The Right Formula

Posted: February 15th, 2022 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on The Right Formula

The Rams won the Super Bowl. It wasn’t a great season for them or a scintillating playoff run, but give the Rams credit. They made the key plays in the postseason games and won it all.

Naturally, we look to the Super Bowl and ask what lessons can be learned.

This is just Daniel’s opinion, but he’s a former NFL scout and follows the league as closely as anyone. So how do the Eagles stack up on this?

Elite QB – no
Pass rushers – not good enough
Multiple offensive playmakers – not good enough
Serviceable OL – one of the best in the league

Take into consideration that the Eagles have a bunch of picks this year and are in the middle of a rebuild. Anyone who watched the team this year could see they were more than a player away from being a Super Bowl team.

Let’s go over the areas in more depth. I’ll save QB for last.

Pass rushers

With Josh Sweat, Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave, the Eagles have a good group of pass rushers. They need to add a high level talent to the mix. Think about the Rams (Aaron Donald, Von Miller, Leonard Floyd) and the Bucs (Shaq Barrett, JPP, Suh). The Eagles need a stud edge rusher to add to the mix.

Multiple offensive playmakers

DeVonta Smith looks like he can be a top WR. Dallas Goedert is one of the better TEs in the league. Miles Sanders is a talented, but inconsistent RB. The Rams had Cooper Kupp, Odell Beckham Jr, Van Jefferson, Tony Higbee and a solid set of RBs. The Bucs had Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Scott Miller, Rob Gronkowski and a solid group of RBs. The Eagles need another good WR to add to the mix. Another RB would help as well.

OL

The Eagles have plenty here. The only questions are depth and where to put everyone.

Elite QB

Jalen Hurts is not an elite QB. Chances are, he won’t become an elite QB. Very few QBs get to that level. Most that do are blue bloods who were picked high and obvious to everyone watching.

Matthew Stafford was the top overall pick in 2009. He threw for more than 5,000 yards in his third year in the league. Even at age 34, Stafford has an elite arm. Tom Brady is considered by most to be the greatest NFL QB of all time. He wasn’t a high pick (which makes him the anomaly of anomalies), but he’s played at an elite level for multiple decades.

Hurts got benched in college. The Eagles used a late second round pick on him. There is nothing special about him physically. He is talented, but not special. Josh Allen is special. Patrick Mahomes is special. Joe Burrow isn’t special physically, but had one of the great seasons in college football history and was the top overall pick in 2020. Teams saw him as an elite prospect.

What is Jalen Hurts ceiling? At his absolute best, who is he? A stronger, but less explosive Lamar Jackson? Russell Wilson without dynamic passing skills?

Marcus Mariota and Mitch Trubisky were both #2 overall picks who could run and throw. They peaked in Year 2 in the league and then went downhill. I tend to think Hurts will continue to improve, but I don’t have a good feel for what his ceiling is. Mark Brunell came into the league as a dual threat QB. He developed into a good passer, but always needed a strong run game to be at his best.

The Eagles can stick with Hurts for 2022 if they can’t figure out a move to make. Before you throw names at me, realize that the Eagles have to want a player bad enough to pay a high price for them and that player also has to want to come to Philly. That wasn’t the case a year ago. After getting their house in order in 2021, the Eagles may once again become a desirable destination. We’ll have to wait and see.

The last two Super Bowls were won by veteran QBs playing on new teams. I’m sure that won’t be lost on Jeffrey Lurie, Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni as they make plans. Making a run at Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers makes even more sense after the Super Bowl. Of course, the Bucs and Rams had good teams in place and finding the right QB put them over the top. The Eagles would still have moves to make to get where they needed to be.

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Sirianni came to Philly with a vision for the team he wanted to build and the offense he wanted to run. SB coaches Sean McVay and Zak Taylor both changed their systems from their start to this year and those adjustments helped them to get to the Super Bowl.

Ted Nguyen wrote an excellent piece for The Athletic on how schematic changes helped both teams.

Now that Sirianni has a year of coaching experience under his belt and a good feel for his team, it will be interesting to see if the Eagles stick with the run heavy offense or if they go in a different direction. I’m sure part of that will be dictated by the QB situation.

Even if the Eagles stay run heavy, they need to be a better passing team. Part of that would be on Hurts development, but part would also be personnel driven. The receivers are not good enough right now. I am curious to see how the Eagles try to upgrade. Draft or veteran? Big guy or speedster? Chain-mover or playmaker?

This really will be an interesting offseason.

*****

Jeff McLane wrote a piece on Jason Kelce and his future.

The return of Kelce would be great.

How can you not love this guy?

Such a legend.

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Not so legendary, but special in his own way.

Insane.

It is hard to comprehend this happening, but watching Wentz blow the last two games of the year was even harder to comprehend. Yikes.

There are teams in need of a QB. Wentz won’t get as good a situation as he had in Indy, though. I hope he understands that and truly embraces whatever team takes a chance on him. Denver? Saints? Panthers? Wentz is too talented to stay on the street. Some team will take a chance on him.

How the mighty have fallen.

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