Building a Winner
Posted: November 28th, 2016 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 110 Comments »The Packers have been the best team in the NFC over the past decade. The Seahawks have been the best team over the past 5 years. Dallas has the best record this season. One thing all of them have in common is homegrown rosters.
As the Eagles move forward under Howie Roseman and Doug Pederson, they hope to do the same thing. They want to draft and develop talent rather than leaning on trades and free agency. The Eagles had to be aggressive this past offseason because they were making a coaching change and using new schemes. Jim Schwartz needed a 4-3 OLB like Nigel Bradham. He needed CB help so the team signed Leodis McKelvin. The Eagles wanted Rodney McLeod because he was just a good, young player. That wasn’t as much about scheme, although he did play in a similar system so he was a good fit.
Pederson had the team add Chase McDaniel because of familiarity with the offense. He wanted Brandon Brooks because he wanted a big OG to add up front.
While the Eagles have their share of free agents in the lineup, they have been pretty smart about it. Some teams cycle players in and out too quickly. We started to see some of that with Chip Kelly. There is nothing wrong with adding key veterans if they play well and become a regular part of the team. The Eagles traded for Jason Peters prior to the 2009 season. He has now played in more games with the Eagles than he did with the Bills. Jason Peters is an Eagle through and through. He’s not homegrown, but he’s an Eagle.
Is anyone more of a Patriot than Mike Vrabel was? He was drafted by the Steelers and spent several years there before leaving in free agency. But he played in NE for years and was the perfect example of what that franchise wanted in a player. I think you have to be careful about over-focusing on draft picks and UDFAs. Ted Thompson has done that in Green Bay and it has cost them at times. He hates free agency and avoids it as much as he can. The Packers have a Hall of Fame QB in Aaron Rodgers, but they’ve only won 3 playoff games in the past 5 years. The Niners have 5 playoff wins in that period.
The thing you want to avoid is having too many mercenaries. DeMarco Murray proved to be a great example of this. He never wanted to leave Dallas. He only wanted the money. Once in Philly, he decided he hated it. Chip didn’t help matters with how he used Murray, but you’re never going to have a lot of success when the “star” RB doesn’t want to be there. When things weren’t going great last year, Murray showed his true colors.
The Eagles gave big money to Brooks and McLeod, but so far both have played well and look like guys that will be here for the next 4 or 5 years. We can’t ignore the fact they came for the money, but the fit was also good. The coaching staff and executives found players that wanted to be part of the Eagles. You don’t mind paying them big and then expecting them to be key parts of the team.
I think the Eagles will fill the roster with more picks in the coming years. Pederson and Schwartz seem to know what they want. That makes it a lot easier on the scouts than just saying “Go find me talent.” Coaches have to be able to explain what they are looking for. The assistant coaches have to be able to develop talent. I think the Eagles have a good staff.
I think a problem late in the Reid era and then in the Kelly era was player development. Everyone loves to blame Howie Roseman and the personnel staff, but selecting players is only part of the equation. You must develop talent. We can see good signs of that this year. Carson Wentz is the best rookie QB in Eagles history. Big V showed good signs at RT. Wendell Smallwood has played well. Jalen Mills has mastered the art of wagging his finger after dropped passes and overthrown balls. I kid. He’s not going to be confused with Eric Allen anytime soon, but he is a 7th round pick playing a lot of snaps on a Top 10 defense. Young role players like Beau Allen and Kenjon Barner are playing the best football of their careers.
It will take another couple of offseasons for the coaches and front office to get this roster where they want it, but it does really feel like this is headed in the right direction. Obviously Wentz is the key to all of this. Where is Green Bay without Rodgers? Where is Seattle without Russell Wilson? Wentz has had a good rookie year, but he’ll need to take a big step forward for the Eagles to do that as a team.
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[…] Tommy Lawlor The Packers have been the best team in the NFC over the past decade. The Seahawks have been the […]
There’s a lot of holes on this team: WR, RB, OL, CB, etc. And the defense is, as I’ve said before, surprisingly old, especially on the DL. I don’t envy Roseman’s task ahead.
We’ve got some time to add to our talent; its not going to happen overnight. Plus, we’ve at least recouped some of our lost draft picks so that we have a few more opportunities to add to our team.
We need OL and WR for sure; CB seems to be a position that we can find value in, due to our defensive scheme. RB is another position that gems can be found later in the draft. We have some youth on our DL, especially if we can keep Bennie around. Beau is a solid player, and Destiny is developing. With Cox, that gives us 3 out of 4 players locked in for at least another year.
How is the DL old? Cox, Curry, Graham, Beau Allen, Destiny V, and hopefully we re-sign Bennie.
I wouldn’t call the group old but the DE’s are at the age where you need to start trying to start find low resource gem’s to save you from having to heavily invest in a year or two.
Barwin’s 30 and could be gone. Curry and Graham will both be 29 next year.
Vaeao’s JAG
Thanks for putting that so succinctly. They’re not AARP-old, but the DE’s are near 30 and Logan might be leaving for more $$ after this year. It’s the best part of the defense and we have so many other parts of the team to worry about — but the point remains.
I’ll take this as a sign that Tommy is not on board with signing Pryor.
I can’t see him leaving Cleveland. They’ll tag him.
Alshon Jeffrey, on the other hand, will be available.
Pass. His talent is real, but will we ever see much of it between the soft-tissue injuries and possible future suspensions? He also seems cool with NOT being a #1 wr in pressure situations. I’d rather have Larry Fitzgerald. I know you weren’t suggestion Alshon necessarily. I just don’t want him lol.
Plus he got really really really really fat his last year in college. Not the kind of guy you want to give big money to. If the Jets try to rebuild I’d offer a day 3 pick for Brandon Marshall.
YES
Not many good options out there: Terrance Williams, Michael Floyd, DJax, etc. They all have issues. Only one stud in the draft (Mike Williams). He might go top 10.
I been pounding the table for a brandon marshall trade… I want no parts of Alshon jeffries
Is Tyrell Williams an option? SD
On the WR note, I watched some of John Ross III……. looks pretty good to me. Routes look crisp, he really attacks the defender straight on and then makes the cut without giving a clue to which side he is going. HE CAN ACTUALLY CATCH!!!!!! I watched like 6 clips and didnt see him drop a ball. He can track the deep ball very well. There was a RZ play similar to the one with JMatt and he turned over the correct shoulder. Excellent YAC skills and makes people miss fairly regularly also gets more yards after contact than Ertz, non saying much. Don’t care about blocking at this point quite frankly although his wasnt bad and size is overrated if you are good at other things. I would be thrilled if he was our first round target.
Tommy this reads a lot like ‘Signing free agents is a good idea if it works, a bad idea if it doesn’t”.
How did we know Brandon Brooks and Rodney Mcleod were going to work out here? We didn’t. People were excited about Murray when he signed here, it only looks bad in hindsight when he flamed out.
For me draft and FA is a probability based decision. There is no such thing i have seen that is a sure fire lock or bust – just different levels of ceiling and likelihood of success, and teams need to balance out that equation and try and find the right solution.
Generally i think its really risky to shop in the top tier of the free agent market – these are players who are already in great situations which maximise their potential, so unless you can exactly replicate the scheme, role and situation you are probably going to get some amount of drop off, and then you are stuck with players you have overpaid.
Think the better approach is to find players who have not been maximised with their current team, but are solid starters and you think you will be putting them in a better position to succeed, and then you can get someone who has the potential to outplay their contract.
PREACH
Kelly tried to fit Murray into a team that didn’t use a power rusher. It should be no surprise he didn’t work out. I was very excited when I heard we had signed him. Then with game after game of Kelly running him on long sweeps instead of using his strength between the tackles, I knew it wasn’t going to work out. Another failed Kelly experiment that should have worked out.
I was surprised how the national media considered Murray to be the biggest star on the team, when in my book RB is a nearly fungible position.
People were excited but pretty sure the smarter fans questioned the move. “Not smart to invest that much in the RB position ” was the theme. Remember this was after getting rid of shady
Agree, Tommy, that player evaluation, acquisition and development are all vital components of a successful football organization in building a winning roster.
The other vital one you left out IMO is team identity. It integrates with all 3 of the above components and helps remove some of the “crap shoot” elements of these processes.
Player evaluation (scouting, analytics) is very important. Before you can pursue elite or even good talent, you need to define what that means within the specific context of your team. One does that by defining a team identity – what offensive, defensive and special teams facets are critical for a winning team? What are the Eagles’ strengths? Weaknesses? What playing style allows us to maximize the former and minimize the latter? What are our core competencies as a team? How best to use those to dictate to and dominate the opponent?
Player acquisition (draft, FA, trade, UDFA, contract extensions) is very important as well. If we defined the best team identity during the evaluation stage properly, it should be easier to identify which talent best fits that approach. If we know we need an upgrade at DE, CB and OT, we need to figure out the source that has the best options at those positions available and make plans for how we can acquire them in the most effective manner possible i.e. cheaply due to cap constraints and for as many years as we can.
Player development is also crucial. Once we have the talent on board, we need to have the coaching staff and player mentors necessary for helping turn that talent into consistent production on the field. Again, having a well defined team identity makes this easier since the talent has been selected and acquired to play a specific role on the team. Think of the Steelers and LB over the years; they know exactly what skills their LB have to have to be successful in Pittsburgh and find the players with those skills time after time.
That is not by accident or coincidence. It is by having a clear team identity that provides structure and purpose to a front office trying to construct a winning roster. I’m unclear on what the Eagles’ team identity is currently and I think that partially explains why they have struggled with their player evaluation, acquisition and development for years now.
I would say that the team identity was pretty well defined during the Chip Kelly years. A fast team at every level, with “character” guys. Supposedly. I think that’s proof that simply having an identity doesn’t guarantee success.
I never said team identity alone did anything. I said it was one of the four components. They all work together. I also never said anything about guaranteeing success. These components done well help improve the chances of success. There is still a human factor and the role of luck that can never be dismissed.
That to me what the most ironic thing about the Kelly era and almost never get mentioned – he emphasized ‘character guys’ and they almost to a man quit/were distractions last year and he kept Cooper.
One thing that marked the Kelly era teams here was their last of gumption. Never won a single game that really mattered during his entire tenure here & they folded down the stretch like an accordion last year and in 2014.
Yeah, I think that’s pretty clear. There need to be more than a coherent organizational strategy. Some less tamgible factors are important too. E.g. Team culture, trust, etc. In some organizational research, “collective efficacy” is a hugely important factor. It’s basically a shared belief that a group can accomplish its shared goal. This, of course, requires a shared goal in the first place. I think that’s part of the reason why homegrown talent is so important. The players are developed not just to produce more, but to do so in a particular organization.
This is all to say that I think we’re on the right track. Pederson and wentz, from the outside at least, seem to be on the same page. And pederson’s vibe about how to build a team seems pretty solid–much better at picking up emotion than Kelly (well, who’s not). We’ll see about drafting and development, but early returns with howie 2.0 and Pederson look promising on this front too.
Except slow QB, WR, and RB.
It’s a new school west coast offense and DL centric attacking 4-3 defense. Year to year the flavors will change based on talent but that’s the identity of the schemes.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/18147502/how-qb-carson-wentz-won-philadelphia-eagles-teammates-being-less-perfect-nfl-2016
Longer piece on Wentz that is worth the read.
This is very telling…
The day of the trade, Kelce looked at his phone and saw a text from Wentz. Would it be cool if he came to the next offensive line meeting to hear them talk about blitz protections? Kelce laughed. In his six years in the NFL, that was a first. “I think the best quarterbacks are always guys you naturally gravitate toward,” Kelce said. “Carson’s work ethic, the confidence he shows, his competitiveness, all that leads to you wanting to fight for him that much harder.”
QBR and adjusted QBR haven’t been kind to Wentz at all since the Steelers’ game:
“While Eagles’ QB Carson Wentz has struggled a bit since a solid start to his rookie campaign, even he has to be excited to see the Green Bay defense coming to town. Wentz ranks 32nd in QBR and has had as many games below a 50 rating as above 50 so far this season, but he has also connected on more than 40 percenof his throws over 15 yards downfield.
The Packers’ historical strength on defense is pressuring the QB, but Wentz actually handles pressure well, completing 41 percent of his passes when pressured — slightly ahead of Aaron Rodgers. Monday has a chance to be a strong night for Wentz.”
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/18151353/lots-numbers-predict-packers-loss-philly-monday
If we’re speaking about developing talent, then Why is Greg Lewis not on the hot seat? All of our WRs lack confidence, focus, and the ability to catch. That’s on him as a position coach.
Agholor is a head case, that’s not really on the position coach.
DGB is talented but not overly bright, and only had one good season in college.
JMATT is what he is.
Sample size is too small.
Agholar isn’t a head case… he is simply dealing with the pressure of being a bust… something his coaches should help him block out.
DGB is talented… what have we done with that talent so far?
JMatt shouldn’t be declining in his 3rd year
And then there’s Huff….
How? They’ve kissed his ass all season. Lewis should remove the radio from his car, the router from his house, smash his cell phone into a million pieces, and lobotomize him so he is too stupid to realize he’s playing like shit?
DGB got here 2 weeks before the season, and isn’t very smart. Short of a brain and maturity transplant idk what you want.
JMatt is on pace for pretty much identical season as the last two years.
Huff got better this year. Apparently Greg made him smoke and carry a burner.
Confidence has nothing to do with the radio and the media.
Good Coaches build confidence, harness skill, and teach discipline.
Agholar isn’t confident. But has the skill set to succeed.
DGB isn’t retarded, And has the skill set to succeed.
JMatt isn’t improving, But has the skill set to succeed.
and Huff is just another example of how our WRs lack discipline.
That is on our coaches. Andy Reid’s done more with less.
This. I’m not going to say Greg Lewis is necessarily a good coach, but a vast majority of the blame for our receivers simply falls on the receivers themselves. A much larger sample size is needed to have any strong sense of how good (or bad) Lewis is as a coach. And honestly, when it comes to position coaches, unless they come with a pretty significant background, fans simply don’t have enough information to make quality assessments. It’s not often you will read articles describing the position coach’s technique or ideas with his players, so we have little idea what Greg Lewis is doing to help his players. All we know is the players are playing poirly, and that has to reflect the players themselves to a large degree moreso than the WR coach
Breaking: In a shocking turn of events, Josh Huff was picking up weed and hollow points for Greg Lewis.
They were bad last year but I think they might be worse this year. I wonder how much of that is on the player though. While its true that Agholor its getting worse; DGB was always going to be a project. I think Matthews is just who he is at this point.
So I throw the old Eagles flag on my car window for support today. Shocker I get pulled over by a DC native Maryland cop!! Turns out my Eagles (illegal he says) tag holder covered up the sticker and the MVA messed my address up when I moved.
Long of the short; my registration expired 6 months ago!! I also have 10 days to have he tiny removed from my car. Deserved? Of course (pretty embarrassed about the registration). I still have to wonder if I didn’t flaunt he flag if I would of been pulled over.
End of the month and revenue generation quota time. It’s ridiculous how many small towns now use their police force for a meaningful source of revenue generation for motor vehicle stops. In some small towns, it is now 5%+ of their annual operating budget.
Most towns in MD don’t have their own police. This was a county cop, and we have about a half million people in our county. Not real small.
Totally Washington bias.
If it makes you feel any better, I also got pulled over for reg some months back. They had stopped sending me the renewal coupon and I didn’t notice. Even worse, I was on the Indian Reservation, but it didn’t change the process.
doh!
It looks like that the Eagles MIGHT deactivate Nelson Agholor tonight. Which I wouldn’t be actually happy with.
The Packers secondary is BAD. So why only playing 4 WRs?!?!
I’ve seen the opposite reported today with Mathews out- agreed, I’d be upset with that as well.
Packers struggle against TEs too. Only 1 of 4 teams to give up 700+ yards receiving to opposing TEs this year. So any production that Agholor would have/drop will likely go to Ertz, Celek, and Burton. Sproles figures to mix in as well.
Understood. However with Ryan Matthews being out we will only dress 3 RBs. Which would make only 7 RBs/WRs active in total.
You got a problem with Turner having a 200 yd game?
Nah. However I am afraid he will come short at 189 yards, with 5 TDs.
Only 5? Hater.
Seumalo bout to eat.
Imagine that would be a pretty pricey tab if you were doing it per pound like at Wegman’s.
Please feel free to elaborate. Or did your Seu reference indicate that we should expect a heavy dose of Smallwood and future NFL MVP Barner running the ball tonight?!
I’m more joking that he’s going to come out and wear number 84. They may also go with a decent chunk of 6 OL sets.
Got ya.
I don’t know how I feel… After the seattle game I thought Agholar should be benched just for this packers game because coddling the kid hasn’t helped, so I thought we should try holding him accountable and hope that two steps back eventually leads to five steps forward (like we did benching ryan Mathews)… But the closer we get to the packers game the more I start to question whether it’s wise to sit nelson out of this game throwing away a chance to get him going against a putrid banged up Packers secondary.,, the ONLY WAY to break out of this slump is to taste a little success and get his confidence back up, and we won’t find many easier secondaries to make a play against than the packers… huff struggled to catch, so the coaches found ways to put the ball in his hands with screens, reverses and jet sweeps to try and get him going. Might be time to try that with Agholar, put him in position to make a play that DONT require him catching the ball.
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The ONLY way for nelson to get past this is to taste a little success and play his way out of this slump… That has no Chance of happening if he is deactivated
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With as Bad as the packers secondary is playing, I don’t want to ever hear another peep about Paul Turner if he can’t make plays at home against this packers defense
I agree, he needs to play out of the slump.
if we are not going to the playoffs we should target nelson a lot.
work it out young fella
Sometimes you have to take a step backward to take 3 forward.
I just want him to take half a step forward so we are in a legal formation.
Hoping we continue to an Eagles team that is tough to beat at home tonight.
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Things don’t look great for our playoff chances, but the one cause for hope is that we have pretty much bullied every team that came into the LINC so far and down the stretch we play mostly home games. I big win tonight would stop the negative momentum and maintain our confidence in being very tough to beat at home. Record wise, we can probably still have a Chance to overcome a loss tonight, but it would end any air of invincibility playing at home that we have been building on all season up to this point… We NEED to get to that DECEMBER stretch of home games against our division rivals with the confidence of still being unbeaten at home, and that is what is really on the line tonight
..
Whether we were favorites or legit underdogs, not only have we won every home game up to this point, but we smacked teams around by a wide margin in our home game, we ride that confidence into this Important Monday night game, and we need to protect that by winning again on our home turf
..
With a win tonight Wentz can become the first rookie to win two Monday night games…
We have a big advantage that we have so little travel in december, are healthy and the 2 teams ahead of us in the playoff race have to come to our place where we are unbeaten. Bungles are done for the year and will be checking out and the Cowboys should be resting starters when they play us week 17.
Unfortunately with all that we need to go 5-1, and have tough games against Ravens and Redskins (who just seem to give us fits) soon. Is tough and we probably need to start that process with a win tonight.
“With a win tonight Wentz can become the first rookie to win two Monday night games…”
Rookie of the year’s a lock, right?
Dak is SOOO goos though!
Don’t expect the Eagles to come out and pound the ball tonight. The Packers D is giving up only 3.7 rushing yards per attempt.
Not sure any team in going to seriously try and run against them when you can get 8+ yards per attempt in the air.
well I don’t know that we can.
That line about Mills wagging his finger really got me! He certainly isn’t afraid of taking the credit lol
It’s gotta be absolutely infuriating when he does that to you. You just can’t help yourself from responding to that wag when he didn’t earn it, and the second you do, your head is out of the game.
Schwartz loves the swagger, it’s the reason Rowe is in New England and Mills has been spot starting.
Rowe is too stiff to play corner
Belichick disagrees
not enough to let him play 50% of snaps
He’s got another year to do that.
And so, we have a battle between two teams trying to prove that they aren’t mediocre. Loser doesn’t make the playoffs. My money is on the experienced QB, but I’ll be a few beers deep either way.
Hopefully the phrase “defense wins championships” applies to meaningless games too.
The best player to ever play the game is finally on an NFL roster again! This is how Chip Kelly turns around his season.
https://twitter.com/caplannfl/status/803316953616158721
Might just turn their season around
I don’t know, but dressing only 4 WRs against this Packers secondary is stupid in my eyes. Regardless of Ags..
we only have 4, and that’s barely….
We can line Burton, Ertz or Sproles up at WR. If it means more TE’s, I’m all for it.
I’d love to see Burton in on at least 70% of the snaps and Ertz over 80%.
From what I’ve read, Pederson only dresses 4 wr anyways
Eskin now reporting Agholor will be inactive.
See my post(s) below.
Awesome!! Didn’t realize that the Eagles are #BackInBlack tonight. Go birds.
Was hoping we would save it for our victory over the Giants on Thursday night in December! Oh well, hopefully we can pull out the win tonight
would you rather have drafter CARR or have Carson?
Carr
Mildly interesting fact – Derek Carr and Kevin Kolb were both drafted with the 4th pick in the 2nd round, #36 overall. I’d still rather have Wentz. Give him Crabtree and Amari and he would light it up too.
Coming straight out of college? Wentz. After a couple years in? Remains to be seen.
Carr.
Foles’ 27-2 season came at the worst time.
But my guess is that Philly would taken Bridgewater over Carr.
The Eagles traded a 2nd for Bradford, a first and a 2nd to move up for Wentz, and then acquired a 1st and conditional 4th for Bradford.
Value wise drafting Carr would have been better than all of that.
However player-wise it’s too early to compare the two. This is Carr’s 3rd season and this is Wentz’ 1st. Carr’s numbers in his first year weren’t impressive.
Carr
damn, really? or is it b/c he has cooper and that other dude from SF that we didn’t want
Hell yeah Eagles scoreboard guy!
That guy deserves a pay rise!
More on Ags (you know you want it)–
His spider graph:
http://www.mockdraftable.com/player/4778/
Note that he has some glaring physical deficiencies.*
Which lend some evidence to the following writer’s analysis:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/pattisonave/A-visual-look-at-why-Nelson-Agholor-struggles.html
None of which explains missing wide-open balls that hit you in the hands, which you catch 99/100 times in practice, of course.
*on the other hand, so does DJax:
http://www.mockdraftable.com/player/1314/
Tiny hands
awesome research. TY.
uh oh
Brandon Brooks hospitalized with illness and will be inactive.
Ahhh Fu*k
Not great for sure… i guess Seumalo is going to be starting at RG but our line is not going to have any real prep with that starting 5, so things are going to be rough early and if we get an injury things get scary fast.
Shit. Okay, I was holding back with the negativity, but you just know the Pack’s DL’s going to feast, but even worse, Rodgers will pick today to have his get-healthy game.
Less than ideal, but at least there front 7 isn’t very scary.
But they have some nice players. Mike Daniels, Nick Perry? Clay matthews. Also hopefully this game will show we have good oline depth after all
Im feeling a loss tonight, just am, I gotta spit again
defense needs to show up for me in fantasy
So it looks like Seumalo gonna eat tonight after all. Thanks DF3B, I am blaming you for the jinx!
🙁
Nervous about the Oline tonight.