You Can’t Always Get What You Want
Posted: November 13th, 2015 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 108 Comments »Dallas got up 7-0 last week, but the Eagles then tied the game. Then the Eagles took a 14-7 lead. Dallas tied it. Then the Eagles re-took the lead, 21-14. Dallas tied it. Then the Eagles went up 24-21. Dallas tied it. The Eagles took a late lead, 27-24. Dallas then hit their last second FG to send the game to overtime tied at 27.
I think we all remember what happened then.
I was frustrated all game long. I wanted the Eagles to get some separation so I could relax and enjoy the game. That never happened. It was back and forth right up until the end.
There were opportunities. The Eagles took a TD lead only to allow Dallas an 80-yard KO return. That immediately put them in scoring range. Cover that kick and I don’t know if the Cowboys go for a long score. There was the Brandon Graham strick-sack where the ball was on the ground. If the Eagles recover that, they are in the Red Zone with a lead. Go up 14 points right there and Dallas might fold.
Never happened.
While I was frustrated, the close game may have actually been the best thing for the Eagles. They lost a close game to Atlanta in the opener and then to Washington a few weeks back. This team needed to win a close game. They needed to show they could respond to tough situations.
And think about it. The Dallas win was similar to both the Atlanta and Washington games. Against Atlanta, the Eagles got into FG position and had a chance to take a late lead. Unfortunately Cody Parkey missed the kick and that basically sealed the Eagles fate. Against Washington, the Eagles did have the lead late in the game. The defense couldn’t stop Kirk Cousins and the Skins on that final drive as them moved down the field and won the game. The Eagles never let Dallas take a second half lead. They did give up a pair of field goals late in the game that forced it to overtime, but neither drive got into the Red Zone. The defense did toughen up when they needed to.
I wanted the blowout, but winning the tight game is definitely better for the Eagles. Having won a tight game will help them the next time they play in a tight game. Blowouts are fun. Tight games build a mental and emotional toughness that can pay off late in a season.
Let’s not make this a habit, though. Go blow out the Dolphins.
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It sounds like Nelson Agholor, DeMeco Ryans and Malcolm Jenkins will play. Jenkins has gone through the concussion protocol all week so this isn’t old school football (“Get out there…the team really needs you”).
Ryans will help with depth at ILB. Always good to have a leader like him on the field.
Agholor is interesting. The Eagles want him back on the field, but not if there is any risk of further injury. Jordan Matthews really got things going for the WRs last week. Someone else needs to step up. Josh Huff has been more quiet than anything. The return of Agholor could prove to be a big boost for the passing offense this week.
Agholor has the speed to be a vertical threat. He also has the RAC skills to turn a short pass into a longer gain.
Sam Bradford and Jordan Matthews really clicked last week. It’s time for another receiver to step up and do his part to help out the passing game. Agholor could be that guy.
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Brandon Graham predicted 32 sacks for the season. He’s on pace for 8.
Miami’s OL is not great right now and Graham could give them fits. Bills OLB Jerry Hughes (also #55) moved around last week and got pressure in a variety of ways. You can bet Bill Davis has some ideas on how to let Graham get loose or into favorable matchups.
It will be interesting to see if Graham is as productive a pass rusher as he wants to be. Huge opportunity for him.
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Huff!! smh The guy just doesnt have NFL WR ball skills. He can most def block tho!
I hope we go hard after alshon jeffery in free agency.
Jeffrey would be an interesting add, but when push comes to shove I expect the Bears to tag him and try to get a deal worked out.
Probably.. Unless they want to go full rebuild, thru the draft and they look at Kevin White as an excuse not to give Jeffries 50million, and have 4 more years of #1 WR at cheap rookie money…
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Regardless, im not sure I expect chip to give up on his 1st,2nd or 3rd round WR because they haven’t produced in the first year or two and go break the bank open for anothet teams young star
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can’t Help wonder what’s going to happen in Detroit? Full rebuild? I hear a lot of Talk about Matt Stafford possibly playing for a different team next year, Megatron isn’t a young Kid any more. if they decide to rebuild and get rid of their 100mil QB, who’s to say they won’t also be willing to trade MEGATRON?
If we are going to continue to ride with a veteran QB SAM Bradford like I expect them to, it puts us in win Now Mode next year, in which case we could see him go after a veteran weapon like that if he is actually made available.
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Could you imagine? Crazy
thats always a possibility.
He is really good once he catches the ball. Not ready to write that kid off. He needs to pull a JM and hit that jugs.
yes, hes good after the catch. i think its safe to write him off as a legit starting WR. hes a 4th or 5th type of WR to me.
Not sure how much money we will have to spend if FA. We have some big players to retain…
Cox needs extension, then we have Thurmond, Carrol, Curry and Thorton on defence… maybe Sam Badford as well.
Going to have about $25mil in cap space with the only obvious cuts being Cooper and Celek for $8mil in cap. Maybe you cut sproles/Ryans for $3.5mil each.
Cant see us being free agent spenders unless we want to blow up our finally decent defence.
Agreed. Although I’d love to get Jefferies, I doubt we spend big there. Cox’s extension is going to be huge. And, I think resigning Carroll and Thurmond is a must as well. That alone will eat into a good bit of our cap space. I can see us letting Thorton walk with the development of Hart, or at worst signing him to a small deal. I doubt he has a huge market as a 2 gapping 3-4 DE with no pass rushing production.
I’m hoping we can resign Bradford at a discount and hopefully his cap number next year is lower than the $13mil he’s counting this year. Can you really see anyone giving him substantially more than that next year? He’s not someone that teams are going to bend over backwards to hand a big $16-20 million contract with huge guarantees to in FA.
Cooper I hope is gone, same with Austin. That frees up $5.5 million right there. Peters is set to count $9mil against the cap. If he moves to LG, I’d expect a restructure that frees up another $3mil. Cutting Celek would save another $5mil. But, I could also see him getting the DeMeco treatment and getting a redone contract that extends him for a year with cap hits of $2.5mil per year instead of all $5mil counting next year. I assume Sproles stays for the last year of his contract, and we’re stuck with the Murray and Maxwell contracts for another year before it even becomes financially feasible to cut them.
That gives us approximately (rounded down) $10million in extra space. We have $10million in space unused this year that can be rolled forward if we don’t sign anyone else the rest of the year. Assuming a base salary cap of $150mil next year, if we rolled $10mil forward and cut $10mil in salary, we’d have just over $41mil in space to resign Cox, Bradford, Curry, Carroll and Thurmond.
I assume that Cox, Bradford, Carroll and Thurmond will eat up about $25-30mil of that. And, you gotta assume about $5mil for rookies. Maybe we’d still be able to resign Curry depending on his market in FA for $4-5mil. But, even if Curry and Thornton leave in FA, that doesn’t give us much space for any FA signings.
That being said, if we resign Carroll and Rowe develops nicely, after 2016 we can cut or at the very least approach Maxwell for a massive restructure to free up a large sum of money. And, we can cut DeMarco Murray. Getting out of those two contracts will free up $12mil alone.
Plus we can put off the Cox resigning as he’s under contract next year with a cap hit just over $7mil. And, even if we don’t put it off, his cap hit will just increase by whatever his prorated signing bonus is for 2016. So, resigning him might cost us a lot less cap space next year than I originally thought.
curry will be gone, thorton as well.. resign cox, walter.. bradford if he proves self
I am mostly concerned with the Eagles stopping both the run and the slot receiver for Miami. These were both areas we were exploited in last weeks game vs. Dallas. Miami, when they choose to run the ball have been very efficient and their slot receiver is very good and could give Jenkins and Biggers a hard time. On offense I think we need to stick to the run game even if it does not produce early and that will hopefully present some opportunities down the field with play action. Assuming we do not beat ourselves with turnovers I think we can win this game by 7-10 points. Thinking 27-17.
I would really like to see Philly have a steady, all around good performance.
For me, it doesn’t have to be a blow out.. But I’m hoping for good defense. Get off the field on third downs and don’t give the Fins extra chances.
On offense, I would LOVE to see see a good sustained opening drive to the game. Something like 8-10 plays, 4-5 mins, and a score. Ultimately I would like to see better execution and sustained drives on offense. Ride the running game and feed the ball to Ertz and Matthews.
As far as the beginning of the game goes, at his point i will settle for anything that is not a swing pass to Murray in the flat for a loss of 2.
If Graham gets double digit sacks this year, I will consider it a success.
Seconded. I always felt if he had been in a stable system as an edge rusher he could manage 10-12 sacks a year.
As long as he keeps FF too. A few FR wouldn’t hurt either
I’d like him to be at 12.
And I still need 6 to 8 for Smith.
6 to 8 what?
Tackles? Snaps?
Either way, I admire your optimism.
Sacks for a 2nd year first round draft pick OLB.
I think we have to abandon hope on this one.
Zach Ertz, Darren Sproles and Riley Cooper all have twice as many tackles *this season* as MSII has for his career.
He’s a straight bust.
Final judgement is scheduled for the end of the 2016 season.
Rip jobs on Smith himself, Chip for forcing that pick, and Chip/Howie for not trading down again from that spot are all in play at that juncture.
Judgment
nah he sucks, even w/ no dominant pass rusher he’s not seeing the field.
Lol when it comes to rushiñg the passer he is our 3rd string DE with a rotation of BG, Barwin,Curry and Cox playing DE snaps ahead of him,. Lol how many 2nd year edge rushers do you know that would play ahead of Cox,Curry,Barwin and BG?
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chip kept BG on the bench Only playing like 30% of snaps for two years, leading to everyone thinking that losing him to free agency was a foregone conclusion, yet Chip extended BG, who didmt even become a starter Til his 2nd contract
I think it’s a little disengenuous to count curry and cox as our edge rushers. Sure we move them around a bit, but come on. This is a team that barely plays any nickel. We don’t even have a true nickel CB, we just stay in base most times and rotate one of our safeties down into the box. And, in the relatively rare instances that we go nickel Cox and Curry are not our edge rushers, Barwin and BG are.
The expectations, even for a project at OLB, would be for more than 0-5 snaps a game for a guy who’s the first OLB off the bench. Even though he’s got time to turn it around, you have to admit he’s not getting anywhere close to the expectations that you’d expect.
Disengenuos? Really? If Cox and Curry ARENT basically the 2nd string DEs in our 4 mah line, who is? Curry. Cox,BG and Barwin account for all our snaps off the edge… We don’t have a nickel? That may hold true in the secondary, but we see a TON OF 4 man lines no matter what’s going on with the secondary… You name a player that takes snaps at DE besides curry, cox, Barwin and BG… Those are the facts, take it how you want it
I thought Chip not wanting him was one of the big points for his personel control? Whoever was in charge of that pick should of lost the GM battle. The drafts have been pretty darn good for the past few years though, save him.
Graham was a bust at one point too. I agree he probably is he worst first round pass rusher we have taken though. We should give him till he end of next year but I’m not sure the team will. He has been god awful.
Graham had a productive start to his rookie year then got injured, then had to deal with the dumpster fire that was 2012 and a position change to OLB in ’13.
MSII has had to deal with none of that and yet he still can’t make the active roster most weeks.
In a season and a half he has one tackle. One.
I’m all for giving guys time, but the man’s a big ole bust.
Every situation is different. Graham had micro fracture surgery and then got really over weight. He spent a few years in MS2 type of pergatory.
I’m not saying the guy isn’t a bust. I’m just saying that there is a chance he can become a contributor. I haven’t seen anything that would indicate that but I hope so.
TB winning the the NFC type of odds I would say…
But Graham never did spend a few years in MSII like purgatory. He spent no years there in fact.
His worst season, statistically, was 2011 when he was coming back from surgery and was on PUP for most of the year. 2010 he played well prior to his injury. 2012, 2013 and 2014 he played well and was a solid contributor coming off the bench.
In his worst ever season, the one when he was injured for most of they year, he *still* quadrupled MSII’s career tackle total.
You and I have as many sacks as MSII FFS.
His chances of not being a bust are more akin to the Jags’ chances of winning the NFC.
Lol Brandon Graham was kept on the bench by chip for two years. BG didn’t even become a starter under Chip Til his second contract… Your expectations are seriously out of whack and need to be re calibrated ..
Chip kept BG on the bench only playing like 30% of snaps for two years which is why everyone said he was leaving in Free agency.. Chip Didnf give BG a starting spot Til he signed his 2nd contract
He did activate him on gamedays though. And once activated, Graham was productive.
There is literally not a single thing MSII has done in the NFL to date that should give anyone any objective reason for hope. A first round pick who spends two years not even being active, totalling one measley tackle, is bad.
I’m afraid he’s a bust.
At this point, any hope that MS2 isn’t a bust is just that…it’s HOPE, pure and simple. We have seen nothing on tape that would justify that hope. We’ve seen him do nothing that says we should get this guy more involved. In fact, quite the opposite. His few snaps a game have been marred by mistakes and no production.
That being said, I still think it’s too early to definitively say there’s no hope. But, like you basically say, let’s at least be honest and admit that we’re not basing that hope on anything tangible.
BG grew up as a Pass rusher.. He came to the NFL with a lot of DE experience and a somewhat polished NFL ready game.
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MS2 was drafted with the understanding that we was a raw Kid with only a few years of experience playing Defense after having grown up playing QB. Whatever team that would end up drafting Marcus in whatever round, you Can bet they understood that there was no shot of him contributing as a rookie. He was a kid drafted because of what a team thinks he can become, not because a team is drooling over what he is…
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Personally, I was hoping we would see big improvement at the beginning of year two, and he probably has improved by leaps and bounds from his head spinning as a rookie, but Obviously he hasn’t improved enough to crack our Rotation yet..
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Problem with that is, Fans look at Marcus as if he is the #3 OLB, thus he should be contributing this year… But that is a very flawed, and innacurate understanding of the situation Marcus finds himself in today! in REALITY, a big percentage of the time, our OLBs are asked to become 4-3 DE’s, and while on Paper Marcus is the #3 OLB, when we go to our 4 man Lines, Marcus becomes like the #5 DE. you will consistently see Barwin, BG, Curry and even Cox lined up as a 4-3 DE, pushing Marcus back to like 3rd string DE, and in reality 3rd string DEs typically ARENT playing much more than MS2..
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to have written MS2 off after a year and a half is silly at best, foolish at worst.. Huff hasn’t done anything yet either, doesn’t mean he is destined to not grow into a quality veteran that will contribute
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And to be perfectly Honest with you, I’m surprised at how I hear his teammates on defense talk about Marcus smith. You should hear what guys like Bennie Logan think about the kid, I was surprised to hear playërs rave about his ability, claim he is one of the defenders that plays with the most swag (which I couldn’t even believe) . And if you rip him to bennie logan, he will tell you that the kid works hard, shows improvement and that he is just waiting for his opportunity to take advantage of..
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Last year MS2 Couldnt even get on the field for ST. now he is consistently dressing and has become a staple of our ST, while continuing to show growth as a defender and earning the respect of his teammates..it’s not moving as fast as we would like from a first round pick, but the arrow is trending up and there has been enough growth to earn the respect and belief of some great defenders on this roster.
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Not for nothing, but NOT many Teams have 4 better defenders rotating off our edge during passing situations. who the hell has a better 4 man rotation of BG, Barwin, Curry and Cox? And all 4 are strong enough to pass rush from the DT spot so it’s not uncommon to see all 4 on the field at once,,, How many Fuckin 2nd year OLB/DEs would get snaps on a team with Barwin, BG, Curry and Cox?.. Way too soon to write the kid off, a mistake we should have learmed from by now..
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Actually, as far as the Chip Regime, I think we have learned that Chip won’t try to justify draft picks by playing them if they aren’t the best players which is to be respected, Seth Joyner who has been critical of chip pointed this out and admits that chip needs to be respected for not putting draft picks on the field to try and justify the picks… I’m starting to think, that for the most part, many of Chips draft picks may have to wait a few years before they get thrust into starting position. I think there are draft picks that chip loves and is still very high on who won’t be starting for the Eagles as soon as we would like or expect…. Obviously roster holes will force us to try and fast track some kids like AGHOLAR… But just look at BG, Chip had BG on the bench for 2 years, and it was like his 4th and 5th year in the league, which resulted in many people expecting us to lose BG in free agency because they didn’t think chip seemed to value him, yet the Kid veteran 1st round pick chip kept on the bench for two yearsm ended up being paid as a fee agent and brought back to start… Even if MS2 grows into a quality starter for us, he is going to have to spend a few years coming off the bench playing like 30% Of snaps at the most, before eventually becoming a starter for chips Eagles.. As Long as BG and Barwin are here, Marcus is coming off the bench no matter how much he Improves,
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Basically I’m starting to think that writing off draft picks who aren’t starting and playing a large amount of snaps by years two and three like we have historically done is going to prove foolish under chip. I think we will see high draft picks come off the bench for 3,4 even 5 years before becoming starters for chip,. … makes me think back to the analogy chip gave when talking about how much everyone gets carried away with draft expectations, the analogy he gave was, you wouldn’t exoect a kid trying to get his first job out of college to be hired to perform CEO duties his first year, Kid get out of school, they get entry level positions and work their way up thru the ranks of the company they work for,.. normally if we don’t see a kid starting or playing a big role at a high legel by years two and three, we write them off. some kids like AGHOLAR will have to be fast tracked. Some like Hicks will surprisingly earn the right to be fast tracked, but I think we have to recalibrate our expectations and get used to the fact that some players chip drafts who he completeky believes in will have to spend, 3,4 or even 5 years coming off the bench before they get to start for chip.. Heck, We will probably even see more cases like BG who didn’t even become starters for chip until their 2nd contracts…
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huff drives me insane. We all wish we would get to see validation for spending a 1st round pick on MS2, but it seems like we need to recalibrate our expectations because some kids we draft will end up having to wait longer than we expect Til we see them in a starting role…
” he has become a staple of our ST, while continuing to show growth as a defender”…ehhhh, while agree with your overall sentiment of not writing off draft picks, I can’t really get on board with this statement. MS2 still doesn’t play special teams. And, he has ZERO special teams tackles…not even an assisted tackle…this year. Not sure if I’d classify that as being “a staple of our ST.”
As far as “growth as a defender” is concerned, that growth has been as minimal as humanly possible. He went from not being able to get on the field at all, to routinely getting between 0-5 snaps a game. And, in those snaps he’s had quite a few bone head plays that directly resulted in huge gains while recording all of 1 single tackle. And, besides 1 or 2 decent preseason snaps, he’s shown nothing compelling so far in an actual game.
Huff by comparison has occasionally made a big play where you see the talent pop off the screen. Certainly, it’s too soon to completely lose faith. And, yes it’s 100% true that MS2 was a project from day one. But, it’s also “silly at best, foolish at worst” to claim that we’ve seen ANYTHING from MS2 so far that would indicate a reason for hope that he’ll develop into something other than an out and out bust.
And, this is coming from one of MS2’s biggest supporters since we drafted him. I always thought he’d turn it around, but even I have to admit that, at this point, that’s based purely on blind hope and not on anything I’ve actually seen on the field.
basically said what i said in 1/3 the words…well played, my friend
Graham was a bust because us Philly fans are ridiculously impatient and hard on first rounders. Graham looked like a really good player if not a budding stud DE his rookie year before he tore his ACL late that season. He was playing regularly and starting as well towards the end of that year.
After having microfracture surgery in addition to an ACL reconstruction he basically had a lost 2nd year as he recovered and got stuck behind Babin for the next year and a half while that turd Washburn drooled over Babins 18 selfish sacks that came at the expense of ever having any semblence of gap integrity.
Still he was productive in limited reps. Then, as he’s starting to show his skill again, he gets asked to switch positions to 3-4 OLB and does a damn good job at the switch, plays better than expected and again shows up on film regularly while coming off the bench.
So, yea he was a bust because we wanted a pro-bowler with that pick that got 10+ sacks every year, but he showed that he had the skills to play even if it was just in a rotation. MS2 is a whole ‘nother level of bust. The dude can’t get on the field, even on special teams and the few snaps he gets usually result in him giving up a huge gain. MS2 still has time, but he’s shown absolutely NOTHING so far. At least with Graham there were glimpses that he could turn into something. I can’t say I’ve seen anything from MS2 that gives me any hope so far.
Hard to get sacks when you can’t even get on the field.
Smith? Never heard of him
Sacks? I’m still just hoping for 6-8 TACKLES this year for Smith!
If he keeps looking like he did last year, I will consider it a success,. BG was pretty Dominant for large portions of the game, and his domination was even more impressive since it game against Tyrone Smith who is probably the Cowboys best player… BG put a whooping on Tyrone, while GREG Hardy couldn’t so much against Dennis Kelly…. Battle of the trenches is such a major factor in how NFL games play out..
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So Hopefully we play to our potential and our OL handles the Miami Front 7 much better than how the Miami OL struggles to handle our front 7
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Cox is a “Man Dog”…. Suh is just a boy-mutt
Hopefully, his transition from solely utilizing the bull rush to developing a few more pass rushing moves isn’t an aberation. He could easily get hot going into the second half of the season and get a couple games against inferior opponents that send him into double digit sacks for the season.
Huff is making it hard to be in his corner. I hope Ags is ready to turn up.
they’re both on my nerves; Huff for lack of production and Agholor for sitting out beyond his recovery time frame.
and in your next comment you complain about Parkey coming back too fast from an injury?
Warriors, bro, MY TEAM NEEDS WARRIORS.
Different situation. Parkey was far from a full participant prior to his return.
Just now?
So Far, Huff has basically just been a Young Riley Cooper, aka a WR who’s biggest contribution to our offense comes as a Blocker..
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Just look at the Dallas game. can you think of Huff making a bigger contribution all game than the block he made down field in overtime that kept his man from trying to stop Jordan from getting into the ENDZONE for the walk off TD? That’s basically a riley Cooper game lol..
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So while no player frustrates me more than Huff, at the very least, im praying that his consistent quality Blocking at the WR position gives us NO EXCUSE to let Coop keep his expensive overpaid contract, allowing us to get out of that contract and move on from Coop at the end of this year. At the very least, hopefully Huff is good for that…. But it’s only been a year and a half, way to soon to give up on the frustrating prick especially since it’s not a case of his talents being maxed out, he isn’t struggling because of some limitation he has no chance to overcome making him destined to suck… He still has plenty of room o improve before he grows into his ceiling, he still has plenty of untapped potential Nd ability that can hopefully be weaponized…. Now that he has a half a season under his belt and nhis QB is starting to look good, hopefully we start to see flashes of his talent the rest of this year. It would be much easier if we didn’t have to go into this 3rd offseason still not having seen flashes of being worth our 3rd round investment
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With Jordan Having his big Breakout game, it sure would be awesome if Aagholar had a big game this week, putting the pressure on Huff to step up and get it going..
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The most frustrating player on the Eagles, but big picture he still has plenty of talent and ability to grow into, we aren’t even close to being at the point where we give up on the kid, hopefully he doesn’t make us wait too much longer.
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Can’t help to think of what could have been had we drafted Jordan, traded up from round 3 and scooped up Jarvis Landry.. Today we would have Jordan, Landry and AGHOLAR … Or Unfortunately Chip Wasnt a Kelvin benjamin fan, we could have Kelvin and AGHOLAR on the outside with Jordan in the slot… Or even AGHOLAR and Martevis BRyant on the outside with Jordan in the slot… grrrr… Any way we look at it, Huff has some Big IMPROVEMENT to make before we can get the “what could have been” out of our heads…
The big difference between the ATL and WASH losses vs this recent win against Dallas is the Eagles were not playing from down multiple scores, but instead for most of the game had a lead. That allowed them to keep the run game going, not get out of balance offensively and not put the defense back on the field so quickly. That is why the slow starts by both the offense and defense are frustrating – they have got to figure that out on both sides and start much faster! Tell them the game starts at noon instead of 1 maybe…;)
I agree with you in concern for ST. They have been less consistent this season (stats from Football Outsiders support this) and it seems like there have been less impact plays i.e. turnovers generated, balls downed inside the 10 yd line on punts, long returns etc. I realize last season was an outlier for our ST, but if they could make just a couple more big plays it would help tremendously.
I’m also excited about the return of Agholor; if he and Matthews can become a reliable and consistently productive duo, our WR corps will be in much better shape. We can always swap out talent in the depth spots, but we need those two headliner guys to perform well as the starters. We really need Agholor to stay healthy and step up. Huff has struggled to develop and seems to be a tweener who does many things ok, but cannot do anything at a higher level than that and thus struggles to make an impact. Coop & Austin are what we know they are: 5th/6th WR.
So glad Ryans is back this week too, we need him to bolster our leaky run defense and have missed him the last two weeks.
And given how both of those teams have played over the last month; I find it vile to have been down multiple touchdowns to them.
Most of the difference on STs was the missed kicks earlier in the season
Although the lack of touch-backs from Sturgis is not ideal.
Yeah. I guess my point is that most ST stuff still good on Eagles but injury to kicker is most of the difference
I agree. And an avoidable injury at that. If Parkey would have been given a few weeks to rest up while being inactive they could have won a game or two more with a temp kicker. The roster spot would have been easily absorbed with cutting Barner.
I have noticed and felt the loss of Prosinski on ST this year, more than I would have liked, for example. Prosinski typically can be counted on to make the play instead of whiffing on the kick of coverage like Couplin did last week which was primarily responsible for giving up that 80 yard KR. The timing of that mistake was horrible. we had just Rocked Dallas with the Hicks pick 6.. Instead of taking that momentum, and beating Dallas over the head with it, jumping on Dallas and starting to run away with the game, Couplins mistake gave the momentum right back to the Cowboys…
How many kicks were actually returned that game? 1 or 2?
1 too many. That 80 return doesn’t happen with a touchback.
That 80 yard return also doesn’t happen of Couplin does his damn job like Prosinski could be counted to do instead of shittinv the bed and give momentum back to an opponent that just coughed up a pick 6 to cowboy slayer, Baby Simba
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But yes, Touchbacks would be much more relaxing,,..
Agreed with all of this! Being able to consistently stick with the run is the recipe for success with this team. The effects of our tempo late in games is so obvious when we’re able to start sustaining long drives with run plays.
Special teams have definitely had a disappointing lack of big plays. I think a few things are involved here. One: teams aren’t punting it to Sproles and letting him return it. Dallas had like 8 or 9 punts last week and Sproles only got to return one of them. Just a lack of opportunities that we can’t control. Huff is a monster on returns, but it seems like he’s been told to kneel for the touchback unless he’s less than 3 yards deep in the end zone.
There’s been a bunch of seemingly returnable kicks that have been caught 4-5 yards deep that he’s not bringing out. I’m sure Chip has some stats to back up such a plan, but I’d definitely like to see Huff get more opportunities. I highly doubt he gets tackled before the 15 yard line on most of those and the risk of needing an extra few yards for a score versus the potential benefit of a big return seems like a no brainer to me given how successful he is when he does get a chance to return.
After you take out the lack of opportunities in the return game with so many fair catches and touchbacks, the biggest difference between this year and last is the lack of blocked punts. But, we all should have expected that that stat would revert to a mean closer to 0 and wouldn’t continue to occur at such an unsustainable rate.
Covering punts has been great, we haven’t given up a big return there at all this year and aside from the big return last week on the KO we’ve been solid in KO coverage as well.
The return of Agholar is huge. He’s the only outside WR we’ve got with elite talent. And, he was looking like he was getting comfortable and about ready to break out when he sprained his ankle. If he can provide one or two nice plays a game that could be enough to really open the entire passing game up.
“I was frustrated all game long. I wanted the Eagles to get some separation so I could relax and enjoy the game. That never happened. It was back and forth right up until the end.”
Too much playing around with inferior opponents in frustrating. There is only one way to deal with weak teams of that nature.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/3b/f8/2c/3bf82ce08bfb666701623ef030b68f5c.jpg
One of my favorite movie lines of all time! lol I’m gunna use that one every chance I get. Apologies in advance. 🙂
Prediction of first 3 offensive plays
1. Swing pass to Murray for 0 yards
2. Inside zone to Murray for 2 yards
3. 6 yard pass on 3rd and 8
That is impossible. We did that last week. And week 6. And week 5. And…oh.
When we fake the swing pass to Murray and throw it downfield to a streaking Agholor for a TD on the first play of the Superbowl then everyone will understand.
That failed swing pass early on will often help set up those Big plays off wheel routes later in games that we all cheer for
That failed swing pass early on will often help set up those Big plays off wheel routes later in games that
we all cheer forMathews dropsFTFY
You forget the beautiful catch and Run Murray had from the perfectly thrown wheel route last week against Dallas? Convenient amnesia
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I don’t think Chip actually calls that swing pass. isnt it one of the options in our packaged plays? If im not mistaken when SAM counts too many defenders in the box, he is able to switch it to the swing pass option of the play… Like we have our basic run plays that we always run, I think the swing pass is one of the built in options for our bread n butter packaged run plays, which is why we end up seeing it often early in games… Instead of it being a case of Andy-itus where he keeps running the same play that never works as part of the 15 or so scripted plays Andy would run at the start of games… The swing pass we see so often is a built in optipn of the packaged run plays we have, not surprised that Defenses load the box and try to stop the run at the start of games, so we end up seeing THAT swing pass option more than we would like… As long as it pays off in a big strike on the wheel route later in the game, I can live with it…
I see you’ve watched all 8 of our games this year…
Speaking of what we want;
Wins vs. Miami, Tampa, Detroit, Bills, Redskins, Giants.
We’ll see vs. Arizona
Hope we don’t get killed vs. Patriots.
There is no reason why I should expect a 4-4 team to get back to 10 or 11 wins, but my goal for the season was 11-5………..so I’m holding them to that.
I don’t expect to win, but I think the fear of being blown out in Foxborough will bring out the best in us and we end up Playing the Pats tôugh and making a game of It… You don’t have a łet down, you don’t overlook your opponents, you don’t have a lazy week of Practoice where you lack focus when you are getting ready for the Patriots, especially traveling to Foxborough…
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.I just want us to play our best ball Startimg on thanksgiving night, instead of imploding after thanksgiving like we did last year, No one should be blowing us out when we play to the best of our capabilities… bring IT against the Pats. Make them find themselves in a dog fight and I can live with the results
I just want to beat Tom Brady once before he retires.
You know I was thinking this a few weeks back after the Jets win. When it actually was happening I was kind of miserable lol. The end of that game was more relief than joy. I guess if it was a suspense thriller movie it would win all of the awards. Tony Romo gets best supporting actress because he(she) literally spent more time on camera than anyone else.
Anything less than the Charlie Garner game over the Niners in 94 or the 2008 season ending smashing of the Cowboys tends to bee too stressful.
I feel bad for your heart man, haha!
I would also accept Eagles / Lions 95 season playoff game blowout level wins.
Giants game last year?
That game had rare “shutout” stress…
I am wondering, and Tommy maybe you have a thought on this, could part of the Eagles slow starts be related to the fact that they seem to hold an even keel and never get too emotional to start a game? It seems like the other team always comes out on a high, maybe because it is the Eagkes and Chip, but their emotion wears down as the game progresses, while ours builds.
It also seems like Chip is setting up other teams in the first half. Not that he doesn’t want to ‘score f’n points’, but it appears he has a core set of plays he wants to see how they get defended so he can call the right counter plays to exploit a defense.
There was some evidence of that in the Dallas game where we used tempo to beat their D into submission. Sadly our D kept giving up nonsense TDs to allow Dallas to stay in the game, but Chips playcalling philosophy seemed to really grind allas into dust.
The defense really only gave up the one TD after the game was 7-0. The one where Jenkins was on Beasley and which didn’t change until after the drive. That was also the drive where Graham had a strip sack but we didn’t recover — that would have really changed the game. The other TD was an 80 yard return followed by a ridiculously lucky result on a horrible decision to throw by Cassel after running around and having Eagles guys run into each other (and another WR), all falling down letting Dez make the catch. Can’t pin that on the D. But yes, the D did allow a couple of FG drives which re-tied the game.
I’m still not sure that Dez didn’t push off on Maragos who fell down On that jump ball TD… Maybe he didn’t push off very hard, but the way that egomaniac joke of a referee “Gunz” Hochuli’a was calling EVERYTHING, flagging Maxwell in crunch time for two PAss interference penalties that never even existed, calling Offensive pass Interference negating the DEz BRyant TD was THE FAIR THING TO DO, because it would have been consistent with how “Hercules” Hochuli decided to call that game.
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You are allowed to call games tight,and flag every infraction, but THE MOST important part of your job is that no matter how you decide to call the game, you make sure it’s consistent for both teams, for the entire 60 minutes, which he CLEARLY FAILED TO DO!
yes to your second paragraph.
Your second paragraph is definitely true..
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Just look at the early game swing pass that never works and pisses fans off…if it doesn’t work and we don’t gain yards(which has been the case lately), calling that play is still an Investment that can pay off late in the games, for example, first play of the game, we call the swing pass, linebacker sees it coming, makes a big hit stopping murray for no gain… later in the game. That LB’s eyes get big because he thinks he sees the same swing pass coming, so he gets excited and aggressively tries to make that play again, only This time, the swing pass he is licking his chops to make a big play on, at the last second, the RB explodes up field turning what he thought was a swing pass, into a wheel route, and now our RB has a step on the defender, SAM throws it letting the RB catch it in stride, and we make a big play down the sideline because we set that LB up with the swing pass early in the game…. And it’s not just about the swing pass, wheel route. There is plenty that we do early in the game that if we don’t gain yards off of is still an investment that will help us Burn them later in the game with a play that looks the same, but with some slight variation designed to burn the defender who thinks we are running the same thing he saw earlier in the game..
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There is nothing better when we set up a defender to where he thinks he knows what’s coming, gets over agressive, and we catch him slipping with a different variation of what he is expecting,. You can do a lot of damage when a defender is trying to jump a route, and guesses wrong on what Route is coming, often set up by a similar variation of the play earlier on the game..
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So while its frustrating to see that swing pass go for a short gain early in the game, Im fine with continuing to run it as long as later in the game we burn them with a big play on a wheel route that the swing pass help set up… A wheel route looks similar to the swing route, only difference is at the end Of the swing route you turn and explode up field
This has been studied: Guts vs Stomps. Simply put, good teams crush their opponents, average teams eke out wins essentially by luck. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2005/fo-fox-guts-and-stomps
What about gutting out a win when the luck was against you?
And there was a conspiracy in the officiating crew.
Is it a conspiracy or just plain corruption?
So sorry to reply again but I now read the article. He doesn’t look at all into teams that have the majority of stomps but any number of guts. Teams that only Stomp probably have a harder time winning a close game, no? So far the Eagles would have 2 Stomps and 2 guts. The Jet game was more of a stomp though and barely falls within the gut category.
What you see is an inconsistent team. Can they put it together is the question. If they do by the end of the year the stomp number will certainly be higher than the gut. We haven’t seen a team that can play a complete game. If that holds true they won’t do anything. If they put it together like us hopefuls think is possible, they can be dominant.
How was the Jets game more of a stomp? We had like 50 yards of offense after the first half, and almost let a Ryan Fitzpatrick without Eric Decker or Chris Ivory offense make a comeback on us. Hell, if Brandon Marshall doesn’t make one of the dumbest fumbles in football history we might have lost that.
As it stands we’re fortunate we did win, because it might come down to the wire with NY.
They let off the gas big time. Fitz has been having a very good year btw. That game never felt in jeopardy to me anyway.
Brandon marshall pulled his arms down and it resulted in our interception .. he did that the other night also ..strange
I would think winning a close game would be good for the psyche.
That being said, I would rather the Eagles be blowing people out. I think the evidence is teams that beat other teams soundly (ie, high point differential) are good teams. Teams that win a lot of close games are, generally speaking, average teams that got lucky. Luck is a big part of most football games.
If both teams are good… its more than likely going to be a gut or one team slowly pulling away towards the end
Sure, but good teams rarely play each other and… Dallas is not good.
Division game…. they match up well against us too; the same with Washington. This is what happens when you play twice year every year
Over the last 13 years only the pats, Steelers and Manning Colts have winning records over winning teams
There have been a few SB won by “average” teams that know how to win close games.
I’d like to see some actual statistical analysis done on his data though. Most of the teams he’s basing this conclusion on if you look at the chart at the end of the article, have between 1-3 stomps and 1-2 guts. Just seems like theres too few instances in any given 16 game season to draw any real conclusions. If you assume that 0.500 is average, most teams on average are only playing 8 teams below 0.500 and 8 teams above that mark each year. Then you’re further restricting the data pool from those 8 games to look at winning margins in a particular point range. As expected no matter who the team is the total number of games that meet his criteria is extremely small, giving a small sample size.
Further, he’s only comparing teams that won the Super Bowl to other Super Bowl winners (or at best teams that advanced far into the playoffs), meaning he’s taking a very small sample size and making it even smaller.
Given that a good team is more likely to play a sub 0.500 team since being a team with a good record takes one such team out of the potential pool of good teams one can play, and that having a good record means the other teams in your division are less likely to also have a good record, and given that a good team is more likely to stomp a bad team than eek out a win against a good team, it would follow naturally that you’d expect the overall number of stomps to be higher than the overall number of guts.
On top of that, if your team is so good that they routinely stomp and dominate, you’d naturally expect them to go far in the playoffs. They’re clearly good, most likely better than teams that have to gut out wins. But, that doesn’t disprove the benefit of a young up and coming team learning that it can win close games. It merely plays out the results you’d expect.
However, we’re not trying to determine if the Eagles are a dominant team able to blow everyone out of the water (they’re clearly not) versus a team that’s able to play a tough opponent and win a close game, we’re trying to put a single game in context and see whether a tough win is beneficial in building character. Does being able to win a tight game make a mediocre team more likely to rise to the occassion in future tight games is a more apt question. The Eagles are unlikely to dominate a top tier team in the near future. At best, they’ll possibly be in position to eek out a tight win against such an opponent.
Therefore, the data we’d need to see is league wide data (not just for successful teams, but all teams) that compares outcomes in tight games to prior success in tight games. Does proving you can win a tight game make you any more likely to win future tight games? That would be a much more useful analysis. Because, obviously teams that routinely win big are better than teams that don’t and would be expected to be the more successful overall teams.
It’s funny, I was just saying this about the team I coach. Won a playoff game today 30-0, championship is next week. They haven’t been tested all year, and I’m concerned how they’ll respond next week if it starts off bad. Part of that is just coaches have to worry, but part is also experience. Teams are all different, it’s important to be “tested”.
Check out the DVOA! Eagles rose 2 spots to #10. I thought this was going to be one of those games they win, but actually hurts you in the numbers department. Especially in the defense, but they have us #6 there. Dallas also rose 2 spots due to the game.
Our buddies in Carolina have clawed their way up to #4. Not too shabby for a team dragging around the biggest scam QB in the league!
Stanford trying to lose
They succeeded. I still like Hogan a little but he can drive you crazy with inconsistency.
He will do something awesome and then you’re like WTF 30 seconds later
Speaking of not always getting what I want, it looks like the Eagles will not be televised in my area. Thanks NFL for putting the Ravens, Steelers, and Eagles all on at 1.
If you have decent internet, just stream it.
Any suggestions on a site?