Sunday Night Reflections
Posted: October 28th, 2013 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 141 Comments »Remember when the Eagles defense was beyond dreadful and all the questions about Bill Davis were flying around? Why did Chip Kelly hire him? Why wasn’t Davis doing things the way we wanted them?
The Eagles defense has allowed 21, 20, 17 and 15 points since the debacle in Denver. They still give up too many yards, but we’re seeing definitive progress. Jim Johnson’s goal was to allow only 17 points in a game. The Eagles have allowed 18.25 per game over the last month.
Back when the defense was really struggling, Chip Kelly and the offense were doing great. Now the tables have turned. Davis is running the improved unit and Kelly is suddenly the punching bag. He doesn’t know what to do at QB. He can’t call the right plays. He needs to expand the playbook. He doesn’t know when to go for it. And so on.
Kelly’s offense has produced 3 points in 2 games. And that FG came after a long INT return. There is no disputing the fact the offense is having major problems right now.
The offensive struggles vs Dallas were due to horrible QB play. There were some other issues, but the QB play was 95 percent of the problem. I’ve not had a chance to study the Giants game, but the QB play sure looked to be the primary issue.
Can this be fixed?
Nick Foles was terrific for 1.5 games. That’s what made his showing against Dallas so surprising. Foles didn’t just have an off day. He was awful. I don’t know if you bounce back from that showing. I hope so, but there are no guarantees.
Matt Barkley has shown flashes in his 3 quarters of action, but also has made a ton of rookie mistakes. The unknown with him is how much better he would play with a full week of practice. Barkley is physically limited so he’s the type of QB that needs to play efficiently and do all the little things well. That’s not going to happen when you’re a rookie and thrown into action.
I don’t know what to say about Michael Vick. Could this be the end for him, as an Eagle? We’re now halfway done with the season. Vick wasn’t healthy going into today’s game and then re-aggravated his hamstring injury. If you sit him for games 9 and 10, is there any reason to play him after that?
Many of you still are pushing for Kelly to go young across the board. That is happening in it’s own way. Earl Wolff is getting plenty of playing time. Zach Ertz is playing more and more. Vinny Curry and Bennie Logan are playing regular snaps. There aren’t too many spots where veterans are playing while young guys sit.
Kelly is moving at his own pace and in his own way. The one point here that some of you miss is that Kelly doesn’t want to just hand out jobs. He wants them earned. Brandon Graham might have a future here. Trent Cole likely doesn’t. But what signal are you sending the team if you hand the job to Graham even though Cole has out-practiced and out-played him?
This season is about evaluating the players, but also Kelly teaching the team what he wants and how he wants things done. There has to be a balance between getting the young players experience and trying to get current stars and other veterans to play at a high level.
I might not agree with every move that Kelly has made or will make, but I do trust that he knows what he’s doing.
Kelly developed talented players at both New Hampshire and Oregon. Not everything was sunshine and roses.
Back in 2007, Oregon was riding high. Dennis Dixon was having a phenomenal year. But he seriously hurt his knee in a game vs Arizona. Oregon lost that 34-24. The next week the Ducks were shut out, losing to UCLA 16-0. The next game was a 38-31 loss to Oregon State.
Kelly played 3 different QBs after Dixon went down, sometimes all in one game. The results were very mixed. A month later, Oregon used only one QB and won their bowl game, 56-21. Kelly was able to coach up his guy and get results.
Kelly’s methods worked long term as well. Dion Jordan, LaMichael James, Max Unger, TJ Ward, Ed Dickson and Kyle Long were terrific at Oregon and have played well in the NFL. That’s offense and defense. Big guys and small guys. High school stars and overachievers.
This isn’t the time for Kelly to panic and change what he’s doing. I would suggest he tweak some things, but Kelly needs to stick to his guns and do what he believes in.
Jeffrey Lurie hired Chip Kelly because he believed in Kelly’s vision and ideas. Lurie knew there would be some bumps in the road. Some of those are on Kelly. Others are on the players.
Lurie is going to find out a lot about his new coach in the coming weeks. Kelly must figure out what to do at QB. Kelly also needs to figure some things out on offense. Going 8 quarters without an offensive TD is a serious problem, bad QB situation or not. That has to be driving Kelly nuts more than any of us.
Kelly doesn’t need to be perfect as he tackles these issues, but he needs to be more right than wrong. He sure needs to be a lot better than he has in the last couple of weeks.
* * * * *
Here is an interesting column by Tim McManus on the Kelly-Vick situation.
Kelly too looked like a coach adrift as he addressed the media Sunday. His much-hyped offense has generated three points over the last two games. His QB is out again, and who knows for how long. Vick will have an MRI in the morning. Maybe it’s Foles but it’s probably Barkley next week. It doesn’t much seem to matter right now. This team is in a bad state and it’s for many reasons, but the most important reason is the quarterback situation.
“I think when you’re unsettled at that position in this league, it’s real difficult,” said Kelly.
That’s one of the absolute truths in the NFL. It is also true that it’s about impossible to find stability in Vick at this stage of his career. There is no bottling a flash. A flash, by its definition, is sudden and fleeting.
I’ve given up predicting Kelly. I didn’t think he’d bring back Vick. I didn’t think he’d have any interest in Barkley. At this point, I’ll just hide ‘n watch. It will be interesting to see what does happen at QB.
_
Point of historical clarification: Dixon blew his knee out against Arizona State the week before the Arizona game. He kept it a secret from everyone but the coaches and a few teammates. His ACL was almost gone when the Arizona game kicked off and it only took one wrong cut (with no AZ player within yards of him) to finish the damage.
Just thought you’d like to know.
I thought the injury might have happened the week before. I remember watching the AZ game and Dixon clearly wasn’t right.
So Dixon pulled a RG3? 😛
I thought the McManus column was pretty fundamentally silly, and was mostly just a mess of the usual anti-Vickisms.
Look, at the end of the day, I’m pretty sure that Kelly is drooling far harder at the Lee Evans and Sammy Watkins of the college football world rather than the Mariotas. The fundamental capping, regardless of who is in at QB, is the sheer freedom that the defense has around run support by LBs and safeties. Kelly’s offense fundamentally depends on an operational ground game. When that’s not working, the rest of it doesn’t tend to work either. However, you have two problems: The safeties are coming up and the linebackers are filling gaps, because there is no fear of being beat from the air. The other problem is that said run game is dependent on the QB being a material run threat to force the defense to cover more of the field, horizontally. What’s worse, in the KC game and the first NY Giants game, Vick was using his rushing capabilities to *cover up* a non-working passing game, rather than being the dagger in the heart after being beat up by Shady and DeSean.
And again, instead of going absolutely nuts on Vick every chance we get, I think a lot of attention needs to be put on what’s going on in the interior line. What adjustment has Kelce, Kelly, etc, made in terms of creating holes? I wasn’t watching a very clear game, and I certainly can’t analyze fast enough to figure past “that doesn’t look right”.
Shady was 6-7 in the 1st half. He was 9-41 in the 2nd half. The run game got going once there was an actual threat of a passing game and the offense had some confidence.
Meaningfully, thirty-two of those yards came in the first drive of the third quarter, and there were two pass completions out of thirteen plays. Two more passing attempt resulted in a sack and a fumble. Most of the rest of Shady’s yards came in the next drive where Barkley did not pass at all.
But Barkley had thrown well late in the 1st half. That affected the defense in the 2nd half.
Foles threw well late in the first half of the first Giants game. It didn’t really affect how the rest of the game went until the turnovers happened. These were two minute offenses in both cases, and I think they both involved substantial defensive pass interference penalties as well. Outside of the deep attempts that resulted in DPI, both Foles and Barkley were taking the open underneath throws the defense left them.
“both Foles and Barkley were taking the open underneath throws the defense left them” yeah…. we didnt vick just do that? lmfao
I win.
Yep. It’s *amazing* how Vick is never at fault when the offense completely stalls. It’s always: he was injured, the line stunk, the WRs stunk, the running game failed, the coaching was horrible, etc. Yet, when Barkley or Foles actually move the ball- they only were taking the underneath stuff that the defense gives them? I guess the defense doesn’t give those routes to Vick?
Seriously, you have zero credibility on here.
Stop trying to throw Shah’s hero under the bus. Mike Vick is perfect and nothing is ever his fault. Anyone that points out his flaws is a “hater”.
What’s silly is saying you don’t like qb instability, but bringing Vick back.
Never said one word about instability. Said some stuff about the sheer monomania that people who hate Vick.
At the end of the day, you know what? I think this played a role in making home, not home–not just for Vick, but for the whole team.
And I certainly do not want some undertalented wanker some of you all are so happy to cheer for because he’s not Vick, rather than that he’s any good. Good things usually do not flow. If you can actually *upgrade* Vick, then I’m all for it, but I think people refuse to understand just how difficult it would be to replace him.
Kelly was the one who mentioned instability, not you. Kelly was also the one wh brought Vick back, not you.
If you think its hard to replace sVicks production over his last three games, 15 ppg 1 TD, 5 turnovers then there is really no point talking to you. What’s so hard to replace about a guy who’s never had back to back winning seasons, has been mediocre to bad his entire career, can’t even stay on the field, and hasn’t won a playoff game since 2004. 12-19 since the miracle giants game.
Well, then, you should have made it clear it was a shot at Kelly!
As for skill and performance…Would you rather have Matt Cassel? Jason Campbell? Kyle Orton? Tarvaris Jackson? Reasonably skilled vets all. For different reasons, I wouldn’t rather have any of those, compared to Vick. I would not rather have Alex Smith, for all that he’s on an 8-0 team. I know Andy Reid probably doesn’t really want him either, but Alex Smith is an actual competent QB, even if he doesn’t offer you much. There aren’t any Kaepernicks behind him, just Tyler Bray.
As for drafting some young thing, the last weekend solidified my thinking in that for all real intents and purposes, there is only one QB who’s genuinely capable of being an effective starter five games into the season or so. That’s Bridgewater. Mariota, in my opinion, is not going to be capable of being better than Tannehill’s first year, and Tannehill really wasn’t that good. To a certain extent, he’s still not that good, but at least on his way. That’s multiple years of uncertainty that may well not pay off, like Weedon and his slow decisionmaking. And projects in the third round or later, again? Don’t make me laugh.
tannehill played 1 season at QB before that he was a WR.
Mariotoa could come in here and hit the ground running in our offense.
” I know Andy Reid probably doesn’t really want him either, but Alex Smith is an actual competent QB, even if he doesn’t offer you much.”
Hilarious. Andy Reid’s first choice at QB was……Nick Foles. He offered a 2nd rounder and another pick as well(5th?), yet we wanted more so the deal was not done.
Are you going to be around next season when your hero is gone?
Hah, here we go….you have found another excuse for Vick to play poorly. The home crowd. Yep, that’s it. Keep running that game.
vuck sucks. the second he came out the passing game improved.
Unless Chip Kelly changes his offense philosophy, our franchise QB is NOT on the current roster. Whoever thinks different is disillusioned..
You’ve got the choice of Foles or Barkley the next two weeks at least. Who do you choose?
That’s a tough one. I think I’d rather go with a healthy Foles, and if it’s only to see if his horrific game against the Cowboys was just an aberration or signs of things to come.
Nevertheless I don’t see either QB to be our starter next year.
I’d like to see Foles get one more start, just like you. If nothing else, to see if he can bounce back from that last start, game whatever you want to call it..
I simply don’t agree. As Kelly has pointed out, just because the QB is in the shotgun and hands the ball off a certain way doesn’t make that a zone-read play. Some of those are called runs to the RB. The design makes it look like the option when in fact it isn’t.
What Kelly needs is someone who is a consistently good passer or consistently good runner. The Eagles aren’t getting either right now.
Then we simply agree to disagree, my friend. Chip Kelly can say all what he wants in public, he just won’t fool me. If a QB like Johnny Manziel is within reach in next year’s draft, I will be shocked if the Eagles don’t pick him, unless Chippah changes the way he likes to run his offense.
Yesterday was a prime example of why Barkley is NOT made for this offense. He should have kept the ball on numerous occasions, however he was a) simply overstrained with the read option, b) the Giants D didn’t fear him as a runner or c) he’s just not athletic enough to “run” it.
Or d) instructed not to run because he was the last man standing at the QB position.
Then Chip should have not dialed up those kind of plays.
He went with the game plan that was created with Vick in mind.
I exepct in-game adjustments from a good coach.
with an inexperienced QB, there’s only so much adjusting you can do on the fly.
Fair enough. Let’s give Chippah the benefit of doubt with a third string QB at the helm. However other decisions by Chip yesterday – e.g. Punting, Onsides kick etc., had me scratching my head…
I liked the onsides kick. I would have preferred to have Henry drill it at one of the giants players randomly, but I think we had to play to win on that decision.
It should have been a surprise. Assuming the Onside Kick Formation beforehand pretty much eliminated the advantage of doing it with 4 minutes left.
Yeah
Fair point. I was assuming that Chip called those plays because Barkley had practiced them, and so felt most comfortable with them despite his limited reps. From that assumption it would follow that he is capable of keeping the ball and running, and that he was following orders not to run because of the injury situation.
Granted, those assumptions could be wrong and Chip could have been calling that play with the hope that Barkley would keep it and run and Barkley repeatedly let him down.
Or e) he’s only gotten to practice it three times in his life as a football player and he just couldn’t manage the reads in the heat of action.
or people could look at film instead of listining to crappy announcers:
http://chipwagon.typepad.com/eagles/2013/10/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-the-moose-is-an-idiot-edition.html
Good stuff, Anders.
The problem with that argument is that we haven’t seen Barkley play except in relief. The game plan never was designed for him and we don’t know if Chip can design a better plan for him, and how Barkley will perform if given the bulk of practice snaps.
Seriously — how can you grade Barkely after playing part time in two games and NEVER seeing snaps with the 1’s in practice? Name a 3rd stringer who can? Maybe the one on the Vikes(but he’s a veteran). I’m not saying Barkley CAN play. I’m just saying – how can we evaluate him or even Foles? By 1 game? That’s not reasonable.
Your reading comprehension is apparently not one of your strenhgts. It’s just that I don’t think Foles nor Barkley and Chip are a match made in heaven for his offense. I may be wrong and maybe our next season’s starter is already on the roster, but I just don’t believe this, especially if a guy like Manziel will be on board when the Eagles pick.
“Your reading comprehension is apparently not one of your strenhgts.”
Obviously you have spent most of your time honing your reading comprehension skills, much to the detriment of your spelling skills.
OMG, it was a typo, Mr. Internet teacher.
Following your lead, sir. Glass houses bro
I am not sure if I am your bro, homie.
Then you’re saying Chip is a fool for drafting Barkley who is “clearly” not a fit in his offense?
I just want to reinforce the point about the defense. Not so very long ago, this defense was historical in terms of red zone deficiency, yesterday they didn’t cause a single turn over and held the opposition to 15. They allowed 0 TDs, who’d of thunk that over the last 4 years. Also, as pointed out, it has been a continuing trend.
This doesn’t say we are a top 10 D, but it sure is comforting to know that teams aren’t automatic from 20 yard in.
On offense, the last 2 games are an outlier to what was a statistically historic beginning offensively. The last 2 games have featured our number 3 QB and his play hasn’t been that discouraging. Maybe the first 4 games were the outlier and the final 10 games will feature awful QBing and ineffective O.
Excellent point. I had forgotten that feeling of inevitability.
Excellent points — vs. another terrible team — Eagles held them.
Great points. I don’t care who the defense is playing, these are still NFL teams. Our defense is definitely playing much better ball. Honestly, if our offense was as good as we all thought it would be and our defense continued the improvement, we would be a walk off NFC East winner.
Well, at least the college football season has been exciting. The past few weeks have been a lot like window shopping. Mariota vs. Hundley, Winston vs. Boyd, Hundley vs. Hogan, Hogan vs. Price, Mariota vs. Price, Bridgewater or Winston vs. anyone, alot of impressive matchups so far. Its like looking at that shiny new big screen TV in the store. You know you probably can’t afford it but its nice to look at and imagine.
Too bad the Bucs, Jags and Vikings are so awful. Hard to imagine us leapfrogging two of them to be in position to draft a QB. We could have a shot at an impact OLB though. Anthony Barr and Trent Murphy look like the real deal.
Only one game out of first place yet so far away from being good.
” Barkley is physically limited so he’s the type of QB that needs to play efficiently and do all the little things well.” So…. he is a regular QB. lol
“There is no bottling a flash. A flash, by its definition, is sudden and fleeting.” mcmanus 100% correct
Mariota, bridgewater and johnny football. if we dont get one of those guys we are in trouble at the QB position next season.
All In for G.J. Kinne!
Tommy that’s the problem: I think Chip is too intimidated to be Chip. If he doesn’t correct this he’s just another ordinary to mediocre head coach in this league if that. He can’t be worried about what others say about him …
That being said I think he should have been someone’s OC not our head coach. I think he’s over his head and yes ( not because of win lose record ) we could be in trouble.
I don’t think he seems intimidated at all. But he’s learning a few things on the job, in a rebuilding year. I don’t have a big problem with that.
His play calling is very conservative and predictable. Since the Washington game his offense has gotten a lot slower. I don’t see any “creative and innovative” use of our talent (what we do have) or thought provoking formations. I see a very ordinary if not mediocre HC… very boring football.
The GM is not without fault either.
PS Rebuilding year — he shouldn’t have brought back Vick (again questionable decision)
It is a lot more vanilla than I was expecting.
As far as the QBs… what would you have had him do? If he doesn’t have Vick, he goes into the draft season with Foles and maybe Trent Edwards, then what does he do that puts him into a better position than he is now?
The Eagles offense isnt slower than against Washington. We are the fastest team in terms of time between snaps.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/pacestats
I think Kelly has really dialed the creative part down because the basic stuff is not working.
You cant be creative and innovative if your bread and butter plays does not work.
It looks a lot slower to me … and ineffective. No matter who is the QB: it is the same exact plays ! Prove me wrong but I think Chip is not the HC we need in Philly. Anyone remember Juan Castillo ” on the learning curve ” as defensive coordinator ? Well the nightmare is back and the excuses …
I think Chip has to be himself but he also has to adjust to the NFL. This read-option gimmick isn’t faring nearly as well this year as it did last year. I hope Chip can come up with more to bring to the table. What happened to the 3 TE sets we were being hyped about during the offseason?
I wouldn’t be shocked if Vick and Foles are both unable to go next week. That would leave Barkley backed up by G.J. Kinne against Oakland.
I’m with you here. Foles/Vick should not see the field unless the are 100% ready.
I’d like to see more of Foles. His performance against Dallas just doesn’t make sense. Last year he had a shell of an OL and very little to work with. He still did reasonably well.
Let Vick go on IR and end his tenure with a bit of pride. No need to keep him active holding a clipboard.
only question is… is Foles ready to go this week?
I agree. If there’s any question, Chip should just go with Barkley. Can’t take chances with concussions anymore.
Let’s hope so. I really want to see him bounce-back from his game against the Boys. If he plays and has got another bad day, we will have more insight about his possible (non) future wiith the Eagles.
Foles can play. I think he’s shown that. He needs to show if he can be consistent.
I disagree that Foles has shown he can play.
can anyone of our QB’s make the throws, like Stafford’s last two?
Can Peyton Manning or Drew Brees?
No because none of them has Stafford’ arm talent. Vick can actually make the same type of throws, but not consistently enough. Aaron Rodgers can make em too, but he might be the best QB in the NFL right now.
Because you can tell by 1 game? I’m surprised you’re not an NFL scout. All kidding aside — how do you know? Because 1 game vs. Dallas?
You know what people in SF said last year? They said Alex Smith can’t play. He can’t make the throws. He can’t lead the team. Maybe all Alex needed was time to season. Since you know about Foles already — did you know that about Alex Smith last year when he was benched? Again — I’m not saying Foles IS the answer to lead this team. I think Foles shows poise and promise that maybe he can play. You have to give a young QB a chance.
Anyone hear on the health status of Foles?
He needs to show that he has the mental/emotional toughness to shrug off a game like the Dallas game. Some guys can, some can’t. I hope he can, but regardless of the outcome, we need to find out.
Chip said on WIP that Barkley is healthy, doesn’t think Vick will be ready to go for Sunday, and needs to see where Foles’ status is.
I thought then and still think, Vick was a terrible idea. I remember the quotes “Chip wants to see for himself”. As if the history of Vick never finishing a season(yes, I know he did it like once, but come on). Then Chip brings back Vick this week when he clearly — clearly was not healthy. An unhealthy QB is NOT better than starting a rookie — at any level. I expected Chip to be smarter than that.
Season is going as expected. Eagles stink. You can’t evaluate the offense if you’re QB’s are like a revolving door.
You can’t evaluate the success of a defense vs. one of the worse offensive teams in the league.
You CAN FINALLY SAY — hey – nice play Nate Allen!!!! Good for him.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked someone else below: what would you have done for the QB situation in the offseason that would have put us in a better situation?
Rebuild. Send out the Foles Barkley or another rookie QB project you find somewhere (young guy) to QB this year. Install a smart older mentor type backup QB. Address the areas of the team you can and let the season playout until with a losing record you can draft a possible franchise QB (2014?) unless we are stupid enough to win enough games (with aging veterans) to not be in a position to have a high draft pick or be able to trade up. (Possible Eagles 2013 season?)
So in other words, you wanted to be worse so we would tank sooner?
No if the young players played well I would be excited. I think everyone knew this would be a flawed team with a truly inexperienced HC. It would have been better to be bad with young not bad with old. Good drafts are what we need. The Eagles should see that.
how are we worse? Vick won 1 game while he was healthy. Everybody in the world new Vick can not last a season. So starting Vick was useless because you knew Foles was going to play at some point anyway. We’re in a worse situation now because Foles did get as much time as Vick in the preseason taking snaps with the 1’s. That was a whole waste of time naming Vick the starter.
That doesn’t mean I think Foles is our next great QB. It would just help show if Foles is capable for next year. So now our best case scenario is if Foles gets healthy and plays. What’s the sense of playing Vick at this point?
Playing Vick the rest of the season would get us a better draft pick than playing Foles the rest of the season in my opinion. Foles has as many wins as Vick with half the starts.
I’m not a Vick fan, never have been.
Even so, I would not have brought him back. Drafting Barkley was not a bad move given the circumstances.
I do agree that Nick needed to be challenged. There were veterans out there (Thigpen, Fitzpatrick, Matt Moore, etc). None of these guys are really that good, but they know how to prepare and practice.
In hindsight, maybe Chip thought that Nick would beat out Vick and never considered the possibility that Vick would be a starter.
I think he did not know what he had in Foles, did not know who he was going to be able to draft, and had no better veteran options available than Vick.
It was a tough situation. When you take over a 4-12 team, there really aren’t too many easy fixes.
I just would have rather cut ties with Vick. He appears to be a good guy, but too inconsistent to build a program with.
Cutting ties with Vick should have been part of the purge. I think Chip kept him to try can keep some sense of stability. Chip swung and missed.
that’s a easy question. Start Foles. Sign a veteran qb incase Foles got hurt. My question then is — what harm is there in starting Foles. All the Vick lovers said — “Vick gave us the best chance to win”. I’m not bashing Vick. I like him. Just SOOOOOO done with him.
This team never was playoff ready. Even though a lot of peeps were saying “we have a chance”. Either you rebuild or you don’t. You do it have a$$ed — you get in the situation the Eagles are in now….
How exactly does that put us in a better situation than we are now?
again — easy — we’d know more about Foles. That should have been the only goal this year. Find out of we do have a qb worth playing. Now — we still don’t know because of the Vick fiasco. A year under Foles belt would have done wonders(either for or against him). Another year of Vick gives(gave?) nothing….
I was never concerned with wins or losses this year. Just get better along the way. That’s not happening with this offense.
And just my opinion but I think we’ve seen enough of Foles to know that he is not more than a stopgap at best. So I don’t see how we would be any better off.
And that’s ok. That’s what need to see(not guess). But we just can’t say that after a sprinkle of starts. He may be the best back up QB ever…lol. That’s kind of the whole point of evaluation. Before moving on — you have to know what you have. We might have nothing in Foles. We already know Vick would turn out to be worthless. We didn’t know about Foles. A few starts is unfair. I think he still gets a few starts. What we don’t want is to go into next year saying “can Foles play”. Let’s find out this year. Nothing we can do about a QB now anyway. It’s not like we can trade for one. Starting Vick at this point is useless….
Totally agree and have been saying it since they kept Vick. Kelly is approaching the situation in a way I would expect a new coach to approach it though. He wants to win now.
This is not the best thing for the team long-term but I can’t fault him for having that mentality.
I normally agree with your perspective. However, I differ on my opinion here. I am not sure what we have with Foles. Did he look horrible against Dallas? Absolutely. But he is a young QB that has definitely shown flashes. He has started 8 games in his career. His numbers are good: 84.7 rating, 12 TDs 5 INT. He is a young guy that has played through alot of turmoil. He may not be the guy, Barkley may not be the guy, but this is how young QBs look most of the time, even the good ones.
There is that chance, yes. But we’re in no worse position to find that out now than we would have been had we not retained Vick.
Foles looked horrendous against the ‘Boys without a doubt. I was in disbelief watching that game though because Foles has never played that bad before. Missing wide open people mid-range is not something Foles does. Missing on the long ball? Yes, that wouldn’t surprise me. But missing short to mid-range throws? That’s usually Foles bread and butter. The only explanation for that game is that Foles choked HARD. I could blame Shady for having a terrible day and dancing left and right, I could blame MeSean for dogging it because he’s not getting 47-yard touchdowns, I could blame Kelly for his rigid scheme, but the main factor in that ‘Boys game was that Foles was just off. He choked.
But can he come back from that? Prior to that game Foles looked like a stud. Played excellent against the Gnats and Bucs. But he has one bad (horrendous) game and he’s a bum? I don’t get this mentality. Kelly needs implement more formations to his scheme and don’t have 5.0 40 QBs run the read-option. Where are the 3 TE sets? Where is the fast pace? Where are the power running formations? Kelly is either hitching his wagon to the read-option or he just doesn’t have enough experience to call a game for a pocket passer. I sure hope it isn’t the former because I’m of the mind that this read-option gimmick will not last beyond the next year. Just look at Vick, RGKnee, EJ Manuel, etc. They should rename the read-option to “QB sacrifice”.
Either way, we are going to see a lot more Foles this year and probably a lot of Barkley, so I sure hope that Kelly can figure out how to scheme for their strengths like he says he does.
I don’t know that Foles will ever be a quality starting QB, and I would lean towards saying that he isn’t, but at least for me, I haven’t seen nearly enough of him to make that a definitive conclusion. On the other hand, if he does prove to be simply a stopgap, have you determined that Vick is anything *more* than a stopgap? We have seen plenty of him and we know his limitations both in terms of staying on the field as well as succeeding consistently on the field.
So to rephrase your question, how exactly does Vick put us in a better situation?
Didn’t say he did. I said we were not in any worse situation than we would have been otherwise.
My point is, at least with Foles, there remains a bit of unknown with him that I think increases his value. With Vick, I know what he provides, I don’t think it is enough to get us anywhere, and I know he is a stopgap. The unknown with Foles, regardless of whether I am leaning towards him not being a quality starter, has value in a season where the team is not a Super Bowl contender.
Just to be clear though, I was strongly against bringing back Vick from the start. However, once you bring Vick back, I think you have to have the competition and you can’t simply hand the job to Foles. If Vick can’t stay healthy though, that needs to be factored into the equation if you are going to give him back his job when he is healthy again.
Oh, I think he’s probably played his last game as an Eagle.
Keeping Vick was without a doubt the worst decision of the (very young) Kelly era. This team needed to move on. Now we have a locker room problem because the “Arrogant ‘Seans” love their hero and constantly put their foot in their mouths when talking about him being the starter and the leader.
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind seeing DeSean go and MAYBE even Shady. D-Jax is fast and quick but brings literally nothing else to the table. He is all about himself. Dogs it when things are bad, and shouts his own name from the rafters when things are good. He has ZERO leadership qualities and it is for this reason that he cannot be the #1 receiver.
LeSean is a great back but his dancing problem has returned and his arrogance is just off the charts. Making himself look like a fool calling out Knowshon for no reason. This team sucks right now and has since 2011. There is no room for arrogant primadonnas here. Vick, Shady, and D-Jax are all about themselves and that is the antithesis of what Kelly is preaching.
Did you see Vick pouting on the sideline when he went out? I get that he’s sad about his situation, but how about helping out the rookie that had to replace you? How about giving him a boost of confidence instead of commiserating on the sideline with Maclin?
rabblerabblerabble I don’t like Vick rabblerabblerabblerabble take shot at Vick rabblerabblerabblerabblerabble let’s get rid of a top 5 back in the league for no reason
I said maybe get rid of him not definitely. Shady sure hasn’t been the top back in the league the last 3 of 4 games. Just because he started hot doesn’t make him great. He has AMAZING moves but he also makes some questionable decisions. And like I said his off field antics are annoying and paint an unneeded target on his back.
Thanks for your informative comment though, primate.
Trading DeSean? Yea, I guess, if we could get something good out of a trade. Trading Shady? Nope. The guy is leading the league in rushing. What could we get from a trade that could be of greater benefit. I do, though, agree with you he doesn’t go north-south sometimes when he should, and some of his off-field antics have been stupid.
Are you Morton reincarnated?
Not so serious but slightly serious post: Best for all involved:
1) If D continues to improve, Davis stays on as coordinator, or even HC
2) Chip leaves after a year. Agrees to be Head Coach at USC. Deal is he waits out his time and then takes over. They can start recruiting his players right away, knowing that Chip will soon be there to lead them (Similar to Bobby Petrino or Saban but they weren’t suspended)
odds of this happening- 0. Odds of people besides me liking this-0 (except for Davis who may like it)
But Chip can fix things. Key to being dominant over the long haul in 2013 NFL is QB-WR-TE play with at least average defense. The key is to get the QB. Problem is every other team knows this too. Desean is to small to be out #1 WR. We just need megatron
I don’t agree at all. I’m still a Chip supporter. We all know DJ is NOT a number 1 wr. I’m watching hurt wr and te’s fight for extra yards and TD while DJ fights to not get hurt. I know a lot are ok with that — I’m not a fan of playing to avoid injury.
Not a Chip supporter. The guy has not even looked competent and appears overmatched. Definitely not the “genius” some have made him out to be. While I realize there is a learning curve coming to the NFL, if he was such a bright offensive mind, he could coach up Juan Castillo to play QB and still score more than 3 points offensively in 8 quarters.
The NFL is a different monster than college. In the NFL you actually need at least average QB play unless you got a once in decade defense like the 00 Ravens or this years Chiefs.
I agree. However, much of the hype surrounding Chip involved the thoughts that he could win with any guy at QB. He has a top 3 RB in the NFL and good O line. An offensive guru would have found a way to score a point against a poor Giants defense, even if they were stacking the box. The read option/shotgun handoff is played out.
I would love to see people honestly claim he could win with crap QBs. I think the hype was that he didnt need a mobile QB, but he could win with all styles.
And I think he could create different play packages to emphasize a QB’s skills. But they have to have enough good skills to make it work, if not necessarily running skills.
I disagree. We do not have crap QBs. We have three QBs that have flaws. However, I guarantee you this, you give Andy Reid any of these three QBs, with this O line, this RB, Desean and he finds a way to manufacture more than 3 points in 2 games against two sub par defenses. Not Andy Reid’s biggest fan, but you can’t argue he would have done more.
AR is hardly producing offense with a star RB, star WR and a good OL and his QB is much better than Foles and Barkley.
Kelly also produced a lot of points with Foles before his crappy Dallas game, but lets blame it on Kelly that his QB suddenly cant hit a open guy? or that he is forced to play his 3rd string rookie QB? Do you remember what happened last time the Eagles was forced to play their 3rd string QB? 2005 happened.
I suppose it’s a small consolation that the Giants are playing themselves out of the top draft pick at least.
My only consolation. I would love for them to finish outside of top 10, but I doubt they can win 4 more games.
As it stands:
2 games with no chance to win: GB, DET
1 game where we probably lose: @ Dallas last game (they may have nothing to play for then)
5 games we could win- @Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Chicago, @ Raiders
I see a 2-6 finish for a 6-10 season
I’d be fine with that, but that’d make us 5-11. So do you mean 3-5 in the 2nd half?
no i was wrong.. meant 5-11.
I say the Vikings and the Skins game as the only winnable games unless Foles gets back healthy and to his Giants/Bucs level or Barkley stop making too many rookie mistakes.
3 of the past 4 games have been played against two of the worst offenses in the NFL; no running games, a rookie QB in his 2nd start playing for a team that doesn’t believe in its coach, a team with an Oline in shambles and a QB that is turning the ball over at an NFL record rate… I agree that they’ve improved, but I’m not excited about them yet. I want to see what they can do against a few competent offenses first.
I see you casually left out Dallas in your assessment.
3 of 4? They did a nice job against Dallas, but I’m not going to jump the gun because of one quality performance. Speaking of Dall, they’re numbers are skewed by the 48 pt performance against Den, who happens to be one of the worst defenses in the league as well. They dominated the Giants and Washing, another of the 2 worst defenses in the league. Dallas has a good offense that feasts on poor defenses, imo, and they can’t run the ball either. They aren’t quite as good as their numbers suggest. The birds have GB, Wash & DET coming up in 3 of their next 4. What they do defensively in those games will be far more informative to me than what they’ve done over the past month.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I wasn’t unhappy that Vick was brought back. I wasn’t thrilled, but I think it was worthwhile for the same reasons we are interested in seeing Nick and Matt and under center, I wanted to know how Mike would perform with Chip’s system.
I know, I know, Vick is Vick — he has limited skill sets, often injured, etc — but he played well during the pre-season and it did seem possible he was ideal for the new offense. For a brief shining moment (the first 3 quarters of the Wash game) it seemed Chip was a genius and Mike was his guy. I don’t think it was a blunder to try Vick anymore than it will be a mistake to give Foles and/or Barkley time on the field so they can be fairly evaluated.
This is an unusual post for me because usually I only remember the things I was right about.
A little research and Chip might have not brought Vick back. Chip stated that he wasn’t going to judge Vick on his past because he doesn’t know what he was asked to do. This is an extremely arrogant approach and id willfully ignorant. I admit I was a little intrigued to see what Vick could do in this offense also, but knew for a fact that he would miss time and thus it was pointless to bother.
I think we all agree on here that Chip should have actually asked you when it came to player evaluations in the first place.
I know right? I kept spamming his Eagles e-mail but he never responded. Arrogance!
Honestly Chip can make all the decisions he wants without me but when the rubber meets the road I want a winning quality exciting football team on the field. Until that happens Chip and the GM have everything to prove to me as an Eagle fan.
The QB controversy started again? The draft couldn’t get here fast enough.
Not sure its a controversy when nobody is healthy or good.
Seems more of a controversy of what we should have done 8 months ago.
Let’s roll with Barkley this week. If we lose to the Raiders, then we should go all in on the tank train.
Do any of our QB’s want the starting job? It’s there for the taking. Someone just needs to step up, play well, and claim it.
I get all the Vick distaste, really I do. Many moons ago I stated that there was no possible way that we would pay Vick the bonus money and keep him on the team.
However, it seems pretty clear that the personnel department of the Eagles didn’t see a first round QB in the 2013 draft.
It has been (largely) overlooked by this board that the above evaluation is probably correct; therefore, in my estimation, keeping Vick was a reasonable decision. I would rather have an injury prone but otherwise good QB on the team than have strapped Chip and the Eagles to an inept young QB.
Chip has won a few games this year and the offense has looked good at times with healthy QBs who are in the good but not great category.
And I like the Barkley pick. He looks like a gamer.
…The sky isn’t falling…
Jeff Garcia!!!!!
So hard to complement the defense in a loss. The opposing offense deserves the credit they did just enough to win. Tampa bay looked like they had a good defense in their losses, they didn’t.