The Chipadelphia Eagles
Posted: January 2nd, 2015 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 462 Comments »Chip Kelly is the man. No, I mean…THE MAN.
Jeff Lurie moved Howie Roseman from the role of GM to ” Executive Vice President of Football Operations”, where he will continue directing contract negotiations, salary cap management and NFL strategic matters, while overseeing the team’s medical staff, equipment staff and more. This is bad and good news for Howie. The bad…he lost his GM job. Those are coveted positions and guys rarely get a second shot after the first job. The good news…Howie will stay employed and making good money. There are more than a few former personnel executives out there grinding for money.
Kelly will get to hand-pick the new GM. The guy’s title will be something less than that since Chip will be the Grand Poobah, but essentially he will run the day-to-day operations of the Personnel Dept.
“In the normal process of evaluating the end of the season, I meet with key executives for thorough discussions and evaluations of all aspects of football operations. During those lengthy meetings this week, we discussed a comprehensive approach on how to seamlessly integrate the personnel and coaching departments in order to maximize every facet of the process.
“Working with Chip (Kelly), Howie (Roseman) and Don (Smolenski) we came up with what we believe will be a more thorough and thoughtful model that would best be overseen by Chip. It’s most important that we find players that match what our coaches are seeking.
“This new approach goes even further than we have in the past starting with Day One of the scouting process. This is part of an all-encompassing vision that takes you from the scouting process all the way to on-field performance.
“Howie, Chip and Don are all united in their desire to win. Together, we decided this approach was the best course of action for the Philadelphia Eagles.
“You have heard me say many times that I want strong leaders who feel free to express their opinions. And that is what happened here. Chip will now lead this process going forward with the continued full support of Howie, Don and myself.
“Chip will not be doing this work by himself, obviously. He has been charged with recruiting and hiring a new personnel executive that will report directly to him and together we will move forward with this new, highly integrated approach.
“When I said – after the Giants game – that Howie was returning as general manager next season, I meant that. But after carefully listening and reflecting on the lengthy discussions that I had with our senior team, I changed my mind.
“I have a very good relationship with Chip that continues to grow stronger and stronger. When we spoke, he was thoughtful, thorough and professional. There were no demands, no threats – quite the contrary – he was passionate, engaged and articulated a dynamic and clear vision on how this fully integrated approach will work. We look forward to seeing it come to life over time.
“Let me also stress that Howie will continue to play a vital role in our operation. He has been elevated to the role of Executive Vice President of Football Operations and received a contract extension.”
“In closing, we have looked hard at where we are today and what we want to become. We are all united in our desire to win for this city.”
This really should be no surprise to anyone paying attention to history.
Back in 2001 GM Tom Modrak and young coach Andy Reid had a battle for control of the team. Modrak was fired and Reid given control. He hired Tom Heckert to be his right-hand man.
A couple of years ago there was another battle for control. This time Reid went up against Joe Banner. Lurie sided with Reid, and got rid of his childhood friend.
Jeff Lurie appreciates the value of a great coach. He kept Reid in the past. You knew he would keep Kelly in this situation.
Is this too much power for Kelly? I don’t think so. He’s run a program in college where he had to recruit and coach players. He’s been active in the offseason with scouting already to this point. Kelly is consumed by football. This won’t keep him from his family. Football is his family.
I think Kelly is open-minded and listens to others. I don’t think he’ll turn into a Mike Ditka type that trades all his picks for some RB that he falls in love with. Kelly came to the NFL and hired coaches he didn’t have close relationships to. He didn’t surround himself with friends and sycophants the way Steve Spurrier did. Kelly was smart enough to know what he didn’t know. I think he’ll listen to advisers when it comes to the nuts and bolts of personnel moves.
The key here is that Kelly has a specific vision for his football team. I think Roseman did a good job of trying to find the right guys for Kelly, but Kelly obviously feels that he can do better with different people around him.
I like the move for the simple fact that I think Chip Kelly is a great coach and you have to keep him. You have to do what it takes to make him happy. Howie Roseman did a solid job, but there was nothing special about him. You can replace Howie infinitely more easily than you could find the next Chip Kelly.
There are some issues to be concerned with and I’ll write about them in another post. For now, this is a lot to digest so let’s just talk about the move itself. I will say this. Jimmy Johnson had final say when he built Dallas. Pete Carroll was hired by Seattle when they didn’t even have a GM. Carroll was allowed to hire the GM he wanted. Some coaches need total control to run the program their way. It doesn’t mean things will be perfect, but it gives the organization a more unified feel.
These are now Chip Kelly’s Eagles. Time will tell if this was good move, great move or the beginning of the end for Kelly. No matter what, this will likely prove to be a key day for the Eagles when we look back on things 5 or even 10 years down the road.
_
Damn, I was hoping we could push the other thread to 1000.
You still could
Hey, TommyLawlor, if you’re reading, did you get the e-mail I sent you? Do you still have a gmail account?
Next draft = all Ducks
Trade every pick for Mariota.? Profit?
Exactly. I’m putting the over/under on Ducks on next year’s roster and practice squad at 15. And I’m betting the over.
Yeah, all our picks + McCoy and Foles for one Duck named Mariota.
would u do it if it won us a super bowl?
That’s a pointless question, because you would do it to see IF you can win a super bowl. To ask if you would do it if you already knew it would win you a SB wouldn’t be smart football, it’d be palm reading or transcending space/time…
so… would you? if you knew chip kelly was adamant that marcus mariota is a legit franchise QB and could take us to land of super bowls? superbowl rings with eagles logos on them? what??? would you?
It’s a pointless question. We don’t know if it would win us a Super Bowl, and neither does Chip Kelly. Given what we’d have to give up, I tend to doubt it would. You don’t win Super Bowl titles with one player.
First of all, hats off to everyone for posting 788 comments in the previous thread. I don’t know whether to be impressed or frightened…
I’m terrified with these high post counts. I fear that my nuggets of humor/wisdom will be lost in the flood. And that 33% of the posts will be from GEAGLE.
I always sift through to find your gems…
(And Happy New Year, buddy!)
I’m reminded of the episode of “Bored to Death” where the doctor reassures Zach Galifanakis’s character before a colonoscopy: “I’m going to find all of your treasures.”
And happy new year to you, too! We should try to catch some playoff games together.
Definitely… but maybe next round as you’re likely to catch more than the game right now (I’m fighting through a cold).
33%? Is he not feeling well or working overtime? Seems kinda low. 😉
Blow me
Sorry, but Chase Utley is THE MAN
Obviously my wife knew this all way before when she gave me this xmas present:
tight shirt
GermanEagle is on the sports science.
Lol, no. But my wife made me sign up for the Dryathlon this month. No way I would have agreed to this if the Eagles were in the playoffs.
I imagine you were more than willing to sign up during your New Year’s hangover… She pounced when you were vulnerable! She took advantage of a drunk guy!
That’s what Eve did to Adam. “Here, honey, take a bite of this and you’ll feel better.”
She honey potted me!!!!
Thanks. I like it tight. 😉
I was thinking about this while not following the articles (offline). I
just heard this news. Roseman overplayed his hand, and put Chip in a
position where it was reasonable for him to quit. Chip would get work
immediately, with little pay reduction and perhaps a raise. There were
NFL openings where he could ask to run the building, and chances are better than 50-50 someone would say yes as with Reid. If Roseman wanted to lord over him he’d have to be Branch Rickey (or at least Theo Epstein) to make it worth staking Chip’s coaching legacy over. Kelly’s player evaluation may be a work in progress, but this is great news for Eagles fans imho.
Bet Kelly threw down the gauntlet after his guy got escorted out on the 31st (Me or Roseman) and won big time today.
Been a really interesting 48 hours. Always thought it was wasn’t a good move to have a coach act as a coach/GM but would to see some evidence to indicate how it has gone.
Actually, from the sound of it, it sounds like the firing of Gamble was Chip’s idea. I think all the speculation that Howie won some kind of power struggle and got rid of chip’s yes man was just plain wrong.
Alright I’m confused now.
Lurie’s statement suggests the opposite
Sorta, but why the hell wouldn’t they have this fight before canning Gamble? Have a meeting of Lurie, Chip and Howie where that was what they decided to do?
Basically, if Chip was in a position to win a power struggle, how did Gamble go against his wishes? Howie and Lurie acting without consulting him at all whatsoever? If they would do that, how could Chip simultaneously be in the position to win the power struggle?
Lurie miscalculated
How so? Lurie said, “I have a very good relationship with Chip that continues to grow stronger and stronger. When we spoke, he was thoughtful, thorough and professional. There were no demands, no threats- quite the contrary- he was passionate, engaged and articulated a dynamic and clear vision on how this fully integrated approach will work. We look forward to seeing it come to life over time.”
Sounds like the new structure is Chips idea and vision to me and that he sold it to Lurie during their end of the year meeting. Why would you fire Chips preferred “football guy” personnel exec and then task Chip with finding his preferred personnel guy. If the guy was already here why fire him and tell chip to find another yes man?
Lurie thought he’d be able to control Kelly via Gamble firing and Howie control personnel. He was wrong. Kelly threatened to walk, Lurie recognized that can’t happen, changes were made.
Was this reported somewhere or is this just speculation. Because, it seems to me that all of this, including the Gamble firing came from Chips vision for integrating the personnel and coaching departments. The version you present just doesn’t make sense to me, doesn’t mesh with Luries comments that I saw and seems like it’s just trying to force the prior speculation into the new narrative.
Its speculation based on what we know about the events and how they unfolded.
100% of Lurie’s comments yesterday were intended to whitewash whatever went on behind closed doors.
For those watching actual football right now, anyone other than the following to keep an eye on in today’s UCLA / Kansas State game?
– Brett Hundley QB – UCLA
– Eric Kendricks LB – UCLA
– Tyler Lockett WR – Kansas State
– B.J. Finney C – Kansas State
But why fire Gamble? Wouldn’t Kelly want Gamble as his GM? I’m so damn confused!!!!!
Either Gamble wasn’t as tight with Chip as we thought or he was throwing air balls on his draft evaluations.
You assume rationality. I think Chip thoughtfully and creatively brainstormed with Lurie about how the Eagles would operate with Howie as GM and Pat Shurmur as HC.
This coaching staff would be gone. New hire wouldve been an external hire.
It’ll be interesting to see if they bring him back.
so….Belichick 2.0?
He’ll need to dial up the crankiness with the media…
“I don’t think our pro offense would work at the college level,” Kelly said, according to Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
That’s too witty and engaging. He needs to become more gruff and monosyllabic a la his response to “How would you describe your relationship with Howie Roseman?”
Maybe he can do a Javier Bardem impersonation
I can see Les Bowen’s knees shaking now…
Kelly is way too hyper to pull that off.
“Talk to les.”
” Good. ” *doesnt blink, shows no emotion. lmfao
And get some cut-sleeved sweatshirts.
You were pretty quiet during all this Tommy, didn’t even make a 2nd intermediate posting. This is also a pretty polished post. So….when did you hear about this?
Tommy foolishly waited until actual facts were presented before offering his opinion.
If he keeps this up, he’ll never be permitted to post on TATE again.
Ha! #memories…
I almost hate to post this in 3 different places, but the media aside from Tommy has me madder than hell over this nonsense. Here I was worrying that Chip was going to leave because Howie yanked the rug out from underneath him when that wasn’t even close to being the case. And the only reason I was worried about that is the speculative garbage that the media kept squirting out the last few days.
I honestly didn’t read Chip’s original comments on Howie as an indictment against him as a football guy, Chip tends to focus on what one brings uniquely or best to the table. Chip doesn’t deal with caps and contracts and Howie really is the only one with those skills running at the rockstar level amongst the team; Howie feeling snubbed over that comment would be like Brad Smith getting pissed off because Chip called him a versatile offensive and teams player rather than a good emergency quarterback option. Sure, he has those skills too, but he’s a few snaps down the list. Howie might be a decent football mind, but I doubt he’s in the top 5 football minds on the Eagles staff whereas he is the #1 contract and cap mind in the building. Worse than that, the way the media decided not to ask Kelly to clarify his remarks and instead ran with the most provocative story they could about them and turned this team’s fanbase into a circus for the last 72 hours pisses me off. You know they were all thinking “wow, Kelly just snubbed Howie as a cap nerd” because most of them ran with that story before Chip had finished walking away from the podium. Why not follow up and ask him to clarify? All one had to do was ask, “so you’re saying that Mr. Roseman is purely a cap guy?” …to which Chip would have most likely responded to the effect of, “no, not at all. He’s a football guy too. You don’t last as long as he has in an organization like this without knowing something about football. Knowing a player’s value requires understanding his skill set and abilities and how other teams might value that. It’s not just a numbers thing, so Howie is a football guy too, but in response to the question, what really stands out to me is his contract and cap knowledge because it’s a skill set that I don’t have myself. And really, we have a lot of really good football minds around here, the building is full of them, but we don’t really have a bunch of guys with Howie’s talents so you have to appreciate what he brings to table from that aspect”.
But that wouldn’t have made for warm, enticing clickbait the way the story they ran with did. It’s not like they shy away from asking follow up questions (or even the same question multiple times within minutes) when they don’t get the answer they want on any other question. I figure they got the answer they wanted (which was one that could be twisted into something negative and divisive because that stuff sells). They’ll ask 100 questions about guys who aren’t even on this team anymore or raise the same tired hypothetical questions that Chip Kelly has always refused to answer (even in New Hampshire), but they couldn’t take a second to ask any clarifying follow-up on a bombshell like what they construed from Kelly’s words and reported? I really do hate those guys sometimes.
And then Lurie comes out and tells everyone that it’s now the Chip Kelly show, which turns all of that madness on its head. I bet Chip is sitting at his desk looking at these headlines and asking out loud, ‘so, Philly media, how do my balls taste?”
Now is a good time to reassess your “trusted” media outlets. Some outlets were vastly more rational than others (here, 24/7) and others were more… hasty? Also a good time to compare specific writers at specific outlets (BGN, Inquirer, etc.).
I think we talked about this before but “journalism” has really struggled to respond ethically in the face of Twitter. There’s so much pressure to break a story that almost everyone has sacrificed their credibility rather than risk being “behind” on a story. Further complicating matters is that there seems to be little comeuppance for front-running a false story…
Yup.
Top of my list for absolutely awful “reporting” over the past few days are the younger guys (McLane, Mosher, and Berman), but Les Bowen and Reuben Frank didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory either.
You need to re-read Lurie’s statement.
This was not his plan 10 days ago.
Or after Gamble’s firing.
My gripe with the media has nothing to do with Lurie’s plan aside from that it was clearly NOT what they’ve been reporting. Not today. Not 10 days ago. Not after Gamble’s firing. All of the speculation that they’ve done was so far from the truth it’s not even funny. Also, since when does a press release reveal the truth as opposed to the truth the author wants the public to know?
Lurie admitted that he changed his mind.
Think about that hard. How often in the history of this planet have men in his position EVER admitted to this?
Kelly knew he had leverage and used it. That’s it.
Can’t tell if you’re giving Lurie credit for bring open-minded and honest, or if you’re saying Kelly threatened to walk and Lurie caved. It can’t be both. Note that Lurie says numerous times that this is the structure “we” agreed to.
Kelly threatened to walk and Lurie caved.
Lurie is being honest about it in a convoluted way.
If that’s what you think went down (and it may have, who knows), then there’s very little “honesty” in the PR from Lurie… It would be more like 10% truth, 90% spin.
In the end it’s so hard to make sense of this whole thing because we have no idea who was responsible for what over the last couple years in terms of FA and the draft. Need to remember that going forward it’s not only all on Chip, but Lurie as well.
As for Lurie’s communication, I wish he had made more of a case for why he made the switch – obviously it’s not all about efficiency. Just wishful thinking I guess… We’ll never know the truth.
Actually, men in his position constantly defer to having reconsidered the facts and made a better decision as opposed to admitting that they were wrong or that they lied. What’s Lurie supposed to do, answer reporters honestly and say “I don’t expect Howie to be the GM because in a week or so, I’m going to give Chip kelly full control and fire Tom Gamble in order to make way for Chip’s GM of choice, but Howie will be here in some capacity” before he actually makes the decision. You’re making assumptions to suit the way you want to color this, but that can cut both ways. People in Lurie’s position rarely tell the truth to the media when they have an out. Just like Chip said he talked to DeSean and told him everything was okay even though the organization had been trying to trade him for months and was days away from cutting him completely. Do you honestly think Lurie decided to completely restructure the organization after one conversation with Chip Kelly after already having made up his mind in a different direction (Howie as the GM) a week earlier?
It’s all speculation what really went on; my beef is with the media who report nonsense and appear to either fabricate anonymous sources or simply listen to any idiot even remotely linked to the organization who has an unsubstantiated opinion and they run with it.
Next we’ll be hearing about “sources” who claim Gamble is out because he released the Djax info, pushed for him to be gone with support from Howie over Chip’s objections or pounded the table for MSII and that he was never really Chip’s guy. It’s nonsense. I don’t mind when fans speculate to an absurd degree, but so-called journalists should know better and again, my main grip was that not one journalist asked Chip to clarify his remarks about Howie because they got the shitstorm snippet they wanted, yet they’ll ask him 2 or 3 times a press conference about Nick Foles’ injury status (Chip Kelly doesn’t know, doesn’t care and has no answer unless he’s told the kid can play that week), whether or not he’s thinking about some game 3 weeks ahead or next season (he isn’t, he hasn’t, he sees no point so he probably won’t) or if he’ll entertain a certain hypothetical (he won’t, never has, never will).
Can’t tell if you’re giving Lurie credit for bring open-minded and honest, or if you’re saying Kelly threatened to walk and Lurie caved. It can’t be both. Note that Lurie says numerous times that this is the structure “we” agreed to.
Re
I’m saying neither, I didn’t even reference Lurie until the last sentence of the post you’re replying to. I have no idea if Lurie just told the media what would satisfy them until he made his decision. I don’t know if he’s flighty like an airheaded teenager and did a complete 180 in a matter of days as to how he was going to run his billion dollar NFL franchise. I don’t know if Chip have him an ultimatum (not really something Chip seems likely to do based on his history; he may convince you he is right, but he doesn’t seem to go back on his commitments but at this stage of the game, who knows). I don’t know if Howie made a power play and it blew up in his face. I don’t know if Gamble has the missing seconds of the Zapruder film.
None of that has anything to do with my gripe with the press which is the topic of 99% of my post. No one knows, only they acted as if they did and reported a bunch of nonsense speculation. I get that it’s tough with Kelly because he doesn’t like the press, won’t talk to the press and the only people he ever really confided in since his days in Oregon are his lifelong friends who don’t leak stuff so scoops must be hard to come by, but that’s no excuse to just report random crap.
I was actually trying to reply to mksp but for some reason it got posted under your comment… Plus another nice thing with disques is you can’t delete comments – the wonders of technology
Well now I’m far less confused. Thanks for clearing that up. 🙂
Tommy was in ‘The’ meeting, mate.
He locked Lurie, Howie and Chip in a room with nothing but a six pack of PBR’s and a bag of Funyuns. “Time’s yours…”
Would love to know who was pushing for which of our most recent draft picks on draft day.
I’m hoping it was Gamble, and anyone else who might get canned.
I’m gonna guess Bradley Fletcher?
Is Eminem really gay? *watchingtheinterview
That was a great scene in a wild movie. Don’t tell the North Koreans how hard I laughed.
I watched the first 20 minutes of that with a house full of Korean in-laws. I thought the movie was trying so hard for laughs, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
You have to wonder if that was a staged “hack.” We find out it wasn’t NK that hacked them, and now this movie is getting way more attention than it really deserves.
A friend of mine is a computer tech pro and he said something similar. It could have been a huge pr move. He thought it might also be a trial run for a new way of releasing movies — skip theaters altogether and go right to streaming.
They were definitely hacked, but it screams more of insider threat than anything else. I think the most frustrating thing about it was the security posture of Sony before the hack.
They are terrible at security and have been for years. I would think the Playstation Network hack a few years ago would have been a wakeup call. But to only have 3 technical people for that large company is atrocious.
I work in the field, so I pay attention to the rumblings and what happens when these breaches occur.
My bud said many of these things. I wasn’t very nuanced in he way I presented what he said. He described for me how foolish many of these companies can be about security and how the higher executives leave themselves exposed. I find it really interesting because I’m as lay as a layman can be about computers. I would have thought big companies would protect their data like it was gold.
This is the problem. Security is expensive, so many companies rather handle the fall out than try to implement something that’s going to cost a lot of money.
They can easily say that it’s happening to everyone, but it also lets them off the hook for not doing as much as they could.
Could they have been hacked by security guys trying to make a point? Does this kind of thing happen?
Absolutely. Sony was announcing layoffs and this happened around the same time. It wasn’t until the media said NK, that it kind of morphed into what it did.
One big thing that you’ll find executives talk about is insider threat. It’s the one that can cost the most money, but the hardest account for. Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning are the classic cases of insider threat, and this Sony breach seems to fit that mold.
They said it was about the movie, but if you think about what was released – it was to embarrass Sony. There’s a treasure trove of stuff they could have turned into money (and may have on the black market), but it was stuff that made the executives look bad and placing content out there for people to get. This isn’t how nation-state hacks occur.
This is really facinating. Thanks for taking the time. I tend to think, maybe like most people, that as long as someones password is tricky he is safe and protected. I guess it’s more of a jungle out there than many of us realize. ou?
Computer security is all made by humans and if some other human has expertise in hacking and wants to get to something bad enough, it will happen. When I went to Lincoln tech the government lobbied the school to create “ethical hacking” classes to which the best students of the class would be approached with government jobs. Teachers fought it because you can’t just teach kids fresh outta high school how to hack especially kids you know nothing about. It’s a dangerous practice but with the more spying and worldwide hacking/attacks of other government entities that our government wants to do, I expect this is happening all over the country and to continue to spread. If there’s a will with hackers and they have the talent and resources, there’s a way.
Interesting point. I wondered how Koreans might feel about the movie. I also wondered how I would feel if the film was about an assasination attempt on a US president.
What carried the day for me was James Franco’s performance. I thought his acting was brilliant.
Maybe it was Tom Gamble who insisted Foles throw off his back foot?
No, mate, you’re off target. Gamble told Foles and Sanchez to throw interceptions so that the games aren’t so boring for us.
TLaw: “These are now Chip Kelly’s Eagles. Time will tell if this was good move, great move or the beginning of the end for Kelly.”
That’s the bottom line.
Anyone else excited more now to see how this off season plays out.. FA, Draft etc
Already was and I still am. Howie / Chip / Tom / whoever………. I’ll still be passing judgement with every signing (or non-signing), draft pick, and roster move.
Yeah. I have a few thoughts on this. 1) foles is back at QB for sure. Kelly seems as if he is bullish on Foles. 2) I think shady is gone. Shady never trusts his blocking schemes and is a freelancer. He’s very good at it, but he led the league in being tackles for loss. My thinking is that we all know Chip abhors sacks. These are a negative yardage play. Using this thinking, I think it has got to kill Chip to see a RB consistently try to cut back and lose yardage. This puts the QB in a 3rd and long higher risk play. I hope to God chip doesn’t fire sale on Shady, but I think he is gone.
I wouldnt be excited about that lol
I love shady I do! I would also hate to buy another jersey which I’ve decided to boycott. If you look back at the Super Bowl winners in the past few years how many had scat backs?
I’m less excited. I don’t trust Kelly with personnel issues, so I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of head-scratching draft choices. Probably involving Oregon players…
Ah, Oregonian Chad Halls…
It’s a coaches league, simple as that. The only one would sometimes wins against a coach is a top flight QB, and not always then.
Is it really? There are 3 coaches with 10 or more years of tenure. Coaches come and go, constantly, so often that the majority of players that they coach have been there longer than they have.
So how do we square this move w/ the whole Taylor Hart thing? Chip wanting him early, Howie getting him to wait. Hart on bench all year? Chip will need someone he trusts but who can give him guidance.
Yip i mentioned that last post.. 2 seasons gone now.. Think Chip got the gist of it now.. See how next season pans out
Why would you think he has the gist of it now when the 2014 draft was even worse than the 2013 draft?
Would think he has the gist coz of the fact 2013 was good n 2014 was worse.. If you cant learn from that then you dont deserve to run this organization
But maybe the lesson he should have learned was “Let Howie take care of the personnel”
Yeah man said the same thing about letting Howie have more power if hes the one who advised Chip not to select Hart in the 3rd.. We can only wait n see what Chip will do now
You don’t think that picking 4th vs picking in the lower half might have something to do with how the drafts panned out?
Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not saying the 2013 draft was good. As you point out, it’s pretty hard to fuck up the 4th pick in the draft. (Though, in hindsight you could make the argument that Miami fucked it up before Chip Kelly got a chance to.)
2013 draft produced Lane Johnson (solid starting OT), Ertz (already a very good receiving TE, will be a flat-out star if he ever gets his blocking sorted out), and Bennie Logan (solid starter). Barkley and Wolff are still on the team and could theoretically pan out as decent backups.
That’s not as good as the 2012 draft was, but it’s a stretch to call it anything less than a decent, given that it produced three starting caliber players and the only guys no longer with the team were 7th round picks (who rarely make it in any draft).
A) There isn’t always an astronomic amount of difference between a 3rd rounder and a 5th rounder. Most draft boards list prospects outside of the first round with an estimate that covers the uncertainty.
B) Hart is behind a stacked D-Line which included a 7th round pick who has shown real promise.
This Taylor Hart thing is turning into a thing and it’s not a thing.
I disagree. It’s definitely a thing.
As a GM, Roseman tried to maximize the value of his assets.
As a coach, Chip Kelly wants guys he likes.
With a majority of the 32 teams trying to maximize value, Kelly is going to get played like a rube who just fell off the turnip truck.
Taylor Hart had a 3rd round grade. Kelly wasn’t wrong on the talent, Howie just had a better feel on the market.
This isn’t proof positive either way, especially since a 3-5th rounder sitting behind veterans is not news. This is a non story.
Isn’t having a good feel of the market kind of important when it comes to having a good draft?
And since Hart was never active, we have no idea yet if Kelly was wrong or not on his talent.
Yes it is, and I hope that Chip listens to people when they tell him to be patient. But you’re throwing around words like “rube,” like he’s Rich Kotite and all based on a single instance where Chip actually did the right thing in the end.
Know why the 2013 draft was better than 2014? Well, look at the pick numbers. Does it surprise that a team picking at 4 had more access to talent than a team picking in the 20s? When your picking in the 20s, sometimes you have to make a reach or two. It happens.
Its huge. Kelly wanted huff earlier as well. Can’t over draft guys draft us too important especially if you aren’t spending money in fa.
You don’t draft a guy earlier than you need to. And apparently it was pretty obvious Chip wanted him way too early.
This isnt about Taylor Hart, this is about running a draft. Getting as much value out of every pick as you can.
Lets assume Chip can scout talent; he needs someone to help him translate it to a wise draft strategy. Picking guys several rounds early isnt wise.
Ok, but it is one instance of chip wanting a 3rd round talent in the 3rd round, and this was after all of his first round picks had been snapped up.
Howie was right. But people are making it sound like Kelly wanted Beau Allen in the 2nd or something. It’s not that big of a deal.
Huh?
We’re talking about the same draft where they took Marcus Smith in the first round?? (and Josh Huff in the third)
It’s the one instance where Chip came out and admitted that Howie prevented him from making a mistake. The thing is, they don’t make those kind of comments publicly about the actual mistakes.
The point is that Taylor Hart was a 3rd round talent, right where Kelly was ready to pick him before taking Howie’s advice. Kelly was right, Howie was more right. Kelly deferred, and yet people are freaking out about it.
And Huff has shown flashes of being a very good receiver once he cleans up those rookie mistakes. Cause, you know, he’s a rookie.
I like Huff. Will he be as good as the two non-Oregon wide receivers taken after him who both had more than quadruple his yardage total this year? I guess time will tell.
No.
Zzzzzzzzzz
wow, this is going to be one of those major league “fork in the road” moments for the eagles.
Over / under on how much we give up for Mariota?
Whatever it is, I’ll take the over.
nothing. Tampa isn’t trading that pick.
Yeah they’ll draft Mariotta.
Better hope truest man goes there and they think the can capture lightning in a bottle twice with mccown
(Gary Oldman voice)
EVERYONE!
I sort of assume Gary Oldman’s voice for all of your posts… is that wrong?
I wish.
Foles 3 firsts and 3 seconds
If that Cleveland rumor is true pick 12&20 Gordon 2016 first which hopefully is between 28-32 and maybe 2016 2nd I think should be sufficient.
Why not just make the Cleveland trade, keep Gordon and draft hundley instead of giving up the farm for mariota
Mariota would pretty much have 0 transition issues in chips system and we really are only 3 positions away. We have awesome cap space get revis, draft a safety in 2nd rd, and free agent lb.
Hell I would throw shady in a trade and I love the shit out of him but let’s be honest with good qb play and our oline and scheme I think most rbs could be successful IF the oline can stay healthy.
I think we need another lineman another wr on top of what your adding to think that a rookie could get.us to pick 28-32
I would definitely trade shady. Chips system doesn’t need a special rb. It needs a special qb like mariota. I wonder what kind of value shady would have to the bucks. Rbs have such short careers you can’t expect much more than 3 more good years out of mccoy
Yes he is a rookie but in chips system he is not. Look at Cams rookie year with less talent around him but a stellar D. It is possible like I said we have pieces for him to work with and if we get revis and another competent safety I think we could be great. Also if Bad Defense Billy Davis is gone that could help.
That is an insane amount to give up. Insane.
That’s pretty much 3 first a player that will play 2 games a year and a 2nd. If we get pick 27-32 after the draft I wouldn’t be mad.
That is pretty much strip-mining the next three drafts to get a guy who may or may not be a franchise QB. Even if he is, he’s going to be playing for a team with an aging OL, aging RB, no defensive secondary,
and no draft picks with which to plug any of those holes. By the time he’s ready to QB in prime time (2-3 years – spare me the talk of how he can step in immediately and play at a high level because he knows the system, running it against Pac-12 defenses and running it against NFL defenses are two entirely different things and there’s a reason no NFL team has ever won the Super Bowl with a rookie QB), other parts of the team will have aged out of their primes as well. I would be EXTREMELY pissed off if the Eagles made this trade. And I like Mariota and think he’s probably going to be a good pro.
Does Howie stick around if he gets a GM offer from another team?
My opinion is probably not going to be a popular one, but I think this was a bad move. I’d rather have a great GM than a great coach and I think Roseman has the talent to be a great GM.
I hope Chip Kelly proves me wrong, but so far his personnel moves have been poor to downright astoundingly stupid. If he doesn’t get a lot better, and quickly, he is going to destroy this team for years to come.
It’s pretty easy to recover from a fired coach. Recovering from years of poor drafts and bad roster moves is much more difficult.
Way too little signal and too much noise, so how can we really tell? But I would rather have a great coach and a great GM rather than one guy who tries to do both. Especially since I have not been impressed by the Chip personnel moves.
Yes. Why not both?
Men and their egos…..
Always the great coach. Not sure history has proven otherwise.
Why are we still talking about Mariota as if there’s a chance. The Eagles pick 20th this year. They would have to move up to #1 or #2 to have a chance, and most likely both teams are staying put unless there’s a ridiculous offer on the table. Most likely, Mariotta and Winston are 1-2 in this draft.
So let’s think about this. Washington gave up three 1st rounders to move up 6 spots. They have wrecked the value system and teams are going to expect at least that if you want the top spot. Bidding starts there. The Eagles would have to match the value coming from pick 20.
So let’s start there.
3 1st rounders
1 2nd rounder
But since the Eagles are going 18 spots and not 6, TB or Tenn will want more. How much more?
Hmm well adding 2 more 2nd rounders and maybe 3 3rd rounders isn’t going to be enough. So what will?
You’ve essentially are saying for Mariotta, you want to give up 3 drafts and then some. If Chip wants to build a program, you can’t do that losing 3 or more drafts.
C’mon people, let’s get a grip. Let’s stop talking about Mariotta as if he’s someone we can get. It’s a waste of comments on this blog.
Chip threw away DeSean Jackson for nothing. What makes you think he wouldn’t be willing to throw Shady, Fletcher Cox and multiple future 1st rounders at a trade?
I am not saying you don’t make perfect sense. Any possible deal for Mariotta would be moronic. I am saying I don’t trust Chip Kelly to not make a moronic move like that.
Dropping Desean Jackson (1 player) and giving up the farm to get Mariotta (1 player) are two different things.
Chip has made some mistakes, but nothing in his history says he’s a moron.
There is a big difference between getting rid of Jackson and making that kind of deal though. I’m probably one of the biggest critics on that move and hated how it went down too with the Eagles tipping off ESP on his ‘scoop.’
On multiple occasions chip talked in theory about how getting a certain player isn’t worth it if costs you 5 players or your ability to build a team…..I assumed that was hs way of telling us forget the crazy Marriotta talk.
…
But who really knows? Chip can do what he wants now. If we complained about how many ducks were on our roster before, wait TIL we see what happens now lol
Something to keep in mind… Bellicheck the GM is nowhere near the quality that Bellicheck the coach is… This most recent draft more than the previous one seemed to have Chip’s fingerprints all over it, and I would say even though it’s early, it doesn’t have that… quality look to it (besides Pope Mathews of course).
In the wake of Reid’s departure in 2012 Lurie talked about how he took notes on who was pulling for whom in personnel evaluations and that played into his decision to let Reid go, and coincided with the rise of Roseman to power. 2012 of course was a monster draft for us, which is part of the reason why people generally give Howie credit for that one, since it coincided with his rise to power.
I am genuinely hoping we haven’t moved a superior personnel evaluator aside (Roseman) in favor of Kelly simply to satisfy the latter’s desire for more control over the roster.
In my experience, men who are in charge of situations that start to fall apart don’t usually respond by deferring to those around them, they generally want to tighten their grip on the situation. I hope Chip hasn’t just made a power play in response to our late season woes that will be detrimental to us in the long run.
All speculation of course. Just tossing my 2 cents into the ring.
Perhaps, but at least now there is a clear cut separation of power so that the person responsible for failures can be held accountable. This gives Kelly all the personnel authority but also the responsibility and if he doesn’t get the job then Roseman is still going to be around and he won’t catch the blame for the failure. He will be Lurie’s right hand man in choosing the next coach.
Sets up well for accountability and transparency.
You hope Roseman will still be around…
If I owned a team in search of a GM I’d have been on the phone to Howie within five minutes of Lurie’s announcement.
I think part of Roseman’s difficulty is the bias out there against GMs whose background is in the cap. I don’t think it’s a fair bias personally but it clearly leads to a difficult working relationship with other executives who have a more traditional scouting background. Most teams tend to go with GMs who have a scouting background unless they in the past have been burned by cap issues. The Jets for example just fired Idzik, whose background was similar to Roseman’s. This time around, they’re going to go the traditional route. The cap was unexpectedly higher this year and the new CBA has made cap management easier than it was in the past to a large degree(automatic forwarding of cap room, scaled rookie contracts) so even if Roseman deserves a GM job on his own merits I think he’d have difficulty finding one.
Always a possibility, depending on whether Howie is a really talented evaluator or not, and whether that’s the perception around the league.
I don’t think Howie is well regarded
I mean that’s great that we’ll all know who to blame for the fuck up if the wrong person got control… but I’d rather we just avoided the fuck up in the first place if that’s whats going to happen :).
if i had to guess the moves they make a QB and not include aany trade up for marcus, i have 2 scenarios. both dont involve sanchez. and both include signing jake locker and drafting a QB.
they will either draft bryce petty, maybe 2nd round, or draft rakeem cato from like the 4th on… i think cato could run this chip kelly offense really well… just need to see what that arm is really made of, senior bowl should help that.
Food for thought: Make your list of the ten best Eagles players… Got it? great!
Now, how many of them were acquired during Chip Kelly’s tenure?
(The correct answer is 2)
Interestingly, the answer would have been 1, but there was the uncompensated release of a certain player a little while back…
So you are saying the current personnel department needed a change?
Definitely, they needed a change back to the structure that brought us Fletcher Cox, Mychal Kendricks, Nick Foles, Brandon Boykin and Vinny Curry a year before Chip Kelly got here and took charge of personnel.
Also a year before gamble came. And kelly didn’t run the personnel department, even if he had final say on the 53, Howie ran the department.
I think the announcement was that Chip is now in charge of personnel. Regardless, make a list of the production of the 10 best players prior to Chip’s arrival…now look at their production after…explain how he doesn’t know NFL talent?
Think Howie will remain involved in his areas of expertise – valuation/cap impact/contract, which is as it should be. Would you have Chip making decisions for Howie on contracts? GM just a title. In highly successful organizations it’s about job function and putting people in a position to succeed. Howie will likely eventually become President of the Eagles.
Draft takes 3 years to evaluate – 2012 draft Eagles selected 12 in first round and 46 and 59 in the second. 2014 Eagles selected 26 in first and 42 in second, then not ’til 86 in third – big difference.
Wasn’t Howie the one who fought to bring Kelly to the Eagles?
Interesting that you mention the production of the best players before Chip’s arrival. DeSean Jackson had the second highest yardage total of his career this year, playing as a #2 on one of the worst teams in the league.
I guess Chip helped him figure out how to play to his potential. The Eagles picked 4th in the draft the season Chip had with DJ, and he had Vick, Foles, and Barkley throwing to him.
Yeah clearly a system guy. It annoys me so much I almost don’t even want to talk about it.
Who’s your 10?
I got
Lesean Mccoy
Jason Peters
Jason Kelce
Fletcher Cox
Mychal Kendricks
Connor Barwin
Evan Mathis
Zach Ertz
Bennie Logan
Jeremy Maclin
So I count 3 for what its worth.
Pretty damn close to yours, but you are really reaching with Zach Ertz at this point… kind of hard to call him better than the guy who starts in front of him.
Really the only indisputable Kelly-era player that makes the list is Barwin.
You can make a strong argument for Johnson, less so for Logan in my opinion.
I also would have accepted Darren Sproles.
I like Logan better than Johnson right now, I think Logan was a real good player this year and Johnson was definitely held back by the suspension.
I think its a lock that Ertz is better than Celek at this point. Love the effort on the guy but when we get Ertz going in the passing game he is special and damn near uncover-able.
Sproles was the wild card, just a usage thing.
Sneaking around the top 10 but not making it also was Malcom Jenkins.
Did you catch the latest Lawlor/Kempski podcast? Tommy did not have very good things to say about Jenkins.
Except Matthews is going to be on that list next year, and McCoy is probably going to come off.
To “control” this thought experiment, shouldn’t you credit Chip for choosing to keep players that were acquired before his tenure? Also, since we don’t really know which people pushed for which players (we can speculate, but we don’t know), this seems like a flawed test.
But, for fun, I’ll play along. Since “10 best” is inherently subjective, I’ll just list some positive acquisitions made during Chip’s tenure:
– Sproles
– Jenkins
– Barwin
– Lane Johnson
– Zach Ertz
– Bennie Logan
– J. Matthews
– Donnie Football
– Cody Parkey
– Maragos
– Braman
Isn’t it kind of telling that your list of the ten positive acquisitions during Chip Kelly’s tenure has only 5 starters and that you needed to name 4 special teamers to get to 10?
But special teams rule, mate.
No, no, it’s Ozzy that rules.
He’s had two years, right? Are there any decent teams where the majority of the starters have been acquired in just two years? Again, I don’t think your experiment makes much sense in that you’re ignoring the role Chip Kelly has in maintaining and employing talent acquired before his time.
Well, it’s not just about pointing out his failures in the draft, but also about the fact that he is winning with players acquired by others.
There is a lot of turnover in the NFL. Will Chip still be winning in three years when the majority of starters are players he has chosen? I guess we’ll find out, but if you compare the starters that were here before Chip Kelly with the starters that have arrived during Chip’s tenure, it’s not very encouraging.
I feel like you could turn the fact that he is “winning with players acquired by others” into a positive, no? That if he has a chance to uncompromisingly select the players he wants then he’ll really be able to do what he wants to win? Also, even if the majority of the “top ten” hail from before his time (which I wouldn’t argue), isn’t it Chip Kelly drawing up routes for Maclin, sending Peters to the other side in unbalanced sets to maul linebackers, teaching Kelce to “seal off the sidewalk” on screens, etc.? Just offering a reasonable alternative.
Again, I think the fact that we only have 2 years of evidence to pull from and the unknown “behind closed curtains power structure” that existed during that time makes it difficult / pointless to compare pre-Chip and post-Chip personnel. But that’s just me!
Except that Cox and Kendricks were seen as mildly successful/slightly disappointing picks before Kelly came along. Graham, Curry, etc have played better with guys like Logan and Barwin in place.
Talent evaluation is a big deal, but so is talent development. I’d rather have someone who can bring his talent closer to their full potential than someone who drafts phenomenally talented players, sticks them in the lineup day 1, and stunts their growth.
Sorry, but that’s complete BS. Cox and Kendricks were never considered disappointments, and if it wasn’t for Kelly’s insistence on a 3-4, Cox would likely be returning to his second pro bowl as a starting DE.
You don’t seem to be aware that Cox was a DT in the 4-3 defense, not a DE. Kendricks was a bit of a disappointment in 2012, primarily because he was used as weak side backer in a 4-3, not a 3-4 backer (HIS NATURAL POSITION & THE ONE HE PLAYED AT CAL).
Please list any successful NFL team that has 10 starters playing that arrived on the roster in the past 2 years, mostly through the draft. And which starters from the 2012 roster would you rather have playing than the current starters?
Do you really believe Howie is going to replicate 2012 every year? What offensive/defensive scheme(s) is he an expert in again?
Isn’t kind of telling that our special teams was THE BEST by far this year? Please remember Greg Lewis on S/T during Reids tenure after Harbaugh left S/T was garbage.
I don’t get it, I’m all in with Chip Kelly.
I’m not 100% sure I am understanding your point here (not meant sarcastically). Are you saying that Chip doesn’t evaluate talent well based on the fact that he has not been able to add top tier players, therefore adding on the role of taking control of the personnel department is a bad move? Or are you saying the personnel department itself has been unsuccessful, thus required change and this is therefore a good move?
I think one way you can interpret this move is that while 2012 was a successful draft, Howie has not been as successful in these two more recent drafts. Thus, the dynamics needed to be changed, allowing Chip to better identify players that fit what he is looking for.
Ten best players in the last 4 years? Or forever?
God I’m so confused. Wtf is going on here? Two days after Howie won “a big time power struggle”, he loses his job (altough his contract was extended for his new role – don’t forget that the guy knows his cap, it’s important he stays, there aren’t many Riley Cooper contracts on this roster…).
Everyone was saying how close Chip is to Gamble. How can he let that firing happen when he’s the new strong man in town? This is so crazy. Two days after thinking: well, Chip Kelly will “only” be the HC and Howie will be the powerful GM, Chip is like Carroll and Belichick – Mr. Big Balls in town.
Impossible to know. Sure, there was the big meeting today, but I really doubt they’d be able to whip out a new contract for Roseman that quickly. Those things take a couple of days, especially considering you can’t have Roseman constructing his own contract. Perhaps Roseman said he’s willing to give up personnel control but that was contingent on Gamble leaving. Yes, I know there have been reports that Chip was “furious” about Gamble leaving but I don’t trust the media getting that right.
I wonder how the players feel? Are they as confused as everyone else?
Don’t know about the other 51, but Kelce and Maclin seem pretty upbeat.
https://twitter.com/jmac_18/status/551205805727711233
Yeah, it’s pretty natural for the players to favor a coach, especially a coach who by all accounts is a great guy, rather than the guy in the suit that doesn’t want to give them the money their agent is asking for.
I always thought that Reid/Banner purposefully used that good guy/bad guy approach to their own favor. Reid: It’s not that I(who really is making all the decisions) don’t want to pay you what you’re worth, it’s that little evil accountant’s fault!
Now Chip’s got more say over who stays/goes interesting to see if that changes.
TBH I don’t think this move makes much difference to the players day-to-day though. It is what it is. They’ll roll with it. If it had gone the other way and Kelly got 86’d I think you’d see a different response.
This is the problem with unchecked media spin. Now there’s a confused and unverified narrative.
For example, one possible explanation for the course of events is that at the end of the season, Chip expressed to Lurie his desire to control personnel, WITHOUT the assistance of Gamble (whether that was Gamble desirous of more autonomy (in Philly or elsewhere) or Kelly not wanting him, who knows?)). Lurie agrees with this shift and the Eagles immediately “part ways” with Gamble so that he can pursue opportunities elsewhere since now is the time for that. THEN, Lurie meets with Roseman and Kelly to determine and clarify their responsibilities in a new structure. In this version, really only Roseman (and possibly Gamble) are victimized by any power struggle, and the firing of Gamble is not some sort of power move by Roseman, but rather an agreed-upon step as part of the re-structuring.
This is actually incredibly plausible.
Yes, but what kind of headline does that make?
Your explanation would suggest that Kelly wasn’t as close to Gamble as everyone thought he’d be. Of course that’s possible, even after Kelly said Gamble is “one heck of a football guy”, but strange nonetheless.
Dominik:
No need to be confused. The “Howie wins power struggle” was only a realty in the imaginations of the media hacks.
This turn of events does not look good……we first hear that Gamble gets fired…..then chip is given control of personnel after Lurie conducts discussions with all executives…the timing of this information seems to make it appear as though luries discussions with the executives occurred after the gamble firing……maybe this is wrong but it does not appear that the gamble firing was done as a result of luries discussions with the executives (speculation on my part)…..and now chip is going to hire a new GM when Gambke was his guy? Weird turn of events…..indeed…..
The narrative on whose guy gamble was has changed over the last 12 months – by the same authors. Jerome’s Friend on Twitter pointed this out and predicted that the new narrative didn’t jive with the reality of the situation and that it was more likely a win for Kelly.
Correct. I recall Roseman saying he had been pursuing Gamble for two years when he was “finally” able to hire him.
Howie had already tried to hire chip at the time, chip said no,,.. Chip made it clear he would only sigń if he could bring his own personel Guy, Tom Gamble… I took it as Howie trying to get Gamble on board, to Lure Chip after he flirted with us and went hack to Oregon… Just my assumption
I believe Roseman had been trying to hire Gamble ever since Ryan Grigson left in January of 2012… so about a year before Chip Kelly was even a thought.
From an article written in Feb. 2013:
“Gamble said he spoke with Eagles general manager Howie Roseman last year after the draft, but decided to stay in San Francisco for various reasons.”
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-eagles/Tom-Gamble-explains-why-he-left-the-49ers-for-the-Eagles.html
Roseman had tried to lure him over during Reid’s tenure:
“He just wanted to make sure timing was right,” Roseman said, after making an allusion to talking to Gamble last year “when coach [Andy] Reid was here.”
http://articles.philly.com/2013-02-15/sports/37102189_1_tom-gamble-personnel-director-harry-gamble
Oh make No mistake about it, Lurie’s statement is completely fiction… But the results are the same, LURIE just made up a bullshit story how we got to those results
Yea, that’s to be expected.
We do not know and may never know (though I think somebody will talk at some point) WHY Gamble was fired. A few points to consider: Both HR and CK reported and still report to Lurie, so Gamble’s dismissal was not arbitrary or personal on HR’s part. If Gamble and CK are so tight, the former’s return would be expected, but that does not appear to be happening. Gamble was released for a reason, but if this new hat assignment is meant to explain his dismissal, it does not.
Overall…..agree with tommy that this is chips show….whether that is good or bad is yet to be seen……I hope it all works out and we acquire the right talent to be successful without overpaying on FA or reaching on draft picks under Chip…….if not this will not end well……man…..wish this was not going down like this…… just want a super bowl…..
You know it actually takes less effort to type a single period than an
ellipsis . . .
And even less effort to ignore someone else’s grammatical choices!
Internet proves otherwise……………………………….!
Thanks………….Cafone………..will…….try………better…….in……..the……….future……..
Also, an ellipsis is three periods. It’s really not proper to just throw in a random number of periods…….
Cafone this is a message board where “typed conversations” are occurring. The concept of gramatically correct responses is not required or necessary. I use the extra periods as though they were pauses in a conversation. An ellipsis would denote words that have been omitted. I don’t think I have omitted any words in my typed discussion. I agree that is not proper to throw in a random number of periods, just because; but again I go back to the fact that this is a Message Board and all that pomp and circumstance is unnecessary in this type of environment.
To be a strong leader often means to be very confident in your opinions and vision. It can require a strong ego. The problem with having a strong ego, however, is that one is especially blind to his own blind spots. Good leaders are best served by those who will challenge their authority, though they often fail to see the value of the challenge. Chip is getting set up, as Tommy says, to be The Man. We’ll see if he ends up being crowned King in a parade down Broad Street, or run out of town in tar and feathers.
Kelly in full control of football operations — just like Reid — was inevitable.
It’s the Bill Parcells phenomenon.
Kelly was gone otherwise — as I read Lurie’s enormous walk-back of the last 11 days.
Past 5 days, really.
Do you think Lurie and Roseman had targered Gamble before then last game?
I’m going to say, “yes.” Probably even quite a bit earlier. A move this significant couldn’t have happened without a lot of thought.
Their last game was Sunday. It’s only been 5 days and 3 hours since the last game they played. When Lurie made the comment about Roseman remaining GM. Not sure where you’re getting 11 days from. As far as Gamble goes, I’m sure that Roseman wanted him gone before the last game. Whether he had discussions with Lurie and/or Kelly about that before end of season meetings on Monday or Tuesday, I have no way of knowing.
Lurie was asked if Howie would be staying on, and his response was, “Is that really a question? Yes, absolutely.” I don’t know that GM was ever mentioned. As for the Gamble firing, nobody outside of Eagles FO knows why Gamble was fired. And it will be that way until somebody explains it.
Some of this was in the works since the Cryboys loss.
No… And I don’t think LURIE decided to fire gamble.. He just didn’t stop HOWIE from firing him.. But I don’t think he really cared one way or the other if gamble was staying or going.
..
I liked having gamble, but loosing him is no big deal, sometime soon he would have left for a GM job anyway, he wouldn’t have been an eagle much.onger anyway
If Lurie didn’t consider the possible fallout of firing Gamble — assuming that’s what prompted the last 48 hours of uncertainty — then Lurie is responsible for what happened the past 2 days.
No question about it. This was a big game of chicken.
So I guess we won’t see any Dez Bryants in Chipadelphia anytime soon.
No way… doesn’t fit the “culture” like, for example, a Riley Cooper.
He has the measurables.
I will like this move if chip makes some changes in the scouting departments. Chip is a smart and successful guy, which means he knows what he doesn’t know. he has always delegated authority to assistants and Im sure he will listen to oppinions of his scouting department, but for that to happen he has to respect and trust the people in our Personel department. Chip knows who the brilliant football minds are, Id really like to see him bring some of his own scouts in, instead of only replacing the position Gamble held.
…
Howie got a 5yr extension, and im sure his checks will look better than the last paycheck he deposited… He is just going to be tackling new challenges. I think Howie has a good enough reputation league wide that he could have gotten another GM job if he wanted it. Just being able to get chip was a very big feather in his cap
…
I HIGHLY DOUBT this process was as calm and thoughtful as Lurie made it out to be, but considering the events that happened, I think this would have been the best possibke outcome for most of us….Chip not listening or valuing the information Of the GM and Scouting department isn’t healthy and does no one any good, Hopfully we will reap the rewards now of chip putting together a scouting department that he trusts and values
..
This probabky wasn’t the outcome both men had in mind after the gamble firing, but we have to appreciate Jeffrey LURIE doing what it took, to put out this fire, and time will tell if we will be better off because of it.
if gamble was always siding with chip, and no one was listening to The scouts, then we really didn’t lose anything in this, hopefully this will improve us
….
Really anxious to find out exactly what will the changes be. We know chip will appoint someone to replace gamble, but after that I’m curious to see who goes and who is brought in hand pick by the Grand Chippah!
…
Eagles Nation was worried on Pins and needles all day, LURIE steps up and shows why he has been a fantastic owner…
..
Coaches were chosing all the players anyway last year, so we really don’t have much to lose,l
..
I just wish they would reveal who Was in charge of the 2013 draft? They had a really good draft, it’s not like they would be throwing anyone under the bus by reveling it. I know who was in charge of the last draft, and it makes sense that hwie was in charge of 2012, by then andy had alredy bombed countless draft picks…. But it drives me crazy not knowing who plucked the second best young NT in the NFL out of round 3 (Marcel Dareus is the best)
Perhaps at that point it was still a collaborative process before Kelly gained sole control of the 2014 draft.
Could be
..
I know there were years were andy was given a few picks to make during the draft, Banner was given a few picks to make, and howie had a pick or two to make… So 3 different people had final say over different picks in one draft… I really don’t like that approach because it leads to division, favoritism, everyone wants their draft pick to look good, pan out. Get playing time so that he makes you look good for drafting him..
..
I prefer a one guy has final say per draft, now that’s going to be chip kelly….. Atleaste this move should alleviate our worries of chip leaving any time soon. He has the keys to the kingdom now
When did that happen? With different people having final say over picks?
Can’t tell you the exact year, but it was near when banner started to lose power, because I remember the way I read it or heard it was that Reid had most of the picks, but that LURIE had given Banner a pick IR two to keep him happy, so somewhere around the time where the power shifted from Banner to read an banner was starting to get phased out…
THE GREAT GEAGLE! I’m not mocking you here, I’m amazed at your prolific posting ability, and giving you due respect. I do have a question though-I see you post quite about what seems like insider knowledge without sources. Do you have sources at the team, or is it solely just you reading between the lines?
At what point was it established that Kelly had control over the 2014 draft? Clearly Kelly influenced that draft, but the while idea is to find players that fits Kelly’s system, so I’m not sure it is necessarily Kelly running the draft.
When it became expedient to blame Kelly for the bad picks.
To your point, it was a collaboration, as evidenced by Kelly praising Roseman for convincing him that they could get Taylor Hart in the 5th round (not the 3rd). And I think that very “collaboration” was not deemed a success by anyone (ultimately Lurie), hence this shake-up.
Kelly has had full control over player personnel since he took the job.
Nope. That’s sort of the whole point of this move. He HAS NOT had full control and now he was given it. When Chup was hired, he was given control of the coaches and the 53 man roster. Howe had control of the draft and FA, with obvious input from Chip.
Great move by Lurie, His common sense actions enables the Eagles to get to the next level. Kelly has control of the players and Howie continues in the roles he excels. Win win for the Eagles.
The whole GM over personnel in the NFL has never made sense to me from a coaches perspective, only from an owner’s perspective.
If a GM is acquiring/drafting players to protect the organization in the event of an eventual coaching regime change, how is a coach ever to realize their full potential?
This feels like the next evolution in the path to ultimate success. I respect Howie’s valuation/cap/contract expertise and believe Chip to be the type of leader that will exercise sound judgement after careful deliberation and valued input. Chip could successfully run a fortune 100 company.
I hope Chip looks to strengthen the OLine, and I hope an impact player on defense comes available in FA that the Eagles pursue.
The reason that GMs often have control over player personnel is that most coaches, even great coaches, have not been very good at it when given the opportunity.
Because coaches and scouts are wired differently.
https://twitter.com/johnmiddlekauff/status/365659048365928450
So there should be enough historic data to confirm who got it right. But it will never be an exact science. What you can control is the process, and I expect Chip will improve that part rather quickly.
I guess I’m unsure what you mean by process?
By process I mean how a player gets evaluated and the information captured and communicated in a consistent manner. There are a myriad of variables that are in play when it comes to evaluation (Chip elaborated on this from the 2013 draft – baloofi provided a look back in a post up above) – I believe Chip will better define and streamline the steps in gathering and using that information in the draft process – he loves efficiency and hates wasting time.
Player evaluation is pretty much the same from team to team. Area scouts go from school to school in the area they are responsible for. They get access to watch the film room from the crack of dawn when they show up, until practice. They then watch practice and may talk to coaches or seniors depending on team policy. For guys that are rated highly they likely have an equipment manager or compliance officer they know well to kind of get an inside scoop on the certain guys work ethic or character. They then go back to the hotel write up reports on all the seniors that they think are prospects. Go to bed, wake up stupid early, drive to next school.
These reports get cross checked by higher ranking scouts that are based in the home city. These scouts rely on film primarily. If they agree with the report they pass it along, if their is a discrepancy typically the film gets kicked to a third scout. Who tries to figure out why the wires are crossed.
Then these reports are compiled. The grades are used to build the draft board. Every team builds their board slightly different but it’s still pretty much by groupings of guys with similar value.
The process is filled with multiple redundancies and by the time coaches and GM’s see cutups of a player there have already been dozens of hours spent on that prospect.
Short of developing some kind of proprietary moneyball esque computer (which I’m not sure would work for football anyways) I don’t think there’s anyway Chip could revolutionize scouting.
Thanks for the detailed reply. I could see Chip hiring a developer to write an algorithm using his evaluation measurables to help grade prospects per his criteria. Will be interesting to see if he really does develop a better mousetrap.
There were some changes in the scouting department last off-season. I wonder if Chip did not entirely trust them, as he seemed to scout everybody all over again himself. Maybe with a different GM and a couple different scouts, he will find it easier to delegate?
Hey I’ve been reading this blog for a couple years now and you seem to be pretty knowledgeable. I just joined twitter, and I’m looking for some people to follow for NFL info, and college but mostly for drafting. Would you mind giving me your short list?
Eric Galko, @optimumscouting: runs optimum scouting
John Middlekauf, @johnmiddlekauf: former eagles scout, now does talk radio in the Bay
Jordan Plocher @starvingscout: former navy man, AZ cards fan, does great write up for GM JR website, and has some really neat stuff that he does on teams playcalling tendencies (this would be my top recomendation)
Daniel Jeremiah @movethesticks: NFL network draft guy, scouted for Ravens, Browns, Eagles
Dane Brugler @dpbrugler: Runs CBS sports draft website
Kyle Crabbs @NDTScouting: Runs his own website, recently just got folded into draftbreakdown
Dan Klausner @dklausner: writer for BGN, the only BGN guy who is worth listening to about the draft, also just funny follow on philly sports in general.
Phil Savage @SenorBowlPhil: runs the senior bowl
FakeWIPCaller @FakeWIPCaller: Yes, it’s as amazing as it sounds.
Dude, thanks so much.
Yeah dude. How can he thank you enough? He’ll wear frilly panties if you want.
Nah, he saves that for the *second* date…he doesn’t just put out for anyo….oh, wait. Yeah, he does…
I would rather none of this had happened at all, but considering that it did, at least Lurie did what he had to do to stave off imminent disaster. I wonder what kind of “GM” Kelly will be able to bring in. The best ones in the business usually would not want to work under the coach.
D3FB gets my vote.
They can’t afford me.
Bummer. Then invest well and buy the damned team!!!
Reading though many of these comments I see a recurring misconception. I think people are missing the point of Lurie’s announcement. Chip Kelly has had full control of personnel these past two years. That hasn’t been changed. It has been clarified.
Now when Gamble was fired, many of us thought that meant Roseman had gained more control over player personnel. Maybe it actually did mean that for a day or so. Some of us, like me, were very happy about this because the one draft where Roseman had full control turned out to be excellent. The firing seemed to indicate that Lurie recognized the failures of the past two drafts and was taking steps to correct it.
People that are casting this as a needed shakeup after the last two poor drafts are missing the point. It is the opposite. It is an affirmation that Chip is still in charge despite his poor performance in this area. It is going “all-in” on a system that has failed.
Except that before Chip came to town, Curry was seen as a bust, Kendricks was a slight disappointment, and people weren’t sure what to think of Cox. The 2012 draft looks fantastic in hindsight now that the players have had a chance to develop. Meanwhile you refer to a draft that yielded 3 starters with considerable upside as a failure.
This exactly! Luries comments seem to indicate that the new roles, titles and structure of the personnel department (including Gambles firing) was Chips vision. I think the whole Howie wanted Gamble gone because he was always siding with chip thing was something that just came to life from rampant speculation.
This is my take also.
Best case scenario is that Gamble was in fact the guy behind the worst player acquisitions (in draft and FA), and Kelly will bring in someone who can evaluate NFL talent & not just be a “yes man” who agrees with everything Kelly thinks.
Worst case is we draft a bunch of Ducks 1-2 rounds earlier than anyone else would have drafted them, and sign a bunch of mediocre players because they have the required arm length.
No, the worst case scenario is that in a few years Kelly runs out of Ducks that he has coached so he starts pulling local “talent” from Temple and Rutgers like Andy Reid did.
Worked out with Westbrook
Howie Roseman would not have chosen LJ Smith over Jason Witten
I’m not suggesting it is a good model.
Having read your worst case scenario, I am afraid you are too close to being right. I am now trying to wipe it from my mind so I won’t contribute to any mojo that is leading Chip in that direction.
The draft in Kelly’s first season yielded 3 keepers in Lane Johnson, Zach Ertz and Bennie Logan. Last year he got Jordan Matthews, and the fact that MSII and the two Ducks did not break through does not equate to a bad draft, in my opinion. I do not think this arrangement is a case of Reid 2 because Kelly isn’t Reid, and if he blows some selections, I believe he will seek help.
I think Huff is going to take a big leap next year. I don’t think he’ll ever be a pro-bowler but I think he’ll be a very solid player that can do a lot of things well.
Are you sure about that? I’ve heard it said many times that he has the final say on personnel, but isn’t it a fairly common occurrence for coaches to have final say over who makes the roster, and it’s more collaborative when it comes to who’s picked or signed? Wondering if perhaps we’re conflating the two. That said, it does seem like the last 2 drafts were completely Kelly.
Of all the 1,257 tweets I was reading today the only one I would love to read is Joe Banner himself.
Really? you haven’t read enough bitter spite from Banner over the last few years?
Bitter spite from a man with some extensive inside knowledge, at least how Lurie’s past decisions? You bet I’d read everything he writes about this.
I think opinions from people that are bitter about losing their jobs have more value when they don’t fail completely at their next job, like Banner and Modrak did.
As a person with absolutely no input on this matter, I’ll settle for the entertainment value of it all.
He might be bitter, but I don’t see it from reading his tweets. Seems pretty insightful, actually, though he’s steered clear of commenting on a lot of things that he might be bitter about.
His tweets are far from bitter. In fact he’s expressed his love for the Eagles minions of times.
I like Joe Banner’s tweets.
I like this move because I assume it will strengthen chips roots in Philly (hopefully keep him here longer)
…
Chip clearoy didn’t respect Howies evaluation skills and some of the scouts since we weren’t listening to scouts, and mostly just doing what the coaches wanted. Sounds like a waste of respurces to me. Better off letting chip put people he values and respects in the scouting department so that we stop wasting our scouting resources
..
One negatve is Roseman became very good at “knowing the draft board” and Howie was really good at getting trades done, like stealing a stud rookie kicker a week before the season… Hopefully we won’t miss Howie in these important areas..
…
Also what happens when chip wants a player, but howie says he wants way more than he is worth, and is against the signing from a cap perspective which Is still his expertise. For example, what iif chip demands we sigń Byron Maxwell, yet the bidding gets out of hand and Dan Snyder and jerry jones are offering him way too much money? Does Howie have veto power from a cap perspective?
…
Hopefully Howie will continue to do his Monday night radio show from chickies n Petes… You can bet I will be at Chickies on Monday, hoping hOwie will still go on the air
You raise a good point when it comes to trades. Most of us have just been focusing on the draft.
But I disagree with your point on it making it more likely that Chip will stay. I think it makes it more likely that Chip gets fired in a few years.
The scenario where talent costs more than it is worth is an inherent and ever-present one given cap constraints. I still think it was the driving force behind DJAX’s departure. One thing that Lurie brought to this franchise is a commitment to keeping the financial house in order. From Joe Banner to HR the Eagles have been far from perfect, but they rarely have grossly overpaid for a player, which has served them well. There is no way, Lurie, let alone HR is going to let a coach get the franchise’s balance sheets out of whack. Also, Lurie knows who has been responsible for which players that were drafted, and if, as we have been led to believe 2012 was all HR, then Lurie knows it and Chip does too. 2012 has been the best draft in Luries tenure.
Totally. I know I can shut down any mouthy Giants, Skins, or Dallas fan when they talk about Super Bowls by mentioning how skillfully we manage the cap and never overpay for players. The sadness in their eyes is just priceless.
As far as Howie doing the show – I would rather if it were a coach (though you know that wouldn’t happen with Chip). It was great when Andy did it, and Chip does such a great job with the film break down…
I would even enjoy an assistant coach, it would be an interesting insight.
The quality control coaches would be really neat.
I was thinking coach Az but that is just brilliant.
It was awesome cuz every Monday we would get Meryl and Howie, an hour later a different eagle player would show up, and you get to see him interact with the GM and hear what answers he gives in front of the GM, and then at 7pm shady shows up and does his weekly show.
..
Looking back on everything, amazing how complimentary Howie has been of chip publically these past two months while behind closed doors they were at each other’s throats. Every week he raved about how great chip is and how lucky we are to have him
..
Yeah chip would never do that show. We are lucky we get him breaking down a few plays each week on video with IKe Reese.
…
I love how 97.5 Thefanatic GETS NO ACCESS to CHIP and the Eagles. I get a kick out of that blowhard Missanelli and that station NEVER being able to get Chip on their airways.
.
Anyone know how the beef between the Eaglles and 97.5 started? Since Chip arrived here he has never appeared on that station. Anyone know when the fall out happens between 97.5 and the Eagles? I get a kick out of them acting like they are the greatest thing in Philly, yet they can’t even get an interview with the coach of the Eagles
Be awesome if someone writes an article that shows everything each local media member reported these past 3 days, see all the innacurate crap they polluted fans minds with…
….
Times like this is when you really can find out which media members are worth paying attention to amd which are worthless blowhards..
…
Someone who will analyze everything each local media member reported and then grade their work and see who provided fams with the most accurate and responsible reports, and which media members were completely clueless
It probably goes without saying, but…..
https://twitter.com/Southern_Philly/status/551153784185831424
And thats just Rube… Can’t imagine hacks like Elliot PARKER and Les Bowan…talk radio must have been a shit show today lol
In fairness, think both those guys were pretty open in their “we dunno, could be anything” approach.
McManus (who originally broke the story about Roseman/Kelly falling out) seemed most on the money. Said a big announcement was coming but Kelly was staying.
The piece de resistance of terrible ‘reporting’ was from Florio though.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/01/02/silence-becomes-deafening-in-philly/
Something might happen unless it doesn’t in which case something else will happen or possibly nothing will happen at all! But stick with us, cos we got the scoop!
That piece started off unreadable and I didn’t think it was worth slogging through it.
I heard Florio on the radio and he was basically saying i have a source and something is going down but i can’t say anything about it for risk of exposing my source.
My interpretation: he knows someone there that saw Kelly and Lurie meeting.
So he wasn’t really wrong, at least on his radio bit. It may not technically qualify as “news”, but to Eagles fans it is.
The talk I was hearing was “oh, it’s the Eagles. They fire Gamble on New Years and now nobody is going to comment on it for 2 week.” I was fully expecting a long silence, similar to the Jackson release. So, to me, the “there’s going to be news” news is news.
Let’s make an app for that!
That would be awesome
Uh, they all reported a massive battle for power. Which is exactly what happened.
The Eagles could use some of the Huskies’ Baker’s ball skills in their secondary.
TLAW, nice job explaining. I don’t know who was first with this, but I commend you and your readers for having more sense than to believe every speculative word from the accredited bunch.
I am not very pleased about the upheaval. I do think that this is just longer rope. If Chip fails next year, he fails.
As for Mariota…
Today, I decided to watch draft breakdown videos of:
Ryan Tannehill
Jake Locker
RGIII
in order to help me think about how Mariota will fair in the NFL. As a result, I’ve gotten pretty down on him, as a number one pick. One thing I’ve realized is that the Oregon offense probably makes Mariota’s *rushing* ability better than it actually is. They do a good job of opening lane in the interior of the field, such that Mariota doesn’t have to get to the corner all that often (not that he can’t, he clearly can).
Passing wise…I pretty much saw that Jake Locker never had any business in the first or second round–very much like Logan Thomas, but without those fine slivers of Dr. Jerkyl that makes you dream of what a straightened out Thomas would be like. Ryan Tannehill was not an unreasonable prospect at all, and definitely deserved to be picked where he was. Hard to see his lack of moxie in a spread offense though. Tannehill’s rushing ability is definitely overstated–doesn’t have good instincts, and isn’t really that fast on the field. When it came to RGIII, I saw some of the flaws that bedevils him today. His tape was also what convinced me that the Oregon offense probably overstates Mariota’s rushing ability. RGIII always had to make his own yards, and you rarely see him put on the afterburners like what we saw in the NFL in ’12. RGIII is a very good deep passer, and he is a complete non-starter in the offensive style Gruden wishes to play. Not always a consistently accurate short area thrower. Not to give any credence that Gruden is competent, though. His offense paradigm sucks, and sucks in a similar way to someone like Greg Knapp for similar reasons.
Bottom line though, is that Mariota is not a QB that you can rely on to make consistently accurate throws, and that offense is all about discombobulating/breaking a defense. I think that there is a pretty good chance that Mariota will not really be a day one type starter. He makes *very* few throws downfield against working defenses, and he uses the scramble drill to cause breakdowns in coverage, much like Jake Locker or Tannehill does in the pros, to get what success they’ve gotten. The biggest issue is that, while he’s faster in the bowl game than I thought he was (compared especially to Tannehill), I still don’t think he’s really in RGIII, Kaepernick, Webb, Newton’s class as QB rushers. It won’t be as pathetic as Manziel (who is too small for his 40 time to be of good value), but I think that many people are overestimating his potential impact as a QB rusher in the NFL. Compounding this, his arm, while more than good enough, is not strong enough for what is a very unrefined passing ability. Think only a bit better than Kaepernick ’11 or quite inferior to Webb ’10 preseason work. You can make it work, a bit, with a rocket launcher of an arm, but Mariota doesn’t have that.
I also took a look at Andrew Luck college tape with Winston in mind. Just had to shake my head. Winston is quite a bit better than Luck. Luck is going to go down as one of the most spectacularly overrated QB prospect ever, even acknowledging that he’s good. What Luck really does well, passing wise, is not fucking up the play design–but Luck ain’t going to be saving anyone with any perfect passes. It’s now pretty clear to me part of the reason why he has the turnovers he does.
Lastly, since I hear some good stuff about Brandon Bridge, I checked out the App. St cutup. He does look pretty good. Clear NFL caliber arm, some degree of natural accuracy. Decently fast with good rushing instincts. Definitely one that I’d replace Barkley with in the fifth or maybe fourth. I heard that some people think it’s a good idea for Cardale Jones to go pro now, since he’s a backup. If he does, I’d definitely want him, unspoiled by the Urban Meyer unrefinement process. Lotto ticket for the next Cam, or a JaMarcus Russell that pans out (well…Russell was a better passer in college)
So screw Marriotta because he plays in a gimmicky college offense, but Brandon Bridge is awesome? Bridge has said his college offense is only half field reads.
https://twitter.com/RWFreeman/status/551131367527165953
Nah…
It’s mainly screw Mariota because he’s essentially Kaepernick with more work done on his ability to pass, but not as big, not as strong, not as fast, and not as good an arm. If Kaepernick is a second rounder with the likes of Brock Osweiler type lotto picking…what does that really make Mariota? You’re essentially talking tighter delivery and more experience reading the field. Without the upside, and without the actually present NFL caliber game breaking ability that Kaepernick has?
They are essentially the same size. Both are 6’4 or 6’5 230ish, Kap ran a 4.53 Marcus should run in that neighborhood.
Why is Mariota worth pick 1 that Kaep wasn’t?
-He played in a power 5 conference
-He is experienced at reading the whole fielding and moving through his progressions, something Kaep has never really done.
– His college completion percentage is 66.8% vs. 58.2% for Kaep.
-He’s a superior passer, and equivalent runner.
HE DOESN’T HAVE TATS SO HE SUCKS COMPARED TO KAEP.
Yes, Klep.
People’s 40 times represents different things.
Geno Smith has an insanely fast 40 time for a pocket passer in college. In the NFL, he’s not that fast, but superior agility as a rusher definitely does show up.
Andrew Luck’s 40 time is about the same as Johnny Manziel. However, Luck’s 40 time shows up on the field, while Manziel’s 40 stays on the tracks.
Kaepernick’s 4.53 misrepresents how fast he is. He has a near Moss-ian long strider speed. Terrelle Pryor is the same–he looks slow, right up until you see all those people falling steadily behind. That’s not Mariota. Mariota does not look to me as anything like 4.5. Maybe about 4.55-4.65 on a track. I know he’s been timed in the 4.4s in high school, but the issue is that I’ve never really seen him beat people with angles on him, classic example being Cam getting past Patrick Peterson for that TD. In general, my gauge has been that he’s roughly as fast as Manziel, a bit faster. And no, Mariota is clearly smaller than Kaepernick. Maybe the same height, but Kaepernick isn’t really much smaller than Newton or Webb. Those guys are huge to be as fast as they are.
power 5 doesn’t mean that much. Steve McNair, for example. Talent is talent is talen.
He’s *not* especially experienced reading the field. He’s just a little better than Kaepernick fresh out of Nevada.
The offense gives Mariota plenty of chances to get easy throws. The last year of college is more important, especially showing progress. Kaep was almost 65%.
Mariota isn’t really a superior pass when it comes to natural talent, and isn’t better enough at the skilled stuff to ignore the natural talent differential. And hell no, not the equivalent runner.
Yeah but look at him now. Think cms have to be careful with mariota. If you don’t want your qb to run or you aren’t constantly scheming people open with the run, pass, an run option it’s going to be hard for him to be successful as a day 1 starter.
The difference is Mariotta can read a defense and make progressions. Yes he is impossible to defend on package plays, but he has the ability to go from receiver 1, to receiver 2, slide to the right, find his checkdown.
Plus more teams are already running packaged plays.
yeah that’s something that i’ve noticed (teams running packaged plays). I watched earlier in the season and wasn’t amazed with his accuracy, but it’s gotten better i think.
That said, you still think Mariota is a top 2 pick in a pro offense? i just don’t see it.
Yes, I do.
I agree 100% with the comparison of Mariota with Kaepernick. Eagle fans have become way to obsessed with Mariota.
Yeah, what are we Cleveland fans here?
He really didn’t say that at all. He said Mariotta would be overvalued as a #1 pick in the draft and that Bridge might be worth a late round pick to come in as a #3.
I’ve seen similar things about Winston vs. Mariota from national analysts. They’ve said Winston makes NFL throws, whereas Mariota will need time to adjust. Lots of speculation that Winston goes first.
If nobody else says so, I do appreciate your contrary opinions. This place would be a lot less fun to read if everyone followed GEAGLE’s forced enthusiasm.
You should watch draft breakdown video of Russell Wilson for a better comparison. Whoever drafts Mariotta would be foolish to run him very often. And there is tape out there of Mariotta making NFL throws exhibiting strength and touch. I’m a life-long PAC guy and Jake Locker never had the accuracy to justify a first round grade.
What separates Marcus is his football acumen and decision making. He is going to make some franchise very happy they took him.
I don’t think the Eagles should leverage future drafts to take him as I still see Nick Foles becoming a top tier QB. And I don’t think Chip sees the Eagles being just one player (albeit the most important position) away, and I think he still holds Nick in high regards.
Winston is an interesting prospect – has the necessary talent, but how will he handle serious money, and will veterans embrace his leadership?
I’ve thought about it, because Mariota does have a lot of slitheriness to his rushing ability.
Russel Wilson is a different sort of rusher than Mariota, and Wilson is a much, much, better passer. Radically so in the area of touch, particularly on the run.
If you watched last night’s FSU game, Mariota slid on his scrambles instead of initiating contact which I loved seeing. Agree that Wilson is a better passer on the run, but part of that is predicated on his height and ability to view the field better outside the pocket. Marcus is tall enough to go through his progressions from the pocket.
My guess is most nfl players won’t give a shit about the rape allegations. Rich guys with money are pretty hip to the whole “women be lyin’ to get paid” thing.
Found this to be fitting.
https://twitter.com/RobTornoe/status/551153185986183168
With the twentieth pick in the 2015 NFL draft…the Philadelphia Eagles select Troy Hill, CB, Oregon.
Nah nah nah definitely trading back to pick up Hill and French
Interesting to read Kelly’s quotes from after the 2013 draft:
On whether he found that his values were in line with general
manager Howie Roseman’s and vice president of player personnel Tom
Gamble’s:
“There was a lot of discussions and I think that’s
healthy. If you have a bunch of people who agree about things every
single day, I don’t think that’s the right way to go about things. I
think we have a lot of very smart people upstairs and everybody has
value. Eventually you have to make a decision on where someone is placed
on the board, but I think when you listen to them, you take insight
from them. Not everybody is correct 100% of the time, so you can listen
to them. ‘What did you see and what was the value?’ If you respect
people and they respect you, then it can be healthy. It’s important to
get different viewpoints of how things are and how things work. But then
as a group, you have to come together and make a decision. I think they
had a great schedule in terms of how we put things together and how we
looked at things. I don’t think any decision we made was ever rushed. We
could sit down and let it kind of sit there and listen to it, take a
look at it and make some decisions as we kind of orderly place the thing
together. They knew what we valued in players and we got a lot of input
from them. You really truly have to rely on them. They’re on campus,
they get a chance to go work them out. I could say, ‘Hey I didn’t like
that kid because I saw him on film,’ but you may not know. That day it
was windy or rainy, the kid had just hurt his knee in practice on a
Wednesday, but you need to look at this game in 2011. They’ve done a lot
of leg work and a lot of time. Coaches don’t have time to do all the
personnel work, it’s just not humanly possible. We have games to prepare
for during the season, we don’t watch anybody play live, we don’t watch
how people react during things. We’re basing a lot of it just on video,
but we have a lot of people who have seen them in person so you have to
take their insight. There are a lot of very smart people up there who
have some really good insight, so it’s the smart way to do it. I think
everybody should listen to each other and as a group we come together
for a decision.”
Thanks for digging that out and sharing.
Everything he says in press conferences are just words. The offense depends upon the QB, discussions are healthy,etc.
I’m really not sure about this.
No excuses now, Chip…win the whole thing. It is your team. And, if you do not win it all, be ready to answer the questions and own up. You got your power play, now you better DELIVER!
It’s kind of exciting that this new approach will be “fully integrated.” Except for Howie of course. Howie has been asked to go integrate himself somewhere else.
Chip will surely revolutionize the entire scouting process with his new all-encompassing integrated model which is obviously something he’s put a lot of time into developing and isn’t just something he came up with in a day because he was pissed off about his friend getting fired.
Reposting from below:
Player evaluation is pretty much the same from team to team. Area
scouts go from school to school in the area they are responsible for.
They get access to watch the film room from the crack of dawn when they show up, until practice. They then watch practice and may talk to coaches or seniors depending on team policy. For guys that are rated highly they likely have an equipment manager or compliance officer they know well to kind of get an inside scoop on the certain guys work ethic or character. They then go back to the hotel write up reports on all the seniors that they think are prospects. Go to bed, wake up stupid early,drive to next school.
These reports get cross checked by higher
ranking scouts that are based in the home city. These scouts rely on
film primarily. If they agree with the report they pass it along, if
their is a discrepancy typically the film gets kicked to a third scout.
Who tries to figure out why the wires are crossed.
Then these reports are compiled. The grades are used to build the draft board. Every team builds their board slightly different but it’s still pretty much by groupings of guys with similar value.
The process is filled with multiple redundancies and by the time coaches and GM’s see cutups of a player there have already been dozens of hours spent on that prospect.
Short of developing some kind of proprietary moneyball
esque computer (which I’m not sure would work for football anyways) I don’t think there’s anyway Chip could revolutionize scouting.
Man, you are salty about recent events.
for fun I thought I would cross check how Chip talked about dJax vs. Gamble.
Both sets of quotes are from Birds 24/7, first at the owners meeting last year:
Did he fit into the culture?
“DeSean did a good job. He played 16 games for us, practiced every day. I had no issues with him.”
…
His work ethic?
“DeSean was there every single day, yeah. In the year I had him, yeah. Everything I asked him to do, I think he was outstanding in OTAs and the offseason program. I think he was one of our higher guys in terms of 28 or 29 out of 30 or 32. He was there every day in-season, practiced every day. I think there was maybe an ankle here or something like that, but not like anybody else. But he was there every day for us.”
Asked specifically if he wants Jackson on the team, Kelly said: “I like DeSean. DeSean did a really nice job for us. But we’re always gonna do what’s best for the organization.”
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2014/03/26/philadelphia-eagles-desean-jackson-chip-kelly/#eEikvfiVYYztqetZ.99
Now the quote that people seem to point to as proof Gamble is his right hand man:
“I think Tom does an outstanding job,” Kelly said last week. “And if he has the opportunity to [be a GM somewhere else], then I would support him in anything. And if I can give him any help in that situation I would. But he’s a heck of a football guy.”
Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2014/12/31/making-sense-gamble-move/#IeMxc0ivrLgytEuL.99
Interesting.
Kind of agree. Seems suspect that Chip was about to be crowned king and he looses his so called right hand man the night before. How often does that happen to a guy who is about to WIN the power struggle? What proof do we have that Gamble was chip’s guy besides the timing of their hiring and an off hand comment of them catching a game together?
Its a fact… It was a sticking point for chip agreeing to take this job, that he got to put his own talent evaluator second in command to howie, AND THAT was Gamble
It’s a fact that Howie persued gamble for over a year before he was hired, long before chip was a consideration. It’s a fact that several articles were about gamble being chips right hand man. It’s a fact that chip described Howies new possition when describing what he does well. For all we know this reorganization was in the works for several days before gamble was fired. The facts we have are gathered from outsiders, they are second hand at best and none are fact checked from within. With anything political, take what you think you know with a jar of salt.
yeah agree. i think everyone in the media got it wrong.
Difference is chip didn’t volenteer info on Desean. He was answering questions knowing he had a fire to put out.
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Chip was ranting and raving over how awesome gamble was, and nothing had happened yet that would have made chip think he had to talk up Gamble to cover up what Was going to happen, which is what chip had to do when asked about desean
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Chip already has shown some easy “Tells” so you know when he is lying. I would destroy chip in pocket with all his tells
He was asked about gamble specifically and his thoughts about him taking a GM position elsewhere. That isn’t a rant or volunteered info but the exact answer you would expect from the question given with similar verbiage to his praise of DJax.
I love our coach. We got a good one.
Love our owner. We got a good one.. LURIE Did what he had to do to put out that fire
[…] The Chipadelphia Eagles – Iggles BlitzIs this too much power for Kelly? I don’t think so. He’s run a program in college where he had to recruit and coach players. He’s been active in the offseason with scouting already to this point. Kelly is consumed by football. This won’t keep him from his family. Football is his family. I think Kelly is open-minded and listens to others. I don’t think he’ll turn into a Mike Ditka type that trades all his picks for some RB that he falls in love with. Kelly came to the NFL and hired coaches he didn’t have close relationships to. He didn’t surround himself with friends and sycophants the way Steve Spurrier did. Kelly was smart enough to know what he didn’t know. I think he’ll listen to advisers when it comes to the nuts and bolts of personnel moves. […]
[…] The Chipadelphia Eagles – Iggles BlitzIs this too much power for Kelly? I don’t think so. He’s run a program in college where he had to recruit and coach players. He’s been active in the offseason with scouting already to this point. Kelly is consumed by football. This won’t keep him from his family. Football is his family. I think Kelly is open-minded and listens to others. I don’t think he’ll turn into a Mike Ditka type that trades all his picks for some RB that he falls in love with. Kelly came to the NFL and hired coaches he didn’t have close relationships to. He didn’t surround himself with friends and sycophants the way Steve Spurrier did. Kelly was smart enough to know what he didn’t know. I think he’ll listen to advisers when it comes to the nuts and bolts of personnel moves. […]
I see Howie’s situation much like Banner’s. When Banner lost his particular tug-of-war for control, they did the same thing with him… kicked him “upstairs” until he found a new situation with Cleveland.
Banner didnt get a new 5yr deal which is a 3yr extension on his old deal If I’m not mistaken… LURIE ISNT kicking hOwie to the curb like he did with smelly banner
The cost of keeping Roseman quiet and out of the way.
VP of operations is pretty much always a position THATS above the GM. Most of the time the VP of Ops hires the GM.
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I know you want to put lipstick on a pig, but… Roseman is no longer in any kind of charge.
Facts aren’t lipstick on a pig.
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I know for a FACT that Howie has the full backing of LUrie. Take it how you want it
http://unconscionableobjector2.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/lipstick-pig-illustration.jpg
Upvote
I looked up a few other teams power structures. Not many have an executive vp of football operations. It’s often a title given to a head coach or general manager to elevate them. For example, when Reid gained power he had the title of HC & Executive VP of Football Operations. Elway now has the title of GM & Executive VP of Football Operations. There are a few powerful cap executives around the league with the tile of Executive VP of Football Administration. However when there is an Executive VP of Football Operations, they’re pretty powerful. John Spanos has that title with the Chargers and he’s the son of the owner. Kevin Demoff has that title with the Rams(along with COO) and he’s clearly above their GM. I think the key is the “Executive” here. Vice President titles are often thrown around but those with the “Executive” tagline tend to have real power.
I don’t think Roseman is going quietly into the night. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if in a year or two he doesn’t replace Smolenski as team president.
He might, but then he would be concerned with stuff like improvements to the stadium, facilities, vending, parking, making a bid for the Super Bowl, selling season tickets, merchandising, etc.
Definitely. Smolenski is the loser in all this.. Howie will start to take more and more of his power
I’m not saying there’s no power there, but about the only thing the fans care about that he would be involved with is bringing back the old color of uniforms.
Guess what? Power isn’t decided by what donkey fans view as power
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A fan might only see changing the uniforms as the only valuable power Hpwie canossibly have now, but now Howie has his hands in every single department, sales, marketing… You wouldn’t say Banner didn’t have any power when he was getting stadium deals done and practice facilities built.
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Howie is making more money than he was making yesterday, his contract has 5 years on it now, when yesterday he only had 2years left, and he now is doing a lot more than just the personel department, and frankly he is still doing cap and contracts so he retained some personel department power as well
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You can bet that when Howie went home last night, he didn’t find his wife in tears because he was demoted, becaus THATS not what happened at all… And anyone who says Howie will be phased out eithet is clueless or a Liar, because Howie still has the full backing of Lurie
Smolenski is in charge of ops, Howie wants even less to do with that than he does being in charge of the equipment staff.
Yep
BOOM! And finally, the kosher lawyer gets bysh-smacked!! I was currently re-evaluating my perception of Lurie as an owner, based upon what has happened recently with Chip, Howie, and Tom…but he has restored the faith! Wade in the water, my people!
The F?
Too much caffeine and “medicinal herbs” this morning lol…
A lot of speculation that Chip wants to make a big trade to get Mariota. I hope that’s not what he intends to do.
Doubt it
While it’s easy to see what chip gained from this battle, I think it’s a mistake to view this as HOwie losing
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I Guarantee that HOWIE DID NOT want to win the power struggle, if that meant chip quitting. If Chip would have quit from hOwie winning this battle it would have reflected horribly on hOwie that he was able to lure this awesome coach, let him change our entire organization, yet chase him away two years later. That would have been a terrible stain on Howies career…
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So need to understand that while hOwie went to War against Chip, it became in Howie’s BEST interest to work out a solution that kept chip in Philly. So the FACT that hOwie got a 3yr extension, and a raise in pay and job title without chasing Chip out of Philly is a WIN for Howie as well.
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This is soooo NOT a Banner situation. When we “promoted” banner his relationship witjout LUrie was already on the outs. I know for a FACT that Howie is still extremely valued by Lurie, and has every intention of keeping Howie by his side…LUrie keeping chip, and losing Howie was not an acceptable outcome for Lurie. LUrie did what he needed to do, to put out this fire and keep both men in philly…. The biggest loser in all this wil Probably be Smolenski. I assume Howie will start to work closer to Smolenski and less with the scouting department… But if you view this situation as LUrie startng to Phase Howie out of the organization like we did to banner, that’s comletely False. Howie has the full backing of LUrie, and not losing Chip was also a win for Howie, because his reputation would have been destroyed if he were responsible for chasing chip away after two years……myou can bet, Howie is comfortble with this outcome and it be a major stretch to call Howie a loser in this
You can keep pushing this agenda, and you’ll keep being wrong about it.
Its no secret that Howie wanted to be in charge of personnel.
Good points. However, there was a reported “toxic environment” in upper management and Lurie just cleaned house and shortened the leash on his bulldog, and let the fan base know that this boat now sinks or swims with the Chippah, which is as it should be, IMO.
Upon consideration I don’t like this move. By all accounts Howie has a pretty good record as a talent evaluator despite his lack of football pedigree, and the drafts he was mostly responsible for (2012 and 2013) are the best in recent years. Kelly has a scant record as a talent evaluator, but from what we’ve seen it’s not that great. Plus the team has had pretty much nothing but bad experiences giving coaches untrammeled control over personnel (Rhodes and Reid both failed badly at it). Even Belichick does not have a great record as a drafter and suffered once the dedicated personnel guy who helped him build the Patriots (Pioli) left.
At least we’ll know who gets the blame the next time the team drafts a Jon Harris or Freddie Mitchell in the first round.
2013 draft is unclear.
As far as we know the Howie as GM / Chip as HC power structure was thrown out the window (by Chip).
So the questions becomes:
Would you rather have Chip as HC/GM and Howie kicked upstairs with no real responsibility, or Howie as GM and a new coach?
The answer to that seems obvious.
I don’t think the answer to that is at all clear.
Chip is a good coach, maybe a great one. But if he’s utterly out of his depth as a GM, something for which we have some evidence (e.g. wanting to draft Huff in the 2nd round and Taylor Hart in the 3rd and needing to be convinced by Howie that he was overdrafting and could get both players later), being a great coach won’t help. There have been plenty of other guys who were good coaches but failed when they had dual responsibility (Holmgren in Seattle, Shanahan, etc.).
I don’t know about you guys but I truly believe that Chip will bring the Super Bowl trophy to Philly.
Are you drunk?
No. Been doing the dryathlon since 1 Jan.
Hit your head?
Just wondering where all this positivity is coming from
I always try to stay positive, mate. A splash of realism and fair criticism don’t do any harm sometimes.
Cheers
let’s start a list of things we can now expect as a result of Chips increase in power:
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1) whether we believe it’s possible or not, on some level we have to be comcerned about trading our entire team for Marriotta lol,Tho I doubt it
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2) Demeco MUFASA Ryans will be back!!!
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3) shady McCoy better tell his agent to proceed with caution and play nice when it’s time to renegotiate or shady will end up playing for the Giants or the Colts next year… Chip is gangster enough to cut DEsean, cut shady, and not give a crap about what anyone says.
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4) DION JORDAN! DION JORDAN! DION JORDAN!
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5) we can probably remove every player with character issues off our drraft boards. No matter how talented a kid is, and how far he will fall on draft night, chip probably won’t care. He has zero patience and tolerance for Bullshit. If you aren’t 100% committed to winning a Super Bowl you won’t be here, chip won’t tolerate you…. I can’t say I hate that line of thinking.. Even if it means we won’t see Josh Gordon r Marvus Peters, Dorian Becham Green, or any other talented HEADCASE.
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6) Probabky means we should stop bitching about the # of Oregon players in Phily. Because that number will probably be going up
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Any other expectations we can reach from this new power structure?
more smoothies at the link — over drafting? i think the interesting bit will be to see who chip hires, will say a lot about the direction we’re going in. does he take an old school nfl guy or a college guy
I would assume an NFL guy. Maybe Old school, possibly a young up and coming NFL guy who he will elevate. I would be pretty surprised if they promote from within
I don’t really mind drafting Oregon players. They are in the National title game for a reason. Right?!
yeah but nfc east isn’t pac 12
But you still have to draft college players. Right?!
I don’t think I have ever complained about it. I enjoy eliminating the guess work from the process. Especially since soon. Chip will no longer have coached any of the kids in college. Take advantage of him already knowmg exactly who some of these top prospects are. If Hroniss Grasu for example has the same Grade as Arie Kouandijo for example, why wouldnt I want Grasu? Chip already knows how the kid thinks, how he works, how smart he is, his practice habits, how tough is he? Will he play thru injuries?…will he fit in our locker room? Take advantage of this advantage while chip still knows the kids in college, because soon that advantages will be gone.
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Obviously I don’t want to see us draft an Oregon duck who had an 85 grade. Over a Sooner who had a 93 grade… But I sure as hell won’t complain about using familiarity as a tie breaker
Another reason that Chip may like Oregon as a feeder is any player coming out of that program is already pace ready. Some other schools play the uptempo spread, but that is one less adjustment that NFL bound football player has to make. Not a substitute for ability, but an asset 2 b sure.
good point well made. Sir.
Yes sir.. Not just pace ready, but Oregon players are also already used to chips crazy practice styles.
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And Pace ready is extremely adventageous especially at certain positions like 310 lb offensive lineman. It’s nice knowing that a G/C like Grasu or a T/G like Jake Fisher have become elite NFL prospects by flourishing in the high tempo they will encounter in Philly. Where as we have to project how 300lb Arie Kouandijo will play at this crazy pace
Byron Maxwell became more possible perefect fit for Chip and Chip will probably just tell Howie to figure it out and get him here lol
About 5) he has a history of kicking players off his team if they violate rules regardless of their stature. He did it at UO with a few stars.
About 3) Maclin was coming back and would replace DJax, so he had a replacement already. Not the case with Shady. That being said, this draft has some interesting rookie runners…
rookie runners are findable, especially straight line runners. i think he was getting huff for djax.
Man, these playoffs games are like therapy for our fanbase. I’m sure we can all use these playoff games today to take a break from this corporate drama..
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I expected it to be really hard to watch this years playoffs after this season, but after being threatened to lose our coach, appreciate any type of game that will give me a break from this soap opera…
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Sucks that the panthers game is today. Probably won’t be seeing much offense in that game…Should be a defensive battle… Pitt vs. Ravens is always a treat. My brand of football right there.
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You can mistake me for a die hard Lions fan this weekend
can’t believe chip had to leverage leaving, but also think that we’re going to make big moves in personnel. think chip saw talent deficiencies first hand — or at least i hope and will try to correct.
You can mistake me for a die hard Lions fan this weekend
According to a source close to the situation you are not the only one.
Wild Card predictions:
Arizona over Carolina. Scam Newton is a running idiot who’d still rather be an icon than a good QB. Todd Bowles will have something extra tricky ready to shut that fool down. I expect at least 1 pick 6. Also, Arians is going to totally out think loser idiot Sean McDermott. McDermott’s two playoff games as a DC have been embarrassing efforts in our loss to Green Bay and Carolina’s loss to the Niners. Both at home I might add. So basically Newton and McDermott suck, so Carolina loses.
Pittsburgh over Baltimore. I’d love to pick the Ravens here just to cause additional misery to those black and gold dopes who cheer for any Pittsburgh team (and are really only fit to get punched in the face after Giants fans are done being knocked out), but I don’t trust Flacco this year. I can see the Steelers winning on a turnover by Flacco that turns into a TD.
Indy over Cincy. Andy Dalton.
Detroit over Dallas. The Cowboys are a sucky fraud of a team. Detroit has enough ability to both run and pass, a more healthy Calvin Johnson, and a nasty D. The league’s attempt to cheat for Dallas by suspending Suh was thwarted, so expect some big hits on Romo and a high level of upset down there in Jerry town. Dallas sucks. Fraud.
I dunno wtf is going to happen in that arizona game. I think those teams will struggle to score 13 points. panthers have more offensive firepower but Cardinals have better Defense, Panthers defense ismt great but it will look great againsg 3rd string QB and backu RB
I feel like for the Cardinals to win this game, defense or special teams will have to score a TD, ATleast 1… Crappy game, I would expect us to be favored aganst either team if we were playing them today
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INDY vs. bengals will be such a messy wild game. luck is awesome at the end, but he will spend the first half making a mess, throwing INTs that help keep the Begals in the game even with Dalton playing like crap on the playoffs like he always does… I’m sure Luck will have turnovers and make mistakes that will keep the bengals in this game, or give Bengals the lead… 4th Quarter. Luck will turn it on, Dalton will crap the Bed.. And we will see if Luck can make enough plays to overcome the mess he makes in games.
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people are down on FOles year, but the Great andrew Luck, typically has looked more like the 9-3 Nick FOles from this year that won ugly, than Luck has looked like the 27-2 FOles of last year.
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I don’t Think Luck has EVER had a stretch of 8 games like FOles had last year… But Luck has had plenty of ugly wins like Nick this year, when both struggle all game, make mistakes, but what makes Luck awesome is he almost NEVER lets his mistakes unravel him, and he almost always gets it together in the second half and does enough to win overcoming the mess he made early in the game…. Very very similar to how FOles went 8-2 this year…. FOles had a great OL and went 27-2, Luck never had that type of OL, Lucks OL has some issues like Nick, and you both saw them accumulate some ugly wins THIS year, often making a first half mess that they later had to overcome
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Lions HAVE TO WIN. Simple as that
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No idea what happens in that Steelers game…. But I do know that ANTONIO BROWN is probably the best player on the field today
I’m going Panthers I actually think Cards have more offensive fire power but Lindey so….
I like the Ravens with Bell not in
Green out plus Dalton equals Colts win
Gonna take the Lions and I don’t need a reason
Panthers – never bet against a team that is on a roll that late in the season.
Steelers – BiG Ben and the best receiver in the NFL will be enough.
Dallas – the Lions are 0-9 in their last 9 road playoff games.
Bengals – Luck is overrated. At least this year.
I had the Bengals winning but I’m hearing Green might not play
I heard Andy Dalton is playing no matter what; so I’m sticking with Indy.
I already factored that in. It will be tough but the Bengals D is better than the Colta.
Lol touché on the lions.
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Figure for arizona to score, john Brown or FLoyd will have to have some Huge play where they go for like 60yard TD… And ST or Defense might have to score a TD… panthers are trending in the right direction going into the playoffs, so I would have to give them the advantage, especially since Cardinals had to hold on for deal life down the stretch to limp into the playoffs
Panthers D has been pretty solid last couple weeks. Def are playing better. Helps that the offense is staying on the field now that the Oline has settled
Panthers are def Going into the playoffs playong good football, cardinals…NOT SO MUCH…
Since this years free agent market is looking kind of depressing.. Can anyone think of some players who’s contracts ARENT expiring that may get cut and become available? For example:
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1) Probably safe to assume that the Lions waive Reggie Bush
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2) Could see Cole or Cary Williams get waived, that’s far from a lock Tho
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3) Whats all the recent talk about Larry Fitzgerald about? I keep hearing people talk about him being available but I miss the reasoning. Contract expire? Or a trent Cole situation where he could be cut over crazy salary? All I know is that if it looks like Larry Fitzgerald is about to sign with a team in the NFC EAST, Chip can NOT allow that to happen. We would have to pay whatever it takes to keep from having to face Larry Fitzgerald twice a year.. Dude is an Eagle Assasin… Now that Jerry Jones is finally in the playoffs, You KNOW he wil
Go ALL IN this offseason, thinking he is so close. NIGHTMARE would be Jerry signing Fitzgerald to a two year deal to play opposite of Dez BRyant. Cowboys already have cap issues, can’t wait to see the mess that jerry creates now that he will go ALL IN lol
Let’s just pray to the football God that Jerry Jones doesn’t win it ALL this year..
Don’t even say such a thing lol
You have to say it loud and often so it won’t happen. Lol
I’d add Tamba Hali too, can’t wait to see the Cowboys cap explode
Lol cap is going up, you know jerry will get carried away. Dude thought he was contending for a Super Bowl the past 8 years lol, now that he actually made the playoffs, you know he will lose his mind…
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Would have made for an Awesome reality show, if Howie got mad at Lurie’s decision and decided to take his cap expertise to the Dallas Cowboys lol Howie va. Jerry
Howie ” were 42mil over the cap and just signed Dez to an 8 year 126mil deal we can not sign Fitzgerald ”
Jerry ” so 5 years 66mil for Fitz”
Howie *facepalm*
Basically… I assume Justin Houston will get franchised before they let him leave
Justin Houston?
I don’t feel like looking it up but if I reme correctly, Fitz has like a $12-15 million cap hit or something almost as ridiculous and isn’t even their number 1 WR anymore
Lol its 23.6mil with and 8mil bonus if he is on the roster on March15 (bonus numbers included in 23.6
Yeah you are right, he is still under contract so it would be similar to trent Coles situatipn
Yeah he is under a very ugly contract
Especially for his lack of production
Yeah I can’t give you 15mil for 800 yards and 2 TDs
ADD:
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4) I assume MIke Wallace will be waived by the Dolphins unless the dead money cap hit would be too terrible
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5) Josh Gordon gets waived if he can’t be traded
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We also have to look out for new GMs to come in and want to clean house, rebuild it the way they want.. For example, the new Jets GM could decide he is waiving Percy Harvin, Decker and building through the draft.. Who knows who gets waived in Oakland.. Bears are getting a new GM, they been stacked with so much offensve firepower and haven’t been able to do anything with it, wouldn’t be surprised if Brandon Marshall gets Axed…shed some offensive salary and build the defense up
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We could see a bunch of 49ers veterans get waived. Although the Niners are interviewing Rex Ryan, and Mike Shanahan and those two veteran coaches could make it work with the veterans instead of going with a youth movement
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6) Frank Gore…
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Decker won’t get axed he is on a good deal and has too much guaranteed money left,
watch for Jerry to let Demarc walk and sin AP fo their RB…Don’t think they would hav enough $$ to sign LF, case Dez will breakthe bank…
Also I think they won’t reach a deal with Dez soon enough and they’ll tag him. Dnyou tag him 12.3 fully guaranteed which means you can structure that in a fancy way to ssave room its taking 12.3 off the cap like it or not considering they only have bout 6mil it is going to be hard to franchise him and fit other huge contracts in
Yeah, def should prob add:
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Demarco who Jerry will allow to reach the market if he signs AP
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And Marshawn Lynch could find himself a cap casualty looking for a new team
Yep could see Demarco walking, signing a 5 year 38mil deal with the Vikings who let AP go for the Boys
Warning; drug addict alert.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000452986/article/2014-allpro-teams
The following things are quite stupid:
– Tyron Smith over Jason Peters on first team. Peters is a better player; period.
– Pac Man over Sproles as the return man. Just dumb.
– Eric Weddle on the roster at all. The group should be Thomas and Chancellor first team, Quin and Bethea second team, and other vote getters should be McCourty and Gipson. Weddle = Sehorn. He’s not that good.
Chip kelly “I am very confident about where we are headed as a team and as an Organization”….
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Who got that quote from Chip Kelly? Was he interviewed? Or is that just a statement ch released?
Were you also watching ESPN sportscenter?!
Yeah this playpff countdown show on espn
I still cannot believe the Eagles are not in.
I can. When you turn the ball over as much as they did it was bound to catch up to them.
The games today stink.
I still can’t believe they won 10 games with bad OL and Mark Sanchez.
Sickening…
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Losing a must win game against RG3 is pathetic.
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Sanchez should have been able to do enough to get us in the playoffs.. FOles did so much better with a worse OL than sanchez had… Heck how many games did Nick lose, 2?…
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One play was the difference between playoffs and us sitting home today.
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1) a yard short against the Niners. Pick up that yard and we make the playoffs.
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2) FOles and offense left the field vs. Arizona with the lead. 3rd down we give up a 50yard TD to john Brown SMH.. Get an incompletion there, incompletion on 4th down and we would be In the playoffs,
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3) sanchez DOESNT throw that late INT to skins
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So dissapointing how we were 1 play away from making the playoffs smh
1 and 3 wouldn’t get us in the playoffs
It came from the press release. Chip probably had nothing to do with it except approving it.
This explains the situation as well as any article I’ve seen:
http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2015/01/03/aftermath-five-thoughts-eagles/
Key quote from Sheil for those fans who are insisting differently:
‘I understand the Eagles had to spin this a certain way, but the idea that Roseman has been “elevated” to anything is laughable. He has been with the organization for 16 years, starting out on the business side before moving over to the personnel side. And now, Roseman finds himself with zero say on personnel matters.’
Its really a demotion the only thing that was promoted is his paycheck
Indeed. Not sure why some are trying to spin it otherwise.
From Les: “That was an interesting assertion in the Lurie statement, given that sources with knowledge of the situation have said that last May, Roseman’s scouting staff was really ticked when the coaches were allowed to change a draft board that the scouts had set – part of the ongoing conflict that led to yesterday’s restructuring. (But many NFL people think organizations work best when coaches coach and scouts scout, so we’ll see how this works.)”
I don’t mind the coaches adjusting player rankings if they’re looking for particular skill sets from a guy to be successful in playing the position in the NFL. I really prefer coaches doing this if any analytics garbage went into the scout’s rankings.
This is historically how you fuck up a draft. Scouts spend all year setting the board. Coaches come in watch a few hours of film and blow up the board.
Disagree. Presumably, the coaches have already told the scouts what they want in players, and the rankings are formulated based on that input. Having guys who haven’t studied the prospects in depth and in many cases don’t know what they’re doing switch things up at the last minute is a recipe for disaster.
Also, if you think analytics are garbage, in any sport, you’re woefully behind the times. They’re a supplement to traditional scouting, not a replacement for them, but they provide valuable information, and you can bet that all the best front offices (Patriots, Ravens, etc.) have guys who use them to evaluate players.
It’s going to be difficult for Chip to get a quality player personnel executive. He could be limited to guys who were recently fired such as Phil Emery of the Bears. Teams only have to grant permission for another team to interview for GM roles that have total control and that was already stated not to be the case with Kelly in control. SF didn’t have to let Gamble leave 2 years ago but considering the situation with his father’s health, they let him out of his contract.
There could still be a few firings and/or some old heads out there who’d be good.
Could be someone younger, maybe longtime scout or some type of assistant he wants to elevate
If it’s true that the scouting department was complaining about chip and gamble not listening to them, I would rather not promote someone who’s opinion they weren’t valuing… If they weren’t listening to the old scouts and personel execs, than I hope chip fires them and hires some scouts who’s opinion he values so we can stop wasting scouting resources……
Let me clear something up… Lurie Was in position to lose either Howie or Chip, and he wasn’t willing to lose either, so he did what he had to do to make both Howie and Chip come out of this like winner…
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Howie did not go into this power struggle wanting to be elevated out of the personel department. He wanted more personel power, yet he ended up losing all personel power, so from that stand point, We can’t say Howie came out as a winner…. However we need to understand that while Howie went into this wanting more personel power, I think it’s safe to assume he did NOT WANT to lose CHIP KELLY. Howie knew that if he won more power but it ended up forcing chip to leave the Eagles, that would be a mortal stain on his resume and it would define Howie’s career and in many people’s eyea, undo all the good Howie accomlishd…. Since Chip insisted on him chosing his own personel guy when he took the job, I assume chip was arguing that firing Gamble was a breach of the deal chip agreed on when he took the job, so if it became a case where Chip was thinking about leaving, Howie’s priorities would have Changed.l..more personel power is worthless if you will only be remembered from chasing chip out of philly after two years…
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So Howie didnt get what he Was trying to get when he went into this drama, but Jeffrey Lurie Genuinly respects Howie, backs Howie and 100% DIDNT want to lose Howie… This is VERY DIFFERENT from Banner being elevated out of personel. Jeffry and banners relationship had already started deteriorating and banner was being phased out..In GUARENTEE this is NOTHING like what happened to Banner. Howie didn’t get what he was fighting to get, but you can bet that Jeffrey is Genuinly making this up to Howie and throwing enough at Howie so that he can’t view this as anything other than a win. This wasn’t what Howie had in mind, but if bet Howie and his wife were celebrating last night, not crying around the fireplace…..it’s really a mistake to think that Howie is being phased out, Lurie values him as much as he ever did, and I’m sure Lurie Probaly appreciates Howie for giving up personel so that we can resolve this chip issue…. Howie LOST in the sense that he didn’t get what he intended to get when all this started, but I’m sure this will prove to be a LEGIT win and promotion for Howie… Believe it or not there is so much more to a football organization than the personel department…. I’d bet anything chip and Howie both came out of this drama legitimately feeling like winners, Howie just ended up winning in a different way that he intended, but you can bet Howie was compensated nicely for this, and you can bet Howie isn’t going anywhere
I agree with 90% of what you right. However here, I think it’s off base a tad :). And we can agree to disagree. Howie was pushed aside. No way to sugar coat it. He lost power. A lot of power. I don’t think he’s crying, but I bet he’s stewing. I believe what T-Law said — Howie is easily replaced. I don’t think Lurie as losing sleep that he might lose Howie. You called it “Legit win and promotion” for Howie — I’ll call it hush money to try and keep him happy. You don’t take a GM – move him out – and think that’s what Howie wanted. — “Tom, you’re out as concierge but you remain with the family”
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What I do like here is, the Eagles did regress and Lurie didn’t find it acceptable. Lurie wanted changes – and I love that he wasn’t willing to sit still and do nothing. What I don’t know is, Gamble was fired(or made the scape goat) for player decisions. I thought Chip always said that all the player evaluations/decisions were “group” decisions. And reports were made that Gamble was a Chip guy. Fire a Chip guy, promote Chip and have Chip hand pick his new guy? That doesn’t make sense. I haven’t read much so maybe that point was already cleared out.
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What the reasoning, whatever happened — I’m glad it did. This isn’t a move for the sake of making moves.
Sucks that Nick fairly can’t play tomorrow. I wonder what this injury does for his stock in free agency after the season?
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Suh is going to play like a beast tomorrow. Some think his time in Detroit is over… He would be my personal #1 target if I was chip Kelly lol..l I love Ced and Curry, But Suh, Logan and Cox would be FREIGHTENiING! Scheme fit be damned!,..l I’ll be so pissed if the usual suspects Patriots, Broncos, Skins, Cowboys sigń Suh
None of those teams have the Money$$$$
Zimmer n Vikngs? packers? Bears? Suh might instantly become my favorite eagle lol
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Wonder what chip thnks of that maniac
Packers no especially if they resign Cobb, the other 2 potentially but the Vikings have quite a bit invested in their line
I would forfit against the Ravens if they had Suh next to Haloti LOL
Lol they aren’t exactly loaded either and Smith is a free agent, I’d love Suh but were not handing out and 90mil contracts
Oh I know.. The last position we would tie up 60mil on is the DL, that’s already the strength of our young team
Yeah i mean we already gonna have to cough up 40mil to Cox but hell I wouldnt complain about giving 100mil to Sun and Cox lol. I don’t think they are going big in free agency but if they did it would be for Byrant, Thomas, or Houston but i think all three will get tagged
If we lose Cole, but sigń Maclin to a 1yr deal, I wonder if we would Tag Brandon Graham, keep him for a year so we can load up on new OLBs, marcus playing a big role, but you can’t only have two OLB pass rushers, need 3-4…. Tho. I’m assuming Dion Jordan will be on his way to Philly sometime between the beginning of the new league year, but by the end of the draft at the latest, Dion should be an eagle. Now that chip gets what he wants and Dions value is down since he is in the drug program and will get a big suspension next time he is in trouble
Why would sign Mac to another one year deal and I’m not giving BG 11.5mil to play on the franchise tag
I meant to write Longterm instead of 1yr.
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As for BG, depends what you want to do at OLB. I don’t think we can afford to lose BG and COle this year…. Can’t go into next season with Marcus, Barwin and needing to find two more OLBs…… If we are ok paying for a veteran OLB like Sheard, then I assume we would just work it out with BG since you can’t get a decent OLB without paying 20mil guaranteed. If they decide that because Marcus and Barwin they don’t want to pay another OLB 5yr 40mil deal which is costs to get any type of decent edge rusher, they could tag BG, overpay for 1 yr, but you would be paying to make a smooth transition at a crucial position. Next year would be marcus first year playing, we can’t back him up with a rookie…..OLB IMO isn’t one of those positions where the starter should play 95% of the snaps. Even the great BARWIN should be down to like 75%…..
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Need ATleast 3 OLBs that can contribute at a high level…BARWIN, Marcus and ……? If we want the 3rd to be a rookie, I would rather he learn on the bench like marcus did, and overpay to tag BG and keep him here for a year to make the transition..
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Although we can probably get Dion for a 4th, and go with BARWIN, Marcus and Dion….and when BARWIN gets old, Marcus and Dion are the future
I know you don’t like me saying it but they could just like Worilds or Sheard more but id keep Cole for cheap if possible
Sucks not be in The playoffs but I’m getting giddy over steelers vs. Ravens.. WAR!!!!!
I wish Dallas played today, I don’t feel at ease watching the playoffs until they are eliminated
Yeah, I would prefer that be the opening game… But ATleast steelers ravens will be a physical dog fight…my favorite brand of football. I admire so many players in this matchup:
Ngata
CJ Mosley
Shazler
Jarvis Jones
Worlids
T-sizzle
Ladarius Webb
Laveon Bell (big fan) wish he was playing
ANTONIO Brown is on FIRE these days!! He is so much better than DEsean. ANTONIO Browns shows DEsean what a smaller #1 WR looks like.
Enjoy watching big Ben
We really need to take a step back and breathe. We are making this far more dramatic than it should be. Kelly likes collaboration and having smart people in the room who will disagree with him. I have no doubt that Kelly will still want Roseman in the room making his case for the best draft board and personnel acquisitions – – all that will effectively change is that now there will be a clear line pointing to Chip Kelly as the final decision maker.
I’m sure that Chip will continue to value Howie’s personnel expertise in his war room. Lourie has just made it clear to the whole organization that it is Chip Kelly’s war room. Roseman will still be a draft guy and a personnel guy for the Eagles. Chip will especially benefit from Howie’s read on where players’ will fall (or be taken) in the draft (See Hart).
Let’s get Bill Polian!