Fear Factor
Posted: May 19th, 2012 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 31 Comments »One aspect of the Shady contract extension that has gotten very little notice is some comments made by Drew Rosenhaus. He told Dave Spadaro in the 1-on-1 interview that the deal had to get done this summer. I guess Drew and Shady had no interesting in playing out the final year of the contract and hitting the open market or dealing with the franchise tag. This certainly makes a lot of sense for a workhorse runner like Shady. All it takes is one play and a RB’s career is significantly changed due to injury.
Rosenhaus also talked about how there was a lot of pressure to get the deal done before the start of OTAs. Drew mentioned Jason Peters and Terrell Suggs getting hurt in their workouts. He talked about Tampa DE Da’Quan Bowers rupturing his Achilles. He also talked about rookie Darius Fleming tearing his ACL at rookie camp.
Going to OTAs without a new deal “would have weighed on us”. Drew was flat out nervous about sending Shady into OTAs with no new deal.
Drew never said that Shady would have skipped them, but had the deal not gotten done, you wonder what course of action might have been taken. Drew would have probably advised Shady to sit. The risk isn’t worth the reward.
Luckily Drew and/or Shady was able to emphasize the importance of getting a deal done to the Eagles. Howie Roseman didn’t mess around either. Andy Reid did what he could to keep the negotiations active and productive. It doesn’t feel like either side was fighting for the last nickel, as has been the case in some other situations. Both sides wanted to get the deal done quickly and it happened.
Now Shady has the safety net of guaranteed money and he doesn’t have to fear injury. He can just go play and do his thing. The most dangerous thing for players is trying to avoid injury. That’s when they do something weird and can get hurt. Just be your normal self.
Whatever the causes and reasons, it sure does feel good to know Shady is locked up long term.
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One of the differences between Shady, who got the deal, and DeSean, who didn’t get a deal early, is that Shady had emerged as a great player. DJax is a great talent and dynamic playmaker, but Shady is someone that was talked about as arguably the best RB in football. The Eagles will pay elite players.
DJax was all over the place, in terms of play and also his emotions/personality in the locker room. DJax let contract questions affect his play. Shady never did. You feel comfortable with giving Shady the big money. With DJax…there were some doubts. In the end, the Eagles decided the risk was worth it, partially based on the fact that DJax finished out 2011 the right way, on and off the field.
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I don’t know if you guys have heard about Bucs DT Brian Price and the tragic situation he’s been dealing with. His sister recently died in a car accident. He has not handled the situation well and actually had to be hospitalized. Price is planning to adopt his two young nephews that lost their mother.
Price lost two older brothers while growing up. He always had his big sister to comfort him, but now that she’s gone, he is not handling things well.
I hope Price is able to get through this. Football is the last thing on his mind now, but it can be a good distraction for him. His football family can be there for him (coaches, teammates, and fans).
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For ScoutsNotebook, I posted some thoughts on whether the crazy offensive numbers of 2011 were an anomaly or not. There is no definitive answer, just an interesting question.
I can get used to this new style from the Eagles FO. The whole my dick is bigger thing that front offices try to do to players so often is tiresome and I think it definitely pays big dividends for players to be paid and happy.
Sad news with Brian Price, when tragedy strikes over and over it can take a toll on a person.
And really, did anyone believe Joe and Howie had the bigger dicks?
Looks like theres no one willing to admit they were contemplating the size of howie and joe’s dicks ;).
RE: Brian Price / LeSean McCoy.
T-LAW . . . nice piece of concise journalism about a deeply tragic situation in the Price family.
If Price loses his career because of the emotional toll, the ripple effect through his own immediate family and the two nephews he wants to adopt could be devastating.
These kind of tragedies, in one form or another, happen all around the US in the shadows of the daily grind populated by tens and tens of millions of people every day.
And those folks generally don’t have the financial and employer-based support system of Price.
What makes Price’s story so emotionally charged is that it could happen to anyone of us — one day everything’s great, but the next day the world implodes.
Price’s situation puts in great perspective the concerns of McCoy’s agent, i.e., a blown-out knee could cost him some money.
That hardly compares to what Price is going through. And reminds us that football’s just a game.
GREAT WORK.
The story resonated with me more than usual because my sister, like Brian’s, is named Bridget. My sister, like Brian’s, has 2 sons. Fortunately my sister is married and doing okay. When a story connects with you on a personal level, it has so much more impact.
With the Shady deal, I’m curious what type of conversations were happening between Shady and Rosenhaus. It’s clear that Shady did not like some of the things Rosenhaus was doing/saying and that led to Shady dropping him twice if I remember correctly. It would be interesting to find out if that played any role in the negotiations.
Someone reported that the reason Shady fired Drew is that he feared the relationship between Drew and the Eagles would be a problem. I’m guessing Drew sold Shady on the fact that he could work with the Eagles and get something done.
Kudos to Drew for being reasonable. Kudos to the Eagles for not playing hardball. And Kudos to Shady for being patient and never hitting the panic button.
Yeah Drew’s job is safe now. I believe the rumor was Drew wanted Shady to sign to a really deal. Drew said after the ink was on the paper that (like you said) ditched him briefly as agent last season because the player had concerns about Drew’s relationship with Eagles. Yeah but dude twice is a seems to be a lot. Who really cares about this drama.
Amen tommy…
Question about OTAs coming up, i know its for the whole team but voluntary, I’m assuming most will be there though. As far as rookies go, the unsigned ones like Cox and Foles, will they be able to participate in them even if they’re unsigned? Will all rookies be able to participate? I heard Cliff Harris might not cause of how Oregon works.
Contracts aren’t an issue. Only hold up is that the prospects college has to have already held graduation. This will only affect guys who go to college on the quarters system (instead of semesters). Cliff Harris will not participate because of this. Not sure about others.
Appreciate the info tommy, basically what I thought, guess its something with those pac-10 schools, Luck has the same issue.
All UC schools are on quarter except for Berkeley and some other one as well.
Put me down for thinking this year was an anomaly. Maybe three QBs will pass for over 5,000 yards in a season again (And remember Eli was one long bomb away from 5G, and Rodgers was 367 yards away and benched for a game when his backup threw for 480), but I consider the offensive numbers unprecedented.
Would like to attribute them to the lockout, but the next two seasons will prove whether or not offenses are really just that wide open these days, or was it a once-in-a-lifetime season.
Great point about Rodgers and 5K.
I’m really curious to see how this thing goes. Are offenses just ahead? I don’t think so, but only time will give us a true answer.
Common logic would suggest defenses were affected by the lockout just as much as offenses.
It would also suggest, as the old adage goes, that defenses start the season ahead of the offenses, until they get their timing down, etc … and that wasn’t true at all last year.
So I’m not really sure.
If it is a long-term trend, it could be a result of the proliferation of spread attacks in high school and elsewhere, 7 on 7 leagues and such.
When I played in college in the mid-90s, our offense would throw teams for a loop by going empty backfield, and then using motion (still running simple plays, but getting the defense on its heels). Facing a no-huddle and/or spread attack was unique, like maybe twice a season — I still remember not huddling up on defense in one game and calling every alignment by hand signals and automatic responses to certain formations. It was awesome, cerebal — and for the 90s, still kind of cutting-edge stuff. I remember the offensive coaches being in the office during the day watching tapes of Terry Shea’s Rutgers and Hal Mumme’s Kentucky, looking for crazy plays.
Nowadays, the dang JV team in high school probably knows half those plays, and the defenses can automatically switch in man on crossing routes, change the defense with the formation, and roll coverages. Because *everyone* you play is either Pro-I or spread. Over the course of a season, you used to have to prepare for Wing-T, ace backfield, split backs, offset backs, power I, offset I, tee formation, wishbone, flexbone, etc.
Wow. I’ve become the old “back in my day” guy. Might as well reference neckrolls and molded cleats while I’m at it.
Andy Reid said last summer that defenses would be behind offenses. The players could do little worthwhile stuff in the offseason. Offensive players could get together and work on passing routes, timing, and things like that. Defenses could do nothing. The defenses did catch up by December, for the most part.
Makes sense.
Curz and Nelson are good candidates for reversion to the mean. Top WRs tend to average 9-10 yards per throw (for a QB, 8 YPA is great), they averaged 12 and 13 respectively, the beneficiaries of more defensive secondary breakdowns than you’d normally see – it’s not like either player resembles a motivated Randy Moss in his prime!
Didn’t you also used to walk to football practice, uphill both ways, and always in 95 degree heat or 2 feet of snow?
Carrying tackling dummies — and the goal posts — in each hand!
Lemme guess, you guys didn’t have weightrooms but trained straight up like Rocky in Rocky IV?
SF is a good example, they brought in two starters, Rogers and Whitner, but both were experienced veterans. Every other starter and key reserve, other than Aldon Smith, who had a dumbed down role, was in their 4th or 5th year with the team, including a couple reserves who moved into starting roles.
Last year continuity was a big problem for a lot of teams, including the Eagles, teams with new DCs, other than SF for the reasons given, struggled the first half and played better the second half – and those are the teams hurt worst by the lockout.
The other problem was personnel, the upside down offseason meant teams couldn’t make good personnel decisions, reaching in the draft, having to sign free agents in a frenzy, not having time to make adjustments. Again, teams with set defenses could focus on one or two spots, teams in transition had to make decisions on the fly.
I think you’ll see tighter defense this year, DCs have a whole off season to integrate personnel, and were able to make better personnel decisions. Again, Eagles are a perfect example, they looked at last season, dumped Asante, drafted 4 defense players who should at least contribute off the bench, and have the time now to integrate guys like Jarrett, Chaney, Matthews, Rolle, Marsh, Hunt, who got thrown into the fire last year (Chaney no OTAs, you’re starting at SLB which you’ve never played, third game of the season, you’re the MLB).
Half of defensive coaching is finding the right combination of players for your packages, then making sure each player knows what they’re doing – that was a total SNAFU last year.
Great example. SF and Phi were pretty close to the two extremes last year.
I’ll agree with the AFU part, but hopefully that never becomes situation normal.
The only downside to Shady’s deal is it was for less than DJax. I am fine with DJax and want to see what he can do this year, but he is not as much of an impact as McCoy. Granted, RBs and LBs don’t get paid well any more, but I’d say McCoy might be the MVP on this team. Just hope he’s happy with the deal. He is a good guy in the community. And not a diva on the field. High class hard working type of guy I like on the Eagles.
Technically it’s less, but it’s not necessarily the worse deal of the two.
McCoy 5 yrs/$45m
Jackson 5 years/$47m with $4m in potential escalators (some LTBE, some unlikelyS)
McCoy guaranteed money of $20.765 million
Jackson $15 million in fully guaranteed money and an additional $3 million in injury guarantees
McCoy signed a 5-year deal at 23, so when he’s 28 and perhaps still productive, he can sign another 3-year deal or what have you.
Jackson signed a 5-year deal at 25, and on the chance he plays it out, he’ll be 30 when looking for his next one.
Sources:
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/blog/eye-on-football/19076545/eagles-sign-lesean-mccoy-to-contract-extension-reportedly-worth-45-million-over-5-years
http://www.phillyburbs.com/sports/eagles/breaking-down-desean-jackson-s-contract/article_8f80aa4c-a6ab-57ec-bd14-16ae9b8da7f9.html
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfceast/post/_/id/37059/breaking-down-desean-jacksons-deal
Cool thanks, good stuff.
Also I enjoyed your educated perspective on the evolution of the game. Do either you or Tommy feel that the game could reverse and go back to more running? Seems like the D’s that focus on the pass happy offenses will be exposed to a team which can block and run well.
You mean like the Eagles D was last season? :p
I think it has to cycle back around, if not fully, at least to some degree. It’s true even now that offenses use the pass to set up the run, either as a game plan, or sometimes within a game. Shanahan is known for doing the opposite, run, run, run, play-action fake, but I think you can also pass, pass, pass until they’re playing two-deep safeties, and then use the fewer men in the box to create running lanes.
(As an aside, I’m convinced I would be the most predictable offensive coordinator, because on run plays against man defense, I would always motion away from playside to remove one defender, and then run to the wide side of the field — where in theory, all the running lanes would be.)
Anyway, I’d imagine as defenses adjust, somebody will find a cutting-edge (or throwback) way to run, and because it’s unfamiliar and defenses don’t practice against it, it can be successful. This might not apply in the NFL, but I did a D3 story last year or two years ago about how the top 5 and most of the top 10 rush offenses in the country were Wing-T — relics, but in an era of spread attacks, teams practice against spreads every day but have 3-4 days to learn how to stop a Wing-T. So they were all rushing for 350+ yards a game, and 6-7-8 yards a carry, not because they had the biggest and best players, but because defending the system had become obsolete.
I don’t know that an NFL team could get away with it, but us Eagles fans, as we get to know Mudd, are familiar with the Wing-T-esque theory that athletic linemen > bigger linemen, so maybe a small market like Jacksonville or some front office that saw a Moneyball-like inequity (where small linemen and RBs come cheap, therefore more resources could be spent on better QB, pass rush, CBs, etc.) and tried to do it could survive.
Will running ever become the dominant offense in the NFL again? Hard to say. Maybe not in our lifetimes, not as sharp as these passes are and as the percentages are up, the risk vs. payoff seems to benefit offenses.
I’d definitely say Shady is our MVP. I know we’re a pass-happy offense, but how many games did it look like we lived on Shady?
[…] Lawlor of the Eagles’ official website has an article up about the talks leading up to LeSean McCoy’s contract extension and how the situation might have played out in the event of lingering […]