Assessing Sam
Posted: October 21st, 2015 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 417 Comments »The Eagles passing game has been erratic this season. Dropped passes have been an issue all year. And not just by one guy. WRs, RBs and TEs have all had a hand in letting the team down. Pass protection was problematic in the Skins game, due to a line combination of healthy backups and hurt starters. It is fair to say the guy throwing the passes has been part of the problem as well.
Let’s talk about Sam Bradford. We’ll start simple and go with the numbers.
Chip Kelly likes to talk about QBs winning games. The Eagles are 3-3 so that’s as middle of the road as you can get.
For the season, Bradford is 144-228-1561. He’s completing 63.2% of his passes with 9 TDs and 9 INTs. That’s good for a rating of 80.0, which is 28th in the NFL (and right ahead of Nick Foles…weird). Go here if you want to check out Bradford’s gamelog.
Those are mediocre numbers.
Kelly wants his QBs to be durable, accurate and to protect the ball. We all wondered how durable Sam would be due to his injury history. That’s one area where he’s been better than expected. He hasn’t even missed a snap.
Accuracy? That’s been an issue all year. Bradford can put the ball right on the money at times, but there are too many throws where he is short or long, high or low. Accuracy is supposed to be one of his strengths. That hasn’t been the case this year.
Only one person has thrown more picks than Bradford’s 9…Peyton Manning (10). Even worse, 4 of the INTs were in the end zone (DAL, NO, NO and NYG). The INTs are a combination of bad throws and poor decisions. Poor accuracy has not only led to picks, but it has cost the team points. That kind of double whammy is not a good thing.
What about leadership?
As outsiders, this is tough to rate. Bradford had a talk with the offense before the Saints game and that seemed to give the unit a boost. He played with a lot of emotion in the 2nd half of the Skins game. Emotion doesn’t always equate leadership, but that was the first real time he seemed to have presence about him. For better or worse, I think that’s important for a QB.
QB is the most important position on a football team. He generally makes the most money. He is the center of media attention. The QB has to be The Guy. Bradford is new to the Eagles. He spent the offseason rehabbing rather than being a normal member of the team. I think Bradford is a work in progress when it comes to this area.
How about the eye test?
At his best, Bradford looks good. There are plays when he stands tall in the pocket and throws the ball with confidence. He’s been running more in recent weeks and I think he looks good on the move. The coaches have moved him around on passing plays. Bradford looks comfortable out of the pocket and has shown the ability to throw on the move.
There are other times when Bradford is less impressive. He doesn’t step into his throws very often and some passes will come up short. He bounced one to an open receiver in the Giants game. Sometimes Bradford looks awkward in the pocket. No QB likes pressure, but some handle it better than others. When things go bad, Bradford doesn’t show much confidence.
Some people will go to extremes with Bradford. “He sucks”, or something along those lines. Bradford has not played well, but he has been an effective starter. The Eagles certainly wanted more than that when they traded for him.
Can he get better?
That really is the million dollar question. I think Bradford can improve. The more he plays, the more comfortable he should get in the system. Bradford and the receivers should also improve their timing and hopefully will eliminate some of the instances where they aren’t on the same page on option routes.
Some people have brought up the point that Sam is rusty. He missed all of 2014 due to a torn ACL after playing 7 games in 2013 and then tearing an ACL. There is something to be said for him being in a new offense and being rusty, but that doesn’t excuse some of the bad throws. When you have Riley Cooper wide open in the back of the end zone, all that takes is a simple touch throw. Bradford throws it on a line and the CB was able to easily pick it off.
Let’s get some context on QBs coming off ACLs. Donovan McNabb tore his in 2006. He returned for the 2007 season and wasn’t at his best. He had 3 great games (DET, WAS, NO) where he totaled 11 TDs and no INTs. The rest of the year? 8 TDs, 7 INTs. The team only scored more than 23 points in those 3 games. There were 7 games with 16 points or less. That wasn’t all on McNabb, but he was a key part of the mediocrity of that year.
Tom Brady tore his ACL in 2008 and then returned for 2009. Brady had a QB rate of 117.2 in 2007. It was 111 in 2010 and 105.6 the next year. In 2009, when coming off injury, his rating was “only” 96.2. That’s good for most QBs, but it was down compared to those other years. The Pats only went 10-6 that year, their worst record in the past decade.
You can see that even outstanding QBs are affected by playing on a rehabbed ACL. We do have to factor that in when assessing Bradford.
I won’t lie. There have been a few times this year when I was ready to see Mark Sanchez take the field. I thought about it in the Giants game, even with the Eagles winning comfortably. It was frustrating to see the INTs. That game should have been a much bigger blowout.
It sure doesn’t sound like Bradford is going to get benched any time soon.
Coach Kelly: Sam Bradford is our quarterback. We have full confidence in Sam.
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) October 20, 2015
I’m sure a bit of this is coachspeak, but I also think Kelly mostly feels that way. Mark Sanchez had half a season last year and proved himself to be a good backup, but flawed starter. Bradford has a higher ceiling. Right now he’s playing about the same as Sanchez from last year. The hope is that he’ll get better.
Bradford has changed already this season. Early in the year he threw a ton of short passes. Part of that is because that’s what the defense gave him. He also seemed hesitant to make aggressive throws. Bradford has gotten more aggressive in the past few weeks (maybe too aggressive). He’s now throwing the ball downfield. As I mentioned earlier, he is now confident enough to run when the opportunity is there. The coaches are moving him around and opening up the playbook.
It is good to see Bradford becoming a more complete QB, but he must cut down on the INTs and sloppy throws. These are fixable issues, but figuring out the cause is the tricky part. Bradford told the media on Monday night that he’s never really had a problem with INTs before. He’s not sure why they are happening now.
If Bradford can improve his issues, this offense can really take off. Unfortunately, that’s a big if. Bradford may continue to play erratic football. If that happens, the Eagles are going to be a flawed team for the rest of the season and will have a tough decision in the offseason.
Kelly continues to believe in Bradford. Time will tell if that’s smart or delusional.
_
It feels inevitable that Chip will offer Bradford a new contract this offseason mainly due to the injury and the huge investment he already made in him. The ACL injury does seem to be a plausible explanation for his struggles, but what worries me is this possibility: Bradford is playing the way he has always played in the NFL. His completion percentage has always been below-average. He took very few shots down the field with the Rams, while Austin Davis had more success than him in this area with the exact same personnel. Who is to say Bradford even has a high ceiling in the first place? To paraphrase Dennis Green, what if he is who we thought he was? What if the idea that Bradford is some “high-ceiling” player is just some illusion? What if he’s actually a poor decision-maker, an inaccurate passer, and a mediocre QB in general, just as he always has been since he was drafted? Occam’s Razor tells me the simplest explanation is that this is who Bradford has always been.
Well if Chip cant “fix” him, Dennis Green analogy may be true.
What about his INT rate?
was always checkdown sam in st louis hence the low int%. same reason alex smith has such a low percentage. most of them have been accuracy related so far tho so think there is some hope it will get better when he throws deep
Doesn’t Occam’s Razor also tell us that players, and especially QBs, struggle the year they come back from ACLs? Or is that just plain old acknowledging reality? Sam Bradford may never become a top 5 guy (in fact, I’d bet against it if I were a gambler), but evidence seems to dictate that he’ll be better than he is right now. How much better is the $22M question. Will he be “better” enough to win a SB?
Just like I was saying last year at this time, I think Chip has WAY more data on the question than we do. He has less than he had on Foles, but I think Chip will have a fairly solid opinion on whether he wants to retain Sam by the end of this year. And he’ll act on it, just like he did this year. Neither decision will surprise me.
I think he looked at Foles and decided he wasn’t the guy based on the data available. He then took what data was available on SB and decided he would take a shot. If you know one isn’t the guy, it can’t hurt to try someone else out instead of staying pat.
ya and hopefully if SB stays the course hes also not afraid to pull the plug and move on like he did with Foles “based on the data”. If he does decide to resign him then it will be the opposite of the Foles situation and he will be trying to justify that trade for too long possibly.
true.
we only think he has a high ceiling because of his college and draft position.
but that don’t mean nuthin..
maybe this is just it.
I’m pretty sure saying the 28th best QB in the NFL sucks is appropriate tommy.
This whole piece reeks with homerism. Objectively, Sam Bradford is a burning dumpster fire. Chip should never be a GM in the NFL again because of this trade.
Isn’t this site called Iggles Blitz? When I come here, I come to hear a somewhat objective opinion with a positive Philly spin to it. If you want to see Bradford get bashed, just go to any other site, log in and tell the Dallas and Giant haters you agree that he’s the worst thing since Bobby Hoying.
I got Bobby Hoying’s autograph when I was a kid at a football camp. So he holds more cool clout in my book.
Pete Retzlaff. I still have that autographed pic somewhere.
went to a charity basketball game when I was about 11 and had the Eagles there (Tony Franklin, Claude Humphries are two I remember) sign my 1980 NFC Champs banner. The felt kind you used to hang on the wall.
Sounds like you’d be more comfortable with the haters over at Philly.com
Yes, Passer Rating is the end all be all of QB evaluation. Come on now, Passer Rating is the OBP of football stats.
Conratulations, per your perfect all encompassing metric:
Tyrod Taylor is the 6th best QB in football!
Brian Hoyer the 7th best!
Josh McCown the 12th best!
Brandon Weeden is the Mendoza line!
Joe Flacco is a rounding error better than Bradford!
Andrew Luck the third worst!
YAYYYYYYYYY for using a flawed metric as the only measuring stick of QB quality and dismissing any further nuanced discussion of the subject as homerism! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
I’m not really sure I would rate Bradford’s play much higher than 28th anyhow D3FB, even if the metric is flawed.
He’s been no better than a replacement level QB. I’m not advocating putting Sanchez in, but he would have performed at least as well.
I agree. I’m 100% against benching the guy for Sanchez, but he’s not been anywhere good enough. The red zone INTs especially have been maddening.
josh mcown is having another banner year.
Just out of curiosity, which one would you use? I know you’re a known anti-West Coast Offense guy, which was the “in” system when QB rating began to really enter the football lexicon in the 80s and 90s as the way to eval QB play.
So I happen to like the stat.
Just about every stat in football is terrible due to the small sample sizes. When you look at someone’s batting average across a 160 game season, you can feel comfortable knowing it’s probably pretty close to being representative. 6 games though? The stats basically tell you what you already know: we had a couple bad games, and it would take statistically huge games for the stat to overcome that in such a short season.
So to answer the question, the best stat is the one that makes your argument for you. The ones that don’t are fucking clownfrauds.
this isn’t remotely true
Yeah, no . The best QB stat we have, AFAIK, is yards per attempt. Of course it can never tell the whole story, but it gives a general idea of how a QB is playing. It also correlates very well, over time, with conventional wisdom in QB play (ie, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, etc have good YPA; scrub players have low YPA).
http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/passing/sort/yardsPerPassAttempt
The best team stat we have is just plain old point differential.
“over time”.
It’s six games in. There hasn’t been enough time to average out statistical outliers yet. when you get to the end of the season, the averages are closer to a real value, i.e. Rodgers being good, because there’s a bigger sample. Nothing you said refutes that. That’s why somebody is completely right to say that Bradford’s stats are terrible right now. The next guy is also completely right to say that those stats don’t mean a whole lot yet.
I am refuting your contention that his stats are currently meaningless. Over a third of the year is over. He has thrown 228 passes this year, 1/9 of what he has thrown over his entire career. YPA 6.8 here vs 6.4 career. Slight improvement.
Tyrod Taylor has thrown 137 passes, Hoyer has thrown 131. That’s like 3 or 4 games’ worth for us.
http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/passing/sort/yardsPerPassAttempt
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/B/BradSa00.htm
I’m saying that conclusions based on incomplete data is meaningless. Not the stats themselves.
YPA is not the “best stat”. If that’s all the defense gives you take. You know the ONLY stat that matters? WINS!
I would say there is no quintessential stat. Passer rating doesn’t paint a full picture (it’s probably the best available but still bad). TD-INT is flawed. W’s is a horrible way to attribute QB play.
Stats only provide a snapshot.
To me the only way to look at a QB is through game film and taking a larger view of the situation, more in line with what Tommy tried to do.
If you discount some of the INT’s that weren’t his fault (tipped passes) and figure that even with some of the drops reduced/ and penalties that wiped out TDs (not all but some) he has another 300 yards, his TD-INT ratio looks much better he would have a completion rating over 65% and would be up in the low to mid teens in passer rating. And that’s 10-12 plays that he is blamesless for and suddenly he looks much better.
Overall he’s been underwhelming, I don’t think anyone disputes that, but you see flashes of why Kelly brought him in. He’s struggled through drops, inneffective running game, rust, and shitty decision making, but Sanchez wouldn’t be lighting the world on fire either. You continue to roll with Sam and hope the lightbulb goes on. If not well then shit gets tricky, but we have at least 10 games left, there is no need to pronounce him a failure or success yet. He’s been inconcistent. We now have 10 more games to see if he can get better.
The only metric I care about is wins – and he’s recently been finding them. Week 6 and plenty of time to improve
Hyperbole much? Bradford has issues, but “burning dumpster fire” is a bit much. Also, anyone who says “Chip should never be a GM in the NFL again because of this trade” should probably never post again on a site that encourages intelligent discourse.
hyperbolizin’
Burning dumpster fire… I had a friend that went Pyro and lit a grease laden dumpster on fire… yeah.. that describes Sam.
I also feel this team lacks a really good vertical threat without DJ… and that hurt Foles who seemed to have a knack for those plays.
Leave it to Tommy to be all level headed and shit. I just can’t tell whether Sanchez’s 300yds 2TDs and 2 picks are better that what Sammy is doing right now. Was nice to see him run a couple of tempo plays. Was not nice to see him almost take that safety.
Wasn’t there a dead ball penalty on that almost safety? It definitely looked like all involved except the guy that tackled him stopped playing.
Not a dead ball penalty. It was a free play for the offense because the Giants had too many men on the field.
Right. And Bradford didn’t take a shot down the field. I think that’s where the not playing for almost 2 years comes in. Like throwing the ball out of bounds instead of running out of bounds when behind the line of scrimmage.
Well, Tommy, here’s the deal: I’m the best there is – plain and simple. I mean, I wake up in the morning and I piss excellence. You know, Sam can’t hang with my stuff. I’m just a big, hairy, American winning machine.
I’m convinced. Sign the guy up!
As long as the team keeps improving, wins enough games to make it into the playoffs, and then wins the playoff games, they’ll win the Super Bowl. That’s how every team has to do it.
peyton is playing like ass but undefeated is undefeated
Their defense is legit.
Wade Phillips is legit. He seems to always be able to put together a good defense. If he’d just stop trying to be a head coach, he’d be great.
Funny how that works sometimes.
I think he’ll improve. Who knows, maybe he’ll be our Eli manning, an annual turnover machine who will still win 2 SB’s for us.
And FILES can be Philip Rivets for the Rams
Which might also make Bradford into Drew Brees. THREE SUPER BOWLS!!!!
Here’s the troubling part:
St. Louis Bradford: 79 QBR, 59% completion, 230 yds/game, 6.4 yds/attempt, 1.5 TD/Int ratio
Philly Bradford: 80 QBR, 63% completion, 260 yd/game, 6.8 yds/attempt, 1.0 TD/Int ratio
So basically, St. Louis Bradford = Philly Bradford.
And then there’s this which I saw posted as a comment under a Yahoo sports story on Bradford today:
“Rams fan here. Just a few observations. When Bradford was with the
Rams, the “miscommunications” were just as prevalent. Ie. wide
receivers getting the ball in the helmet because it was a hot read owing
to a blitz but the receiver never turned his head to see the ball
coming. Foles has his problems but it’s very refreshing to see that
communication is not one of them. Foles always seems encouraging
despite the tough times and doesn’t put that Bradford look of despair
when things go awry. Plus, I love the fact that Foles is willing to
stand in the pocket and take the hit, although he doesn’t seem to
realize his pocket is collapsing.”
Bottom-line, Bradford has “coach killer” written all over him. Hopefully Chip is smart enough to realize that and not fall into the “I can fix him” trap and extend him.
I fucking hate how Bradford is constantly shaking his head and looking annoyed when something goes awry. Leadership man, show a little.
I always hear people complain about how quarterbacks “handle themselves” during games. The only constant is that everyone has something different that pisses them off. I never understood this line of thinking. What exactly is the proper method for handling an interception? What body language would make you happy?
Sorry, but I find this kind of criticism a waste of time. It’s perfectly acceptable to complain about the interception. It’s just piling on, and finding things to get angry about, when people complain about body language they don’t like. What is a QB supposed to do, find out what body language you like and then go out of their way to show it? And what about the other people who dislike that body language and instead want something else? I’d rather the QB spend time fixing the interceptions.
Head shaking and looking annoyed after an interception reveals exactly zero about the leadership capabilities of a quarterback.
Its about assigning blame on the field. We don’t mind QB’s have emotional reactions when things go wrong. Hell, we want to see that. It shows they care. What we dont want is somebody who goes out of his way to display that it was someone elses fault, who looks defeated and annoyed and pessimistic and spreads this sentiment to everybody around him including the fans and everyone watching at home. Leadership is about taking responsibility and being constructive. If you hang your head and mope about your teammates, you are not inspiring people to back you up.
Thanks, couldn’t have said it better myself.
You’re showing exactly the problem with this kind of criticism. You don’t know that he was blaming anyone else. I certainly didn’t see that. But you’re reading that into it. Nothing Sam has done would indicate that he’s the kind of person who blames others for his own mistakes. Nothing he’s said since the game would indicate that either. But you’re seeing what you want to see because you’re looking for things to get angry about. Sam’s play is problematic because he’s turning over the ball too much and isn’t accurate. That’s it.
I’ll reiterate: most of the criticism people have for a QBs body language are really just projections of what they want to see, and just excuses to keep getting angry about their play. Get angry about poor QB play. But just leave it at that. The body language stuff is garbage. There’s no “incorrect” way body language or facial expression in a QB after a turnover. Outside of maybe crying or going over and screaming at the ball boy,
Nah, dude, humans are pretty good at reading body language.
They’re even better at projecting what they want to see on people. Dude.
I’m not liking the look on your face!
Perfect example. I just took a nasty dump. The look on my face has nothing to do with how I feel about you. It’s part of my own personal journey.
SB shouldn’t be making “smells like $hit” faces when his receivers drop passes. Bad leadership. (does he do that?) By the way, did you know that the look for contempt/disgust is the same as the one we make when something smells bad and is probably related to the same mental process?
It comes down to positive body language. I might not know exactly what’s going through Sam’s mind, but I am capable of reading facial expressions such as exasperation. Regardless of what he’s exasperated about, that’s not the message he wants to be sending as leader of the unit.
It depends though right? When Brady rips a guy for dropping a pass or running the wrong route, he is showing “leadership.” When Cutler does it – he’s being “childish.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (and reputation of the QB in this case).
I think even anger is more desireable than exasperation or eye rolls, re: Brady. And I think Cutler is reviled for sniping at his team through the media, not for what he actually does on gameday. Pretty sure he’s sort of stoic and disinterested looking on gameday.
Dear god, that’s silly. What message should he be sending? Should he smile? Don did that and got criticized for it. I’ll repeat: THERE IS NO CORRECT BODY LANGUAGE. YOU’RE READING WHAT YOU WANT TO READ.
Eli repeatedly has “Eli Face”, a mopey expression. No question on his team about his leadership. 2 Super Bowls.
Peyton repeatedly has a sad face as well after bad plays. No question about his leadership. 1 Super Bowl.
Tom Brady actually yells at his receivers. (can’t imagine if Sam tried that here; there’d be no end of criticism). 5 Super Bowls.
In 1994, while being absolutely destroyed by the Eagles, SF’s Steve Young went and yelled at his coach on the sidelines. People’s heads would explode today if that happened. In retrospect, that game and Young’s reaction are looked at as the turning points in a SB season.
The bottom line: any judgement about exasperated, sad, angry, or whatever body language by a QB is ridiculous. Any kind of body language you might imagine after a bad play can usually be attributed to a SB winning QB at some point. So please, criticize bad play. But let’s stop wasting everyone’s time by talking about “incorrect” body language.
Hehe, I apologize for “wasting your time”. I cede the floor.
this is turning into an epic battle
https://snygiants.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/get-your-popcorn-ready.jpg
I dont know ask Jay Cutler fans, its not always that hard to interpret. Sometimes a duck is a duck
that’s not what he does though. he looks around throws hands up as if to say what are you guys doing?
Would you rather have McNabb’s stupid smile?
come on. right now bradfords got nothing on mcnabb
“Friendship, pass it along. Brought to you by the foundation for a better life” Sorry, sounded like one of the PSA ads
its the worst! throwing his hands up like a little kid, not my fault. come on man!
I’d like to disagree. Three years ago that was a vastly different and terrible team. That was the last time he played any meaningful time with that team. He missed two seasons due to injury and the line was much worse and his weapons were basically nil. I think it’s a fair statement to say, lets see if he improves.
But the context of Bradford being the same in Philly than he was in St. Louis after coming off a 2 successive ACL surgeries when the team around him wasn’t nearly as good is better than, his numbers look the same in St. Louis than they do here.
So with no injury and no help around him = Coming off of injury with better play around him. If he gets back to the St. Louis level WITH the help around him, this is what CK is looking for.
Bottom line – He was rookie of the year on a very bad team, and had no help around him. Here he looks like an uninjured QB that was here the year before, even with coming off missing football for 2 years.
his point about bradfords look of despair is by far his worse feature, and absolutely correct.
As an Eagles fan: Bradford for good or worse is our QB and I´m rooting for him! Same as Chip as our HeadCoach. Same with the W on sunday. We won this game by 20 points!
There isn’t a better alternative at this time.
Yeah. This pretty much sums it up. Even in the off-season, the options were Foles, Bradford, rookie (Hundley), or some backup (Tyrod Taylor).
They never had a legit shot at Mariota.
Next season, who are the options? They won’t be bad enough to get Goff or Cook. Is Hackenberg gonna change things?
I hope we do not go after Cook or Hackenberg even if they are there:
Potential targets (but all requires some time after drafted):
Jacoby Brissett, Trevone Boykin or JT Barrett and a few others.
I watch every PSU game and Hackenberg has regressed horribly. The Franklin offense is pretty unimaginative and the players around him don’t help him at all, but Hack has not been good this year. He’ll make 2 good throws followed by a series of over throws, under throws, and near interceptions that makes you want to rip your hair out. I mean fine, take a late round flyer on him, but he’s not an early round guy.
I also think O’Brien is going to take him early.
Boykin would be interesting. He’s played in big games his entire career. I’ve never been a fan of Barrett, but I’d have to see what the scouts say.
PAXTON LYNCH
dont think cook will even be on their draft board. not a culture fit
https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/opponent-points-per-play
I prefer points per drive. Eagles D has allowed 1.37 ppd this season, good for 3rd in the NFL behind the Jets and Denver.
Offensively we score 1.71 ppd, 21st in the league.
Just for the record; If you are 28th in QB-rating and no. 2. i picks, you are, per definition, not ‘mediocre’. You are bad. If Bradford had only been ‘mediocre’, the eagle would have a few more wins currently.
And the team is 0.500 – the very definition of mediocre. Football is a team sport. Yes Bradford has made some horrible throws, but a couple of those INTs were bounces off of the hands of our receivers. Receivers have also dropped a lot of easy catches that would have extended drives. Our kicker left 7 points on the field and cost us that game.
Is Bradford playing on Brady’s level? No (nobody is!). Is every loss his fault? Again, no.
That’s overly simplistic. It really depends on the distribution. Imagine a race where there is one guy 100 yards ahead, one guy 100 yards behind, and 25 guys bunched up in the middle, so that one burst could put any of them ahead of the pack, or one stumble could bring any of the to the back of that pack.
Now that I’ve pontificated, I have to agree that his performance has been “bad”. This particular race has a fairly smooth distribution. The bad news is that he is in the 23rd position according to DVOA, the good news is that he has performed much better than the guys in the 30s!
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/qb
http://espn.go.com/nfl/statistics/player/_/stat/passing/sort/yardsPerPassAttempt
Ya, ok. I agree, you can’t just go by the stats alone. And all the other things matter too, like poor line play and drops, no run game etc. I get that. But this team is .500 thanks to the defense. Looking at his play, just going on the eye-test, I still dont think he is on level with the average NFL QB so far. Like you said, you have to look at the specific plays. And looking at Bradfords specifik interceptions, they are some of the most egregious mistakes being made out there right now. Those two red zone interceptions was as bad as they come, no excuses with batted passes of receivers falling down there or anythings, just mindboggling poor execution by a QB with plenty of pass protection and options in good field position early in a game where there is no need to take huge risks or force bad throws. So there. I still think Sam can improve though. He has the intangibles I guess. And there has to be some ‘reverting to the mean’ within his play. He has actually played better earlier in his carreer imo. I am still cautiously optimistic and I actually believe in Chips ability to make the nessecary changes down the road.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef
Some interesting things:
The Eagles now have an elite defense both against the run and pass.
The biggest problem still is our defense against what FO considers WR1, where we are 27th.
Other tidbits: the Left side ranks 2nd (Carroll) and right side (Maxwell) ranks 15th, but the best WRs often line up on the right side.
Teams have had success passing deep down the sideline, but passing deep middle is no go., where it is opposite on the short throws.
I had compiled our work vs. WR1 over the first 5 games of the season last week, it wasn’t good even though the D has been good overall. I’m glad FO verified that.
I would also so say one other area they need to improve on, and improve on fast is 3rd and long. I think they’re on the precipice of being elite if they can clean small things up
Good catch, Anders. The disturbing part about the WR trend is that we have not really faced much in that department recently. Beckham was (obviously) injured. What is going to happen when we go up against teams with WR talent? It will be interesting.
Think of it this way. Injured Beckham has torched a bunch of defenses this year. I think he’s been playing injured all year.
We held Brandon Marshall in check most of that Jets game. And after the 1st half in Atlanta, we did a good job holding Atlanta’s receivers in check.
It’s more than just CB on WR. Our DL is playing better, and so are our LBs and that has a greater effect on how we do against WR1s. The Giants won 2 Superbowls with an average secondary, but their front 7 was excellent. If our front 7 continues to play this well, we should be okay with WR1s. WR1s are going to get yards, but how the opposing offenses do in scoring is more important.
Put a different way:
The WR1 can have 120 yards receiving and a TD. But if their offense only scores 10-13 points, we didn’t do well against the WR1, but basically shut down the offense for the day.
I guess I don’t really like that stat by itself.
Wasn’t all that obvious to me, but we all watch with our own biases. At least no more injured than any NFL player that actually played this week.
“If that happens, the Eagles are going to be a flawed team for the rest of the season and will have a tough decision in the offseason.”
The next 10 (or 11 or 12) games are going to be important to figuring out what we do with QB in 2016 and beyond.
I can still see Bradford here in 2016 on a franchise tag as a highly likely outcome.
If Bradford plays 16 games he won’t be going ANYWHERE no matter how he looks this year because chip is smart enough to know the difference between excuses, and real life factors that require patience and time to work thru..
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if SAM gets hurt and misses the second half of the season like FOles did last year, than and ONLY then, does it becone a tough decision on whether to keep SAM or not past this year…. I think the more realistic question isn’t will SAM be back next year, but the real question is what type of commitment are we comfortable making to SAM after this year?… Probably see some sort of “Pay as he plays contract” that we can get out of like the Kapernick deal..
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Unfortunately there is like a 3% shot that we can get our hands on a QB that will give us a better chance to win than Braford will give us these next 3 years…. That’s just reality of our situation, so I expect Chip to be much more concerned with how to grow SAM into finally realizing his full potential, than Chip is concerned with looking for a better QB, because it really is NOT easy to find a QB with Bradfords level of Talent, and the football intelligence to match…. Chip may be able to find a way to get Kapernick or RG3, but even if you think they have comperable elite talent to SAM, KAp and RG3 have about as much football intelligence as a brick, and that’s something Chip WILL NEVER overlook or put up with…
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SAM staying healthy for a 3-4 year stretch is the best thing that can happen to this franchise..
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A rookie would take years to develope and we would be in year 4 already, and teams aren’t going to give you any of the top Qb talents, unless they have serious injuries like Peyton, Brees and now Bradford, and those franchises liked the QBs they had to replace them, Luck, Rivers, FOles…. Realistically who the hell can we get? Jay Cutler? kapernick? RGtrash? Kurt cousin? We probably can’t even get a crappy team like the Lions to give up Stafford who has underachieved for them for years.. Alex smith and his allergy to WRs? Peyton manning and his 4 neck surgeries? ryan Mallett?
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If we are realistic, SAM staying healthy is the best thing that can happen to this team,l. Fortunately i don’t think we even seen half of what this kid is capable of under chip, unfortunately doing so will require patience..
Thank you for a well written and informative article with good analysis. I like your stuff.
I hope they dump the bum and draft someone, Bradford is damaged goods now, without that Defense the eagles are winless, Bradford has shown no improvement, either going backwards or making the same stupid mistakes, its like groundhog day with the eagles offense
If you can look at the ATL and DAL games and compare them to the NO and NYG games and see “… no improvement, either going backwards or making the same stupid mistakes…” you are either being extremely hyperbolic or delusional.
His QB rating against the Giants was the lowest of the season (2nd lowest: Cowboys). His best QB rating was against WAS. It’s been a roller-coaster ride.
Good article, because watching him in the moment is tough. When looking at his play in contrast to those who have come back from the same injury puts things in a much better context.
I do see improvement with Bradford. The past 2 games, he’s been able to move the offense up and down the field until he gets to the red zone and then he gives it back to the other team. He’s also taken the top off the defense with deep passes that have been pretty good. And he seems to have figured out his timing with Miles Austin and revived him from the dead.
I’m not sure if the bad decisions are things that will remain either. There have been 2 plays that I recall (so clearly there could be more) that were obvious bad decisions. Once in the Jets game where he threw it at their linebacker and then the Dallas game where he pretty much hit a tightly covered Sean Lee. I don’t recall any in the past 2 weeks. The 2 end zone interceptions against New Orleans and the one against NYG i think were better decisions coupled with horrible throws. I’m not sure if that’s a timing issue or a confidence issue or what. I don’t know if he can fix it, but I think he made the right call on pulling the trigger.
What does worry me is that Bradford has always been a slow starter. There’s no reason to be terrible in the first half. He seems to come alive in the 2nd and then the offense really gets rolling. I mean, I guess it’s great to get him going at some point, but those slow starts need to be figured out. He’ll eventually dig us a hole we can’t get out of.
At a minimum, you have to wait until the second half to get a fair assessment of Bradford. Some real issues he/they can overcome – extremely rusty for not playing real games in 1 1/2 seasons, still rehabbing most of the summer, post injury recovery, completely new teammates, new system, new coaches, awful OL support in the first 4 games, several dropped balls, questionable play calling, under use of Sproles, etc. So far, Peyton, Flacco, Cutler, Luck, Newton, and Bridgewater have been the same or worse. Give him a chance guys.
This is true. The drops really do drop his yards and tds. Like the 2 wheel routes to Mathews and Sproles that would have been tds. Also the stopped route by Cooper shows that 1. Cooper still sucks and 2. The chemistry isnt there yet. It takes a while for qbs to get comfotable in a new system. He isnt playing awesome right now but the team is winning so maybe hell come along.
It was really no secret that it would take SAM time to get comfortable til we could see him play to his full potential.. Sams supporting cast HASNT done a good enough job helping SAM ease his way back into playing QB at this level..
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OL not being able to run the ball the first month of the season was basically the worst thing that could have happened to SAM, we were forced to ask SAM to do too much, too soon….
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the Run game, and cutting down the drops need to improve and make the game easier for Sammy boy…. Love the jelling we are seeing from our Run game in recent weeks, hopefully it continues to grow so we can be a run first team at least until SAM gets comfortable in his new situation and can start playing to his full potential
we can only keep our fingers crossed and hope he forces a big contract out the front office!
I might be one of a small group, but I really like having Demarco Murray.
Thrilled to have Murray, he is going to prove to be our best back..
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Of course Mathews and Sproles ARENT slouches either..
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With the offense starting to sustain drives and we are running 70-80 plays per game, there will be plenty of touches for all 3 RBs to eat… Hopefully the OL keeps improving so we can become a run first team while SAM gets comfortable.
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If we run 70 plays, Id like to see 40 run plays, 10 pass plays to our 3’RBs, with our WRs and TE to split 20 catches… If our OL can improve enough to allow us to run the ball 40 times, it would be a big help to getting SAM comfortable and playing to his full potential
Murray runs angry and he’s hungry to win. And when I think about it, it’s good our running game is coming together. You can win Superbowls with a run game and good defense. All we need is SB to play close to mistake free, and we can make a deep run.
Yes Sir… Especially in Sams first year back in action, it would greatly benefit us and SAM if we are able to improve enough to be a run first team, and put SAM in a complimentary role… As he gets more and more comfortable, his role in the offense can expand,
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But Not being able to run the ball at the start of the season, was the worst thing that could have happened for Bradford… Considering all the real life factors effecting Bradford, he needs more time before we can start asking SAM to win us games.. Not for nothing but we have monster RBs and a sick defense, so our Idemtity NEEDS to be running the ball and playing our gritty defense that just doesn’t allow anyone to run the ball on us.. If we can make that our identity and play at a high level it would take some pressure off SAM and our young WRs and allow them to grow together, and as the QB/WR’s improve, we can start asking more and more from SAM and the passing game..
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So far this year, too often we had to pass in order to free up the run game, it should be the other way around, Running to set up the passing game.. But we are starting to see the OL and RB click, the more they improve, the easier we can make it on SAM this first year as he is getting comfortable in this new environment… If we can run the ball like we hoped, 30 to 40 times a game, bradford becomes much more dangerous… And if we plan on being a playoff team, we are going to need our run game when the weather nose dives
Stiff arming headhunting Merriweather like he was Nothing on his way to that TD run was so awesome
I’m not given his contract and what he is owed the next 2 years. Going to be one of those moves that Kelly the GM made that ultimately really hamstrings Kelly the coach.
I think he’ll be good, though tough seeing any RB being worth that much. Think it ws great to take him off the Cowboys and i do think once he gets used to the system he’ll be a better asset. Ryan Mathews, though more explosive, STAYS hurt. Think Kelly is saving him for later in the season.
Talking with a buddy of mine after the game on Monday. He’s of the mind that because Mathews is hurt so much, running him 8-10 times a game to give Murray a rest is worth it. He’s got less chance of reinjuring himself if he’s not the feature back. Plus, he’s better than most backs (if not all) that come in to spell the starting RB. Keeping Murray’s carries to 18-22 a game I think is good for the season. The change of pace with Sproles (< 5) and Mathews (8-10) still puts us squarely in the mid-to-upper 30s for carries.
I'm okay with how they are using Mathews.
yup, the only bad thing is that he’s so productive that you want to play him more, but i think ideally Chip would like to be in the 350 carry level so you really need to starting quality backs for that.
More excuses for Bradford’s performance because of his “high ceiling”. Just give home some time, he’ scoring off two inactive seasons, receivers are dropping passes. In the mean time, he ranks very low in every statistical categories, our record is 3 and 3 and he is not passing the eye test either.
Last year Foles got off to a poor start and he was being roasted by the media and fans. That despite coming off a record breaking season in 2013 and the team being 6 and 2.
Why does Bradford get the benefit of the doubt? I am growing weary of the excuses for this guy. It’s time he delivered.
I guess we forgot the point of the article was to say that other QBs coming off the same injury struggled the year after – including Tom Brady. So after injuring the same ACL two years in a row, you are expecting him to do better than Tom Brady did when he came off his injury?
Tom Brady and Donovan McNabb were mentioned. He didn’t mention Carson Palmer after his injury who also struggled the first year he came back.
So why is SB expected to be that much better than those guys after 6 games? Can you give an example of a guy who came back after missing a year (or more) with an ACL injury that lit it up?
I am on the side that believes it will take time for Sam to play up to his potential, but Carson Palmer has been lighting it up less than a year after his 2nd ACL tear
Carson Palmer is in his 3rd year with the Cardinals though so he has a level of comfort in the system and with the players that Sam doesn’t
But that becomes a separate point though. McNabb and Brady both were clearly comfortable in their systems as well having been on their respective teams for over 5 years. So at least with Carson Palmer, he still remains a good counter example of being able to come back from an ACL injury and play at a high level.
Switching teams and entering a new systems is a separate issue which obviously has its own challenges, and yes that could be what is causing Bradford to be sloppy so far. And maybe the combination of switching teams AND coming back from two ACL injuries makes it even more challenging. Still, bad play is bad play and “rust” is simply an excuse that may or may not justify it. All we can do is wait and find out, but that doesn’t mean you necessarily owe him the benefit of the doubt.
Not giving any benefit of the doubt I definitely wanted to see Sanchez in the game against Dallas and on Monday night after those boneheaded decisions. But I’m trying to be level headed and see the whole forest instead of just the particular tree I like lol I don’t think those points are mutually exclusive though Carson’s situation was benefited because he only had to rehab whereas SAM had to rehab and learn a new playbook.
I was thinking Carson Palmer too. But you also have to remember that he already knew the system when he came back. Sam is learning a new system and didn’t have the benefit of the whole offseason to learn it. One last thing, Palmer had a couple years in between his injuries, so he had successfully come back from his 1st ACL injury and knew how to do it. I feel like that has benefited Palmer. Sam injured his leg again as he was coming back from the first tear.
I should have been more clear, the guys earlier are of the same thought as me. I was thinking more when he came back with the Bengals.
I don’t know if 3 cases is enough to really prove the point. That is a very small sample size. Nonetheless, it does give me some comfort even if there’s not enough data.
I guess this was the larger point I was making. A lot of the media wants to write about how Chip the GM is already a failure because of some of the offensive struggles, yet completely don’t take the defense into consideration.
It’s too soon and the sample sizes are too small and you are right to point that out.
Well, of course the media is going to try to smack down anyone who does something different. The horrible early performance made their job easy. What do you mean by taking the D into consideration? Are you saying you feel we have faced tough D’s and that is part of why SB has played badly?
No, nothing about SB’s play. The fact they say he’s a failure as a GM, but the defensive guys he brought in are playing very well. At this point giving him a D means to me that they aren’t considering the play of Thurmond, Maxwell, and Carroll. All of whom are upgrades over who we had last year.
Right now I’d say if you had to grade, you’d grade a C based on performances so far. Anything more or less I think is projecting how you think it will turn out. I think a lot of writers are upset about who has left, yet can’t take into consideration what those players are doing on their respective teams.
Oh, I see. Maybe C, maybe D. Probably best to wait until the end of the year to really give out grades.
Exactly.
Tom Brady after his ACL threw 28 TD’s and 13 INT’s. QBR of 94.3.
McNabb 19 TD’s and 7 INT’s, QBR of 89
Carson Palmer 21 TD’s and 13 INT,s with a QBR of 83.6 which is very close to every year in his career
I’m not asking for HOF numbers just something respectable.
“But he has been an effective starter.”
“Those are mediocre numbers.”
I’m sorry Tommy but this is simply categorically incorrect. I know you are trying to be optimistc, and I can agree with you that there is at least hope Bradford can improve, but he has not been an effective starter and his numbers are most certainly not mediocre. You can’t claim a QB has been 28th out of 32 in terms of Passer rating and 31st out of 32 in terms of INTS and say those are “mediocre numbers”. No, those are very clearly bad numbers. In addition, throwing 1.5 INTS per game with only 1.5 TDS per game to balance it is not “effective starter”. By what metric are either of those claims true? Yes, those numbers have an opportunity to improve, but based on the six games we have to go off of, he has played bad, and you can definitely make the argument that “he sucks,” at least six games into the season.
You can’t insert his potential as a way to defend games already played. His potential can only help future games, but for the games that have already been decided and the stats determined, he has played bad. Period.
How does the special teams rank this year? Haven’t had many big returns but coverage has been good.
Interesting you should ask. I’ve been thinking this phase of the game could win us the game this week. According to FO, the Eagles ST are middling around 14th, but the Carolina ST are 30th.
Big chance to do some big things on ST.
I’m surprised Eagles are middle of the pack on STs. They certainly haven’t been insanely productive like they were last year, but I would have thought they would still be a top 10 unit. The one are we seem to be getting zero production from though is kick off returns. Whether it is by design or mistakes, Cooper has not let Huff return many kick offs so far this season and then caught one of the few returnable kick offs during this past game.
Are the missed FGs and Extra points holding the ranking down?
I would think so. Plus, we had a punt blocked for a TD as well.
That’s also a big issue. At least Sturgis had a better game this week.
no one kicks to sproles so the return game hasn’t been as gang busters
I think the Discaplined pass rush that rushes QBs as one cohesive unit, keeping Cam in the pocket, cutting off his escape routes and than Tightening the Noose and strangling him is what will win us this Panthers game..
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I’m not a gambler, but if I had to pick one game to bet on the next 5 weeks besides the BUcs game, I would bet we beat Carolina.., Bad Bad Bad Matchup for the Giamts and Carolina,,,
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They won’t be able to sustain long drives against us, so eliminating the X plays this week would make it very hard for them to beat us… This isn’t the week out secondary can have a łet down and let pass catchers get behind them… And Barwin/Jenkins need to have a big day keepimg Olsen in Check..
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that this was just really bad phrasing, but that is some terrible imagery and was definitely unnecessary.
Hahahahaha fuck off
Sorry, here’s the link.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamst
They have been pretty damn good… Even if we don’t see the spectacular plays, their Reputation and Fear teams have for our ST unit has even made some big contributions for us… For example, Chip talked about it yesterday how Teams are so afraid to ñow kick at Sproles, that we are seeing some seriously poor shanked punts because Kickers are messing up when trying to so desperately punt the ball away from Sproles… So while Darren hasn’t returned a punt for TD these last two games, his presence alone caused a few shanked punts that went less than 30 yards and gave us great field position..
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If Huff can stop missing games and practice time from injuries, I would think that he is going to end up giving us a big Kick off return or two at some point this year… Sproles is GOING TO GET HIS because he is a spectacular punt returner. basically, if a punter makes a mistake and kicks a line drive, great chance Sproles will be celebrating in the ENDZONE approximately 6 seconds later.
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coverage units have been solid, and what I like is that they don’t just make good tackles, we are usually either Blasting Returnmen with Big hits from Wildmen like Maragos and Braman, or going for strips.. Sooner or later we are going to poke one loose..
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One of the most under appreciated aspects of the Giants win is it looks like our new kicker took a step towards getting his shit together. Sturgis has been solid on Kickoffs, if he can start consistentjy being accurate from under 50 yards out on his FGs, it is the ONLY thing keeping us from really being a 4 core ST FORCE of a unit like we were last year
Sam sees Chip and thinks about how the pre-season contract extension is off the table for now. The noise you hear is dollars going out of Sam’s retirement fund into Nolan Carroll’s.
That means if SB is playing better by the end of the year, we get him cheaper. Or he’ll go for a 2 year contract to re-up after that if he’s getting better.
If not, we go in a different direction. Either way, the Eagles have the upper hand in this. Unless we go to the NFCCG or Superbowl. Then all that goes out the window and the Brinks truck is backing into his driveway.
Given that even sure-handed guys like Sproles have had issues with hauling in Bradford’s throws and this was a constant issue with the Rams, there has to be some veracity to the claims Bradford’s throw motion produces an awkward throw that is a bit difficult to challenge.
The other issue that I see too is Bradford struggling with reads and forcing throws that result in INTs. Most worrisome fact about them is that it isn’t that they are balls that are getting tipped/bouncing off players/etc. They are just either right at the opposing player or off-target. Seems like most of them are off first-second reads too where he just forces an ill-advised throw too.
The one thing I was hoping when they acquired Bradford is that they would get a slight bump up in their completion percentage & less INTs this. Failed to do that so far with the Eagles winning in spite of him and not because of him.
I just don’t see him having any substantial improvement either this year. He’ll continue to be mediocre with ups and downs. If the Eagles are going to make the playoffs though, he has to reduce the INTs. They can’t keep overcome multiple INTs per week from him.
With regards to Sam versus Sanchez…I think the decision is simple. Which QB’s flaws are more likely to improve. Sanchez’s flaws are a lack of arm strength and he makes mind bogglingly dumb decisions with same regularity. Bradford is having issues with accuracy and timing with his WRs. Sanchez’s arm will not get stronger, and it’s unlikely that he’ll suddenly get smarter and stop making bonehead decisions. Things like accuracy and timing SHOULD be expected to improve though with increased reps. If Sam gets more accurate something that has always been a strength of his before this year, and develops better timing with his WRs, he can be a top QB. If Sanchez gets more comfortable in this scheme and his timing and accuracy improve he’ll always have a sub par arm that limits the field a defense has to improve and he’ll always be prone to turning his brain off at the most inoppurtune time. Therefore, even at his best, he’s someone you’ll always be looking to upgrade on. So stick with Sam and hope his mechanics, timing and accuracy return to the level they always previously existed at and see if he can’t be the franchise QB this team needs.
I think its also time we remember our wide receivers are not the best in the league.
Remember Sanchez was coming back from should surgery last year i think his arm is stronger, you saw how he was overthrowing WRs in preseason.
By no means has Bradford played well, or even at a “mediocre” level this year, but I think you have a chicken and egg issue with his play and that of the offense in general. The OL issues, the running game, and the ineffectiveness of the passing game all go together, so I think, as usual, the QB is getting too much blame (and/or credit) for the performance of the team. At least 2 of the picks bounced off receivers hands, you have no idea how many of the picks were the result of guys running bad routes, TD’s called back for penalties, and for sure Bradford has missed a bunch of throws.
The big question for me is that what happens if this is what we see all year long? Do you re-sign him, and at what #? It’s easy to say “no way”, but if you look around at the QB situation on most teams not named Green Bay, you see either guys getting close to the end (Brees, Brady, Peyton, Romo), guys getting way more money than they deserve (Kaep, Tannehill, Wilson – yes I said that), or guys that absolutely suck (Cousins, Hoyer, Fitzpatrick, etc.). Even in Indy, Luck has struggled and Matt Hassleback has more wins than he does this year.
So, as scary as it sounds, resigning Bradford might be the best option going forward. I hope like hell he gets better, but I think getting the O-Line issues fixed and the running game going is going to be a big part of Sam’s improvement.
Friend who is a big OU guy said he said it isn’t surprising Bradford struggles to cycle through his reads and defenses.
OU offense was good enough that he often didn’t have to and had an OL line where he could drop back while letting his skilled players get open. Never faced the caliber or skill of SEC defensive secondaries. Been a huge problem for OU QBs who have put up huge numbers under Stoops’ spread offense.
Followed Bradford since he was a pro and said that with all of the attention on Bradford’s ACL injuries that the right shoulder surgery by Dr. Andrews he had done doesn’t get brought up much. He argues that Bradford hasn’t had the same arm strength since then. Made Bradford hesitant & when he does throw it deep he is incredibly inconsistent.
Sorry, but lack of arm strength is just nonsense,… I have seen SAM throw friggin Lasers with out even using his legs, flawed mechanics and all, ball has come out like a Laser at times this year…. If he is capable of that, than when he plants his feet and throws with the proper mechanics arm strength is a non issue.. Heck there times early in the season I thought he was throwing with too much Zip on intermediate passes….
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lack of Arm strength is nonsense when it comes to SAM
The pattern of one-hopping passes to wide open WRs on intermediate routes is concerning.
Of course, some fans will disagree.
mcnabb was better at it
As Jeff Fisher put it. Sam is the best practice QB he has ever seen.
Decision on keeping Bradford the starter is an easy one for Kelly. Sanchez has a lengthy body of NFL work including last year where he makes too many ill-advised decisions & has arm strength issues.
Even as much as Bradford has struggled, he has had some moments and still has some possible ‘upside’ potential that Sanchez doesn’t.
Based on all those INTs, I think it’s time to bench Manning for Sanchez!
Are you really comparing Payton Manning to Sam Bradford?
Are you incapable of understanding sarcasm?
Sorry I am not a mind reader like you, but there are plenty of Sam apologist on here.
I think Sanchez would be worth putting in. He should know the system like the back of his hand at this point. I also think maybe we are expecting Bradford to be a “field general” more than a “game manager”. I think with Marks knowledge of the system this year he may be able to do a better job as a game manager, his mindset during the jets playoff days.
I think chip gives his QB a game to air it out.
Ive seen SB roll out quite often and under throw passes to receivers coming back to the ball. Then I often wonder if the WRs, it was JMatt this past game, are actually coming back to the ball hard enough. I cant stand that short armed stuff, gun it in there. Those plays are usually fairly safe as long as you dont throw across your body. At that point the corner is having to chase the receiver all over the place and its a broken play. Those are where you can steal some yards and he seems to miss on those.
That’s the SEA offense
billy Davis, you know, the DC who has done an pretty damn good job with most of the personnel he was ever given, take some talented young puppies and turning them in to ferocious Physical Monsters, hasn’t allowed a RB to get 100 yards on His defense in the past 18 games, and ONLY allowed one 100 yard rusher in the last 24 games… Take a second to really think about how damn Incredible that is, and what an excellent foundation for a top defense we have in place….
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Once that Secondary really Jells together, and individuals like Maxwell, Nolan, ROWE, JaCorey improve, we are going to boast one of the very elite Defenses in this league… Fans didn’t want to believe that Nolan could be an outside corner for us but he has made it pretty Obvious that he was able to drastically improve and grow into a very capable starting outside corner for us.. But let me tell you this, we haven’t seen anything yet. This kid doesn’t have much experience playing outside corner at this level and he is an intelligent, dedicate workaholic who puts in the work to improve… Wait Til Nolan actually becomes and IMPROVED and More Seasoned, Experienced Outside corner, he will be even better than the player who has surprised everyone… maybe next time Chip kelly and every coach RAVE about how a guy is blowing them away with his offseason performamce we shouldn’t assume chip is full of shit..
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Maxwell seems to be public enemy number 1 these days, which has been pretty ridiculuos as far as I’m concerned. Maxwell hasn’t been GOOD ENOUGH so far, that’s obvious.. But he is a better player than we have seen, so it’s pretty counterproductive to be ripping that kid since the minute the season kicked off… I hear people compare him to NNamdi and that’s just absurd… NNamdi was washed up, we paid him for what he WAS, Maxwell is a kid who only started 17 games so we eally paid him for what we think he can become.. Nolan Carroll just showed us that sometimes it will take a year before a new young player can really play to his full potemtial in a new scheme with new teammates, so I really don’t see the point in battering Maxwell and treating him like trash since we kicked off the season in Atlanta.. Leave the kid alone, he will be fine and It won’t take him a year like it took Nolan to show us that he is our best corner….. Complaining about the contract is just ridiculuos. Every single person complaining about the contract would be ripping Chip a new asshole right now if he didn’t address our Corner back weakness, just like they Crucifies chip the entire month of September for not getting new Guards. So everyone complaining about the Maxwell contract is just full of shit,, is Maxwell a 60mil player today? No.. Will he ever grow into a 60mil player? I don’t know…. But we PAID HIM what it cost us to be able to bring the best talent we could find at a position of extreme weakness.. Maxwell really only started 17 games with the Seahawks.. He is still relatively raw in terms of NFL experiemce.. And it’s pretty obvious that he hasn’t been completly comfortable in his new role yet, knowing that, it should be obvious that we aren’t yet seeing the best he will be capable of. I’m very excited to see the player Billy and his staff can grow Maxwell into.. Kid deserved some credit for helping to shut down ODb, the second coming of Jesus Christ himself during the entire second half, helping to force Eli to hold the ball long enough for our Front 7 to feast on Eli..
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And if you worried that a lot of his success came from having great safety support, LUCKY YOU and Lucky Maxwell, Thurmond and Jenkins are playing as well as any Safety Tandem in the game, which is pretty scary to think of when you consider they haven’t even had half a season to Gel yet, and Thurmond has only been a safety since August 1st.. it’s simply NOT POSSIBLE for us to be seeing the best the tandem of Thurmond/Jenkins is capable of, it’s not possible!! So we probably haven’t seen anything yet when it comes to what this Safety Tandem will become..
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We are seeing defensive backs playing at a higher individual level than we have seen in a long time, too long…. But as a unit, there is still plenty of jelling to do and room for improvement, which is pretty damn exciting considering the improvements we have already seen in our secondary.
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ROWE is so talented, that he can grow into anywhere from our #1’Corner, better than Both Nolan or Maxwell, to our #3 corner, or possibly even a #3 safety.. Basically ROWE has so much damn ability and versatility that he has a pretty good chance at growing into a great player in one role or another.. In the future he is going to be a big addition to what will be one of the best secondaries in the game… And If JaCorey is the Talemted corner our coaches think he is, we will have a very talented collection of DBs, basically overnight we have more DB talent than I even hoped for..
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The key to greatness is Thurmond, who is so inexperienced at safety that it’s scary to think how good he can be if he can stay healthy for the next 2-3 years…. Not to mention how much more he can Jell with Jenkins who is playing at an all pro level..
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We haven’t seen anything yet… Give this Secindary 1 year to catch up to our Front 7, and Health Permittng you won’t be able to talk about the best defenses in the NFL without talking about our Unit (assuming we don’t lose much in fee agency).. With the LB talent, baby Simba Hicks and the Nasty Front 7, once the secondary catches up, WATCH OUT…
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Be awesome if Marcus grows to be what BG was as our #3 OLB last year…
To me, the real question is where are we at QB moving forward. We are not winning the SB this year. Do we sign a mediocre Bradford to big money because Chip’s afraid to admit he made a bad trade and/or doesn’t want to start over with QB in the draft? Of course, if Bradford turns it on and leads us to the playoffs, then it becomes less of an issue. But that’s a huge if.
“We are not winning the SB this year.” Defense is playing good enough to get us there – just need offense to catch up.
didn’t we just win the superbowl Monday night?
and we have another coming up in two weeks
So far down the road that worry about that road when you come to it.
Bradford isn’t going to get big dollars from anyone if he keeps playing like this. More likely a 1 or 2-year deal where he just gets a guaranteed starting job.
It’s doubtful we’ll get a shot at an NFL ready QB. Cook who I like but I don’t love is the only one really and can he even step in with or situation? Plus it’s doubtful he’ll be around anyway in a thin 1st round QB draft.
Goff and Wentz probably would need a year. One issue with starting over is you have pretty much a veteran team and a defense now. What you could do is just build up talent even more.
Keep developing Morris. Maybe you can maneuver for Wentz IF Kelly likes him and he’s there in 2nd or he drops to 3rd (we have Detroit’s pick so it should be in top 75).
Kiko and Kendricks back on the practice field. Bair also back on the field. Ryans, Agholor, and Cooper not practicing.
If Ryans is out and Kiko/Kendricks split snaps, it might still be okay. Great to hear Bair is back. Just gives us more to rotate on Game Day.
Outside of returning a KO that Huff should have returned, Cooper has been good on ST. He’s actually been doing pretty good this year overall.
Getting Bair back just makes our run defense better. He’s good at batting passes down of course, but his strength is as a run defender.
Like Thornton. We need that this week vs the Panthers.
Kiko and Kendricks are FULL participants?
Unsure. They will participate at least some though. Davis was non-committal about their availability for Sunday.
Sounds like Desean will be a FA after this season
Where did you hear that?
report that the Skins are going to release both Jackson and Garcon in the offseason. I saw the report on Twitter.
Wow.
They want to revamp their receiver corps, though I’m not sure it’ll matter. If the ‘Skins don’t turn it around, I’m not sure Gruden will be around long enough to revamp said corps.
Are the skins getting smarter?
hope not – it’s kind of a fun show to watch. Other than the fact that they always seem to get a win against the Eagles.
i think they are, i like their GM
In terms of X and Os, i like Gruden too. He’s just a buffoon when talking to the press.
I also wonder if Snyder has the patience to let them build a team.
They do have a good GM now. It’s whether Snyder stays out of the way.
Gm has to stay out of his own way too.
They must really hate him if the dead money is right, it probably is doable but still a lot.
Imagine that’s two teams that moved on from him. One after 2 years.
can we pick up pierre?
he is supposedly a high character guy, expected to earn $10.2 million next year…yea i think he is getting cut
Yeah, we could put Pierre into Miles Austin’s (and Riley Cooper’s) “veteran WR roster slot.”
Mike Jones of the Washington Post wrote it in a little thing he does for the paper where he answers fans questions…not the first time i have heard this. Last week on a CBS Sports show, they had on Jason La Canfora (not a fan) but they were talking about the skins and his words were “little known secret right now, but people in the Front office and coaching staff are not happy with Desean Jackson”…..unfortunately the interviewer never followed up with another question
hes more interested in his tv show and music career
’17 is voidable. 6.25 million dead money in ’16. It could be wrong.
http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/washington-redskins/desean-jackson/
Mike Jones of the Washington Post said it would save them 8 million in cap
But who are they clearing cap for? Not like they got a big time player to retain
Sounds silly but they have to pay Cousins next year.
he’s their best receiver though and he is non-affiliated gang wise.
which is nice
So I gotta bring this up. Haven’t been in the comment section during games much this year, and I discovered
1) seething vitriol. Wow. We’ve never been a particularly positive bunch, we’re Eagles fans, why should we. But generally we’ve kept it pretty mature, intelligent, witty, and generally sardonic. Some of yall been pre-gaming a bit too hard.
2) When did Jordan Matthews become public enemy number one? He’s having a rough stretch but come on. http://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/team/statistics.html
He’s our only receiver putting up remotely professional stats. The rage is silly. Maybe the hopes were a little too high? http://treasure.diylol.com/uploads/post/image/352642/resized_obi-wan-the-chosen-one-meme-generator-you-were-the-chosen-one-i-trusted-you-4d4e12.jpg
It’s okay guys. We’ve been through far far worse as Eagles fans. We got this.(refresh)
I might be JMatt’s biggest fanboy, but even i’m down on him right now, he’s also killing my fantasy team….which never helps
that has to be it lmao. Forgot about that angle. Lots have picked him up for their fantasy league.
As NBA player Steven Jackson famously tweeted:
https://twitter.com/datrillstak5/status/167130937451229184
(all in good fun, man 🙂
thats how i would have responded lol, thats great
i trust Jmatt comes around, im not worried the guy is too tough not too
How do we know he’s “tough”?
All the tough catches he’s made this year?
I’m not so mad about Jordan Matthews as I am the false narrative that people seem to believe about him.
I think the toughness description comes from seeing him absorb a big hit, pop back up, and get lined up again.
Sure. Just Jordan showing off how “tough” he is.
He runs hard with the ball in his hands, I’ll give him that. But so does Josh Huff, and we haven’t built up a narrative about how “tough” Josh Huff is.
I just value other stuff – like making a difficult catch in traffic – more than bouncing off the ground quickly.
so a little more Boldin, a little less Demaryius
That would be nice.
I’m not expecting Fitzgerald.
well at least Demaryius beasts a bunch of other times. He literally just boxes guys out and out jumps them for possesions. Denver fans still complain though. I just couldnt think of another example
Yeah, we kind of have built up that narrative around Huff.
I have, Huff is the toughest of them all by far
Agree wholeheartedly with this. Josh Huff is a tough WR. He looks like Frank Gore in the open field.
I believe the phrase Tuff Huff was used during the Giants game.
I believe that because I used it.
I also believe the phrase “talk shit get hit” was enforced on Huff that game too.
I refuse to stop referring to Matthews as “Featherstone”
what do you call the rest of the scrubs?
Various forms and combos of swear words. Except for Cooper. He’s “truck nuts”.
that
is
awesome
That’s why I don’t comment during games any more… For what? To see a bunch of people start talking about how the game is over at the first hint of adversity?
..
When we lose, we suck and the season is over and people start talking about the draft LOL, and when we win, we still find ways to be upset about the win and dwell on the aspects of the win that weren’t good
Enough…. We have managed to trick ourselves into believing that this mythical “play a complete 60 minute game” actually exists when In reality you are certain to run into adversity every time you take the field.. What’s really crazy is we know how much parity their is in this league, how it’s a game of inches and a handful of plays come down to the difference between winning and losing, we know how easy it is to see an upset on “any given Sunday”… Yet Knowing all that,how the hell did we ever Get to this point where if we don’t win 44-9 dominating our opponent for 60 minutes without facing any adversity, we can no longer be happy winning football games?
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The way our expectations have become so completely out of whack, you would think that we were Patriots fans spoiled with a decade of domination, instead of a franchise that hasn’t won’t a playoff game in too long
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Not right to complain about 3picks including one in the endzone? You can’t have watched Monday’s game and thought “this is a proper NFL game”. We won but, it was beyond ugly.
I’m fine with criticism and people just having some fun with a bad situation (IE I like to imagine the offensive meetings and halftimes look like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ghnz-tyS9E)
I can enjoy a win, while also acknowledging that some players still need to improve and play better in the future.,,and at the very least I try to make sure I enjoy the day after a win before I start worrying about what needs to be better, but don’t let me tell you how to enjoy your Eagles… I just don’t find watching games enjoyable, when I can already imagine how the sky must have been falling in this comment section after the first drive and a half until Meco got the INT…
I just started commenting during a few games this year on 24/7 and you aint kidding. I was guilty also but kind of caught myself. The ebbs and flows are ridiculous during the game, its pretty funny actually. I just try to think that most people have to understand that when discussing each play as the game is going. We already have very little context in terms of the league and are myopic on our own teams flaws. During a game and every play its just out of hand
remember last time we shut them out but nick threw 2 picks and that was all anyone cared about, because they were really really bad picks.
but a division win will always be ugly.
GEAGLE in 2014: Nick “Rainmaker” FOles is the Future! Yous guys don’t get it, only I do! Stupid fans!
GEAGLE in 2015: SAM is the Future! Yous guys don’t get it, only I do! Stupid fans!
Baghdad Bob says JMatt is going to be fine.
When the stats back up the eye test which backs up your film study of him from Vanderbilt, one has the right to be concerned that Chip used a 2nd round pick on this guy.
Particularly when there are more than a handful of 2nd-year WRs outplaying him thus far.
What has JMatt done to deserve the benefit of the doubt? “Work hard”?
https://twitter.com/JoshPaunil/status/656836304144113664
He’s been by far the most productive of a universally struggling passing game? If one think’s there’s a hope for the passing game to turn around, surely he would rebound too right?Have his hands ever been a strength? No. It’s in the scouting report. Is he our only guy who consistently gets open, yes. Why waste your energy on our best guy?
I just don’t think it’s acceptable to have such poor hands for an NFL WR unless you bring some other elite skill to the table.
There has been more than one opportunity this year for Jordan to make a big play when we needed it, and he’s literally dropped the ball.
Hopefully he just has the yips, and he’s better rest of the season. But nothing in his history suggests that he has better hands than this. Which is a problem.
People hoping he’ll turn into TO. Lol.
How were his hands again?
Good enough for one season.
I agree. I’m hoping it’s some technique problem that can be resolved.
It’s the drops. He’s had something like 10 drops in 6 games…
Panthers really heavily on Two things:
1) Physical run game with some power RBs and one of the most effective running QBs in the league and they have been riding their run game to an undefeated start…
2) X plays… They won’t be able to sustain drives against us if we shot down their run game, which we have done 23 of the past 24 games pretty much…so we can’t allow to bail out their offense by letting them throw down field to WRs behind us… We did an excellent job eliminating the Giants X plays and did a pretty good job of it while the saints game mattered with the exception of two passes that didn’t lead to scoring drives anyway… Hopefully we can build on it, and don’t allow the Pantners to score quick Home run TDs on us, because they won’t be able to drive on our beast of an Eagles defense..
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If were a betting man, this is the week I would push my chips to the center of the table.. Pantners undefeated streak ends Sunday, and after we beat down the Panthers everyone can come up with their excuses for why the Panthers sucked and how we still haven’t beaten anyone, blah blah blah while we enjoy a bye week coming off a 3 game win streak (4 of last 5 games) with two weeks to get ready to go to Dallas an make this a 4 game winning streak!!
If we beat the Panthers, thats arguably 3 playoff teams beat. Thats what this season was about and we are actually doing it. Some of the other teams we lost to are also arguably playoff teams as well. We almost beat the Falcons at home
unless it’s like 44 to 13.. We will find some narrative to complain about and devalue a win like we did last year when The first half of the seasons success didn’t count because the ST stepped up and covered for us when we were dealing with all the OL injuries and FOles was playing banged up….
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Now it’s the Defense THATS covering for the offense so wins arent good enough. It’s always something. Saints suck, drew Brees is washed up, Giants were a fraud, eli’s great play was a mirage since we dominated him,,, once we kick the panthers ass you will hear two things:
1) Panthers had an emotional letdown after putting so much into beating seattle who has bullied them in years past so we caught them at the right time lol,
2) we will hear how even tho Carolina was undefeated they haven’t beaten anyone good with the exception of maybe seattle
..
9 players can have amazing games, And we will dwell on the 1 player that had a bad game
https://twitter.com/AdamWHermann/status/656871095899832321
Mufasa Dies T.T
everyone does
is Chip Kelly Scar?
I picture chip more as Pumba..” Hakuna Matatta Bradford will be fine “
No, Chip is Rafiki. The crazy guy that runs around, bops them on the heads with sticks, and hands them a smoothie.
Lol Babboon Witch Doctor certainly has a sports science ring to it
I kinda figured that Lurie’s hair would make him Rafiki.
I’ve never seen this lion king thing
Swagger Jackers…. Tell Malcom. That it’s “Baby Simba”, get it right..
Billy Davis said Kiko and Kendricks won’t play in Carolina,., hopefully Mufasa will be ready to go… Need his gritty, thumping, style against physical Panthers run game..
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And God forbid MUFASA can’t go, we will need to rely on Hcks and Goode, in which case hopefully MS2 remembers some of the ILB plays… All we have left is Brad Jones, and considering we play Goode who was on the streets two weeks ago ahead of Brad Jones, probably safe to assume jones is only viewed as a ST. player
Zach Berman said he spoke with Kendricks today and Kendricks told him if the game was tomorrow he would play, so barring a set back I think we see him and Meco on the field with Hicks this weekend.
That would be great… But Kemdricks made similar comments last week, and the fact that this is the game before the bye week,and the threat to suffer setbacks that comes with these Hamstring injuries wouldnt surprise me to see Kendrics take the extra time to heal and come back after the bye week for the Cowboys game….but if Mychal can come back and produce vs the Panthers and not suffer any setbacks, Id sure love to see him out there.. But I’d rather play one more game without Kendricks, than see him against Carolina but then have to sit out a few more weeks
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The Last timeline I heard was we expected kiko back for the Cowboys game.. I don’t know if we are still on schedule to meet that timeframe, but it would sure be awesome To go to Jerry World with 4 Healthy ILB Beasts to throw at the Cowboys..
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It’s amazing that we have so much ILB talent, yet as long as the rookie from the 3rd round is on the field, im not concerned leaving Kemdricks and KIKO sitting out to get healthy… I’m in awe of Hicks… His body type, and the way he plays the game, just reminds me of a Bobby Wagner as a rookie, big strong thumper, who can also happen to really run and cover…
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jordan Hicks has taken this city by Storm…. I dont know how many chip kelly rookies made a bigger impact the first 6 weeks than Hicks has…
We lost the first two games, then SAM started to play better winning us the Jets game, and being one defensive stop away from beating the skins, and SAM praised for not throwing INTs in those two games, but we still had a problem with him only throwing short and intermediate passes and the complaints were that he wouldn’t go deep… Then SAM gets a little more comfortable and he has been pretty agressive looking down field enough to end that noise, but the increase in aggressiveness came with some costly turnovers during these last two wins…
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So Now, we NEED SAM to find a balance between taking care Of the ball, while getting to a Rythem with his midrange game and Taking shots down field to keep Defenses on their heals..
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We have also seen Bradford play QB at a high level during spurts, we just need him to get comfortable and play at that level consistently… It will come, Hopefully sooner than Later..
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One thing im really pleased with is that he seems like he now has confidence In his knee, he ismt afraid to manuever the pocket, he has been willing to roll out and throw on the run, and he even starting to run with the ball every now and then….. Because we are seeing him become comfortable in his ability to run without worrying about the Knee, it would be GREAT if we are close to be able to take the next step and ask Bradford to run a couple zone reads in each half, make defenses pay for not respecting his threat to run… Really he just needs to pick two oportune times to where he can pick up a back breaking first down because they didn’t think he would keep the ball on a zone read… All he has to do is pick up two first downs, and the defense has no choice but to begin and respect his threat to run…
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maybe you DONT ask SAM to add zone reads to his game on this short week against the Panthers, but you can spend the extra week of preperation during the bye, to get SAM comfortable with calling a few zone reads and we can whip that wrinkle out against the Cowboys in Jerry World after the bye week…
SAM running for two 1st downs against the Cowboys usimg Zone reads would probably really open things up for Demarco to get his proper revenge and run all over Cowboy stadium…
Earlier in the season i felt Bradford needed to take some risks, play more freely, not be afraid to throw interceptions. Part of the reason the run game is getting better is because Bradford has begun to throw deeper, with some success. The past two games he has about three very bad throws, Sanchez of last year level throws, right to defenders, with sometimes obvious other open options.
Two years ago, with Foles, whenever he would throw 20 yards or more, as soon as he released it i had this confidence that it was going to go to a receiver that was pretty open, so either it would be dropped, or off so receiver could not get it, but likely not off so much that a defender could get it. Last year with Foles i lost that confidence, i had a bit of fear when i would see the ball release, and then the camera would switch to the receiver, in that split second i had no confidence if the ball would be going to a defender or receiver.
Part of the reason Foles and Bradford lost the confidence of fans the past two years, is that receivers have not been getting open like they did three years ago with the 27-2 Foles. Damn, i hate when i go through something logically and end up with an image of Desean.
So, both Foles and Bradford and Sanchez have all pretty equally sucked the past two years as Eagles qbs, part of the reason is these three QBs are not elite, and part of the reason is none of the receivers are close to being elite, or even having one close to elite trait.
Would love to see what one of these three QBs would be like if Eagles had a Julio, or Marshall or Bryant (damn, have to say it) or a Jackson.
ya but great QBs make careers for receivers. Ask most of the Peyton Manning, Tom Brady club. Sure thats elite so of course it helps to have a beast #1 wr. I just said above, I worry Sanchez, SB and Foles could all be very similar in the end. Not the ending dreams are made of
yeah, it is lazy of me and not helpful just to conclude “go get an elite receiver” to fix the offense. We have talent, but very inexperienced talent at wide receiver. Love to see Huff and Anglohor fully healthy at the same time, think nagging injuries to receivers just has compounded with everything else.
And Jackson and Foles three years ago both had career years, but since then very little. Did not like the injured Jackson, which was too often.
seems like a ton of injuries across the league this season, or Im just seeing it that way
Jackson has not been close to what he was on the Eagles with Washington. He’s been hurt a lot, and not that effective when healthy.
I do think a lot of fans only choose to see the bad when things arent going well. Im not a big SB fan and hated the trade so my leash is already short but I add some of the good things I see. He has moved the ball at times and looked good between the 20s. I remember years ago Alfred Williams saying how good Jake Plummer was between the 20s but terrible when the field got tight and I find that can happen with some QBs quite often. So they appear much better than they are. I also think a lot of that is scheme when you hit the red zone. SB looked like he was throwing lasers early in the year. Now it looks like hes trying to finesse throws more and at times they come up a bit short. Thats fine actually. Id rather he try to improve and find that sweet spot while taking chances and maybe thats what hes doing. When it all starts to click with the play calls and tempo and the run game, he can really get the team moving. I just worry still that he, Sanchez and Foles are all about the same level of mediocre which is very possible. Its that hard to find a top QB in this league so I get the trade and gamble of trying to find one.
I don’t get the whole lets see with Sanchez argument. We saw what we had with him last season. He got the second half of the season, he was given a 6-2 team albeit with some major holes and he went 4-4 down the stretch. Sure Sam is 3-3 but come on, if we switch to Sanchez this early and do not find out definitively what Bradford can be with Chip then that is crazy! If we switch to Sanchez we not matter what will need to be drafting a quarterback high. If we continue with Bradford and he can show us what led him to be a 1st overall pick then that is a huge bonus that 1000% outweighs starting Sanchez. If he underperforms it is the same thing as switching to Sanchez which is a .500 record and needing to draft QB in first round. There is literally no upside to Sanchez.
For me, wamting to see Sanchez became bullshit when he didn’t show any type of year two growth I would have hoped to see from a veteran QB in his second year of this offense… sanchez was in his second summer in this offense yet he couldn’t even come close to Bradfords level of play in those preseasons games and joint Practices, when really Bradford just started taking real reps in this offense on August 1st, which was like 10 days before the first preseason game..
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if Sanchez couldn’t look better than SAM when SAM had only been cleared to practice like a week before the Ravens practice sessions and 1st preseason games, why would Anyonewamt to take away game time which is crucial for Bradford, to play a Limited QB who didn’t even come close to showing year two growth I had hoped we would see from Sanchez…
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Taking valuable game time away from a healthy SAM is the worst thing Chip could do…
to be fair, Bradford hasn’t come close to Bradfords level of preseason play.
but I doubt it mattered, we all assume Bradford will be better the Sanchez.
I think so too.
he just needs to go and do it.
I said this yesterday, I will never again buy into much of anything in the preseason. I learned this long ago but it seems I needed to learn it again. I really bought in this time
wait until how good we look next year. year 2 for Bradford, Murray, better D.
the preseason bowl will be ours once again.
All I care about is when we open the season next year, first game in Philly on Thursday night…
I think the motivation to call for Sanchez is mostly people who have already said they don’t like Sam, they hate Sam, Sam sucks, and Sam is going to ruin this franchise. They need some fresh, new way to express their displeasure. I can’t imagine it has much to do with Sanchez.
Also, I just reread my work and typing on an iphone is a risk and my grammar showed this.
who was it that sanchez lost to at the end of the year?
Seattle, could Sam beat them right now?
dallas, we know.
redskins, we know, and who else? I forget.
I would rather see Bradford get better. but Sanchez lsot to teams Bradford couldn’t beat right now either. so its not really crazy.
People Hate Sam people Hate Mark…
Yes, I believe Sam can beat Seattle.
That also really is not the argument I was making. The argument was for the overall health and outlook of the franchise. But you know take it however you want.
I agree whole heartedly. you don’t switch to Sanchez now you are right.
i’m only saying right now Bradford is not better then Sanchez, so its not crazy, but over all its wrong to not roll with Bradford…
My mistake for reading it wrongly!
nah, I didn’t write it right either.
didnt sanchez lose the crucial game to skins with a pick?
Sam would never do that!
lol, ummm Atl game. Oh right it bounced off JMatts shoulder
yeah my point exactly.
they are not much different right now.
Sam And Sanchez.
they should open a chicken fingers restaurant
sarcasm is hard.
my lol was acknowledging that. My caveat ruined it and made me look like a SB apologist haha
yeah but would you eat at Sanchez and Sam’s Chicken Dynasty?
of course, esp if its better than Elways Steak house or ummm (I swore there was some old ex cowboy who had a place). I tried to google and found this interesting list. They sure do like their steak these ex athletes.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/2013/03/23/the-20-best-athlete-owned-restaurants/2011221/
Shanchize (to Bradford): Would you eat this chicken tender?
Bradford: I would not eat that chicken tender.
Sanchize: Would you eat it in a blender?
Bradford: I could not eat it in a blender?
Sanchize: On a bender, off a fender, sent through the mail but returned to sender?
Bradford: STFU.
I know, I just can’t resist a good sarcasming.
What troubles me and hasn’t been brought up very often is how flat Bradford’s long heaves are. Endzone fades are out of the question. He needs to get a lot more air under the ball and let his receivers run under it. Are you guys observing the same thing?
He’s throwing on a line like Kaepernick does. Needs more air and arc
ya I mentioned this when I first watched him on the Eagles. Everything he throws is like a dart with that lower trajectory. Can work very well for accuracy though but also burn you with deeper passes. Harder for the WR to see and haul in and easier for the defender to get their hands up and knock down.
The pick bt Collins was fairly “airy”, so was the previous miss of Ertz.
indeed, I think hes now trying to throw with more finesse and sometimes they are coming up a tad short. Ive mentioned this a few times and maybe hes trying to find that sweet spot. I dont mind the aggressiveness at all if he wants to take his game up a notch, hes gotta let it rip sometimes.
i’m glad they are sprinkling in those deep throws even if they aren’t successful. we have to show the defense we are willing to try it once in a while so the underneath stuff we usually take can be more successful
Bradford is the bets option at the position at the moment. I’d be bothered less by the turnovers if they weren’t accompanied by the incompletions.
Except half the incompletions are ugly drops.
12 drops total.
http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/team-receiver-drops-percentage/2015/
Dez didn’t practice today…. Sucks, I was hoping they would be dumb enough to risk a setback letting him play on Sunday.
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Since we have been dominating the Giants since Chip signed with us, and even dating back before Chip, the Giants just don’t concern me, so I will be able to root for the Giants to CRUSH Dallas this weekend.. dallas is making the QB change, so I want to see the Giants completely demoralize them and make the QB change I signifcant.. Another Loss could also pressure dez into coming back a little too soon,..the last thing I want to see is the Dallas QB change to look good and give that franchise hope, so I’m hoping the Giamts ARENT complete frauds, grow a pair, have some dignity after what we did to them, step up and Dominate the Cowboys who are starting their 3rd QB THis season.
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You know you pathetic when you are one of our rivals and I can comfortably root for you to win, because I don’t even respect you as a threat.. So go Big Blue, CRUSH Dallas..
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Giants are much better than the Skins but for some reason the skins provide a tougher Challenge to us than the Giants who we pretty Much Have OWNED for years now winning 13 of the last 17 match ups and 4-1 since Chip arrived, only time we lost to them was when Barkley had to play… VICK, FOles, Sanchez, bradford, chip beats the Giants with almost anyone at QB… Yet we have to listen to everyone over rate the Giamts leading up to the game, yet when we dominate them, of course we get no respect for it…
The interceptions now vs the old. He was throwing short in playing the not to lose so badly games in St louis. He isn’t used to being in more 9f the opportunity to win situations.
He also has a new knee and playing is different than practices.
He has also done some anticipation throws and hasn’t been as conservative in placement. Needs to make the ball placement deeper and more to the outaide. Again, think thus relates to the surrender aspect of the games in St louis.
So I think we are seeing a recovery period that hopefully gets better as the season goes on. The drops have killed us all year but the team is starting to come around on multiple levels.
If they start scoring points earlier and sustaining drives then the team can go far. I have to say that the past two weeks are a bit of rose colored glasses as saints and giants have zip on defense.
The other big key is guys have to make catches. .. that just killed things.
Sunday night will be a true test for the offense.
and the defense.
and the coaches.
and the WR too.
everyone will be tested.
we should pass. oh and run too.
Oh. I think Cam blows. If Meco and the LB crew bottle up the run a bit the team has a less pathetic qb performance, eagles win.
we worked his last year pretty good.
and the qb we had played well too.
I forget who it was
I didn’t go back n watch it yet, but watching the game Live, it looked Like Josh Huff probably takes that WR screen to the house if Tobin Wasnt in his way which helped stop Huff after gaining 10 yards…. if Huff would have taken that screen to the house, we would probably be feeling pretty good about Huff had he scored a TD in each of the last two games…hopefully he stays healthy so he can start putting together some good games in a row while getting more comfortable Playing at this level…
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Also would like to see Chip make sure he gives Huff two chances per half to make a big play, the way the Giamts make sure they do with ODB.. one thing the Giants did before the Meco INT was line up ODB in the backfield.. I would love to see Chip stick Huff at RB at times, and take a shot at Huff on a wheel route especially if we have other WR on the field to take the corners attention and catch the defense in position to where they have to put a LB or Safety on Huff when he lines up at RB, Huff should be able to beat LB and Safeties on wheel Routes..
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We tried to give Agholar a WR reverse, if Huff has a few games where he doesn’t make any mental mistakes, Id love to see what Huff can do on a WR reverse..
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Before the Demeco INT, the Giants ran a beautiful screen play that would be perfect for us because it looked so much like the beginning of one of our sweeps where you see two Lineman pulling to the right side as if a sweep would follow to the right, but the QB fakes the hand off behind the pulling lineman and threw the screen to the left (opposite side of the field away from the pulling Lineman)… Great play design by the Giants, because that play incorporates a run fake that looks a lot like what we do at times, it would be a great wrinkle to add to our arsenal to whip out on defenses after we had success a few times running wide right behind two pulling Lineman..
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The last couple games we seen Coop get a couple shots going deep and he made a few big plays for us, so it’s safe to assume the Panthers will be on the look out for Coop going deep off play action, so I would love To get a glimpse of how Huff looks trying to get behind the defense and see what the kid can do when we throw to him Deep..
,.
Reverses, wheel routes out of the backfield, fly patterns off of play action, a screen or two per game…. Gotta start making an effort to give Huff an opportunity to burn defenses with some big gamebreaking plays.. Be great to get a KR TD out of him in the near future
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gotta get Josh Huff going and put his big play ability to use.
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And when Agholar comes back, it’s time for rookie to start growing up and we gotta get him going too…
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getting production from our weapons should open some things up for Jordan Mathews.. I hear a lot of people down on jordan Mathews, but I found it interesting that the first time Cooper got the 40 yard TD this year, when interviewed he gave all the credit to Jordan Mathews for how much he opens things up for the rest of them with the attention he has commanded from defenses this year, so I imagine that once thee other WRs start making plays, they can pay Jordan back by freeing him up a bit to make more plays for us…
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We really need these young WRs to get healthy, stay healthy and hurry up and grow up because once these young WRs arrive, this entire offense will become so much more potent..
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NEED to get to the point where we are getting a combined 15 catches per game from our 3 young WRs
I agree.
more Huff. he can take it to the house.
wonder if we see more Tutu mixed in also with Ags out.
he played the other day, but he was in Riley Cooper’s traditional role (blocking).
yea, i’d love to see Huff in the backfield on a wheel route
The latest rumblings are that Bradford looks really good in practice, but it hasn’t translated yet when he gets in the chaotic environment of Live action…we won’t find out what they are doing, but allegedly we are now focused on finding BETTER ways to train Bradford for live action to help SAM quicker translate his stellar play consistently to live action..
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the Fact that we have seen SAM go on Spurts in games where he looks fantastic, so that ability is In him, it’s not as if we NEVER see it in Games.. There have been times this year where he has been fantastic and stevie wonder could see his talent, we just need him to take that next step, get comfortable leading this New offense to WHERE he can turn those Sporadic Great Quarters, into GREAT GAMES… It would be one thing if you only saw his Talemt in Practice, but it’s been on display In games since he got here..
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He is trying to get comfortable in this new offense, while also getting reacquainted to Live action after these past two years, all while getting over the mental aspect of coming back from an Injury…..what gives me so much hope is the only been playing since August 1st, so it’s safe to assume that he still has a lot of growing his command of this offense and getting comfortable implementing it against live Action…. And the One thing we do know is that when you get more comfortable, the game slows down for you, and by product of that is improving your decison making which typically leads to less mistake. More efficient player, and those quarter long flashes of great play, become more and more consistent…
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With someone as innovative as chip, I can only wonder what concoction he will come up with to better help Braford get more comfortable in live action? Lol make Bradford practice with a Green Jersey? Lol Red means STOP, Green means GO and just let Cox tee off on him in live action every day? LOL he wouldn’t survive the week…. Hopefully reporters can find out how chip is trying to go about training SAM to be more comfortable in the middle of Chaos? Drop him into live action in a War zone for 3’days? Pick him up Saturday in time for walk through after being shot at for two days?
That’s a simple way of saying he is what he’s always been. Jeff Fischer was like a ball never hit the ground in practice, and then game tape is game tape. Not sure if you have to take that red jersey off or maybe using the VR machine? Chip mentioned earlier that some players are practice players and some are game players.
which is Sancho?
just kidding….
Maybe the receivers are just practice players and not gamers.
Since Chip and the Eagles like new technology, maybe they can rig up one of those dog shock collars to a remote control. If a defender gets close enough to what would be a sack, Sam gets zapped
Yep, and “he is what he’s always been” is in most cases also “what he will be”, sadly.
He lacks mental toughness, and that’s not something that can be worked off like rust. Be a coup for Kelly and Day if they can turn him into a field general, rather than a civilian with skills.
Hate when players are so cryptic about the game plans.
Cox: Man with a plan.
Nice summary of philly sportswriters addressing the QB situation here:
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/eagles/Daily_News_Agenda_If_Sam_Bradford_stays_at_this_level_will_he_finish_the_season_as_the_starter.html
I am generally an optimistic Eagles fan, take a sunny view of players panning out, even when it is statistically improbable. Because that’s what makes being a football fan fun right? Keep hope alive!
But after the Giants game I’ve lost most hope for Bradford as a future franchise QB. He looks almost consistently terrible, and it seems most likely that he lacks *something* needed, ability to read defenses, ignore pressure and distractions of defensive linemen, whatever. Maybe it’s lack of confidence and he can somehow shake it off, but I doubt it at this point.
I don’t fault Kelly for rolling the dice of a 2nd round pick for a potential franchise QB, I think it was a reasonable risk to take when balanced with the lack of other options.
Eagles are still mired in the post-Cunningham, pre-McNabb doldrums it would seem. Such a problem at QB, where the ever-present promise of next year’s draft doesn’t seem too promising right now.
Your first mistake is referencing a philly.com article, they are 99% of the time horrible with their articles. 2nd there is no better option then Bradford on the roster so he will be the starter for the foreseeable future and quite possibly into next year.
Way to live up to your username! Your first mistake is knocking the article without reading it, it’s actually pretty good. Your 2nd mistake is replying to a comment without reading it more carefully. :^P
so what is the threshold for going to the bullpen?
seriously?
against Carolina, we should find something out right?
although I say this every week….
To the bullpen for who?
a closer
Thad Lewis?
say his name… say it!
I’m not getting drawn into that Webb of debate.
sanchez
For me, Bradford would need to stop winning, and actually start giving back the wins we already have. If he takes us from 3-3 this week to 2-5 or 1-6, I would consider switching to Sanchez after the bye.
you really think Sanchez can get those wins back?
not likely.
who would he even ask?
At that point, I would just be hoping that the Eagles start sponsoring free chicken fingers on Mondays after Sanchez throws fewer than three picks.
what can we get if Bradford throws less then 3?
free beer?
Less talk about Sanchez?
Let me preface, I think Bradford has been dreadful.
Unfortunately the offense isn’t in a place where you can replace a struggling QB with a mediocre one and fix the offense yet. Until it is, you keep working on the guy with upside. Look at the Jets (I watch too many Jets games with a Jets fan for a roommate). Fitzmagic (not a typo or auto correct, that’s what they’re calling him) has captured the hearts and minds of many Jets fans. Everyone knows what he is, right? Did he suddenly get good? How was he a back up? Well the O-line is doing a great job, Ivory is having a terrific season, and Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker are balling. Plug in a mediocre QB like Fitz and viola. More than competent offense.
Before the season I would have told you Sanchez>Fitz. The moment the coaches see the rest of the offense round into form, and Sam is holding it back, you’ll see the switch.
So far:
O-line pass pro- ready to go
O-line run blocking/run game- getting there, need to do something before we’re 40 snaps into a game
WR- get open, catch something. Anyone can catch a perfect pass, you get paid to make plays. Get so open that under throws don’t matter. Use your body, maximize that window. Dig that ball out of the turf. Our guys seem to hesitate to abandon the dream of catching the perfect pass in stride and grabbing a bunch of YAC, GO GET IT.
Once we see these things, if the O still struggles, get the mediocre guy in here and he’ll make it work. And the D is good enough to take that into the playoffs.
well said
We are not going to the Superbowl this year. We are way too flawed. Yes, weird stuff happens, they might be giants, etc. IMO, we need the most information to decide whether to look elsewhere for a franchise QB or not. Sanchez is not a franchise QB. Bradford is still a question mark.
Although I, too, have developed strong doubts about Sam Bradford, I would prefer we get a full 16 games from him for an evaluation. That is, no Sanchez except if there’s an injury.
The glimmer of hope is that Bradford’s issues are mental mistakes, not physical talent flaws. He can make all the throws. He’s not Barkley, he just plays like him.
Let’s see if Bradford can improve.
test tube season
Unfortunately, you are dead right. Our preseason and offseason hopes have been downgraded and we now just hope to discern whether we have to go back to the drawing board at QB
somewhat off topic:
Jimmy has a great article about Nolan Carroll’s pick-six.
http://www.phillyvoice.com/film-breakdown-eagles-outsmarted-eli-manning/
its a great read. this was less a mistake from Eli and more a great game plan from Davis & Undlin with the execution to match.
thats great, best thing Ive read about Davis….maybe ever lol. It really looked like a bad decision at the time, just the way he double pumped it before deciding to throw it. Like he was late executing. stuff happens so fast though and with anticipation so often, its not surprising that it was a disguised coverage
i think the design of the play was like jimmy said:
1) test the defense, see if they are in man or zone by moving OBJ
2) if man, two guys on top of field run a shallow cross, inside guy would be wide open on the side of the field.
assuming we were lined up in man coverage, like we had been all game up to that point, it was the right throw to make. if carroll sticks with the other guy, jenkins is pretty far away from him and the giants pick up a decent chunk of yards.
MVP writing
Thsnk you mr Law
Hope Mom Law is feline better at 3-3.
i wasn’t here for the game-day thread, maybe i missed it and someone can fill me in.
what was up with the one play where the refs threw a flag for OPI on the giants, only to pick it up and say there is no penalty?
i feel like thats the sort of thing that we got a penalty for a few times this season, though a little farther down field.
is there something that says that “pick” play is legal if it is within X yards of the LOS?
no you just can’t be too obvious about it. You have to continue to run your route and not just pick and stop.
i mean, the refs must have thought something was off when they threw the flag in the first place… i guess the receiver just kept fighting through it to show that he’s doing everything he can to run his route?
i do recall on the penalties against us, the receiver would make it a little too obvious he meant to hit the guy (putting his shoulder down, arms up, etc) and tended to just stop running the route after the contact
i think the back judge threw the flag because he saw the initial pick, then after the play met with the line judge and decided it was legal because it was within a yard of the line of scrimmage….at least that is how i imagined it played out
Doesn’t have to run a route within 1 yard, that’s blocking territory.
The pick was legal as it was within one yard of the line of scrimmage.
Basically yes — you are allowed to block within one line of the line of scrimmage, and that was what happened on that play. The Giants guy had a pick but he was basically on the line of scrimmage. OPI can be called when receivers go out in the patterns, and then start blocking before the ball is thrown or caught, but that particular play was not downfield, so it was OK.
cool, got it. thanks guys!
In all the hand-wringing about Bradford’s play, no-one has mentioned Ryan Day’s role in this. I know that Shurmur probably gets involved too but having a former College Football RB coach in charge of QBs doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
Maybe it’s coincidental but Sam’s mechanics and esp his footwork have been poor (and that’s being kind) all year
Good point, I hadn’t considered that
Before coming to the Eagles, Ryan Day was actually an offensive coordinator and QBs coach for 2 years at Boston college. Before that he was the o-coordinator and WRs coach at Temple. I don’t know where you got that he was a college football RBs coach.
And before that he was coaching WRs. And before that he coached TEs. And before that he actually was a QB.
My point exactly. Where is this kid getting that he was ever a RBs coach.
Was just wondering about that. We miss Lazor, makes sense for there to be a learning curve for a college guy (not RB, though). Same for Stoutland, I would think he is on the bubble more than any other coach.
Stoutland on the bubble? Not a chance in hell. What he has done with what he has been given to work with has been fairly impressive. Lazor is definitely overrated, how is Ryan Tannehill looking this year? Not very good.
Lazor is the offensive coordinator out there, not QB coach.
Don’t agree with either the “fairly impressive” or the “definitely overrated”. Tannehill took off under Lazor, and Stoutland has been iffy at developing players. An OL coach has to be able to turn low draft picks into solid starters, not just coordinate superstars. If the line continues to develop this year, np. But if they don’t, Stoutland should be feeling some heat.
Ryan Day played QB for Chip at New Hampshire?
Fletch is working out for the panthers.
saweet! just in time
They worked out James Casey as well.
Really trying to gather that intel.
Do you think this really happens? I’ve always been curious. I would think players are forced to sign NDAs
looks like it, they will find out from fletcher what its like to get roasted and taosted
What it’s like to hear Dez laughing at you.
NDA? No. NFL isn’t about integrity of character.
The Pats bring in dudes from rivals all the time.
100% that happens.
and those dudes have even described how that goes. Specifically with the pats.
Great tactic.
Panthers are still smarting from last season’s beat down. They haven’t forgotten and will do everything possible to avoid a repeat.
So what. Bring it, let’s see what happens. Two teams enter, one team leaves.
Lol since Romo got hurt, the Cowboys WRs have combined for 7 catches total.., it’s not easy to be That bad! That’s like Alex smith bad
A stat that brings a smile to my face. Thanks brother.
that can’t be right Weeden went 7/7 in our game.
how many were to TE’s and RB’s?
I see what you are saying. Andy Reid level ish.
The biggest disappointment I’ve had with Bradford is his accuracy. This isn’t something that comes and goes. It’s either spotty and happens to be on target once in a while. Or it’s, well, accurate.
However football is a sport where “repetitive accuracy” is actually 2 things in the broader world , accuracy and precision. http://cdn.antarcticglaciers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/precision_accuracy.png
Everyone in the world can hit stationary targets, accuracy and precision is traditionally measured in this way. Does the projectile go to the spot you’re aiming for. Accurate throwing in this sense is actually a common trait in people. All baseball players can throw, all basketball players can shoot. Our brains are remarkably intuitive at figuring out where something is and generating a motion to hit it with a projectile. There’s a base with a guy on it waiting to catch the ball, I can hit him from the outfield pretty consistently, regardless of where I’m at (within the limitations of my arm strength). Traditional archery, no sights, doesn’t matter. It’s intuitive.
However when it comes to moving targets, most people do not have the talent to hit a moving target with a high degree of precision. Doing so intuitively just isn’t precise in most people. Way too much organic math going on. We cope by making systems. If the target is going a constant direction at a constant speed (or can predict where a target will be), we can work on timing. On deep routes you throw to a spot on a field not a player. It’s all timing. Add in guys trying to kill you and tracking multiple targets and a decision aspect into it, and rarity of top-shelf arm strength and hey, there aren’t more than 15 people in the world that can do this at a high level.
So can Sam hit the spots he’s aiming for with accuracy and precision in game conditions? If yes he has a prayer. It’s very hard to significantly increase accuracy and precision on the fly. That’s a mechanics and repetition thing. However timing and rhythm can be built up as he gets used to his guys, how they move and the routes they are running. And it would make some sense for a guy in a new system who hasn’t played in 2 years to not quite have his timings down yet. Hopefully.
I have no problems being patient. The problem with Bradford is that he hasn’t shown the mental game, and that’s not something you should need to work on. He looks nervous and uncomfortable, and that’s unacceptable.
Joshua Dobbs… That is all
NO! His completion % is poor and he runs way too much. I don’t need to see that garbage under center here as our QB.
That is all.
Not to many options outside of Goff, Hackenberg and Cook. We don’t have a 2nd pick thanks to the genius and by the way the division looks we’ll probably be in the early 20s so…
I don’t mind a QB prospect in the draft, but no thanks on this dude. I don’t want some scramble bum as our team’s QB.
If Chip is still coach I think a mobile QB would help the offense. But I’m with you; I would rather have an statue QB with great accuracy and ability to read defenses than a mobile without those attributes
I like your general idea of casting a wide net to find a developmental guy, but I’m really dead set against a running QB.
Gunner Kiel, Treyvone Boykin, hell even Paxton Lynch are all options outside of the 1st 2 rounds.
Not a Boykin fan. Too much running.
Kiel is a poor man’s poor man.
Not sure about Lynch yet however.
I don’t really like any of the QBs in this class outside of Cook who although isn’t lighting it up this year I think he can be a good pro. These guys I mentions are just names that would be available in the later rounds.
There seem to be MAJOR flaws with every guy not named Goff in this draft.
Very true. Hell even Goff has his flaws but he is the best QB in a week class.
Goff threw 4 picks vs Utah and he doesn’t always step into his throws plus he doesn’t have a strong arm. He also needs to add strength. He needs to bounce back.
A lot of the guys I follow on Twitter are huge fans of his. We’ll see how he bounces back.
I don’t even think Boykin will be drafted, probably have to switch to WR to get into the league
And probably a slot WR at that. I hear Boykin is too small to play on the outside.
Oh, wait…
Kiel is a mess this year and he lost his job. Wentz is better NFL prospect than Kiel and probably Lynch but I have only seen Lynch here and there and Wentz would be a good fit in this offense.
Only thing I don’t like about Wentz is he too often locks onto his first read and stares it down. That will get him picked off too much in the pros.
Dobbs is trash. If you like Dobbs for the Eagles then why not advocate for Tebow 2.0 in Dak Prescott.
No thanks on that scramble bum as well.
I agree MM, I don’t like Prescott at all I was just making a reference to Dobbs being garbage.
I’m with you. We absolutley don’t need to ruin football in this town with a runaround QB.
Couldn’t agree more brother.
Is it time to add the phrase “Bradford face” to the lexicon. He’s no rival to Eli, but he’s got it goin on.
Does that mean he’ll give us 2 Superbowls too?
Seems only fair.
A lot of guys are wondering if he will be a top 5 guy… I’m just hopeful we get to not completely incompetent.
Still feel like we should kept the other guy.
right now, definitely missing the 2nd round pick. Hopefully that changes.
I liked the original version of that trade so much more.
The fact that I heard it and ran with it as totally plausible, my personal melt down that followed…was foreseeable.
We was robbed
But you only had 10 cents.
Assuming your subjective opinion is that SB is an upgrade over Foles, it is a fact that our 2nd rounder–according to the draft charts–would be worth 380 points. That is damn sure worth alot more 10 cents.
Considering that I believed Foles to be a decent but not great starter, and SB has looked….um, like dookie, my personal belief is that we got fleeced. Sam Hinkle style.
The like 30 minute window of going from “omg chip is just as good as hinkie with raping dumb GMs in trades” to “goddamnit chip is the fish at the poker table” was not a very fun afternoon
I don’t listen to local radio, but evidently that puke Josh Innes on WIP is getting smoked by Kempski right now.
https://twitter.com/JimmyKempski/status/656970871446351872
oh hey man you’re alive. I thought you might have had a stroke after that Cam Newton comeback.
I think you meant that breakdown on D by Seattle?
You mean where coaches gave Thomas and Sherman different coverage packages? We even did that on the ODB TD.
It was great seeing Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas doing the Nnamdi/Kurt Coleman dance after the play.
A good reason why Beckham wasn’t effective in the 2nd half, double coverage. I bet he goes off against the Cowboys next week.
https://vine.co/v/eV7TBYB0jLw
that one shot he tweeted of Hicks slipping the block and wrapping up the back is pretty dope….just a stud of a LB right now
Or Logan? taking 3-4 guys at once. Or was that Cox? Just absurd. Curry also had some nice tape too that game. The line was outstanding this game.
Logan had a great play when the Giants were on their own 5, Center and Guard doubled him, but he stayed engaged with the Guard long enough that he couldn’t get to Demeco and Demeco hit the back at the line and brought him down…..yea the D-line put on a clinic
I was looking at the one CB who was Charmin coverage. His no is 31. Otherwise i though NC was in ODB’s pocket pretty nicely there.
yea Carroll was step 4 step with ODB. Don’t know what Max’s assignment is there, but yea, Reuben Randle doesn’t need that much of a cushion
Max was trying to give up a first down
To be fair, Davis is extremely conservative with coverage, or our guys are coached to be. If there is no help over the top, you can basically count on our guys to sell out to not get beat deep. He’s basically playing with a Safety’s mentality, and it’s notorious for keeping us on the field on 3rd down. I know we hate x plays, but damn at some point let them contest the ball. Give them a chance to get us off the field. It was a real issue all last year. But I can’t complain too much. The D has been balling. Still strikes a nerve every time I see an uncontested catch.
Coach Azz makes men into Beasts.
Kind of foolish not to double him. Is that even double coverage there or is that just 2 high safeties? Looks like he just committed to Beckham when the slot went out.
Way late to the party on this one, but commenting anyway seeing as how important it is to the Eagles’ sucess that the QB play well.
The turnovers are clearly an issue, but the “upside” associated with Bradford’s game is hardly detectable. Open receivers missed, under thrown balls, questionable decision making… Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like Foles. Except if we still had him, we’d have had more $ to sign an offensive lineman or 2, and a 2nd round pick in next year’s draft.
Put another way, it’s just hard to project future sucess with Sammy based on what we’ve seen so far. The contract negotiations at the end of this season are gonna be interesting, to say the least. If there’s no one better, I’m ok with signing Bradford for another year or 2 (what choice do we have?), but nothing beyond that.
Does anyone know if any of the writers have analyzed the all-22 from the Giants game yet?
[…] As to Bradford, I wrote a piece on him the other day. The coaches have confidence that he’ll get better. It is hard to find someone to compare Sam to because of all the weird circumstances with him (coming off injury, changing teams, joining unconventional offense, etc.). Let’s go with Carson Palmer from 2013. He went from the Raiders to the Cardinals. After 7 games, Arizona was 3-4. Palmer had 8 TDs and 13 INTs. Things weren’t ideal. The Cardinals finished 7-2. Palmer had 16 TDs and 9 INTs in those games. He had a QB rating of at least 100 in 5 of those games. […]