Lots of Learning
Posted: August 10th, 2016 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 93 Comments »New schemes. New staff. New players. Rookie head coach. All of this put together means the 2016 Eagles are a mystery. We think we know certain things about the team, but the truth is that we’re constantly learning. I mean, how many people thought Trey Burton would be the star of Training Camp? Who thought 7th round pick Jalen Mills would be outplaying Eric Rowe?
I wrote a piece for PE.com on some of the things we learned in the first 2 weeks of Training Camp.
Obviously what we know now can change quite a bit in the coming weeks. Preseason games bring out the best in some players and will expose others. As noted philosopher Allen Iverson famously pointed out, there is quite a difference in practice and games.
Another factor is whether players can sustain their level of play. Having a good week or couple of weeks is impressive, but players have to show they can stay at the same level for all of August. That builds trust with their teammates and the coaches. That’s how you carve out a role on offense, defense or STs.
With all of the new faces and all of the changes, we’ll be learning about this team all year long.
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We learned about WR Deon Long in the first episode of Hard Knocks.
Jeff Fisher made it very clear that players were not to have guests (females) in their rooms. Long was caught with a female guest. Fisher talked to him for a minute about the situation and then told Long he was being released. Guys at the bottom of the roster can’t make dumb mistakes like that. Fisher also wanted to send a message to his team that BS won’t be tolerated. He’s tired of constant mediocrity and is going to push the Rams to quit settling for mediocrity.
Long does have some potential.
He’s not so good that he can do knucklehead things and get away with them.
Long has some RAC ability. He catches the ball away from his body. Shows some toughness and aggressively goes after the ball. He doesn’t have an ideal size/speed combination and isn’t a polished WR. The Eagles aren’t loaded at WR (to put it mildly) so Long has a chance to get the coaches attention if he plays well.
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I really enjoyed this interview with QBs coach John DeFilippo. Sometimes Dave Spadaro gets a guest to relax and share some good information. That’s exactly what happened here.
Flip has interesting thoughts on the players and offers good insight what the coaches are looking for from them.
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[…] Tommy Lawlor New schemes. New staff. New players. Rookie head coach. All of this put together means the 2016 […]
Maybe we can plant a woman in Gurley’s dorm room…
He’ll be having his way with the Niners D twice; don’t tire him out early.
I still don’t understandwhy the hell they gave Navarro Bowman that extension with 3 years left on his current deal,,. Was gifting him another contract the only thing that could make him ok with he staying in that dumpsters fire of a franchise?
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When was the last time someone got a similar extension as Bowman?
We’re toast.
In all seriousness, boring head coach, good D, rookie high draft pick QB, and bad wide receivers. Is it 1999?
If it is, I am buying the copyright to those stupid glasses that look like the upcoming year. Those things refuse to die.
I love my Eagles toaster.
damn didnt realize cutting nicky stixx would be the first move of hard knocks.
An interesting thought dawned on me this morning. Somehow this Eagles team reminds me of Andy Reid’s Eagles in the early 2000.
– Average WRs at best (James Thrash & Todd Pinkston Nelson Agholor & Jordan Matthews)
– Good TE (Chad Lewis Zach Ertz)
– Above average starting OL (a lot depends on the pending suspension of Lane though)
– Balling D
– Young Head Coach, great Defense Coordinator
The only difference might be Quarterback, where McNabb took the NFC East by storm in his sophomore NFL season.
However when looking at the overall state of this crappy division back then and now, then I don’t see any reason why the Eagles should not be at least in the hunt for the division title.
We might not win the Super Bowl this year, but low expectations may well be exceeded if you consider the above.
#Go Eagles.
Good set of thoughts, but ascending McNabb >>>>> Bradford. I think we’ll get a true sense of what this team is in 2018 when Wentz is starting full time from the first day of mini-camp through a playoff loss that was 100% caused by the refs.
I’m already mad at the refs for that.
Which came first: your predictable fatalistic perspective or predictable shitty calls?
I argue Matthews and Ertz are better than components in 2000
Not a fan of Chad Lewis, Charles Johnson, and Torrance Small?
I liked Chad Lewis, but the rest?
Chad Lewis made decent contributions for sure, but wasn’t really a top player.
Charles Johnson’s career highlight was kicking the ball in the air to a-hole Sehorn for an INT in a playoff game. And Sehorn is one of my most hated NFL players ever.
Agreed. And I even think that this defense – provided Hicks can stay healthy – has the potential to be just as good as the Eagles D led by Dawkins back in those days!
Haha. Awesome. Yes that was quite a WR duo!
Small/Johnson were pretty impotent.
Well played sir
Sure. They might very well be better. One more reason for hope! 🙂
I’m not saying your slow 🙂 … but as soon as the Eagles announced Pederson was hired — were you expecting anything else?
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All joking aside — one major difference(from my view) is when AR was hired, there was a ton of buzz around the NFL about him, about how he’s ready for the next step(blah blah blah). The only buzz about Pederson was from AR. And even that buzz came with questions….
That 1999 D had more talent than this crew and Reid was a much better HC than Pederson will be IMO.
D had Dawk, Trot, Thomas, Taylor, Vincent, Hollis, Ike et al. Then we added Hugh, Simon, Emmons and took off.
I think there is certainly a possibility that it turns out Jenkins, McCloud, Cox, Logan, Graham, Curry, Hicks end up being the core of another very good group.
If they do, we will look back with hindsight and say that this coaching staff started off with pieces as good as the last one.
It is possible, anything is when doing projections, but I’d argue the odds are against it.
No way do I see Jenkins ever becoming a HOF level safety like Dawk. HOF players are rare for a reason, they are truly elite.
Nor do I see any of our current CB stacking up to the career of Vincent.
William Thomas was one of the best WLB I’ve ever seen play for the Eagles. Kendricks will never be close to him in my view.
Hicks has the best chance to be as good as Trot since he has better coverage skills and has time to learn to play the run as effectively.
Obviously, the 1999 team did not have a Cox and Logan is likely on par with Hollis even though their roles are somewhat different. When Simon arrived in 2000 is when that Eagles group got a Cox-level player.
Simon is not a Cox level player.
They are very close. Simon posted better sack & tackle numbers his first two years whereas Cox has posted better tackle numbers his last two years and tied Simon’s rookie sack total last year (9.5). They both provided very good run defense combined with rush ability. The major difference is that Simon started off gangbusters and then age/injuries took a quick toll whereas Cox started slower, but appears to be coming on strong now. We’ll see what happens in the rest of Cox’s career.
The point I was going for is that projecting this group is one side of the coin. The other side is overcoming hindsight. There were question marks in 1999 that turned into exclamation points in our 2016 reflections. It is fair to project a few for this group as well.
I’m not sure what “fairness” has to do with it. If you really believe that Jenkins will ever get to Dawk’s level, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. It was clear early on in Dawk’s career that he was a stud. Jenkins has never been a stud; he is a good player. What should be kept in mind too is that Jenkins looks even better because we’ve had such crap at S since Dawk left. I like Jenkins a lot, he has helped this team in many ways, but he is no Dawk.
Where did I say Jenkins will get to Dawkins level? Or even mention Dawkins’ name? Don’t put words in my mouth. Dawkins is HOF talent, the only one on that defense. Cox could be the HOF talent on this one.
Jenkins in not Dawk. Simon was not Cox. Hicks could be better than Trotter. McCloud could be better than anyone that lined up next to Dawkins. Curry and Graham could be a menace to opposing QBs… or the CBs could all flop and render the other talent useless. We don’t know. But in 1999, we didn’t know either.
If Schwartz gets 4-man rush pressure/sacks this D will be better. Dawk and company were great and fun to watch, but they carried a liability into every post-season: blitz dependency.
then we added Westbrook and took off on the other side
Not Eagles related, but the Bosa situation is cracking me up.
On one hand you have the Chargers who are insisting on delaying payment of part of the signing bonus until next year and putting offset language into the deal. Rather than cry about the 3 or 4 guys per season that Goodell has to dominate; the players should focus on getting offset language and delayed payment of rookie bonuses out of the CBA.
On the other hand; Bosa is an idiot. He’s a product of 4 and 5 star teammates and value inflation by the national press at Overrated State University, was a mega-reach at 3, and doesn’t fit the 3-4 that the Chargers use. The offest and delayed bonus money the Charters are demanding of Bosa as the 3rd pick still leaves him with far more money and security than he’d have if he went in the 10 to 15 range.
What a clown. He’ll be injured from being out of shape when he finally does sign and take the field.
I have zero idea why the delayed bonus money is such a big deal. The offset is much bigger deal.
I think they’re both BS on the part of the team, but Bosa is so NOT the guy to fight that battle.
Actually, if he’s as bad as you say, he’ll need those guarantees. If he was good, the payment schedule wouldn’t matter since he would never be in danger of getting cut early.
ya agree, and if Chargers thought that much of him to take him at 3 just pay him up front. You drafted him that high so assume you dont think he will bust and you will have to pay him anyway.
Either way the dudes gonna be a millionaire so, welp, thats pretty much it.
I dunno how I feel about this,,, on one hand its Embarressing that the Chargers have a long history of not getting their draft picks signed in time for camp… Why the hell would you spend the #3 pick on someone you are worried about being a bust and having to be cut 3 years from now? If you are worried about that, why the hell didnt you draft someone you at least had confidence in keeping thru his rookie deal?
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Now when it comes to Bosa, if im the #3 pick, im probably too cocky and believe too much in my ability to make this drama over arguing what happens if I suck so bad that they want to get rid of me in 3 years. but on the other hand, im extremely skeptical of Bosa’s ability and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he ends up not living up to his draft stock, so because im so down on his ability, I have to kind of understand him taking this stance to try and secure his financial security, and since im down him I have to understand the Chargers wanting to protect themselves from him being a bust…
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But Id like to think a team would have more confidence in a kid they spent the #3 pick on, and a kid getting drafted that high would have more belief in himself to not let it get to this poïnt over offset language which is basically just insurance in case you drafted a lemon.
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So im torn by this situation, and I don’t think its a good look for the Chargers or Bosa,.. Chargers look really bad because they have a history of this drama involving signing their first round picks, it goes back YEARS. They have created an unflattering reputation, at what point does it catch up to them and guys begin to not want to be drafted by the Chargers? I guess the Manning family knew what it was doing…
see Hard Knocks? I couldn’t quite catch what was said, but I thought Fisher said Goff has never called a play. Now I know that in the end, that isn’t the most important factor in his success, but still.
I have to say nothing against Goff, but I hope we have the Manning and Goff is Leaf. I just feel like I want him not to succeed too much.
Spread offense in college. Those guys rarely pan out in the NFL.
QBs in general rarely pan out in the NFL.
there ya go, fixed it
He played in an Air Raid derivative not a traditional spread.
Also for all the shit that people like to whine about it hurting QBs:
Derek Carr played an Air Raid derivative
Aaron Rodgers was mocked for the gimmicky Tedford WCO system
Andy Dalton played in a Power Spread
Drew Brees played in a very early version of the spread
Mariotta played a spread and if TEN pulls their heads out of their asses and gets him a real coach he could be very good
Osweiler played in a spread.
Alex Smith, spread
Jimmy Garoppolo, spread
Bradford spread
Cam whatever the hell you want to term Mahlzahns offense (it aint pro style)
Also the base offense in the NFL is 11 personnel, and predominatly shotgun, which means…. Holy crap, NFL OFFENSES ARE SPREAD!
Bradford sucks therefore spread offense sucks.
hahahahaha
I am just as likely to flip a coin and get heads twice, or tails twice as I am to get a heads and tails.
I’d like to think that odds of a #1 or #2 drafted QB succeeding are better than 50%. Let’s hope.
They should be. I wonder how many #2 picks weren’t active for games.
Like Bledsoe/Mirer. Or Manning/Leaf. Or Couch/McNabb. Or Luck/Griffin. 🙂
Those, outside of 2015 and 2016, are actually the only times since 1971 that both #1 and #2 were QBs, and in all four cases one was good and one was a bust. Hopefully we repeat the 1999 scenario of the #2 being the good one.
1971 was Jim Plunkett #1, and Archie Manning #2. 2015 early returns look like both are viable QBs, but it looked that way after the 2012 season too.
ACViking? Is that you?
The funny thing is Wentz is more comparable to Leaf than Manning.
in build but not in outcome
watch your mouth!
I hope you’re right.
i think my definition of “funny” is different than yours
Yeah they said he never called plays or huddled in college and High school
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Fischer came off so pathetic with his “im not going 7-9 this year” speech,,, it also looked kind of pathetic to hear him on multiple Occassion tell his players to “Trust that I know what I’m doing”… Lol your putrid record makes it so he is asking guys to have blind faith like religions…
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Baffles me why he has a head coaching job, and the amount of money he is being paid is ridiculous
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Come guys, Trust that I know what I’m doing…. LOL!!!!
Deon Long and PT can send no hands Huff to the unemployment line. Works for me
I thought that Trey Burton has been showing us flashes since last preseason.
He is the kind of player that always does the right thing, whether it’s providing a key block, or making a great ST tackle.
He catches everything that is thrown in his zip code, so I hope Pederson uses him with more frequency that Kelly did.
Why Kelly failed to utilize him more often boggles the m, much like the lack of playing time Sproles saw last season.
“He catches everything that is thrown in his zip code”
This cannot be emphasized enough.
why Chip Kelly did a lot of things cannot be comprehended by mere humans.
He is a tad undersized for an ideal TE, but i agree he is a football player first and foremost.
Heck, some people still want him to play FB. The guy can be a weapon in the passing game. Line him in the slot or split him out wide. Diet Reid just needs to get him on the field.
Diet Reid lol
Jordan Reed
Florida, 2013
Height 6′ 2″
Weight 236
40 Yard Dash 4.72
Trey Burton
Florida, 2014
Height 6′ 2″
Weight 224
40 Yard Dash
Both went to Florida and started games at QB before moving to H-back/TE…
“New Florida coach Will Muschamp revealed those roles for Reed and Burton when he released a spring depth chart to the media at a pre-spring press conference Monday.
“Reed will be a full-time tight end,” Muschamp said. “He’s a guy who can stretch the field vertically and be a matchup issue for defenses with his athleticism. We’re excited about him.
“Burton will play multiple positions. We feel those two guys’ athleticism will create some mismatch issues for defenses. Me being a defensive guy looking at it, I know there are problems involved in that. We’re excited about the versatility Trey will play for us at the position.”
Because substituting different players in on offense keeps chips team from being able to play fast.
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We should see Pederson use more players on offense, and different combinations of players specific to certain packages than we saw under chip who sacraficed so much for his obsession with playing fast at all times
Can’t speak to Burton, but Sproles is not very big, plus over 30. Perhaps it wouldn’t be wise to have him on the field too much. People often suggest that veterans over 30 should be rested a bit.
GE’s top 5 rookies to watch:
1. Jalen Mills
2. Paul Turner
3. Mike Tavarres
4. Seumalo
5. Dillon Gordon
No room for Wentz on your list?
Apart from the obvious. 😉
Just checking GE. Haha
maybe I’m the last one to read this, but wow.
http://www.phillyvoice.com/how-eagles-long-snapper-jon-dorenbos-turned-unthinkable-misery-magic/
Really? This story has been written about dozens of times over the past 10 years since he came to the Eagles, including many stories in the past 3 weeks since he auditioned for AGT.
Dorenbos is such an easy person to root for in life. Guy always seems to be making others smile. Very inspirational human being.
Aggravated to find that I cannot watch the game tonight on TV. Live in Lehigh Valley and have DirecTV. The Eagles decided that making the team fan friendly is not nearly important as the almighty dollar. First training camp with its measly 2 open practices at the Linc and now having preseason games on Comcast. Ugh!
and the replay on NFL network isnt until Fri afternoon, ugh. I gotta read msg boards and watch the next night
Thankfully, I have a meeting tonight from 7 to 9. I was going to watch it on DVR when I got home. I’ll just delay it by 1 night since I’ll record it on the NFL Network tomorrow.
BTW, Twitter will be your best bet tonight. Much better than message boards.
I hope this isn’t going to happen for all the preseason games this year! God I hate Comcast. How in the world can they still not be on satellite TV? They are the #1 reason I stopped following the Flyers and Phillies. How does the NFL expect to grow their sport when they don’t have it on easily accessible broadcast television.
I assume the NFL doesn’t have to worry about not being able to watch a preseason game keeping you from watching regular season games.
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Preseason is just an NFL money grab anyway, Cost the fans the same amount of money even tho fans are getting a much crappier product than normal
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My favorite is this fabricated narrative they sell you where the 4th preseason game has an impact on who makes the back end of the roster which is a load of crap. At best, a good 4th season performance might impact the practice squad
What pisses me off is they don’t dress the fields, and the players don’t even wear their official gameday uniforms. It’s tangible proof that it’s not a good product.
It is the NFL who controls which games will be shown, and where. The fans of all the other teams playing tonight have the same concerns. Some games will be shown at 3:00 in the morning. If you have tried to watch the NFLN programming which was supposed to be “Live from Training Camp” you would have seen that they were in love with the Giants, the Cowpatties and the Broncos. Everybody else was lucky to get 30 seconds every once in a while. Even the other team in the last Super Bowl got short shrift. Oh, I think Green Bay, Cleveland (!) and Seattle might have been endowed with a whole minute.
Jeff Lurie made the decision to televise the game live on Comcast, not the NFL. The past few years it has been in ABC. The NFL controls the schedules on the NFL Network, not local broadcasts.
https://www.nfl.com/gamepass?referrer=psl&icampaign=gpdomestic_psl_redirect
Free trial, but set an alarm for that expiration!
While it’s always exciting to get our first look at the team in pads, I give up thinking I can “Learn” anything from the PS.
Eagle fans learned as much as anyone how misleading preseason performance can be.. It’s too hard to know what part of what you are seeing will transition to live game action, and what is just a preseason Mirage?
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Im watching this game because im a football junkie who will watch every time the Eagles Take the field, but im trying not to get too high or too low about anything I see in the preseason
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Tonight is nothing more than a starting point. There is still a lot of improving in the new scheme and building chemistry with the new players ahead of us before we can see how good this team can be
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Impossible to Tell which veterans are just going thru the motion, what success is a product of the vanilla schemes we are facing.. Hard to know what it means when we see one of our 3rd team players look good against opponents 3rd string players..
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It’s just too misleading to get carried away with the preseason results, no matter how good or bad.., but at least the second half of a preseason game will never be more exciting than us getting to see our future franchise QB… Big improvement from the Tebow circus, or crappy Matt Barkley show that used to be the second half of a preseason game in philly.
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I don’t know how it will be under Doug, but it seems like the 4th preseason game, and 3rd stringer performances in the preseason really never had much of an impact on who made the roster under chip… Maybe that garbage time will be more important under this new regime?
you said it, never again. Thanks Chip. I mean never this time…..I do…..I swear
Many of you may know this site: http://firstrowsportes.tv Streaming, not download, so there’s no chance of male ware or anything. Not sure if pre-season games will be available, but I’ve had good luck with regular season games. The links are far from hd, but it can be better than nothing.
Honestly, unless you are young and grew up in the internet age (i.e. you’re younger than 40), you WILL get a virus or malware from that site. It’s set up to trick you into clicking the wrong thing.
Be careful.
that sight totally locked my computer up one time, had to have it brought down to factory settings, like brand new, that sight will corrupt your computer
The site definitely has some less than honest approaches to getting click revenue. I use it from a Mac and never suffered any consequences, but your warning is a good one.
I’m surprised to hear that. I sure hope I didn’t pass along bad advice. I have a Mac and I’ve used the site for a couple years with zero problems. Thanks for the heads up.
As another option, if you have Verizon for your phone and/or Internet, it looks like you can watch games on the NFL app for free. You download the app and when you go to watch it sends a message to your Verizon account to confirm you have an account, but it looks as if I will be able to watch that way.
What’s with the radio silence on Lane?
It’s worrying because, honestly, I can’t remember the last time a PED/suspension rumor didn’t turn out to be true.
I thought the B sample came back positive and it’s a done deal? On to the the appeal!
The league won’t comment until after the appeal, if it gets that far. The only way we get news right now is if someone leaks to a reporter when they should be keeping it under wraps (or Johnson lets someone know).
It sounds like 1), they have to do the test on the B sample, and if that is positive then 2), they may try to appeal that the positive result came from an approved product, and 3) if that fails they may try to say the previous suspension is for a no-longer-banned product and this new suspension should be for just four games.
It could be a while before that all plays out, and the league won’t be officially saying anything.
Unfortunately, the Eagles had to raise the parking fees to cover the loss from letting fans bring in one 16-oz bottle of water due to the high heat index.
https://twitter.com/caplannfl/status/763857301258182656