Year 2
Posted: December 26th, 2014 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 217 Comments »Championship teams are not built overnight.
We sometimes forget that. We see a team win the Super Bowl and focus on that particular season. We rarely take the time to think about all that went into building that team. The draft picks and trades. The free agent additions and losses. The uplifting wins and crushing losses. That’s all part of the process.
I wrote about the fact that we’re just in Year 2 with Chip Kelly. The Eagles are headed in the right direction but more time is needed for Kelly to get this team where he wants it.
Don’t think of this as “Wait til next year”. That’s not the point. This is a process that takes time. You have to add players and develop the team a bit each year. Special Teams became a force for the Eagles this year. That’s a big step forward. Fletcher Cox became a dominant player. You need those pieces on a defense if you want to win it all. Mychal Kendricks took another step forward. Jordan Matthews emerged as a weapon. Even a simple role player like Chris Polk took a step forward this year.
Obviously we’re still disappointed with the finish. This team could have gotten some good experience with another trip to the playoffs. Instead, they miss that and get better draft position by a handful of slots. Maybe that will pay off. Maybe not.
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As we head into the offseason, there is going to be a lot of talk about QB. Some of you have talked about trading everything for Marcus Mariota. Some have wondered if the best thing for the Eagles is to lose big in 2015 to get an elite QB in the 2016 draft.
No.
Why it's so hard to find QB: Only 5 of 24 QBs drafted in 1st round since 2006 have winning record: Luck, Sanchez, Ryan, Flacco, Vince Young.
— Reuben Frank (@RoobCSN) December 26, 2014
Drafting a QB in the 1st round means nothing. The player can have a great track record. He can have a ton of talent. That doesn’t mean the QB will save your franchise and lead you to the Promised Land.
You need the right player for the right team. Russell Wilson is perfect for Seattle. I don’t think he would be as good on some other teams.
Chip Kelly needs to figure out what he really needs for this team. Then he needs to go looking for that player. The answer might be a 1st round pick. Or a 2nd round pick. Or a veteran you trade for or one that is cut by another team. I would not sell out for any player right now because I don’t think anyone is worth that.
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Roob wrote about Matt Barkley and his situation.
“It’s tough, and even not playing, I think I did get a lot of experience even as a backup just with the reps I got the last half of the season,” Barkley said.
“That helped my game, that helped me improve in this offense. So I didn’t get playing time, but I know I got better during the season and I got very good feedback too, so all I can worry about now is what I can control with the plays that I get.”
What about the future? Kelly has been non-commital regarding Foles, Sanchez is a free agent and Barkley is just going to bide his time and try not to worry about things he can’t control.
Like the future.
“I’m fine where I am right now,” he said. “We’ll see how things shake out. I think a lot can happen between now and the beginning of OTAs and the beginning of the season. We’ll just have to see.”
I still don’t know what to make of him. Kelly says all the right things publicly, but the fact Barkley’s shown so little in 2 years can’t be ignored because of a coach’s quote. The Eagles actions this offseason will tell us a lot about how they truly feel. Is Barkley going to compete for the starting job? Do they bring in a veteran backup? It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
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Play Barkley in the finale Chip. It’s the right thing to do. Think about the war, not the battle at this point.
Playing Barkley in the finale only serves fan and media curiosity. I’d rather he just stay on the bench and keep growing away from the public eye, especially away for our overreacting fans and media. fans and media proved to not be very rational when it comes to evaluating young QBs, so I really don’t see what’s to gain by playing Barkley in one game in year two? I don’t expect him to be done developing in his transition to the pro game, whether he plays great or horrible, and rather not sit thru fans and media overreacting to one performance great or bad…
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The only way I would play Barkley, is if we reached the point that we are going to cut him this offseason, in that case Id play him, hope he has a great game and we can get like a 6th round pick for him, but if chip plans on continuing to grow Barkley, more bad than good can come from playing him in one game
TLaw made a point recently about diluting the meaning and experience of an NFL game, and Kelly has said he’ll never do it. I think fans think this is all about them, and it isn’t. Now is not the time to plan ahead; now is the time that you planned ahead for. When Kelly addresses the subject of playing subs to gauge their progress, he isn’t indifferent – he’s adamant that he’ll never do it because to him the opportunity to compete in an NFL game is special and relatively rare. NFL folks may depend on the fans’ monetary expenditures, but decisions like this are not about marketing the game or bowing to the will of some fans.
What decisions can you really make off of a 1 game sample size? Come on dude… A QB not being ready in year two, tells us NOTHING….. Great game, bad game, I can do without all the bullshit overreacting from this dumb FANBASE and ridiculuos local media
T-Law, it sounds like you’ve given up on Foles being Chip’s QB. Not sure a mixed bag of good and bad in half a season is enough to cancel out sheer brilliance from last year.
Most first round QBs are in bad situations, aside from later rounders like Flacco. The ones with winning records all have something unusual going on. Like Luck being in the AFC South, for example.
Wilson would certainly have fit in *this* Eagles offense, though.
I do have the Josh McDaniels Denver timeline on hand, since there is some comparison to Chip in terms of moves made, “genius” personality, etc…
I do believe that Foles have played out of Chip’s affections, especially with the playoff game. There will be no more real chances. Seriously, though, it’s not three years–I seriously wonder why that’s bandied about. It’s about six to eight games, and you can see whatever that prospect can really do. What they do well is refined, what they don’t is minimized, and after about five years of starting, you have a franchise quarterback. It’s pretty easy, you know? Because good ones like Bridgewater, Luck, Cam, they be throwing dimes all over the place once they have gotten truly adopted to NFL speed. That’s in spite of not really knowing what they are doing. Sam Bradford has been the same QB since his rookie year–he’s just gotten better at being who he is. Again, you’re looking for ceilings and floors, and that’s reflected in their play, and not in the numbers. Foles wasn’t making a number of great passes in Kelly’s system, and nothing like the passes Bridgewater was making @ Miami. Even the short range TD throw to Wright was vastly better than any short TD by Foles in terms of technical skill. Foles basically just had a Damon Huard 2006 on steroids.
And even if you though that Foles needs one more year to see if he turns back into a pumpkin…Take a good, long, look at the Texans. Just how long did it take for statues like Ryan Mallet and Tom Savage to get injured? It’s very likely that Kelly will make some sort of move, especially if Sanchez is gone.
Thinking of coaching turnarounds, I effectively think of Mike Smith, John Harbaugh, and Tony Dungy–They had one down year before turning it around for good. The others, Jim Harbaugh, Mike McCoy are a little more ambiguous. And of course, college coaches generally tend to do terrible in recent years.
S-8:
Small correction.
John Harbaugh’s Ravens qualified for the playoffs his first 5 seasons as head coach, winning the SB in Year 5. In fact, in his first season, the Ravens reached the AFC title game.
Also, in Years 1-5 as head coach of the Falcons, Mike Smith led Atlanta to 5-straight winning records and 4 playoff appearances.
But I get your point.
only did a quick check of wins, so more info helps, no prob.
To answer your post about 13 examples of young QBs who have ever played (NOT won) in a Super Bowl game, 13 QB’s out of almost 100 teams. Not sure if you listed all of the young QBs to play in Super Bowl or if you just chose 13 examples, but there are two types of Super Bowl QBs:
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1) High Quality QBs who are one of the major components to the teams success…often these QBs have to play well and elevate the game of their team mates…For example: recent Super Bowl Raven Team who probably wouldn’t have made a run and won the big game, without Joe Flacco playing at a pretty high level
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2) Young QBs we usually see in Super Bowl, at the time when they played in the Super Bowl, would fit more into the Trent Dilfer/game manager,QB category….. Teams that are so good around the QB position, that they just ask the QB to manage the game, and NOT LOSE it for the team…
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It’s really rare that we have seen a young QB appear in a Super Bowl who was one of the main reason for the teams success. Today,we think of Ben Rothlisberger as a stud, two time SB champion, franchise QB, but he wasn’t THAT QB in his first SB appearence as a young man. Typically, the game managers or young still developing QBs that have appeared in SB’s usually have an Elite Defense, potent running game…how many of your young QBs who have appeared in the playoffs, put the team on their back and carried their team to a Super Bowl run, slim, to none?
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Now In our particular case, we dont have an ELITE contender in place around the QB position (especially with the crazy injuries this year).. We didn’t have an ELITE defense, we didn’t have an elite run game, we didn’t have an elite OL this year, so even if FOLES would have stayed Healthy, we would have needed him to be a 1) one of our top players who carries the team at times and make players around him better…. And YOUNG QB’s who have made it to SB’s typically haven’t been one of the strengths of their teams…….so if you want any chance for FOLES to develop into a category 1, nothing to do but exhibit patience and let the kid develop and hope he reaches that point
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And you can’t compare FOLES to the Category 2) QBs who have made superbowls, when they weren’t one of the main strengths of their team like Kapernick, rookie Rothleisberger, Russel Wilson, Rex Grossman, Trent Dilfer, because our defense and run game was no where close to the level of their counterparts on those teams that have made it to the SB with young QBs and game managers.
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If you want to build an elite Defense, and a high potent offense around the QB position, that Is so talentef that they can make it to a Super Bowl with a Game manager, then sure it’s fair to compare Nick to young QBs that have made it to the Super Bowl as game managers. You want to build a team that stacked around the QB position, then it’s perfectly fair to ask Nick to go manage games, and NOT LOSE games for us……but our roster around the QB is not even close to that level(especially when injuries pile up)….. So if we aren’t good enough to get to a Super Bowl with a game manager, than you are going to have to invest a few more years developing Nick, if we want to be able to expect him to go win games for us….but Howie can be my guest and stack this roster so much that it’s fair to expect NICK to get us to a SB NOW….
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But with our injury, our roster ISNT even in the same league as the SB teams you talk about THAT were able to get their asking a young QB NOT TO LOSE THE GAME and be a Game manager.n
About that playoff loss, did you think the loss was on Foles? I didn’t think it was. If anything has put a dent in Kelly’s certainty about Foles, it would be his play this season prior to his injury. And that was occurring at the same time that OL was losing starters left and right (and center). Kelly has said that he really likes Foles’ decision-making, and, Cam may be a certified freak, but his decision-making is his achilles heel. If you think it is easy to find and groom a franchise QB you are in a tiny minority. Bridgewater looks like the real deal, and Ryan Tannehill has flashed brilliantly several times in his time in Miami, and the world knew about Luck while he was at Stanford, but outside of those three, and, of course RW, I don’t know, among young QB’s, who I’d want over Foles. Foles looked like his footwork and throwing sets were slacker this season than last, and his accuracy diminished. If he could set cleaner and throw more accurately in 2013, can he not do it again? I think everybody has seen enough of Foles to know that they still have questions, except maybe you. But he’s probably going to be the Eagles’ starting QB next season.
The loss outlined Foles inability to get yards against a stiff defense. Every playoff game is going to be like that, excepting for the teams that had no business being there. Again, home game in the elements against a dome team that doesn’t travel well. Two turnovers given to you by your over-achieving defense. It shouldn’t have been any closer in practice than it really was for Seattle when they played NO, and much of why it wasn’t an easy win was because of a persistent drought of plays made on offense until Keenan Allen left the game.
That being said, I ain’t forgot the camera focusing on Foles from behind the bench after the second interception of the Giants game this year. Foles’ posture really looked like he knew he was in trouble…
I don’t really disagree with your take on that NO game, except that I think the running game may have been abandoned prematurely. Ck has shown that he will do his best Andy Reid impersonation when it suits him, and he’s got to make running a consistent feature if his offense is going to work, imo. If a defense sells out to stop you from running, then, yeah blame your QB (and your receivers, and your protection). Cooper had a key drop, and the kicker missed a very makeable FG. This is not to get Foles off the hook, but that was his first playoff game for a coach in his first playoff game. We should have won that game, and had we won we’d have fared no better than NO did against Seahawks I expect.
“…did you think the loss was on Foles?”
You must be new here.
I’m not, and if that is the consensus here, then I guess nobody told me before now. Cooper dropped a TD pass, and the kicker blew a kick he had made plenty of times prior. A lackluster offensive showing is not a closed book on a QB.
Not the general consensus, and not mine, but if something can be blamed on Foles, Shah has already explained in repeated posts why.
The offense was very non-dynamic and inconsistent vs the Saints, it was really the D that kept us in it until they finally broke down under the pressure. It was very similar to many of the losses this year…
Our offense was no more inconsistent than the saints veteran offense led by hall of fame, Super Bowl winning QB… Shit happens. NFL games aren’t supposed to be 60 minutes of smooth sailing…
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Drew Bree’s can’t really say he outplayed Nick FOles in that playoff game… Nick threw us into a second half lead, leaving this field with a lead and little time on the clock after he throw his way into the ENDZONE against a veteran saints team that boasted a top ranked defense in his first ever playoff game, during a game that then rear shady didn’t even do much…. And people are down on FOles first ever playoff game?
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Nick FOles won that game for us, and then Darren Sproles took the game away from us, and our special teams stole the win that Nick FOles had EARNED by giving up a 50 yard kick return. Compounded by a 15 yard penalty while finally tackling Sproles
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How the fuck can anyone use the Playoff game against our young QB? He won us the game, and then another phase, lost it…. You better blame the best run game in footbal shady, and the OL, you better blame Cooper and Desean, you better blame our nickel defense getting run on, our kick coverage, before you even friggin think of blaming Nick FOles for the playoff loss
You are such a loser it isn’t even funny. Nick Foles, (not “FOles” you subhuman retard) threw for under 6 yards per attempt in that game. Desean Jackson single handedly got the eagles back in that game with a miracle catch and forcing a PI at the one on yet another Foles under throw. Foles is made of glass and is finished in the NFL and everybody realizes it except you because you are retarded.
Never post again and then kill yourself because you don’t deserve to live.
What a worthwhile and thoughtful post. Don’t you have any of your own points to make?
First of all, let’s relax on the Djax man crush. It took Lewis going out injured for DeSean to show up. He might as well have not been on the field until that point.
Retard? Kill yourself? This isn’t TATE. Grow up and make your point without being a child.
Bridgewater was phenomenal against Miami.
If anyone wants to see what a young QB throwing with anticipation and accuracy while standing tall in a messy pocket looks like, watch film of that game.
Yeah, I remember when Foles got off the field without the lead in the Saints game…. O wait….
2 l8
The back up for Carolina would have done better!
Taking the lead at the end of the fourth quarter is not too late.
One thing about this disappointing season, the Eagles D was not helped very much by the offense. An offense that can put up points early and often can allow a defense to focus on their opponents’ big plays and risky attempts to not get further behind. This year it seemed the D was doing a lot of guessing because their opponents were playing with a lead. A great present to the D this off-season would be a plug-n-play OG who is a star or who shows great potential to be a star. The O-line is the key to running the ball, and running is the bread’n’butter of Kelly’s playbook. Many of the breakdowns on D this past season would have been less significant, and some would not have occurred if the offense had been pulling its weight.
If we can do that and somehow bring in two new CBs, I’d even put up with Allen for another year.
Allen can’t start again, don’t care who our corners are going to be, Nate Allen Clealy can’t consistent,y provide corners with the support they need
This. 100%.
Being out of the playoffs sucks. How many of you would have thought 10-6 was a good record if told that was going to be eagles record before season started. They have to beat giants.
Dallas is a huge surprise. Their emergence knocked eagles outbid playoffs. Who knew a healthy romo and ware would be good. Not sure we’ve seen both players ‘healthy’ enough to play at the end of the season in three years.
Ware?
Where?
There.
I picked the Eagles to go 10-6, fingers crossed for 11-5. I thought the former would earn them a Wildcard berth and the latter would win them the East. Yea, being out of the playoffs sucks.
I figured 9 or 10 wins due to regression to the mean, success coming from a top-5 offense but being dragged down by general inferiority in the D and special teams. Didn’t expect lots of OL injuries, Foles and Shady sucking, or the D to generally play quite well and the special teams rocking it. Nor did I expect Dallas to make such a strong play of it!
While I never imagined 10-6 WOULDNT be enough to win THIS division, we didn’t deserve to get into the playoffs anyway, we needed to get on a roll in December, instead we played our worst ball… And we aren’t going anywhere in the post season with sanchez.
I 100% expect Nick to be our QB next year, and I look forward to when he signs an extension so we can put this silly talk to bed and get behind our young QB once and for all.
Hopefully, at this time next year, St. Nick will be leading our Eagles into the playoffs. Those of us who believe in him will find our faith has been amply rewarded. Of course, if he fails to appear and give us the gift of a winning season, we’re all Screwged (spelling intentional).
This was a,tough year for Nick FOLES. Im sure there is a lot he wishes he could have back from this year. physically, I knew Nick was a tough SOB since his time behind that crap OL at Arizona, this year continued to show his physical toughness, but what I learned this year was how mentally tough the kid is and I don’t think it’s getting enough,credit.
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It’s sucks to see the kid make mistakes and turn the ball over, but without those struggles we wouldn’t know how he responds to adversity, and I find it extremely encouraging that he is able to not let mistakes unravel him, get it together and always give his team a chance to win at the end. For me Thats extremely important and a very good sign..
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Both Mentally and Physically, the Kid is a Tough SOB, as great of a team mate as we could ask for and a true leader by example.
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I have seen Mark Sanchez lose games for us… Can’t really recall to many examples of the rest of the team playing well enough that the Eagles deserved to win, but Nick let his team mates down and lost the game for us…. How many times has that ever happened?…..for a young inexperienced QB to already be showing these types of intangibles, it gives me a lot of hope and belief in this young man.
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Also happen to think the,durability concerns are silly. For a fanbase that just sat thru the infuriating play of fragile MIke Vick, shame on us to have already,forgotten what durability concerns really look like. Every single play FOLES takes the field, there is nothing more that 11 defenders want than to knock a QB out of a game. QBs don’t wear many Pads. If you don’t protect your QB, I don’t care who he is, you are going to get him hurt.
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durability concerns is a guy like VICK who wants to take off whee his Lineman can’t protect him, and not slide, taking unnecessary hits that have,injured him. Nick Foles went what 7-2 playing with Allen Barbre, 3-4 games with Molk(his center was coaching football last year), Wade Smith, Tobin, Garner… He didn’t have Lane for the first 4 games, he didn’t have KELCE for like 5 games, He,didn’t have Mathis… Since we kicked off against the Jaguars, the season started with Nick taking a beating early in that Jaguars game, which I guess is why I’m not really surprised that he struggled in the first half of that Jaguar game because he got beat up…Tough SOB he is, got it together at halftime, down a bunch of points, came back to lead us to a win.
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Mike VICK, Rg3, guys who took unnecessary hits and got hurt are durability concerns. Durability concerns ARENT a QB sitting in the pocket, eyes down field and an OL allows a defender to blast the QB and he gets hurt… See all the hits Nick took at the begin of the year? I would be willing to bet smaller, sanchez, smaller Barkley WOULDNT have been able to endure half those hits Nick took before getting hurt… I don’t care who you Are, get blasted in the pocket, hit your head on the ground, and even the toughest tough guys will suffer a concussion, take a hit from a 300lb man crushes your shoulder with all his body weight, good chance a QB will jack up his shoulder or Collarbone….. Every QB in the history of the position at one time or another jacks up his hand hitting a Linemans helmet while throwing a pass…..I doubt Nicks hands are any more fragile than aaron Rogers hands, doubt Nicks collarbone is more fragile than Aaron Rogers. 11 defenders TRYING to knock your QB out of the game, you better be able to protect him…
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What’s funny is all the problems fans or media have wifh FOLES, ALL OCCURED BEHIND BAD OLINES!!! The one time Nick FOLES has played behind a quality Offensive line since highschool, he stayed healthy and had one of the best Seasons in the history of young QBs,… Even behind allen Barbre, Molk, Garner, Wade smith, he managed to lead this team to a 7-2 record with little help from shady and the run game…
Offensive lineman dont even show up on stat sheets, yet they make millions and millions of dollars. One of the 3 most important positions in the NFL is Left Tackle…Offensive Line is paramount to offensive success…
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So far we,have his rookie year playing in ANDYs mess with a terrible OL that went 4-12… And this year, he played behind like 13 different OL combinations in the first 7 games, often playing behind multiple inexperienced, young, late round picks in the game at the same time….and he led us to having a chance at the end to win every single game, ending Up 7-2..,.
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All everyones problems with FOLES have come with him playing behind an OL with issues…..developed Elite hall of fame QBs like Peyton manning look like crap and have problems when their OL is getting abused, why would we expect a QB with less than 30 starts to be able to Always overcome offensive line issues?
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Then we have data from last year that says, if you put this kid behind an OL, he has it in him to be Capable of being spectacular… Why wouldn’t fans and media wait to see this kid struggle behind a Offensive line that’s playing at a high level before they right him off? And that has NEVER happened yet,,,,
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And more times than not he has proven that he can overcome bad OL play and win many more games than he loses….not to mention the Redskins game was one of my favorite all time QB performamces in the history of this franchise and the OL was a complete mess and the Kid took a friggin beating that would have knocked out most QBs..
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So far the data shows he is Capable of winning inspite of OL problems much more than he loses, and last years data shows that if you put him behind a quality OL and Run game, he is NO GAME MANager, he is Capable of being spectacular.
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I’d warn fans that they may want to see this kid struggle when the OL is playing at an acceptable level, before they even consider writing him off, and that has yet to happen, so doubting this kid right now, IMO should prove to be foolish
Ok, here’s a wild trade speculation for you, just throwing some shit against the wall really.
Andre Johnson has a 16 million dollar cap hit next year, there’s not way that the Texans are going to keep him without a seriously reworked deal. Trade Riley Cooper and a late rounder to the Texans for a re-worked Andre Johnson. The Texans aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, Johnson would be an instant upgrade at #2 over Cooper, and I bet you anything on a team that doesn’t have such a crap quarterback situation Johnson would be a very productive player for a year or two.
Have I been drinking too much lead paint?
I don’t think Andre is worth trading for. Too old
vjax. andre is good but wr isnt whats keeping us from playoffs
Upgrade couldn’t hurt though. I think it’s more about getting rid of Riley Cooper than getting Andre Johnson lol.
I expect Nick Foles to be our QB next year, but with a different backup. No way they trade up for Mariota, but I think Brett Hundley could be ours. He needs to gain a lot of pocket presence, but all the tools are there to be developed. I think he’d be perfect in this system. Just my opinion, of course. I’d be excited if we drafted him.
While I have no Intel that would point to Barkley progressing bad, I have equally no Intel that says he isn’t developing well. Barkley won’t be done developing any way by the end of year two, and it could take 20 years to find a YOUNG QB who can PROVE to be the answer in his first two years…. Two years is nothing for young QB development, that’s like half the battle.
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I never been much of a Barkley fan, but I have no intell to base any opinion of sanchez off of. I have no clue how he is progressing and what chip thinks of him…but I do know that typically year two is too soon to give up on young QBs.
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You scenario is certainly plausible. I don’t have any Intel that I can use to refute your expectation, but you also don’t have any Intel to rule out Barkley at this point…
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Best case Scenario we don’t draft ANY QBs, fans should be mad at that outcome, they should be excited by that outcomes because it would point to chip believing we have the young QBs we need in place already and it allows us to dumb assets into developing the team around the QB…. But you are absolutely right THAT it’s perfectly possible that chip doeamt belive in one of our 3 QBs and we see the eagles draft a young QB this year…… But since we don’t have close to enough info to know how they feel about our 3’QBs, I’m rooting for us being high on our current QBs.
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If I had to bet on which 3 QBs will make the Eagles next year, personally, I would feel my best odds are going with FOles, sanchez and Barkley….. I don’t think much more of sanchez than a capable backup, and I didn’t enjoy his play down the stretch, but no matter how good or bad sanchez played this year, I do KNOW that he is capable of playing better than he can possibly show in his first 6 games… If Sanchez stays in this offense with Chip, he will get better….I’m just don’t know that he will ever be good enough to be a Bonafide starting QB….hasnt completed a 40yard pass since 2010, struggles to throw outs, and get the ball to the outside WRs,……There is NI DOUBT in my mind that FOles is a more talemted QB than Sanchez. Not only does FOles have the better arm, accuracy, size, physical tools to play QB, but Nick has the higher mental ceiling for football intelligence…
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I would be comfortable betting that Nick FOles 5 years from now, after he gets the deep playoff experience sanchez has gotten, he will be a drastically better QB than sanchez is at this point in his career..
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The difference can be broken down into simplest terms:
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End of the skins game, Sanchez will make the crucial mistake that kills us, like the interception to breeland to end our game winning drive, where as FOles doesn’t throw that Interception at THAT crucial juncture of the game…no matter how much he succeeded or struggled early in th game. Sanchez kills us with the INT, FOles would have either gotten us in the ENDZONE, or not given the ball away and give us an opportunity at a short FG
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Nick has so many more checks in The Positive column than he does in the Negative column which is why it’s so frustrating to me to see how little faith this fanbase/media has in the puppy
First, hope everyone had a great Christmas (whether you celebrate or not). It’s great to be back home with real Internet and not DSL.
I’m really excited to see the moves this offseason, and I really hope Barkley turns into that guy we like (as well as Foles). It’d be nice to keep it in house. They are going to have to upgrade the secondary if they are to take the next step, so I expect that some resource(s) is/are going to be spent on this part. Outside of that, we’ll get some answers without words about a few positions on the roster.
And that stat from Roob is very interesting. Makes me wanna stay away from moving up to get a QB for the team. I went back and looked at all the other 1st round QBs to see who didn’t make the list. Think about some of these names (some of which were bandied about here too):
Jay Cutler, Matt Leinart, Jamarcus Russell, Brady Quinn, Matt Stafford, Josh Freeman, Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow (LOL), Cam Newton, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, RG3, Ryan Tannenhill (getting better), Brandon Weeden, and EJ Manuel.
Anyways, I have to have faith Chip knows what he wants and can get it picking later in each round.
*Edit: I didn’t include 2014 draft picks.
I DONT even really care for scoring a ton of points.
Football I enjoy, is making your opponent feel like crossing mid field is hopeless cause our defense is so impenetrable … But the way chip wants to play football, the offense has so much of an impact on the defense, positive and negative, that really building up the defense isn’t going to matter until we really get right on offense… The Brand of football chip plays, means the Offense can jump on opponents and make things so much easier on our defense, BUT, when the offense struggles, it puts a TON OF STRESS on the DEFENSE! I do believe we can win playing chips unorthodox brand of football, but it requires TOTAL COMMITMENT, so even a defensive fanatic like me has to understand that we really need our offense firing on all cylinders to make this whole thing work…. Improving the Offense, indirectly improves the Defense…. Hopefully we can build the secondary and also make the neccessary upgrades on offense to give chip the Offense he needs…. But we need to make it so our offense NEVER AGAIN needs the defense and ST to carry it as much as they had to this year….
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So far we have a QB that isn’t done developing yet. We have 3 seasons worth of Data on the Kid.
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1st year, rookie year, Mess of an OL… Nothing’s special, but we saw some glimpses from a wet behind the ears rookie in his first couple of games playing with a mess of a 4-12 roster
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2nd year: You Put a really good OL in front of him, a quality run game, and you have like 8 games of data that says he can be fantastic when he has enough around him
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3rd year: as soon as we start the game against the Jaguars, they start putting a beating on FOLES. he was under fire and took some big hits that first half against the Jagars. no surprise he struggled, got it together at halftime and led an epic comeback. since that first quarter when he was under fire from the Jags DL, the OL just became more and more of a mess to the point that we had more OL dysfunction/injuries than ANDYs 4-12 year, shady was completely shut down the first half of the season, FOLES took a beating from the very start of the season, and continued to take a ridiculous beating for about 80% of the rest of his year…Yet what did he manage to lead us to 7-2? 8-2? And gave us a chance Til the very end to win in the two losses. No matter the beating he took, he gave us a legit chance to start the season 10-0 which would have been unheard of considering the injuries we were getting hit with on the OL from the opening game…. that Redskin game was hands down one of my top 5 QB performamces in the history of my eagle fandom. The beating he he took, Til todd Herremans was the only starter left blocking for him, yet Nick got up time and time again, put the team on his back, and refused to let us lose that game…after that game, no doubt in my mind, Barkley nor sanchez would have survived that Beating from the skins and been able to play the following week. nicks entire shoûlder was a giant black n blue bruise, halfway down,his arm, yet he played thru it for a few more weeks, even having some really good games like the Giants when he was protected well….until the banged Up OL had no chance to keep him up right against a Texans DL that smelled blood in the water with our banged up OL and clearly went int the Eagles game planning on Knocking FOLES out the game. Just go back and watch all those hits. They were so ferocious, every last one of them…
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I know the Eye test didn’t look good for fans… But if you watch andrew Luck play every week, half his games DONT pass the eye test. half his wins are ugly wins that will remind you of Nicks 2014 season…the WIN in the NFL is so much more important than the eye test/BCS style points… Nick has proven to be fantastic behind a high quality OL, let’s make sure he gets one next year, let’s make sure he gets to play off an explosive run game again, add a Big Deep Threat, and let him get back to his play action, strike down field Attack…
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Crazy stat something like Mark Sanchez hasn’t completed a 40 yard pass since 2010, FOLES has like 8 since last year.
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Even if you want to add Nicks rookie year stats to the equation, when he had zero experience playing behind a 4-12 OL, his career numbers are still really really good… Acceptable nu,bears playing behind a mess of an OL that elite QBs would struggle with, and Ridiculous numbers when you sorround him with Quality..
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Even with our mess of a secondary this year, if this years defense would have gotten to play with Last years Offense, we are an Elite team, legit SB contender. Gotta build the offense around FOLES, and the secondary…
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Best hope for accomplishing that is to bring back Sanchez and Barkley. A second or 3rd round pick can help so much, can’t spend it on a QB. hopefully Chip wants to continue working with Barkley, and I always assumed sanchez would be back next year anyway, even when people were over reacting about all the big money starting offers that would poach him away at the end of the year LOL… Who the hell is offering him a starting position? I don’t have faith that sanchez can be anything more than a backup, and he frustrates the hell out of me, but I do know that in some capacity, I’m sure he is capable of being a better QB in this offense than he has proved so far in one offseason of training and Like 6 games…. So hopefully we can give these 3 QBs one more season of continuity, which will also allow us to buld up the team around the QB
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One thing I know for a fact, is we will NEVER GET ANYWHERE DISCARDING EVERY QB AFTEF A YEAR OR TWO IN THE OFFENSE. It takes other positions more than a year of continuity to really be able to show their best, so QB Is THE LAST POSITION WE CAN BE IMPATIENT WITH
You’re right. Discarding every couple years means there’s no consistency.
you’re cheering for the wrong team.
Do I look like a fraud “fan” like Maggie who after like 30 years of rooting for an NFL team, I just wake up one day and decide to root for a new team??? Get a clue, our defense is coming!!! I been telling you this for years and you still don’t believe it? As if you just didn’t witness drastic front 7 growth this year?
I may be in the minority here, but has our front 7 really been that strong? I see a great line, especially against the run, and solid bursts from our LB crew. But part of me wonders if the way Davis has safeties come down into the box, Jenkins on TEs, etc., is that not masking their inability the cover adequately? Or the volume of stunts/twists utilized covering the inability to truly rely on the front four?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s been a nice surprise this year, but it seems like the general fan opinion is that it’s an elite group. That seems a bit overzealous to me. Just a thought.
bennie Logan, 3rd draft pick, second year NT, lead all NT in tackles for most of the season. NOT only does he take on double teams, but he shed them and makes more tackles than any other nose tackle…
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Fletcher Cox was the best player on our team. I doubt I have to tell anyone what an elite beast Fletcher has grown into…
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cedrick has grown into a young technician, who you can count on to be Stout at the point of attack and win his battles..
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3 outside linebackers played at a quasi bro bowl level, not just rushiñg the passer, but ELITE OLBs at setting the edge against the run
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Do I have to point out what a stud Kendricks is growing into?
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malcolm Jenkins may come in the box, but every team we face has a safety in the box just about.. And our front 7 stepped up in crunch time, late in the season and was probably our best unit, being elite against the run, with CASEY MATHEWS playing a crucial position…you don’t take anything away from SEAHAWK front 7 because they are basically playing with an extra linebacker in Kam Chancellor on every play?
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We lost a playoff game because saints forced us in Nickel and they ran on us…. So we went and got malcolm Jenkins which allows us to stay in base when teams go 3 WRs, so they can’t run on our nickel ever again…. We can’t hold that against our front 7…
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What Malcolm Jenkins does on a given play, has nothing to do with the disruptive force Fletcher Cox has been on every play. What does jenkins hadle to do with Cox practically becoming unblockable? I can assure you Offensive lineman ARENT leaving Cox wide open because of the threat of Malcolm Jenkins… Every OL scheme is focusing first and foremost on stopping Cox, and he toys with them…
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Wait TIL we see how scary Fletcher is two years from now at the age of 26 in his prime
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Yes THE FRONT 7 TO A MAN have made CLEAR improvement this year
All true, but my comment was more a long-winded way of saying the front four is terrific, but I’m still not solid on the LB corps in terms coverage skills. Your points mostly allude to the overall run defense and the skills of the front four; all points I agree with, but don’t address the need to provide secondary support for intermediate routes/crossers/the flat.
Each his own, just feel that more versatile LBs could have prevented some of the exposure of our secondary. Another Kendricks would certainly go a long way to ensuring that. I think Davis would play more vanilla (ie. Seattle) if he thought the LBs could handle it. Think he just played to the skills of his personal and rightly so.
Kendricks and Barwin are above average in coverage for their position. Meco can’t cover man to man, but he can knock a Reciever on his ass at the line of scrimmage and not let him run a route, Meco is solid dropping into zone, Casey Mathews, it’s no secret that he should be a backup, not a starter… COle/BG improved a ton in coverage, but they will never be great at it. Fortunately Marcus Smith projects to be able to grow into another quality coverage LB…..
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barwin, Kendricks, Marcus should be very capable in coverage, and It’s not a secret that we will probably add another starting caliber ILB who will have 3 down ability and be able to cover, hopefully Kendricks little brother…. Teams don’t have more than 3-4 LBs that are really good in coverage, I expect to be fine in that area next year….
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Add an ILB and we are a,few secondary pieces away from being set… Young defenders ARENT done growing and improving yet…….the only other defensive piece we might need is if we can’t extend Curry to stay Longterm, then we will not only need another 3-4 DE who can two gap, but he would have to be able pair with Fletcher Cox as our main interiorass rushiñg DTs on 3rd down but We still have curry under contract so DE ISNT a pressing NEED…
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But we do need to keep a potential DE need in the back of our minds. Our starting DL is set. But Currys contract expires soon, and Papa Bear Bair is no spring chicken. He doesn’t have mileage on his tires, but I couldn’t even guess how long Bair will be on this team.. So if curry and Bair can’t be counted on long term, we have Hart and Beau on the Bench, so we could eventually have a need for another DL or two.,. I prefer keeping 7 DL, two 3man rotations, with a DL that dpesnt dress in case injuries pile up
Don’t even need an elite secondary, just an adequate one.
NFL teams have the option of whether they want to build an offensive minded team or a defensive minded team. Even in today’s pass happ, high scoring NFL, you can still win with defense. seattle just won a Super Bowl and the defense clearly is better than their offense. Seattle can win 17-10, 14-9, 21-20
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Defensive football is my passion. rather win 13-3 with the opponent struggling to cross mid field all game instead of winning 33-30… So while I can’t wait Til we have an elite defense again, and I do believe we are on our way, The Style of football chip wants to play is dependent on offense. We have seen plenty of teams even recently reach SUPERBOWLS wth Elite Defense and an Average offense, I don’t even think we have that option playing chips brand of football. An average or bad offense puts too much pressure on our defense to win enough games in a marathon season with our defense carrying an average offense….
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f our offense struggles it will negatively impact our defense so damn much…so that, while a defensive fanatic like myself Longs for the days When I will once again see teams fear my defense, it won’t even matter until we get right on offense
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Chip style of play most likely will always mean that it will either be a massive help to our defense, or make things a lot harder for our defense, if the offense is going to have so much effect on the defense, getting RIGHT Offensively has to be more important than Bulding the defense… While ITS CLEAR that our secondary needs a lot of attention and tender love and care, Nick FOLES, Andrew Luck, Aaron Rogers, Joe Montana, probably won’t matter much when we are talking about Garner, Molk who was coaching last year, Dennis Kelly, Allan Barbre, Tobin, Wade Smith… And when you start talking about playing with two or three of those name in the game at the SAME TIME, often lined up next to each other.. I PROBABLY CANT THINK OF A BIGGER POSSiBLE COMPLIMENT TO A HEADCOACH, to have an entire fanbase and Local media, DEAD CONVINCED that we were SURE SHOT PLAYOFF TEAM that we expected to win ATleast one game to the point where this collapse is heartbreaking end of the world for us….If That wasn’t enough, our HEADCoach miraculously actually got us to overcome probably a worse OL situation than two years ago when we went 4-12, to go like 7-2 with NO run game, and a young QB who was struggling and taking a beating…and a secondary we know needs help……to go thru all that, and still dead ezpect to make the playoffs and contend BEFORE CHIP KELLY would have BEEN INSANE! People don’t even realize that we are only HEARTBROKEN RIGHT NOW BECAUSE OF THE INSANE LEVEL HE RAISED THE BAR TO, and a fantastic coaching job that saw them overcome so much and still win, that we actually lost our minds and EXPECTED TO win, as is OVERCOMING Alll the insane shit that was thrown at us this year is NORMAL? The fact that im fucking heartbroken right now, is because this coach was so good, this young QB had so much heart and mental toughness, this locker room was so damn tough, that we started to Expect to win, against the most ridiculous odds, that normally caused a team to go 4-12…..’so while we are heartbroken right now, and in disbelief over the DECEMBER collapse, the only reason we feel that way is because of the fantastic job these coaches, this QB on down to the FG kicker have done at perservering against so much ridiculous adversity, that we lost our minds, started taking it from granted and started to act like its normal for a second year head coach and a young QB in his 20th career,game, going like 8-2(FOLES), possibly finishing 10-6 while missing Lane for 4 games, KELCE for 6 games, Barbre for 14 games, Mathis for 8 games, Herremans for 5 games and play 6 Games with Mark Sanchez who hasn’t completed a 40yard pass since 2010…
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Teams win 4-6 games going thru what we faced this year. this Coach did such a great job that we are HEARTBROKEN, when our season should have ended months ago. I can’t think of a better compliment to the job chip and these players have done, for us to be heartbroken because we won 10 games, in a situation teams would literally be lucky to win 6 games having to endure..
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Offense is too crucial if we are going to play chips unorthodox brand of pro football, so while this secondary needs work, it pains a defensive fanatic like myself to say that nothing is more importnt than building the offense up so that this never happens again…….. Tho we faced so many injuries and bad luck, that I’m not really 100%’sure that it’s possible to even build a team that could endure all the bad luck we faced this year….. I guess Recent GB Super Bowl champ teaM can give us hope. They had like 20 players on IR…but they never proven they can overcome losing their QB for a stretch of games and win it all either…
You’re right Chip did raise the bar with how we played without all those OLineman. But, then we were 7-2 and the majority of our oline came back and we played worse, and choked away what we should have every right to expect as a playoff team. That’s not discounting how unbelievably amazing the coaching job was in the first half of the season, but the fact that it was almost equally bad in the second half can’t just be ignored because of how good the first half was.
Exactly this ^
When this team set the final bar of how the division should finish with the 22 point beatdown of the Cowboys in Dallas, it made the uninspired chokes of the last two weeks totally unacceptable.
I had this team 11-5 and a division winner going into the season. The table was totally set for that accomplishment as they sat 9-4 after the Seattle game; the team chose not to rise to the occasion.
I expect Chip to get that adjusted as we go into next year.
I had them going 12-4 before the season….. But I’d bet anything that before the season, if the ghost of NFL future came down and told me an and you that we would play 15 different OL combinations, and the 3rd week in the season, we would be finishing a skins game with ONLY Herremans as the starting OL in the game, OL so dysfunctional that we had NO run game, and we would have had to play like half a season with sanchez….. I HIGHLY DOUBT you would have predicted a 11-5 season, and I doubt I would be expecting a 12-4 season…
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I GENUINLY believe that 90% of franchises WOULD struggle to win 6 games under the circumstances and adversity we faced this year
Our starting offensive lineman came back from injury in NAME, Even Chip admitted Kelce wasnt half of what he was, warrioring back from surgery in 5 weeks, when most players shut it down for the year with that injury… Mathis wasnt what he ww last year after he was healthy and got to play 16 straght games…Peters admitted to being battling all types of injuries in December,..
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We had our OL back in NAME, but that wasn’t OUR OL, those players are capable of so much more than we saw in November/December… KELCE at 60%’you can probably trust more than Molk, but you can tell he was being a warrior and still wasn’t back to his old self before chip even admitted it
You call yourself a scout. Why don’t we see your take on Foles as the future? Watch some film and go over the differences between this year and last year. Don’t just tell us you don’t know or you trust whatever Chip Kelly decides. I bet you’ll realize the lack of a run game and the terrible Oline play had a lot to do with Foles’ dip in performance.
You can give up on him as the franchise QB but don’t be singing his praises next year when he proves you wrong.
What are you even arguing against??
wow
History says that’s his first ever comment. I’ll wager this is also his first ever igglesblitz article as well.
Yeah, but he also got his first ever up vote…from himself.
That is poor form unless it was an accident. The self up vote is brutal.
The self-up vote is rare on these forums too. Quite the faux pas for a newbie.
I had my suspicions, but I couldn’t check on my phone.
MOLK, BARBRE, WADE SMITH, GARNER, TOBIN, DENNIS KELLY. I hope fans haven’t forgotten those names already. Not only are most of these names late round or Undrafted talents, but most of them barely have any NFL experience. Inserting one of these guys into an OL will effect the Offense. Hope people havent forgotten that Nick FOLES won games with two or three of those guys in the game at the same time. it’s Bad enough when one has to go into the game and he is fortunate to have a veteran like peters or hErremans next to him, but when two or three inexperienced players are lined Up next to each other, I really hope people understand how insanely difficult that is to overcome. While it wasn’t pretty, Nick FOLES took a friggin Beating from the moment the season started Vs The Jaguars, he managed to endure way more punishment than most QBs could have, stayed in there long enough, fought his way thru all the adversity, and was about two plays short of leading us to a 10-0 start… I know it wasn’t pretty, it lacked dominance and BCS style points, but I just don’t understand how anyone can see how fantastic he was behind a quality OL, saw him endure and Overcome a mess of an OL and manage to go 8-2 thru all types of insane adversity, and be down on Nick Foles? I just don’t understand…… we have all seen Hall of Fame QBs crumble and look horrible because of their OL not being able to hold up…
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If it was rational to expect our QB to look anything like last year playing wth Molk,Tobin,Garner,Barbre,Wade, Dennis Kelly, then we would have to be the biggest Morons in the NFL to be payng what we are paying for Peters, KELCE, Mathis,HErremans, and spending the 4th pick on Lane
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I mean the best back in the NFL last year, was completely shut down this year because of the OL mess, but our QB with 20 games of NFL experience didn’t have enough BCS style points this year, his 8-2 performances weren’t dominante enough for this fanbase and media?
you had a great season mr G Eagle! you wrote a ton of excellent reassuring insights and commentary.
aloha!
Thank you kind sir…. Hopefully next season will be better for all of us
That’s a sign of great coaching from the offensive line coach.
That’s Probably the best we can rationally ever hope for.
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We would have needed to have an entire starting caliber OL on our bench, to overcome all the injuries early in the year, and continue to look like last years offense…
I seem to remember you spending a large portion of the season arguing with me that we didn’t need OL help, that Molk, Tobin, Kelly were the young guns of the future. Glad you’ve finally come around, though.
I typical wo t read what you right. Trying to make a conscious effort to spend time debating with higher acumen fans and less jackasses such as your self….mbut feel free to continue to sweat me, maybe in 6 months you can get me to show you some more attention again… goos day to you sir
The guy who spells worse than the average 3rd grader is now calling other people dumb?
I have a good idea: why don’t you just kill yourself? You don’t deserve to live. Please die.
Yet another worthless comment that does nothing to advance the conversation.
Once GEAGLE stops posting and then kills himself I am happy to go back to lurking.
Is that the list of guys the coaching staff fluffed up all pre-season tell us how good these backups were?
We were made to expect that these guys could step in and play well. I’m not analyzing based on your points on Foles, but I’m pointing out our coaching staff did these guys no favors when they put them up on pedestals during the pre-season.
Also, why is “next man up” stated all over the league by every team…………….yet our “next men” by and large sucked at their jobs?
What you need to understand is under normal circumstances, inserting one of those guys into an OL with 4 high caliber veterans would be OK…. Nothing normal about,this year. The redskin game was the first month of the season, and at the end of the game, the only starter playing was Herremans at Right friggim tackle…. You can’t play with two. Three, four kids like this at the same time….. To endure this season and build on last year, we would have pretty much needed another starting caliber OL on our bench…
You’re right, Tommy…it takes time to build the team and, while I do think Chip/Roseman need to re-evaluate their plans for doing that and the honeymoon is over for Chip, I do still believe they can get it done. I just want to see more of Chip’s adaptability and innovation…these were supposedly strong suits of his and were in short supply this year for some reasons.
I agree completely with just about everything you wrote here. I trust Chip and Howie to continue to improve/upgrade from some talent / coaching / motivational mistakes from this year, keep with the “consistent and accurate” passing ability for the ultimate resolution of the QB position rather than feed the nonsense running QB garbage, and put the appropriate stranglehold back on our division.
I’m still livid about choking away a division totally in our control after being 9-4 going into the final 3 games, but I don’t see this as anything other than a one year dip in progress.
[…] Year 2 – Iggles BlitzChampionship teams are not built overnight. We sometimes forget that. We see a team win the Super Bowl and focus on that particular season. We rarely take the time to think about all that went into building that team. The draft picks and trades. The free agent additions and losses. The uplifting wins and crushing losses. That’s all part of the process. I wrote about the fact that we’re just in Year 2 with Chip Kelly. The Eagles are headed in the right direction but more time is needed for Kelly to get this team where he wants it. […]
Barkley is largely irrelevant at this point. If he can’t even get brought into the conversation this year despite the thoroughly mediocre/below average play from Sanchez while Foles was out, Barkley doesn’t have a chance in hell of competing for the starting job next year.
Honestly do know what they’ll do at QB. They aren’t going to trade up for a Mariotta but it wouldn’t surprise either if they grab a QB in the 1st or 2nd round. Foles hasn’t shown the ability to stay healthy or consistent, Barkley is just roster filler at this point whose biggest advantage is that he has been here for 2 years, and I would be really surprised if Sanchez is back next year.
Barkley is either going to play his way back into relevancy or totally off of the roster next year. I just don’t understand how they were so hot to trade up for a guy who isn’t going to be able to play, so I hope he can turn the corner for next pre-season.
I don’t see Sanchez as back on this roster next year. I think Chip undertook a noble experiment that didn’t work. No reason to try it again.
As far as drafting a QB, I’m not sure what they’ll do with that either. The only required element of any QB is skills making progression reads and feeling out how to pass in the pocket. I don’t want to see the team degenerate into some droll running QB system that will render them unwatchable.
I share Tommy’s level of trust that the Chip / Howie collaborative will continue to show improvement next season.
Young guys on the roster should continue to improve, weak spots on the roster should continue to be upgraded, and the lack of focus / motivation / intensity to sustain a division lead at 9-4 vs. inferior opponents will be addressed.
Making a general appraisal of the teams the Eagles will play in 2015 exposes a hot pile of trash standing in the way to 11 or 12 wins and a division title.
http://www.fbschedules.com/nfl-15/2015-philadelphia-eagles-football-schedule.php
Home: Dallas, NY Giants, Washington, New Orleans, Tampa Bay, Buffalo, Miami, NFC West* (Assume Arizona)
Away: Dallas, NY Giants, Washington, Atlanta, Carolina, New England, NY Jets, NFC North* (Assume Detroit)
One very good / great team – New England
Two good teams – Detroit, Arizona
Thirteen mediocre to trash teams – the rest of the teams
Sin #8…
Double sucks now that the Buccs will probably get the #1 overall. I hoped all season long that it will go to the AFC. Now Mariota (at least for the moment he seems like the #1) will play in the NFC and will play against us next year. Good thing is that he probably needs some time to get used to the NFL. He has a good OC, but Lovie isn’t helping his QBs, generally speaking.
Yeah, I think Mariota will need to sit and learn how to pass from the pocket while making progression reads or he’ll not be able to make himself last in the NFL.
Most QBs could use a year and learn. Most don’t get it. The Jags said at the beginning of the year they want to do that with Bortles – and after they lost a ton of games early on they played him.
There’s a reason these teams pick so high.
Shame they can’t be a bit smarter about that.
It’s tough to be patient. Just think about us. Foles played poorly and we’re nervous about that (myself included), despite last year. And sometimes, being patient is a bad thing, just look at the Bears. That’s why you can never be sure unless you have elite talent at the position.
You must have noticed that 90% of “fans” don’t believe a player at any position should be allowed to develop. At least not in Philadelphia. ;~)
Like I said, it’s tough to be patient. Ideally, you want to see at least some flashes. I think people are not down on Erzt and people weren’t down on Cox or Kendricks before this year. There were flashes, there was improvement, you just want to see the giant leap. Not all players will make that leap, tough, look at Lane Johnson.
With Nick, the problem is that his season was just horrible. The same mistakes over and over. He had a bad O-Line and he showed last year what he can do, but, I’m there again, it’s tough to be patient. Doesn’t mean you don’t have to be patient sometimes.
I would not be surprised if Winston ends up in Tampa. He will start right away and will be able to do some damage throwing to Evans and Jackson, a la Kelvin Benjamin last season.
Maybe there’s some truth to that. It’s funny, Mariota has the intagibles, Winston comes more from a pro style offense. Switch Mariotas brain with Winstons playing style and you have the closest thing to Andrew Luck since Andrew Luck, but the way it is, both have question marks, but different ones.
Hmm. Remember how everybody here continually trashed Dallas all the time, yet here they are, winning the division. Emotion should never get in the way of analytics. ;~). Just so you know, I have hated Dallas for over 30 years. Have no idea how Romo has survived his back surgeries, etc., but we can’t deny the facts.
The only fact is the Eagles handed the division over to Dallas.
The 22 point win on Thanksgiving is the only relevant fact for how games vs. Dallas should end.
I would be more interested to watch the game tomorrow if Barkley was starting. 9-7 or 10-6 is just semantics and there is zero point in letting Sanchez start another game with this season. Sanchez is a backup QB who still turns over the ball at a frightening clip with a limited arm. He gets exposed against better teams & when he has to throw the ball more than 35+ times his team is in trouble.
Sanchez was a big dissapointment to me. He looked good during the pre-season and I was optimistic about his playing under Chip, and away from the Jets. Well, the guy had his shot and now we know at what level he will perform.
I hated the Sanchez signing when we did it I thought he was a disaster waiting to happen, but was cautiously optimistic after his first couple games… Then he reverted to old Sanchez and dashed all our hopes.
At least he didn’t have a buttfumble moment here and completely humiliate himself and the franchise.
I think more guys were in your camp than in mine at the time of the signing. I had hoped that Sanchez would live up to the potential he was expected to have when he first signed with the Jets. I thought the Eagles would dig Mark’s diamond out of the rough. But, alas, you guys were right.
I was in the “our 27 TD – 2 INT QB is about to have another pro bowl season, so Sanchez is fine to ride pine for 16 games” camp.
Since the last Eagles’ playoff win in ’08, only 14 teams out of the 32 NFL teams haven’t won a playoff game. 4 of those 14 teams are scheduled to make the playoffs and can change that this year too:
– AZ
– Cincy
– Det
– Car
It hasn’t been lean times as much as just frustrating with a lot of subpar football.
When Nick FOles costs his team mates a game, or when Nick Foles doesn’t deliver behind a solid OL, that’s, when I’ll ATleast be able to understand these debates.
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Nick has proven that even behind a mess of an OL, he is a warrior you can win much more than you will lose with as the leader of your team, and he also proved that when you put him in a healthy offensive situation, he is capable of being pretty spectacular… All while being still a year or two away into maxing out his talents and grow into the veteran QB he will be for most of his career
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Fans might want to see Nick Have a losing record, or play bad regardless of a Good high caliber offense around him(specifically the OL)
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Nick FOles has RARELY been the true problem for any Eagle loss, with the exception of last years Dallas game I guess…. When Nick lets down his team and starts costing us game, than I’ll understand this media/fanbase ridiculous OPPINION on Nick…. And even if you don’t like something about his game now, he ismt even close to being done developing yet, so why the hell would anyone assume whatever issue they have with this smart, dedicated, hard working young man, won’t be improved upon as he develops?
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Shit on Nick, and clamor for the next young Qb…. And when that NEXT QB arrives, even if he is a highly touted, can’t miss QB prospect, when fans start having to deal with his 3-4 year development, then let’s see how happy they were about crapping on Nick after 20 games……
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Does anyone think it would have been THAT FAR FETCHED to take Russel Wilson out of the Superbowk, insert Nick as Seattles QB and seattle still beating the Brncos in the Big Game?
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It’s frustrating that we can’t even identify the TRUE PROBLEMS that need to be corrected. When Nick FOles starts holding this team back, and losing games for his team mates who played well enough to win, then this debate would make some sense…..considering NICK DOESNT COST US GAMES, how about we worry about fixing and upgrading the issue that really do keep us from winning on Sunday? SMH
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Do people actually think Nick would have thrown that INT in crunch time to lose against Washington? That LAST DRIVE should be enough to show fans the difference between a promising young QB like Nick who practically never blows games with a late INT, and Mark Sanchez!!!
Anyone actually think Nick FOles would have ever thrown that dumb INT to Brashaud Breeland in crunch time at the end of the skins game? When it’s the end Of the game, and the outcome of the battle is on the LINE, NICK HAS ALWAYS GOTTEN IT TOGETHER, gave us a chance to win, without making that bonehead error at the end of the game that kills the team…
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We saw the difference between Sanchez and FOles, and Sanchez last throw to end our season…. No matter what the OL mess looks like, how bad Nick is playing that day, when the Hell has Nick FOles ever killed us like sanchez did in crunch time with boneheaded INTs?
No he would have thrown it earlier and taken other points of the board
Yup, and got it together and give us a good chance to win at the end, like he has ALWAYS DONE..
Saints Playoff loss or the “Riley cooper drop with no one around him”
49ers loss or the “Riley cooper drop in the end zone”
Cardinals Loss or the “one loss in which I can’t remember an egregious drop by Riley”…
When they cut Cooper in Feb of 2016 we’ll have a fun time with his greatest hits collection.
That will be fun. I can see the gifs of all of his drops ala the manning INT faces that Kempski did.
Somebody had better get those together for Bradley Fletcher and Nate Allen pronto!
The sad thing is I really liked Nate his rookie year and wanted him to succeed… I blame Washburn for ruining him.
This is from left field. Just listened to Kempski/Lawlor inc., and it hit me when they were shaking their heads (you can hear them) about the huge number of turnovers as compared to last season. Think about the vicious winnowing process that is the path from high school standout to NFL starter. A kid can be the best in his State, go to a big-time program, and be a pro prospect, and make it to the NFL and do nothing of great note. He’s a pro and has the tools and ability to be on the field in the NFL. He’s not a phenom, but is at least as good as half of the other guys who play his position. The growth and development it took to go from special to NFL survivor happened at a constant, hellacious pace. Work and harder work and still harder work. And there is no “arriving” when he gets to the summit. Excelling against the best, who are attempting to do the same, is a challenge that never abides off-time. If you have a family, well they’ll understand… the average NFL career is three years long. You have to work to get better still, and you have to train hard when it’s the off-season, you have to live right, eat right , sleep right 24/7.
Into this story, let’s introduce an analytical type that has had success at the intermediate level of getting everybody to do what they do two or three times faster than they do. He brings this method of coaching to the professional game, and looks to have implemented it successfully. But he’s now in a forum where the competition is continually of equal or greater ability than his own charge, which was rare at the intermediate level. Injuries happen. How does that impact pace? The analyst states that everybody practices faster and gets more repetitions, so there is no need to slow anything down. So there is no direct evidence that doing everything faster will result in more turnovers, but an analytical type probably wouldn’t ignore the possibility, maybe.
The area that is very difficult to measure is the mental area. Is it, perhaps, more difficult to focus on every detail when the mind is ever active, anticipating what’s next, at some expense to what is happening now? Turnovers are usually more mental than physical. Is it possible that adapting to this pace takes years of going through it? Bellichick and others have been selective in their implementation, and I have not seen any statistics to support or disprove it, but my guess is somebody will look into this, because uptempo will only be an advantage if it does not undermine competence.
I think the mistake here would be to assume that this only applies to football, and NFL football at that. Chip is a fan of getting information from anywhere that he can apply it from, and the pace of learning is something that has been looked at probably in every single field which requires higher level learning. Mistakes are sure to happen, but I’m of the opinion that that’s more a product of 1. bad luck, 2. lack of talent (relative to the opponent). I can see an argument for there being a bigger learning curve in Chip’s system, but I think practicing at a fast pace is exactly how you train someone to deal with such instantaneous decision making.
I have no insight on this topic because I move at my own speed and answer to myself. But I LIKE the advantages that uptempo can avail. Were you watching the very first Eagles game against Washington last season on that Sunday Night? Well into the game, Eagles run a play and hurry back to line up, and De Angelo Hall (I think it was) is seen turning his back to LOS and putting up his arms as in WTF. The physical edge with uptempo is all upside. But football cannot be played from rote. Tasks are performed in a specific and arbitrary context. And I’m only posing the question, and my suspicion is that Kelly’s attachment to former Ducks is not sentimental. He wants, I’m assuming, bucks already broken. Getting greatly conditioned athletes to continue to play at a high level, but now do it 50 frames/second as opposed to 25, this is not a matter of knowledge or intelligence. Our brains – like our hard drives – need some time to reset. And maybe some need more than others. I think practicing at a fever clip is fine for the advantages that it yields, but I’m not convinced that it does anything at all to improve or enhance the decision-making process.
I really just wanted to comment to say that’s some pretty creative yet analytical thinking, I like it.
I’m also responding to your above comment: ” I could be full of crap, but if I tried to do all my tasks twice as
fast as I do now, I’d trip, drop things, forget things, miss things, and
generally I would unconsciously revert back to a pace where I felt more
comfortable. And here is where I wonder if turnovers can be an
unconscious manifestation of rejection.”
I think this comes down to a matter of training. You would likely drop things, forget things, etc. until the point where you were comfortable doing those tasks quickly. The phrase that I’ve always been taught is “Practice doesn’t make perfect–Perfect practice makes perfect.” And in this offense, “perfect” would be running the offense at a high speed (at least when called for). The team must work at that to be good at it. It doesn’t sound like you have issue with that or don’t understand that, but I think what you’re saying is that the team doesn’t pick up as much in practice because they’re always going fast. I don’t know that this is true, though. At least in the parts or practice that were open to media, they seemed to alternate sessions of fast and slow, as well as give plenty of reps to everyone to fix mistakes, and then go over it again in the classroom setting. Surely, I think there are going to be some really talented football players that would probably be great on any team but just can’t handle the level of thought that this team requires, but that will be a process of getting the right guys to play the scheme. That could certainly account for some of the mistakes, too. I think many of them are due to young guys being pushed to play before they could handle it (Huff, Wolff), or guys that have already shown they can’t handle it (Sanchez)
Where I think your idea holds a lot of weight, though, is when it comes to vets holding on to their positions throughout the season. A less talented vet that is able to think quicker and is better trained to handle the uptempo without mistakes is going to play over the more talented young guy that can’t. That could be why you see people like Cooper starting over Huff, Fletcher over anyone with a pulse, and Casey Matthews over the rest of the linebacker platoon. Perhaps Smith just needs to time for his brain to “reset” as you put it.
why would this not have happened at Oregon?
The odds in college are much better that you aren’t facing great competition week in and week out. Also, you’re breaking more recently acquired habits with a college frosh than with a drafted rookie. The vice is still pretty loose for a freshman, but it is as tight as a pit bull’s bite when you enter the pros. I could be full of crap, but if I tried to do all my tasks twice as fast as I do now, I’d trip, drop things, forget things, miss things, and generally I would unconsciously revert back to a pace where I felt more comfortable. And here is where I wonder if turnovers can be an unconscious manifestation of rejection.
And it’s not a physical thing. Rigorous exercise and training have proven quantifiable gains in terms of strength, stamina and endurance. But at what point does focus become negatively impacted by the unrelenting hurry-up?
but, that is true if you only do things at a faster rate on game day. If you practice at a given speed, then play the game at that same given speed you aren’t altering your tempo, but doing it consistently. Take learning an song, you start slow then increase as you build your muscle memory, eventually you can play extremely fast and accurate. It is simply a matter of training.
I don’t think tempo had anything to do with the increase in turnovers. A case in point, Sanchez had an interception percentage that was right in the middle of his previous years (3.7 this year vs 5.5, 2.6, 3.3 and 4.0). Same with his fumble rate.
I know pulling something like this off would be a massive LONGSHOT, but I’m Really keeping my fingers crossed that Howie can make a splash trade, something like a 2nd rounder this year, the pick owed to us from the Bryce trade, and a second rounder next year for a Big, young WR like Cordarrel Patterson or Alshon Jeffries…. Of course we will extend Maclin, the WR corp would be overcrowded, but Coopers contract is just a suped up two year deal, se we cut him next year with no issues..
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I listed these two players in the Example, because of the constant rumors about the rift between VIkings and Patterson, and I include Alshon Jeffries simply because that Franchie is in Shambles, and it won’t be easy to fix their mess. the Bears to do list:
1) If they want a team to take on Jay Cutlers contract, they have to trade Jay Cutker to a team, and give them a high draft pick like a 3rd rounder just to get them to take his ridiculous contract..
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2) They have a HEADCoach who had a horrible year, and if they decide to keep Cutler, they practically have no choice but to fire the offensive coordinator who threw Cutler under the bus, kicked the bus driver out, drove the Bus over Cutlers body, and then put it in reverse and backed it up over him for good measure
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3) What do you do about the Brandon Marshall and Cutler? Break them up? Keep both…. Alshon Jeffries probably has much more value than brandon Marshall in terms of trade market. young WR, still on a rookie deal, not a HEADCASE like Marshall, no butt buddy relationship with Cutler.
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If they want to blow it up and rebuild, trading Jeffries could bring them valuable picks to rebuild with and recoup the pick you lose to get someone to take Cutlers contract… The Bears also have had a STACKED arsenal of offensive weapons for years now, and never managed to really do anything with it…. Maybe they have too many Cheifs, not enough Indians…
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We can always draft a WR…. But if we can add a young, sure shot stud THATS already developed abd can handle a big role from day one, not having to Develope a 3rd young QB, it would be worth the extra picks we would have to pay
I can see Cordarrelle Patterson being a great fit for us here with all the RAC stuff we do. His value is nothing in Minnesota too, he only gets a handful of snaps a game. I bet they’d be willing to part with him for a late rounder.
He was a first rounder, but ATleast he wasn’t like a top 10 pick, he was closer to the end of round 1, so that should make him a little more affordable… If we are going to look for young WR talents to trade for, probably our best hope is too look at the rebuilding teams that could really use the extra high quality draft picks.
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Put Cordarrel outside, opposite Maclin, Jordan in the slot, with Huff being that “Queen chess piece” that moves around and lines up everywhere including the backfield…. With ERTZY… Now we are talking!!!
Patterson is essentially a brain dead human being. He absolutely cannot learn the plays in Norv’s system. That scares me a bit.
I’m not sure how true this is, because I can’t remember where I heard it, but I was under the impression that Chip was extremely high on Cordarrell in the 2013 draft. If that’s true, that means chip was ok with his football intelligence, work ethic and character, because we know by now that those Seem like non negotiable aspects of chips evaluatipn process
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If you just google a few things with his name and “can’t learn plays”, “low IQ”, “benched”, etc. you’ll not be lacking in reporting on the topic. The guy is just a bad combo of stupid and lazy.
I’ll take your word for it, I haven’t known you to be a liar
Thank you. I’m certainly giving you an opinionated POV on a player I don’t like, but he’s been getting killed in Minnesota all year.
In fairness tho, we have NO CHANCE at TRADING for serious WR TALENT, unless that player has some Wharts to make a team want to trade an extremely talented young man, or the Team is in tear it down and build mode.. for example, we can’t class,l the Panthers and ask about Kelvin Benjamin, or call the Bucs and ask them about MIke Evans without those GMs laughing at us
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But to tell you the truth, you’d be surprised how little I know about guys like Cordarrell Patterson or a guy like Sammy Watkins… As much of a draft junkie as I am, I have this bad habit of not spending any time on players who I feel like we have no shot at drafting. Which is dumb because you never know what will happen. For example, going into the 2013 draft, I knew everything about TE’s like travis Kelcem Gavin Escobar, Jordan Reed, but I didn’t spend any time on ERTZ and Eiffert other than when I saw stanford play live. I didn’t think there was any chance Ertz fell to round two, so I spent months learning about every TE except for the one we drafted SMH
No worries. Its a big draft and we all have actual jobs. I just try to follow as much NFL news as I can when guys get certain reps about them.
I happened to be keyed in on Patterson being worthless because a lot of people were complaining about his production and some guys on Sirius NFL were mocking him.
Annoyed that we can’t get out of the Cooper deal Til next year lol. I don’t 100% hate having him back for a year, but this is the time of year you ae allowed to hope and dream a bit, and Everyone has insatiable thirst for upgrades.,… I wouldn’t Neccessarily Cut Coop this year, but I would like to have that option, in case I could find a reasonable veteran WR that would sign on to like a short term Sproles contract like a Vincent Jackson.
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If we could sign a quality veteran WR to a Sproles deal, it would allow us to buy some time before we have to spend another pick on a WR, allowing us to hammer out some other needs in the draft….
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If this is going to be such a weak and Anorexic DB market, we have to take advantage and fill as many of the other needs as possible in Free agency so we can use the draft to upgrade the secondary
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Unfortunately because of Coop, I doubt we add veteran WRs. I think we are very high on HUff and the Pope and expect significant imprpvement out of those two next year, Tho counting on growth is how we ended up with another year of Nate Allen, when Wolff couldng take his spot like we expected, or at the very least HOPED he would….. so it’s possible that we think we can get away with doing NOTHING at WR this year, and then finish the “reconfiguration of our arsenal of WRs” next year, when we don’t eat dead money getting rid of coop, and when we have a good idea what we have in the Pope and Huff, and what we are still lacking?
I’m still convinced that Vincent Jackson will be available after Tampa cuts him.
I still think we can pull off a Sproles for him trade a late pick, restructure/extend him
Tampa already tried to trade the dude and failed. The league might be waiting them out at this point. I don’t think anybody wants him at that salary / age combo.
this idea revolves around him agreeing to previous restructure he has like 1 year at 9.7 so the dude should just add 2 year 10mil or something, even the cap hit and maybe throw him a little guaranteed cash would even out to about 3 years 20 with that last year probably not happening, throw them a 6th for VJAX and a 7th and get this done
You might not even need to do that much. They really could cut him.
yeah but he his still only 31 on 32 and 9 yards away from his 4th straight 1000 yard season and 6th in 7 years on the open market he may still get too expensive
I loved Patterson coming out, he was my favorite Wideout, but what would we honestly have to give
a 6th maybe? He’s toast in Minnesota due to poor work habits and an inability to learn the playbook.
I’d be down for that, 2 years left on his contract and if he does well you have the 5th year option too
This Vikings staff seems to really hate the dude. I don’t mind him as a kick returner, but he’s got a lot of Ted Ginn in him………… and that isn’t a compliment.
I actually liked him out of college though, don’t know much of him at Minny but for a 6th what harm could be done at worst you got an awesome returner and number 5 wr for nothing at best he turns it around and fights with Pope for the 2 spot
Brandon Marshall has bi-polar disease. He isn’t tearing it up, but I have admired his ability to survive in the NFL with a condition that requires medical oversight.
Not only that, but he has really set a good example for troubled players to go seek help, and improve not only his self, but also his relationship with his wife…as a man, you have to applaud were Brandon Marshall is today, considering how far he has come from the young knucklhead Brandon Marshall. Gotta respect a man who steps up and improves himself and tries to set an example for troubled young players…..but from a football perspective, I enjoy not having crazy personally Wide Recievers..
You wouldn’t sign Dez in a heartbeat?
I hate to admit it, but I have a massive secret crush on Dez BRyant, from his game, to his psycho game day Beast personality…. Some of his stuff would infuriate me, but this is the first time I have EVER REVEALED any hint of my secret man crush on DEZ BRyant.
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So much of his crap, I would hate to deal with…but I can’t lie, I would ADORE his Kobe Bryant, rip your heart out approach to playing sports.
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But a while ago I reached the point where I knew I had to accept how this new regime will operate. So even tho I have fanboy wants like everyone else, I try not to waste time on personal wants that don’t coincide with the way this regime will operate…
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So would I want DEZ BRyant? hell to thee YEAH! I would personally dedicate my life to quitting my job, not sleeping, and personally follow him round the clock, 24/7 to keep him out of trouble so he can stay in this city!
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Heck, I’d take a chance on the best corner prospect in the draft, from Washington, the HEADCASE… But I try not to spend time on that kid because I don’t believe my desire for him will coincide with the view point of this regime
A ha! So you are acknowledging the genius of one Jerry Jones who had the prescient compulsion to acquire this world-class talent?
DEZ was as can’t miss as it gets, when it comes to WR prospect, but I guess I have to tip my hat to Jerry for not screwing it up lll
“hell to thee YEAH!”
Is that from Hamlet?
Macbeth if I’m not mistake… 😉
With medication, there’s no reason a person with BIpolar disorder can’t be as successful as anyone else. Working with that population, though, there’s plenty of people diagnosed with it that would be more accurately described with other similar disorders (I don’t think borderline personality disorder is diagnosed enough, personally). From the perspective of an outside observer and having no knowledge of his personal life, he used to have a lot of problems with doing dumb and illegal shit, which he seems to have under control. The meds are working–he’s good to go.
He’s Borderline Personality Disorder. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201003/three-easy-ways-differentiate-bipolar-and-borderline-disorders
The worst part about all this, what makes this all really really suck is that if we were to take Last years offense, with this years special teams play, and this years defense, major front 7 Improvements but bIg secondary issues, we would most likely be good enough to contend for a Super Bowl this year.
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Heck last years Offense, with this years special teams would have put up so many points, and jumped on teams so quickly, that our front 7 would be pinning its ears back and teeing off on QBs all day like the Giants game
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Hopefully this is the year injuries DONT ravage us completely, and finally allow us to put all 3 phases of the game together. When that happens, I think we have the personel in place to be a contender, with another offseason of upgrade acquisitions and another offseason of growth for our young players, continuity and further gelling for the rest of the team.
Hate to say that after Sunday all we can talk about is the draft. #wewillbeontheclocketernally
Yeah, big draft coming up. It’ll be fun to see what juniors enter the draft as we get through bowl season along with what guys the Eagles add in free agency.
Once free agency settles out I’ll start fully investing some thought in team needs and putting together a few ideal drafts on first pick’s web site.
plenty of stuff before that and the playoffs are shaping up to be pretty interesting in both NFC and AFC too.
I guess because of how disheartening our season ended: Losing to Dallas at home. If they go all the way, I’m really going to be disgusted.
If that defense can survive 2 playoff games, I might take up a religion.
I might take up work with the FBI’s anti game fixing division if the Cowboys don’t lose to Detroit in the wild card round.
I would become a boo-dist.
If that defense does survive at all, it’s all because the NFL wants Dallas to be relevant again.
I’m going to the game with my dad tomorrow. #fathersontime #flyeaglesfly
My buddy is visiting family this weekend, so I think I’ll end up at a sports bar somewhere to watch it.
i’ll be listening to it on the radio as i drive back from quakertown.
http://www.drafttek.com/2015-NFL-Draft-Prospect-Rankings/Top-QBs.asp
So what actual quarterback do you all like to put in the mix with Foles and Barkely if we add in the draft?
Connor Cook?
Kevin Hogan?
Sean Mannion?
Gunner Kiel?
Bo Wallace?
Connor Halliday?
I’m trying to see what guys project as actual throwers and are tall enough to function in the NFL without having to be some type of transcendent once in a generation short guy.
Cook and Hogan have both said they are going back.
Consensus on Mannion seems to be backup as his ceiling.
Kiel is a rSO and I would be shocked if he comes out after bouncing around and only starting for one year.
Wallace isn’t very good.
Halliday needs to add 30 pounds, and is coming off a knee injury.
Out of the group I would take Mannion but you would be spending a second or third rounder on him.
Thank you. I don’t get to see as much college as I used to and haven’t done enough reading on any of the guys yet.
And I’m fine with adding a late round pick to put in the mix with Foles and Barkley if that’s what we need to do.
For the Eagles to draft a QB THIS YEAR, one of two things would need to happen:
1) Chip No longer wants to continue to grow Barkley
Or
2) Chip is ready to make Barkley the #2 QB
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The problem is we don’t know if we will draft a QB today because a #3rd possibility exsists.
3) Chip wants to continue to grow Barklet, but isn’t ready to go into the season with Barkley as his #2 QB. Right now, it’s possible that chip will want Barkley spending another year growing as the #3, and sanchez or some other veteran as the #2, in whch case we would NOT be drafting a QB at all THS year.
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If #3 ends up beng true there is 2 options(different ways of thinking):
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A) Give Sanchez another year of continuity because you want find a backup QB that is so much better than Sanchez that is worth starting over with a new backup, instead of letting Sanchez buld on this year
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B) get rid of sanchez and bring in another QB wash out like Sanchez who’s team has allowed to reach the free agent market, and hope that the QB Whisperer Chip Kelly can take another sanchez like washout like Jake Lockert, Blaine Gabbert or whoever, and end up developing him into the starting QB he was supposed to grow into when he was drafted.
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TODAY we don’t KNOW if we are drafting a QB this year or not, but it should be pretty obvious if we will draft a QB or not, once we see free agency unfold. Pretty simple, if we go into the draft with FOles, Barkley, sanchez or some other veteran, Eagles most likely won’t be drafting a QB… BUT if the Eagles waive Barkley in Febuary/March we will be rafting a QB, AND if we don’t sign Sanchez or another free agent QB, we will be drafting a QB…. Should be pretty easy to know if we will be drafting a QB going into this draft…I guess there is always a chance that we draft a QB unexpectedly, and then dump Barkley during the draft in a trade…or a scenario where you can’t believe a certain QB fell all the way into your lap and you think he presents way too much value to pass up on, but iI highly doubt we see a scenario where Winston on Marriotta have some epic fall and are still on the board when it’s our turn to pick..
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If we were to do a pool today, pick the 3 names we think have th best chance of being our 3 QBs in September, I’d still probably think my best bet is to go with FOles, Sanchez and Barkley, all back for 2015…
I could see another journeyman in here on a one year deal, just not Sanchez again.
I wish the Rams didn’t love Bradford cuz I don’t think he will be available, I guess Locker but I don’t like him, RG3 will be oo expensive for what he is worth meh look to the draft
By the sounds of it Graham could be gone next season if he not getting paid to start.. Could say the same thing about Boykin next year playing his final season out looking to start.. Keeping or releasing Cole could be the key along with money if Graham stays or not
http://www.csnphilly.com/football-philadelphia-eagles/brandon-graham-could-play-final-game-eagles-against-giants
Cole should get offered to be allowed to stay at $1.6 million season so he’d count $3.2 million against the cap when one factors in the prorated part of his signing bonus; or he can get cut and count $3.2 million against the cap via dead money.
In either case, I’d like Cole to only count $3.2 million against the cap next year.
Cole takes pay cut along with Graham getting signed too? Who starts? Im thinking Graham if he stayed n signed
I’d have to give Graham first crack at starting in that scenario, but a little competition at the spot would be interesting.
Yeah gonna be a hard choice this off season.. You cant go wrong with competition for the spot though
In either case, neither guy has shown he’s worth top dollar in 2015.
It is dead money because it is part of his guaranteed money, either salary or bonus, right?
Doesn’t that mean your offer boils down to, “We want you on the team next year, but only if you play for free.” That would be a tough sell.
Not for free, just for double league minimum. His salary would be $1.6 million. Or he can take zero by getting cut and risk only getting an offer for veteran minimum from a team that could simply cut him at the end of training camp.
False, the prorated bonus has already been payed.If you give him a salary of 1.6 his cap figure would be 4.8
No, look at the structure of the deal. His cap figure for 2015 would be $3.2 million if we reduced his salary to $1.6.
http://eaglescap.com/Players/TrentCole.html
http://overthecap.com/player/trent-cole/783/
Yeah, the $3.2 figure is the 2016 portion of the prorated bonus accelerating to 2015 if we cut him.
Reducing his salary, without cutting him, keeps the prorated part of his bonus for 2015 as $1.6 million.
I see. That is a little better. Still, I think that would be a tough sell. If you make a pitch like that, you have to be ready to walk away.
Would you get Graham signed first? Or maybe trade for Dion Jordan?
I’d wait until the last possible moment (i.e. after all of the big money has been given out to other guys and teams have “set” their rosters) to come at Cole’s neck for a pay cut. That would limit his options and make our $1.6 the best option he has.
I still don’t see Miami trading away Jordan just yet due to the structure of his deal.
Cole’s open market value is minimal. He wouldn’t get more than 2-3 million dollars. The Eagles likely make him an offer in that neighborhood to stay as a rotational player. Reduce his snaps to maximize effectiveness. If the money is similar I don’t see him moving on with all the unknowns that come with a new city, finding a new place to live, resettling the kids, new coaches, new scheme, etc. He’s made enough that any semi resonable offer from the eagles combined with quality of life here outweighs any other offers.
Ok I see what you’re saying but you still have 1.6 in dead money the following year.
Yeah, that stays there for 2016.
If the Eagles think they can milk two more seasons out of Cole it won’t be a problem however.
I’d like to see him finish his career here playing in more of a true rotation at a reduced salary.
And here is the link to his deal.
http://eaglescap.com/Players/TrentCole.html
Hahaha BROWNS SUSPEND JOSH GORDON for missing Saturday’s “walk thru”… jackass is fortunate enough to get his 1 yr suspension overturned, he is such a special talentl and the Browns missed him so much on the field, yet he is such a jackass that after missing 10 games, the Browns had no choice but to suspend him agan. LOL hahahahahahaha
it is a shame he is such a special talent but just a complete jackass
Johnny Streetball also missed the walkthrough, but wasn’t disciplined. That was kind of odd.
ISNT johnny clipboard hurt? Who is their QB this week, Hoyer?
Time to trade for him!
lol I wish never happening we will never trade for him
A man can dream. I doubt Gordon’s value is as high as last year though. It’s still a 1/999999999 chance Chip says go get him to Howie.
yeah it is not as if he is not attainable because we could have him for a mid round pick or less but they would never do it
Who wouldn’t? I assume the Browns would trade him in a heartbeat if someone offered a 5th round pick… But he has No value…. You can get a better draft pick trading Josh Huff, than what you will get trading Josh Gordon. Is value is in the toilet
I meant the Eagles wouldn’t
Yeah.. Doubt anyone would touch him. You can’t do anything with a player you can’t trust to not get suspended for a year..
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It’s time to trade for Dion Jordan, I assume his value is pretty damn low, so we can get him for like a 4th or a 3rd at the most.. He is now two years removed from being a top 5 pick, still hasn’t proven anything in Miami, and what really. Helps us get him for cheap is that he is in the drug program already so whenever he makes a mistake you will lose him to a lengthy suspension. Looking like the Dolphins will give the current GM who didn’t draft Dion another year, which probably means Phylbin gets another year…. THE TIME IS NOW to TRADE for DION, his trade value is down, which means the price tag is down, and this could be our last chance, because once this GM and Coach get fired, for all we know the next coach will want to run a 3-4 and intend on finally using Dion correctly and maximizing his talents…
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This is the right offseason, with the right circumstances to make the trade…Cut Trent Cole, sigń BG to a nice contract, but one you can get out of in two years like Riley Cooper…so we can start BARWIN and Brandon Graham, and Have Dion Jordan and Marcus Smith rotating in as the second wave of OLBs…
Was with you until you said sign BG to a nice contract, read this he sounds like he is already out the door http://www.csnphilly.com/football-philadelphia-eagles/brandon-graham-could-play-final-game-eagles-against-giants
We’ll see…. And if BG leaves, WOULDNT it be even more of a reason to trade for Dion?
Bingo but aren’t you a Sheard lover like me I’d love to bring him in too
Been a big Sheard fan since Pitt days. like his Violent approach to football, but I know that you can’t even get a pass rusher in free agency without ponying up 20 million in guarantees for starters. EVerson Griffin was like BG, a quality pass rusher who wasn’t a starter, hit the open market last year, and boom, 20 Million in Guaranteed dollaz, in the bank… And that’s for a pass rusher that has never proven to be a capable quality starter, like Brandon Graham….
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I been a Sheard fan for years, but I’m also a brandon Graham fan, and I know that if I can pay Sheard 20millipn in Guarantees, I can get something done with Brandon Graham… If I’m on the hook for 20mil, Id rather have the continuity, and KNOWN chemistry that he has with his team mates, his willingness to play special teams…. Then to spend 20 on someone a little higher rated, but who comes with unknowns, and who we will have to give time to gel with his new team mates,..
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If we ARENT willing to pay what it takes to keep BG, I doubt we will pay what it takes to sign Sheard, and I sure as hell don’t expect Howie to go gve Justin Houston a 55million dollar deal when we have guys like kendricks, cox, boykin, Curry who will all be getting ready to get paid soon, and before we know it, we will have to Pony up for Logan and ERTZ,,,.
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But starting BG or Sheard opposite of BARWIN would certainly excite me….
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Need to look up the Everson Griffin contract
If Im not mistaken, Everson Griffin didn’t sign an extension with the Vikings, he actually hit the open market and then reached an agreement with the vikings(but DONT quote me on that)
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Everson signed 5yr 42.5million dollar deal, 20million in guarantees.
I could definitely see Howie offering BG this deal
The way the deal is structured they don’t take a cap beating if they decide to cut him sometimes after the 2015 season….basically all of his 20million in Guarantees is being paid to Griffin the first two years
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if they want to cut him after 2015 season they have to eat 3.6 in dead money.
.If they cut him after 2016 they eat 2.4 in dead money, and if they cut him after 2017 season, they only eat 1.2 in dead money,,,..
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So really, we could give BG this contract, it’s a standard pay as you go deal, and if BG wants to continue to produce whe can complete this deal, and by the time this deal expires it will be time to extend Marcus Smith
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And if we need to get out of it, it’s not that much of a beating..
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“Griffins guaranteed money comes through base salary in 2014 and 15, not a big signing bonus..the signing bonus is only 6mil, so the vikings ARENT pushing major cap back into future years..
.basically opposite of the jerry jones model of cap management
His trade value is probably crap believe it or not, his stock has completely tanked to the point that it’s probably not worth trading him until they reached the,point they will cut him even if they can’t get value, and end up dumping him for a 6th and 7th.
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He could easily be a top 3 WR for the next 5 years if he really wants to, cheap rookie contract…. But the reason his trade value is completely in the toilet is because he is a multi time offender, so the littlest infractions and mistakes he makes in his life, he will face serious consequences… You can’t give up anything signifcant for a kid who is not only a knucklehed, but a knucklehead who used up all his second, third, fourth chances and can get himself easily suspended for a season at any moment…
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YOur can’t give up anything valuable for hm, because you can’t trust to build your team counting on him to be a major component
Haha, I just realised that the kicker of Penn State is called ‘Ficken’. Look this word up in the German dictionary and you will laugh with me.
I was not laughing when Penn State gave scholarships to Bradley Fletcher and Nate Allen to miss an easy INT from that garbage QB from BC and then not tackle the midget who got that pass.
Penn State bowl win!
Now lets get some O-linemen to help out Hack next year.
Yeah!
fuck yeah! ficken with clutch long FG to send it to OT and the extra point. sloppy game, but fun!
I do a lot of evaluations of college kids but I am horrible at evaluating the stock of rbs, do you guys think Melvin Gordon could really be in play for us? How does he compare to Richardson as a prospect? Also thoughts on taking Gurley in the 3rd
I really can’t help you there brother… For as long as I remember being a fan of the Eagles, I never really had to worry about running backs, we always been so solid at that position.. I liked Tre Mason a lot last year, but that was just from seeing him play live a lot.
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I typically see Melvin compared to Jamaal Charles. I certainly wouldn’t mind having Jamaal Charles in chips offense.
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Shady makes ALOT of money, he was inherited by chip, and IF you were EVER Going to transition AWAY from Shady and go with the NEXT young stud running back of the Eagles, this would probably be the best time to make such a transition while we still have Sproles and Polk to lean on…..but considering the offensive line issues this year, shady actually had a pretty darn good season.. Most people who argue against bringing shady back next year typically refrence his PRICE TAG and the struggles this year….but when you factor everything into the evaluation, I don’t look at this as a down year for shady. He was more successful than he probably should have been behind our OL mess…..
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Personally if I had to cite a concern with shady, it wouldn’t be the year he had, my concern would be the lack of playoff production… Your best players can’t be allowed to get shut down in the playoffs.
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Our OL was healthy, shady had a career year, there is NO reason why Our young QB in his first playoff game should have had to put us on his back in the second half and throw us back into the game with little to NO help from the Rushiñg champion and the most complete OL probably in our franchises history… Shady NEEDED to be our best offensive player against the Saints, instead we needed FOles and Cooper to get us the lead in the second half.
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When you get into cold, January, playoff football, it starts to become tôugh to run, stopping the run is every playoff participants obsession going into the game. The Great teams and great running backs are still able to get it done in the playoffs, when the best opponents are trying their best to not let you run…. How many times do we see BEASTMODE let the opponent shut him down in January, leaving Russel Wilson to have to carry the team? Not often,,.. Usually, wilson is getting to play off a nasty run game
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The next time the Philadelphia Eagles have a playoff game, SHADY BETTER HAVE THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS LIFE, he can’t come up small in another playoff game…shady having a big game is easily the most important thing for me to see in our next playoff game