sort of think he’ll stick with high character guys.
Though given the types of guy’s we’ve got it’s interesting to see the number of penalties this season and general undisciplined play as the season continues.
I wouldn’t give a player the Dez treatment it’s only because Jerry has convinced the local PD to look the other way on alot of things that Dez is still in the league.
Pacman Jones got kicked out of the league twice. He’s been tied to hitting women and ordering shootings. Not exactly a guy you want your kid rooting for.
I’d be willing to overlook some stuff if
1. It fell under the category of being fairly common and not overly egregious for a early 20 something (ie being loosely involved in a bar fight at 3am, getting popped for a DUI where the player legit thought he was under the limit, public intoxication)
2. It was an isolated incident, the player showed genuine contrition and otherwise was considered an upstanding person, player, and leader in the community.
Up to and including a ray rice? or just a riley cooper?
I can’t totally decide what i think frankly. some guys are so talented that it’s worth it, especially if 85% of your guys are good guys. I’m trying to think of a team with choir boys that’s SB bound, though players with character issues break up just as many teams.
Riley got drunk and said something racist. Shitty behavior but it falls under the unfortunately common for drunk 20 somethings.
Ray Rice KO’ed his fiance. Then stood there like it was no big deal, didn’t bother checking on her, showed no contrition.
I can’t think of a Packer that would be considered a “bad guy”.
Sherman has a big mouth and Lynch is eccentric but I wouldn’t consider any Seahawks to fall into that category.
Rule #187:
Never – ever – tank a season in week 17.
Why can’t the draft order be decided by a mixture of computers and secretive voters in a committee so if we get spanked bad enough (style points!) we might still have a shot a #1? Blast!
Just. Ask. The. Sixers.
The Saints are about 20M over the cap.
Pretty bad management if you get that far over the cap and then they gave big money to Grham and Byrd last year to make it worse
Drew brees is like 35,what are you going to do when he retires? Broncos and Pats are all in similar situations.
If we are talking about cap then the Pats are actually not in quite a BSD spot but Broncos and Saints are in trouble once their Qbs are gonr
They went all in for this year and boy did they screw up.
“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Brady told Jim Gray of Westwood
One during the Monday Night Football broadcast. “They all matter. . .
. If you love competition and love NFL football, and I’m certainly one
that loves that, so they all matter, they matter for our team, they
matter for every team. This is all important to all of us. Certainly,
when my number’s called, I’m going out there and doing the best I can.
There’s nothing I love more than playing football and I hope I get to
play a lot of it this Sunday.”
Brady’s comments mesh with Tuesday’s remarks from coach Bill Belichick, and with Brady’s statements from a Tuesday press conference.
“I think they all take on different meanings, and this is a big game
for us in that it gives us an opportunity to try to improve certainly on
last week’s performance and with the week off, you realize we’re going
to have a little time to rest up,” Brady told reporters. “We just want
to go out and play well and see if we can string together as many good
plays as possible.”
He has no perspective on the matter. And that’s a good thing. He hasn’t missed the playoffs since he became a starter, of course every game matters to him.
http://www.csnphilly.com/football-philadelphia-eagles/eliminated-eagles-may-finally-replace-bradley-fletcher
Better late than never?
God save us if they bring him back.