Say You
Posted: August 8th, 2016 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 52 Comments »Rookie OG Isaac Seumalo has been quiet this summer. He missed the OTAs so there wasn’t a huge buzz around him coming into Training Camp. People were curious about how he’d perform. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Seumalo got off to a slow start. He went from Skyping with Jeff Stoutland in the spring to blocking Fletcher Cox and Bennie Logan in the summer. Big difference.
Les Bowen has a good piece on the progress Seumalo has made in recent days.
But asking a third-rounder to challenge for a starting spot at guard really doesn’t seem too outrageous, and maybe it will happen, as Seumalo starts to get his feet under him, both literally and figuratively. Right now he’s running with the second team at left guard, behind 2015 starter Allen Barbre. It doesn’t help that left guard is the only offensive line position Seumalo never started at for Oregon State.
“The biggest thing is balance,” Seumalo said, when asked what Stoutland is working on the most with him. “Pass-protection, that’s what it’s all about. Those little details, to do with your feet and your hands and where your eyes are.”
Stoutland doesn’t always come off as the epitome of patience during drills.
“He’s a man. He coaches us hard . . . but I know he cares for us. I feel in good hands,” Seumalo said. “Sometimes you gotta kinda block out the extra noise and take the coaching, but once you do that – not take things too personal, just know you’ve got to get better.”
Center Jason Kelce said the tools are there for Seumalo to blossom.
“He’s got great fundamentals and things to work with,” Kelce said. “He’s got really good feet. He plays with balance, great hands . . . He’s gotten better and better through camp. You see him shooting his hands better, in better position. He’s starting to understand things. A lot of it comes with just kind of calming down and understanding the situation. Obviously, he wasn’t here through OTAs and all that stuff. As you get more accustomed to the speed of the game and everything, things start to slow down.”
My biggest takeaway from the piece is that Seumalo has the right attitude. He is willing to take tough coaching. He understands that all the yelling and harsh words are simply tools to communicate with and motivate players. Seumalo is a coach’s son, so this isn’t new to him.
The Eagles are set at RG with Brandon Brooks. They still have Allen Barbre as the LG. Stefen Wisniewski has been a pleasant surprise and could challenge for the LG spot. At the least, he appears to be solid depth. Seumalo has a few more weeks to make his case for a move up the depth chart. Preseason games will be a huge opportunity for him.
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From Sunday’s practice, here is Jimmy Bama.
• Steven Means had another nice day playing with the two’s in place of Marcus Smith, who is out with a concussion. He had a sack, and was otherwise disruptive. After practice, Jim Schwartz said, “Pun intended, he means business.” Schwartz has been critical of players, so when he praises one it means something… or maybe he’s just trying to motivate Smith, which seems like a lost cause at this point. If camp ended today, I’m not sure how the Eagles could justify keeping Smith over Means.
• We haven’t mentioned him much, but Brandon Graham has quietly had a good camp. His pressures are beginning to pile up.
• Matt Tobin has filled in for Jason Peters at LT whenever Peters has decided to take it easy, and he has played well. Tackle seems like a much better fit for Tobin, who is quicker than he is strong. Tobin was not good last year at guard. Maybe it’s because he shouldn’t have been playing guard.
• The Eagles defense showed a number of 3-3-5 looks in third and long situations. The offense struggled against it all day.
Interesting point about Schwartz openly praising Steven Means. That young man has gotten everyone’s attention with his consistently good play.
It is sometimes easy to overlook guys like Vinny Curry and Brandon Graham. They’re expected to be disruptive. You focus more on disappointments (Marcus Smith) or an unknown who is playing well (Means). I’m glad both Curry and Graham are making their share of plays. The defense needs those guys to shine if it is going to be a high level unit.
Tobin has always looked more natural at OT, especially at LT. Playing on the left side vs the right side can make a real difference to some players. I don’t know why he seems more comfortable at OT than OG. He wasn’t a 3-year starter at LT or anything like that. We’ll see how he does there on Thursday night.
Jim Johnson used 3-3-5 looks when he wanted to get creative with his Nickel D. That’s when he would put an athletic rusher at MLB (Jevon Kearse, ND Kalu) and have them rush, blitz or cover. Could really be effective at times.
Make sure to read Jimmy’s piece for his informative take on the PK situation. Sounds like Sturgis has a solid lead right now.
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Jeff McLane had a couple of good notes from Saturday that I didn’t want to miss.
— Jim Schwartz isn’t a dogmatic defensive coordinator. He’s willing to give his players some leeway. For example, several of the defensive ends have occasionally been rushing from a standup position. Connor Barwin, Steven Means and rookieAlex McCalister have been the primary stand-up guys. Barwin and Means were, of course, brought to the Eagles as 3-4 outside linebackers. Barwin is versatile and can rush just as effectively from a three- or four-point stance. But he might have more comfort with standing up. Most defensive ends like to get in a crouch like sprinters so they can explode off the line. Former Eagles defensive line coach Jim Washburn liked his wide-nine ends to get off from a four-point. Vinny Curry, Brandon Graham and Smith have been mostly rushing from a three-point stance.
— Chip Kelly wasn’t much of a trick play coach. There was the “Swinging Gate” two-point play that failed and a few woeful plays that involved Brad Smith that weren’t quite what you’d call trick plays. Andy Reid loved to have a trick play or two in his game plan. Doug Pederson has worked on several since the spring, although who knows if they’ll ever see the light of day. One worked to perfection today – although it was set up to succeed. Daniel handed off to running back Kenjon Barner, who flipped to the end-around-faking Rueben Randle, who threw back to Daniel, who was running a sideline route the other way. Touchdown. Golf clap.
That first point about DEs and their stance doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it can be to certain players. You have to understand that players are creatures of habit. If they get comfortable with doing something one way, it can become ingrained in their mind that they have to do that. It is smart for the coach to let them use different stances. The point isn’t for everyone to look the same. You want to figure what makes each player perform the best.
Trick plays are a useful tool and it was very surprising how little Chip Kelly used them. It is good to see the Eagles practicing them. The real test will be to see how often Doug Pederson calls them. Also, will he keep them in the playbook when they don’t work ideally the first time they’re used.
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RE # Eagles and Stephen Tulloch, I’m told there are discussions but nothing seems imminent
— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) August 7, 2016
That was the update yesterday from Les. We’ll see what happens.
It doesn’t sound like 30 other teams are beating down Tulloch’s door. You wonder if his agent leaked the Eagles note to Schefter to see if that would get another team to be more aggressive.
It would be nice to have Tulloch on the team, but only if he was comfortable as a part-time player. Jordan Hicks needs to be on the field. You could mix Tulloch in here and there. You could certainly use him on short-yardage and goal line situations. And he would be great insurance for Hicks. But Hicks needs to be the starting MLB.
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I don’t talk a lot about baseball, but I was really happy to see Ichiro get his 3000th hit over the weekend. He’s had an amazing career, especially when you consider he was 27 when he came to MLB. I saw this note on Twitter and thought it was too good not to share.
Ichiro forever and ever and ever. https://t.co/THSeflHTlW pic.twitter.com/4NtAczw0Pf
— Jon Tayler (@JATayler) July 19, 2016
Makes me like the guy all the more.
_
Seumalo or Wisniewski at LG is a must. Barbre Doll is going to get a QB or RB killed sooner or later with is calvelcade of whiffed blocks.
Having Wisniewski start the year at LG until Seumalo is ready to take over would be best while keeping Barbre in a backup role.
Also: The quarters system SUCKS and the rule about not letting players in NFL mini-camps if they attend schools on that sucky quarters system is further nonsense.
I’m just glad Barbre has real competition (as well as Kelce if he gets injured again).
This talk about Tobin has me curious as to how the team will fare if/when Peters is out for more than a few plays and misses a full game. Can Dennis Kelly man the right side effectively when Lane switches to the left? I assume one major change this year will be that Doug will be willing to provide help for lineman who are struggling by having a RB/TE stay in an help.
If Peters or Lane were to get hurt. We would most likey see Barbie move to Tackle, and Wisnewski or Seumalo would step in at Guard.
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Whether Barbe starts at Guard or comes off the bench, I think he would be the #1 Backup at Tackle, since we have the guard depth behind him that enables us to move him to Tackle,,
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Personally I would prefer just starting Wisnewski at LG, and have Barbe on the bench as the first man up to replace an injured Guard or Tackle. But whether Barbie doll starts at Guard or comes off the bench, he will Most likely be moving to Tackle if an injury occurs to either starter
https://twitter.com/kracze/status/762709718771130369
What evidence makes you say that is the most likely scenario? Possible, yes, but “most likely” sounds overstated since I can’t remember reading about Barbre getting any snaps at tackle since Chip left. I would label the lineup at actually gets time in practice as most likely, but I guess we will need to wait and see.
All credit to D3 here; he stated a while ago that turnstile Tobin was more suited to tackled than guard.
And yes; I can hope the Doug will help out guys who are on an island and struggling. But Reid didn’t do so with Justice in that Giants debacle, so I’m hoping Doug learned from that.
They could give teams who pick quarters system players the ability to pick up an extra year on their rookie deal… kind of like saying that everyone knows the player won’t actually play his first year.
Unless I misunderstand it, it’s an outdated NFL rule, not an NCAA thing. The NFL could just change the rule.
Makes sense, in this day and age it does seem like an unnecessary complication. Players with short careers should (in theory) not have a hard time going back to school to finish up the last few credits of a degree anyway.
I read somewhere recently that the NFL put in the rule to placate college coaches who were going to refuse to allow NFL scouts at their practices. If that is true, it would not be an issue today because any college coach who would refuse to allow NFL scouts would be at a serious disadvantage when it comes to recruiting.
(though I don’t really know how accurate that is and I am having trouble finding anything about the origin of the rule at the moment)
I sure hope so. Im going to be pissed if they start Barbe doll in all 3 preseason games. At the very least Wis deserves one game to show what he can do starting at left Guard. If Babre wins the starting job so be it, but he isn’t good enough to be “gifted” the starting spot, make him “earn it”, and that can’t happen if you give Barbie all the starting Left Guard reps all offseason. Wiz is most comfortable at Center and LG, yet he only got a chance to play with the 1s at RG and we know That position belongs to Brooks… For The next 3 weeks, Barbe and Wiz need to share that RG spot and find out which of the two performs best with the 4 starting lineman
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If Wiz doesn’t win the starting job, hopefully it won’t take too long for Seumalo to surpass Barbie….
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I like Barbe a lot more as the first player off the bench, where as Wiz started his entire career and is extremely motivated to play his way into a contract, seems a damn shame to waste all that experience/motivation/anger by keeping him on the bench all year, and for who? For what? Journeymen backüp Barbe? I don’t get it
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Be nice if someone in the media bothers providing fans with an evaluation of Halapoolavati Vaitai. We know he isn’t close to being ready to start but it would be nice to get an idea of what his growth rate has looked like over the course of the offseason
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frustrating that we get so little info about what the Backup OL competition looks like? You only get info about backüp OL when one of the starters makes a play at their expense like BG throwing Bunche around like he was a child, or Vinny Beasting Dennis Kelly. No idea what the competition looks like for those backüp OL roster spots
[…] Tommy Lawlor Rookie OG Isaac Seumalo has been quiet this summer. He missed the OTAs so there wasn’t a huge […]
The Steven Means/MSII thing is a good I think, the more competition for strong rushers the better. If MSII was going to suck up the joint I’m glad we have someone who can take his place.
That said, PS games will be so critical for MSII, I’m guessing at this point he’s got to show that he can be part of the rotation for that might be a wrap on his career.
I was really hoping that MS2 would find a way to showcase his athletic ability in this system. If Schwartz can’t get him to play I don’t know who can.
Schwartz is going to use at least 4 DE’s in each game, so it may not even come down to MS2 vs Means,,,, WOULDNT be that unheard of if he decided to go into The season with 5 defensive Ends since you may want to have enough man power to handle losing one of your 4 DEs to Injury.. At THAT premier position which is so important to schwartz defense, I don’t think Schwartz ever wants to get caught in a situation where he only has 3 DEs on game day…. He may want to keep 5 DEs, in which case Means vs MS2 may be decided by what our plans are with Alex McCalister? Are we planning on risking exposing him to the practice squad with a Pass rush needy team like cowboys being so desperate for Bodies? I’d feel better if he stubbed his toe and went on I.R instead of gambling on the practice squad
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Could they possibly keep McCalister on the 53 man roster? Seems a little too raw for that..
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More than the statement “Pun intended, that kid means business”, I like Schwartz comment about “go ask the Tight Ends about Steve Means” insinuating that he has been kicking Tight end ass on occasion at Camp
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First Schwartz wasn’t praising Rowe, so narratives emerged that Rowe may not make the 53 man roster which I thought was ridiculous. Now he throws Means some praise, and we act like Marcus hasnt been making plays and manufacturing sacks this ofdeason, I’ll be very Dissapointed if they cut MS2. I’d like to see him get a fair shake with a DC who will excentuate his strengths, and a head coach who doesn’t hate his guts, give MS2 one year in a 4-3 before deciding whether to give up on him.
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I’d rather keep 5 DEs, and put Means and MS2 on the roster, and carry 1 less Defensive Tackle, since our second string DTs are meant to two gap and Vinny Curry can always rotate in at DT on some 3rd downs if we are short on DTs due to injuries… Or carry 5 instead of 6 LBs since we have like 4 LBs who can play 2 or even all 3 LB spots
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and That’s not even taking into account Bryan Braman? I would hate to lose him, I want Maragos, Braman, and Burton to continue being our ST leaders
In fairness to Marcus, let’s not pretend that both Pederson and Schwartz haven’t thrown praise MS2’s way..
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schwartz seemed to be in a weird mood yesterday being more generous with his praise than his usually mean, grumpy self that I love in a DC… Schwartz praised Eric Rowe, means, Mills and Joe Walker yesterday… I get The impression that he uses praise or lack tbeir of as a motivation tool, because he seems to be more open to praising young players, while being extra hard on his veteran starters, with the exception of malcolm and McLeod who he can’t stop gushing about all offseason
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Reicht seems like the opposite, all praise, very little public criticism, and that’s fine, there isn’t one universal way to coach
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Lol I also laughed at Schwartz learning very Quickily that the Philly media is more gossiping chicken head old ladies than actualy journalism. He was asked yesterday, about how he felt about tackling when he was a head coach, and schwartz immediately shut that down saying “im not falling for that lead in again”… He was referring to the fabricated media drama from when earlier in the offseason schwartz was asked about how he thought yoûng Qbs should be treated when he was a head coach, and media members took his innocent answer and created this narrative that Schwartz was disagreeing with his HC and not on the same page as Doug Pederson.. .the media wanted to act like a bunch of gossipy chicken heads, take his innocent response and run with it, and now they created an assistant coach who will be much more guarded and won’t be as open with them in the future. You reap what you sow.. Hopefully the medias fabricated click bait drama was worth getting kess info out of an otherwise pretty honest and open Football coach…. Schwartz said he isn’t falling for that lead up again, and clarified that what he did as a HC doesn’t matter, this is Dougs team and he is here to support the head coach….
Yup; these games are vital for Smith…………an no he’s missing the first one.
Oh nice. Mills really did do a number to our best offensive player. Seems like a guy I want to root for.
Silver linning….. This almòst removes all the risk of Jordan suffering a serious injury in August that causes Jordan to miss regular season games. Every time our players step on a field they are risking serious injury, even season ending injury…. The friggin pathetic Cowboys managed to lose their #2 QB to a broken ankle while wearing a red practice jersey which makes him untouchable at practice. So it could be much worse than our #1 weapon sitting out the month of August and being completely healthy in time for week 1
You are always in such good spirits this time of year. I like it!
Wait, what did he do to Barner?
Anybody remember this?
No
http://i.imgur.com/bsjea2a.jpg
I remeber 2 images… 1st is andy reid in a Rams uni .. everywhere on the internet.
2nd is Dawk CRUSHING daunte culpeper on a goal line stand and pretty much ending his self confidence forever ..
I cant find that video anywhere. .
Id love to see it
Oh, Rams Andy dwarfing the competition. That makes me so happy.
Yes.. the 1 non bikini SI cover worth saving
That’s what Sheldon said it felt like you were hitting on a play like that.
If N.D. Kalu blocks this punt, we probably go to the Super Bowl that year.
How do people feel about Pederson announcing that we are done tackling to the ground for This years training camp? Only “Thuds” from here on out…
https://twitter.com/kracze/status/762694240560439296
I trust the coaching staff has seen enough in training camp in order to evaluate the talent, especially the young guys. The guys on the bubble can prove themselves in the pre-season. Use the rest of training camp wisely and avoid all injuries.
No big deal. We get to start practicing our tackling on other guys now. Sounds like much ado about nothing.
Andy Reid’s teams were big on tackling during camp, and not-tackling
during games. Kelly’s teams (the first two years, anyway) were the opposite.
This will have no effect on how well they tackle during
the season. I’m all for it.
I know this is a bit racey but my 13 year-old son cracked me up. We were looking at philadelphiaeagles.com and saw the team has put out it’s annual cheerleader catalog. My kid says, “You know, Dad, football fans are the ultimate bisexuals.”
I say, “What?!”
“Yea,” he replies completely deadpan, “We like balls and boobs.”
Eagles, cheerleaders, and original humor. Sounds like you are raising the kid right.
The lucky kid got his Mom’s looks and his Dad’s sense of humor. Would have been a disaster if this was reversed.
So your wife is hot and serious and you’re an ugly goof? Your words, not mine.
Um, ouch, but yea, I guess that’s one way to put it. But on a brighter note, I’m not married to an ugly goof
Messing with you dude, if your comments are any indication, you sound like a smart and surely attractive guy. Not being gay, not that there’s anything wrong with it.
Yea, I knew you were messin’, BC. Props right back attcha’.
I showed our banter to my son, and now the wiseacre says we all spend so much time on Iggles Blitz we probably have a bunch of bromances with each other… not that there’s anything wrong with that.
lol That’s awesome, he does have a great sense of humor. Tell him Eagles fans are like family, a lot of discussions, arguing and whatnot, but in the end, like Bradley Cooper said in Silver Linings Playbook, “I’ve got nothing but love for you brother.”
fwiw….this adds more fuel to agent is trying to pump up interest in his client.
An Eagles source disputed a report the team was in “heavy negotiations” with Stephen Tulloch, the middle linebacker released by the Lions last month despite leading the team in tackles in 2015.
The source said Sunday there was “nothing going on with Tulloch.” The Eagles haven’t closed the door on bringing him or other players on board providing it makes them better.
Tulloch (5-11, 230) underwent surgery of an undisclosed nature and failed a physical with the Lions, according to the Detroit Free Press.
http://www.delcotimes.com/sports/20160807/despite-schwartz-connection-eagles-tulloch-talks-mum-so-far
In case anyone missed new Sixer Dario Saric winning an Olympic game against the second-ranked Spaniards:
https://twitter.com/NBCOlympics/status/762450778367725569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
He’ll be blocking loser Porzingas like that often I’m sure.
Embiid is going to make Porzingas look like Shawn Bradley.
He is the reason the Monsters in Space Jam lost. Had they picked a real center, they would have won
Hopefully he goes all Super Seum and wins a starting job
Havent read a peep about Bradham in camp, wonder if thats good or bad or neither ha
Bad.
In general you heard about Kendrick getting burned in coverage and else not very much by any LBs
Ichiro is one of my favorite players in the MLB. Great player, all class off the field, and great at talking trash to other players in the fun way.
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/ichiro-learned-to-speak-spanish-just-so-he-could-talk-trash/