Making Moves

Posted: August 9th, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on Making Moves

There is a lot different about this Training Camp, but there is one constant. The Eagles are constantly tweaking the roster. They made a couple of moves on Friday.

Not exactly huge news.

This was the attention-grabber.

Summer roster moves are made for one of two reasons (non-injury moves). First, teams make moves to improve the roster. Clearly that was the Curry signing.

Teams also make moves with practices in mind. You need a certain amount of players at each position. The Eagles have very good DT depth even after cutting Hector. They also have good CB depth. Those players were expendable because of a combination of roster depth and their grades. They were expendable.

Back to Curry. I have mixed feelings on this move. I love Curry. How could you not? He grew up an Eagles fan and has been a solid player and good guy for a long time.

The flip side is that the Eagles just added a 32-year old pass rusher when they had a group of young players already on the roster.

Josh Sweat
Genard Avery
Shareef Miller
Joe Ostman
Casey Toohill

Curry is better than those players. I think. I know what Curry can do. I don’t know about the young guys. We just haven’t seen enough of them.

I certainly understand wanting a proven pass rusher off the bench. If anything happens to Brandon Graham and Derek Barnett, you want to feel good about their replacement. There would be real risk in going with young, unproven players.

Curry is a good run defender. He is a solid pass rusher. Last year he was third on the Eagles in sacks (5) and QB hits (12). Curry only started two games, but played in all 16. He can play left or right side. He can rush from the inside. Curry is what you want in a backup.

Curry isn’t anything special.

https://twitter.com/thomasrp93/status/1291857504960471042

Remember the old line about lies, damn lies and statistics? No one ever built a gameplan to stop Curry. Lawrence is a significantly better player and is the kind of guy you have to plan for.

I’ve seen other people use stats to make Curry look better than Jadeveon Clowney. That is also a bogus comparison. Curry is a productive role player. We’ve seen Clowney take over games.

Curry signed a cheap deal. He knows the scheme and the coaches like him. Curry is also a good locker room fit. This move does make sense.

I wonder how much the pandemic affected this situation. If the coaches and scouts had a full spring to look at the young players, would they have been more open to relying on them? You know who/what Curry is. You can plug him into the defense immediately. There isn’t a lot of guessing or projection.

The Eagles talked very openly about a commitment to young players. With the pandemic wiping out spring practice and cutting into Training Camp, young players don’t have the normal chance to learn, develop and show the coaches what they can do.

2020 isn’t the year for making plans.

_

Comments are closed.