The Blame Game
Posted: December 15th, 2014 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 468 Comments »There are a lot of things to talk about this week. When you lose a key game and it’s to Dallas, there are going to be lots of issues that need discussing. What happened? Why did it happens? What does it mean? What’s next/ We can’t get to them all at once so try to be patient.
First, let’s talk about the game. The Eagles lost for a variety of reasons. You can blame Mark Sanchez or Bradley Fletcher or the coaches. There were Cary Williams penalties, Brent Celek’s fumble and the non-fielded kickoff. And on and on. This was another sloppy performance in a big game. You just can’t win like that.
A lot of you are fired up after this game and you want heads to roll. I completely understand that. I was emotional last night as well. I struggled to fall asleep because my mind was racing all over the place. But it is now Monday morning. You have to let the anger go. It is time to be rational. Benching players and firing coaches isn’t going to solve anything right now.
Mark Sanchez has shown what he is…a competent starter or a good backup. That’s it. He’s 3-3 as the Eagles starter, but those losses are to SEA, GB and DAL…3 pretty good teams. I would have no problem at all bringing him back as the backup in 2015. Sanchez wasn’t awful last night. The team did score 27 points and he made some good throws. The problem is that he makes too many mistakes: missed reads, errant throws, poor pocket presence, poor situational awareness, etc.
When facing good teams, Sanchez is going to struggle. The good team is either going to have a good defense which will make life hard for him or a good offense which means he’s got to lead his offense to a lot of points.
The Eagles still might make the playoffs, but obviously aren’t going far with Sanchez. The team needs Nick Foles back. I talked about this last night and some of you ripped me for that. I’m not promising you Foles is going to come back and be the savior. I don’t know what Foles is going to do. I do know Sanchez. Foles is the best hope for now. The ideal situation would be Sanchez starting this week and then Foles getting the season finale to knock off some rust before heading into the playoffs. We don’t know that Foles will heal in time, nor do we know the Eagles make the playoffs so that scenario may be totally off.
Let’s talk about Bradley Fletcher. He’d played better in recent weeks, but got lit up last night. In his defense, that was Dez Bryant, one of the better WRs in the league. Dez is capable of making plays when you’re at your best. Jeremy Maclin feasts on mistakes by the D. Dez can tell you the ball is coming to him and you still can’t stop it at times. He’s special.
Fletcher plays hard and is the kind of guy you want to succeed, but he’s just got limitations. I have been disappointed that the coaches haven’t given Nolan Carroll more of a shot at LCB. That’s not to say Carroll would definitely be better. He might turn out to be the same guy. But I’d like to see him get a shot. We know who/what Fletcher is.
Bill Davis didn’t have his best game. I don’t understand why he wasn’t giving Fletcher more Safety help in certain situations. That said, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You want to give a veteran QB like Romo a lot of different looks to keep him off balance. You also have to deal with the fact that Dallas has multiple weapons. You can’t shut down everyone. On Thanksgiving, the Eagles won more individual battles and that’s why the defense was so good that day. Last night, they didn’t win nearly as many battles. No matter what strategy a coach uses, he needs the players to win on the field.
Chip Kelly and the coaches will study the tape and look for solvable problems. They can’t make a franchise QB or stud CB magically appear. They can fix some little things that will help the Eagles out this week. And while we talk big picture, the focus in the NovaCare Complex will quickly shift to Washington. That is now a must-win game. The pressure will be all on the Eagles.
One of the reasons the Eagles have avoided losing streaks so well under Kelly is their ability to compartmentalize. They’ll file away the Dallas loss. That toothpaste is out of the tube and there’s no getting it back in. You have to move on and deal with what you can control. Losing to Dallas sucks, but life goes on. The team is 9-5 and still alive for the playoffs. Things could be a lot worse. I can link to some of my 2012 posts if you don’t believe me.
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All they did was put Dez on Fletcher and won the game.
Didn’t Dez beat Williams on one TD?
Nope. Fletcher all three times.
Witten ran all over them as well.
Witten converted a few big third downs, but 69 yards and no TDs is hardly dominant
He was catching passes on 3rd and longs I believe. He showed up big when it mattered.
What really KILLED US, was that most of Wittens big catches came on plays we were givng extra attention, or bracket covering Dez… So when we allocated extra resources to shut Dez down, Witten and Romo made us pay for it, which is why we couldn’t. Just double team DEZ the rest of the game like the simple fans who are bashing Billy Davis were crying about….
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Fans just run their mouth as if they really are seeing things that Billy Davis and our entire staff of 300 coaches are not seeing LOL
If you have to pick your poison…..I would rather it be be witten…….witten is long in the tooth and can’t make big plays anymore that result in TD’s while dez can…..dez was dangerous last night…..
And that was mostly on Nate Allen, they were in cover 2 on that last one and Nate chose wrong by watching Romo’s eyes. He should have been shading to Bryant every time in that situation.
Yeah. Do people forget what Foles looked like before he was knocked out of the game? He is NOT better.
Basically Sanchez is Foles Doppelganger….though I give Sanchez the slight edge b/c he’s looked better against quality teams than Foles ever has.
The 3 he lost Foles likely would have lost too, just more spectacularly. So it’s a wash with these two. Doesn’t matter who’s under center (or in shotgun) – the result will be the same. Mediocrity.
Seems like your forgetting Foles played through the injury plagued part of the season to the oline. Mathews still hadn’t come into his own either. So to say Foles isn’t better is am absurd statement. I’m not saying he would or would be better but he led the Eagles to a 7-2 record while dealing with all that stuff. So Sanchez is Foles yet the records show differently. You’re comment is terrible and completely off based.
I’m not forgetting anything. That “injury plagued” line was pretty good in pass blocking and not so good run blocking. Foles had plenty of time to throw MOST of the time, and couldn’t get it done.
Shady is the biggest beneficiary of the healthy line. Any other comment trying to scapegoat the line is just trying to give Foles a pass for missing wide open receivers, coverage sacks and terrible INTs.
He may have missed open receivers but at least he didn’t fold under pressure. This is one of Sanchezs biggest flaws. We are always there in the end with Nick.
So you missed the ends of both the San Fran and Arizona games right? Foles doesn’t do any better under pressure than Snachez. They both have that problem.
LOL are you serious?!?!?! Foles threw the game winning td pass that Riley Pooper dropped. The real question is: did you watch the end of the SF game?
you can’t argue with someone who makes a statement that the offensive line that had one or two starters playing only suffered in the run game. I am still laughing at that!
Foles put the ball right in Riley Coopers Hands in the SF Game which would have won it for us if you don’t remember. And to think that the Offensive line didn’t effect Foles in the passing game is probably the most absurd thing i ever heard! You were kidding right? He had only 1 starter playing at one point. He was playing when in two different games a tightend was our next option if someone else got hurt. There was a reason he was back peddling so much. They were GOD AWFUL. There was no good pass blocking at all. Don’t get me wrong, I thought Sanchez was going to be a great fit until i got to really watch him. Defenses know he will only throw the intermediate passes. and He Misses to many open receivers. In the seattle game after we got the fumble when he threw the pick. On that play Matthews was running down the sideline with no one covering him. Should have been a blown coverage TD which would have been HUGE!
I agree completely. For me, I always have the feeling that Nick struggling has a great shot at going away. With Sanchez, well he’s just always going to be Sanchez. Foles is young enough & showed me really good play long enough last season for me to believe that he can and will round into form as a pretty darn good QB. Certainly a MUCH higher ceiling than Sanchez anyway. I have really missed Nick pushing the ball down field I know that much. He was never known for throwing dimes on deep passes granted, but Sanchez CONSTANTLY checking down & throwing short of the sticks on 3rd down has me wanting to THROW UP. I’m sure plenty of folks disagree, & I’m not delusional enough to say he’s” the answer” but I for one will breathe a little easier when/if #3 starts totin’ a clipboard again.
And exactly who did Foles beat in that 7-2 record.
And who did Sanchez lose to.
I’ll wait…
Sanchez beat nobody good whatsoever at least Foles can say he beat the Colts. Oline continuity is vital to more then just the running back smart guy. Let’s see missing wide open receivers and terrible interceptions really? ..Sanchez picks have been far worst and he won’t even take shots to open receivers he crumbles at the first site of any pressure. So expert hit me with more relevant ground breaking analysis. I’ll wait….
Refs beat the Colts. Come on now. Don’t be such a homer.
Foles led the league in turnovers when he got knocked out. Losing the turnover battle is almost always gonna bit you in the rear. Now homer fans pointed out that winning despite losing the turnover battle wasn’t going to hold throughout the season. It was a problem. As one the ineffectiveness in the Red Zone. These were issues REGARDLESS of QB. Like I said…doppelganger.
Foles did some incredible things last year as pretty much almost a rookie. He showed us he has what it takes to be a great qb but we need to see more of him to know for sure if he should be our franchise qb or if that was more of him getting lucky. Foles might not have won any big games while he was the starter this season besides the colts but he had us in first place of the nfc east. what more can you ask for? sanchez showed us he doesnt have what it takes to beat the teams we will most likely face in the playoffs so why not gives foles a chance to show what he can do? he either gives us a better chance or a better understanding of what to do in the offseason which i think definitely should be to keep foles as a starter for at least another season to truly evaluate who he is and what he can do. losing your starting job to a backup after having your team in first place should never happen (see kaepernick and the 49ers for better example) Bottom line is Foles broke some incredible records and thats still the beginning of his career and thats the type of quarterback the eagles should look to develop further
Be honest….. is your last name Sanchez?
I’ll Wait……
No. But apparently yours is Foles.
No the last name is Troll.
I disagree. We have seen Foles run this offense at peak efficiency. He can do it. He was off this year. Could he be the guy from last year? Maybe! You have to prioritize finding a QB but don’t be so quick to shut the door on Foles.
We have seen Foles be one lucky SOB and get wins against bad to mediocre teams while not having to face starting QBs and leading the league in turnovers (yes I conflated his past two years in one sentence).
Foles ain’t the dude. Neither is Sanchez, though we will likely be riding 2015 out with one of them starting.
To say Foles is the Sanchez doppelganger is like saying Fletcher and Williams are twins. I agree Foles isn’t Peyton, but who’s to say he can’t be Eli?
Don’t you think it is fare to see what Foles can do with an offensive line that can actually play? Everyone said to give shady Time until the line comes together so why can’t Foles get that shot also? I think He deserves it for his Play last year? He was a pro Bowler and even topped it with the pro bowl MVP. Now if Sanchez lit it up that is one thing but he has done NOTHING as of late.
EXACTLY. Well said man. You just said with far greater efficiency, the same thing as my long winded response above.
…says the unbiased observer. howdy, BBaS
let us not pull out the big picture stats, lest we see the spectacular success a young QB has had under a young head coach over a 2 yr span, with so much instability at other offensive positions
What spectacular success?
Last year? ‘Cause this year was the defense and special teams show. Or is leading the league in turnovers now called being wildly successful?
Did you know that Peyton led the league in turnovers once? Glad the Colts didn’t take your advice
point is, Its really hard to play QB when you have No offensive Line. Didn’t our top two Back up linemen go down too?
lol. We comparing Nick Foles to Peyton Manning now?
The big letdown today is the realization that we are not a top-4 NFC team. We’re mixed in with the rest of the mediocre teams.
We’ll beat the bad teams, but struggle against anyone with talent. This can only be fixed via the draft and free agency.
The agony is that the season is essentially over since we’ll have to play a good team if we somehow make the playoffs.
Most likely at home though.
yeah, we’ve come up pretty small against good teams… definitely feels like the wind has come out of the sails for this season
5th seed is what to hope for, then at least we would get a wild card game against whichever losing team makes it from the South!
It really sucks losing to Dallas, and the realization is this team needs CB/S and probably a QB too. I still think Foles can play the way he did last year but they need to stop the INT machine. For as many times they’ve shot themselves in the foot they’re still 9-5. The arrow is still pointing up. I believe in Chip Kelly, he just doesn’t have all the players he needs yet. Bring on Washington and try and forget last night never happened.
To get away from the obvious culprits…a few things that were strengths of this team last year have not lived up to that bar this year. OL – do they miss Herremans that much? I can’t believe how much pass rush pressure they allowed to the Dallas D last night. I do think Lane Johnson has been playing well, but there have been too many breakdowns and lack of holes…
which leads to McCoy. He was unbelievable last year. I just don’t see the elusiveness displayed with any regularity that he displayed last year. Either the coaches told him to cut out the shaking, or he is injured. Either way his effectiveness has been limited except when the OL is opening gaping holes. You can’t count on that every week. There is too much delaying waiting for something to open. Just get upfield already.
Finally, Boykin. One of the best slot CBs last year, this year a drop off. One int vs 6 last year. Giving up first downs almost every game, getting a penalty almost every game, I think he had the busted coverage late that left Bryant wide open. And these issues are happening on such limited snaps. Again, is he playing injured? Or did all of the fan/media talk of moving him outside and playing more kind of effect him mentally? Still a great gunner, but hasn’t been doing that as much lately either.
The broken coverage looked like Boykin was passing Dez off to Jenkins in zone. Jenkins didn’t pick him up.
And as the feed cut away, you could see Jenkins giving Earl a talking to
great post. things we counted on were less than reliable this year, and calls into question next year expectations. Seems like there’s an awful lot of work to do, and we really need to hit on off-season moves
Let’s hope it’s post concussion nick foles from last year we would get back or we might as well keep unclean sanchez
So depressed right now, anger has faded, the loss feels like it sunk the season, if not ruining any optimism of what we could do in the playoffs if we did get in. Was such a good season too! But we need to start playing up to the big games. We can’t play our sloppiest games against our best opponents, that just won’t get it done.
It hasn’t really been a good season though.
The offense never really clicked, too many turnovers and poor QB play all year.
The secondary has been a liability all year.
Have had two “good” wins all year, then beat bunch of slop.
Ugh. My exceptions were way too high going into this year.
I think mine as well. I don’t think we’re going to be able to win a playoff game right now, so I hope Foles is okay and gets back.
But, we have improved in some areas and that’s something to build off of – the defensive line, Jordan Matthews, and our special teams.
O line? Shady? QB situation shaky at best. Things we thought were solid, maybe not so much..
Not me, I thought 9-10 wins was likely. Which is not a bad season.
This is true. They had a 1st place schedule and improved in some areas. If we finish with 11 wins, that is an very good season. We saw some improvement in some areas, regression in some areas, and I think we have a better pulse on what exactly we need.
I’m going through the five documented stages of grief. I am SQUARELY mired in depression. In fact, I may have run through all the stages before the game was even over last night as well as possibly inventing a few new ones.
You wrote last night that Mark Sanchez showed his limitations, but really the whole team has shown its limitations. As I wrote here back in August, the Eagles are a B/B+ team in a C/C+ division. The last 5 games have shown this because they’ve included GB & SEA. We’re clearly not in their league. And when you step down a notch to DAL, IND, ARI, SF, we’re competitive but not dominant. It’s partly a coincidence the worst losses happened during the Sanchez period. I don’t think Foles would have changed the overall record.
Team needs a better draft. Need to upgrade DBs, need a second weapon at WR that makes teams re-eval the single high safety strategy, need to find young studs to move into position to replace Cole, Ryans, Peters, Mathis, Celek, Herremans.
Start posting about the draft, Tommy! A month from now this season will be over.
Great post, but not interested in the draft at this point… we have all off-season to obsess over that
Draft is now in May. We’ll have plenty of time to talk draft.
This was a lost season.
The offense has regressed, the long-term answer at QB isn’t on the roster yet, the OL isn’t nearly as dominant and is a year older, and the secondary is still a mess.
A lot of question marks heading into the offseason.
And between age, contracts and performance, there is going to be a lot of roster turnover.
I really hope guys like Marcus Smith & Jaylen Watkins have a great summer, because we’re going to need them next year.
Welcome to our first two game losing streak since last October. I don’t like this feeling.
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Tom pretty much nailed it, sanchez should be brought back next year as a backup, As much as he struggles he can easily be a top 5 backüp. But Tom was flawless In his wording…”not good enough to score on elite defenses, not good enough to keep up with elite offenses”… Basically. The definition of a backup QB.
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As for Bradley Fletcher, I think everyone looks forward to the day he is upgraded, but I don’t really see much of a point in benching him at this point. Our Dime package is important since we are short on LBs that can cover which is why we are playng dime instead of nickel.. Sure we can gamble that Nolan can handle switching outside on the fly in December, but can we also ask bradley to eat the demotion in December and move him into the dime role?
I can’t wait for upgrades like everyone else but change for the sake of change is foolish… Also it’s a very anorexic free agent DB market this year, you may be forced to start Bradley next year in September unti
A rookie we draft gets comfortable enough to take over, so probably too late in the season to be moving DBs at different positions and ask them to play the new positions on the fly
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FOles Doctors appointment……FINGERS CROSSED!
I think they can at least try Carroll out there. I understand we have a dime defense, then put Fletcher back out there. But when we are in base or nickel, there’s no reason Carroll can’t get a shot.
Fletcher is terrible and I don’t want him back. I can live with Williams, but QBs are purposely targeting Fletcher because they know their receiver will win that battle. This is also Davis’s fault for leaving him on an island all the time.
I’m open to any upgrade. Upgrade equals an improved team I love, be my guest an upgrade as much as possible. I know what we lack, I know what we need.. I know Brad can’t start much longer but my problems is I have no clue where the hell these upgrades are coming from? This free agent class is horrible for us….. Now everyone will over react and scream to spend top picks on a corner, but how can we do that?
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You start in the trenches and work your way backwards in terms of building a team… Before we worry about the Dbs the meat n potatoes up front needs to be a finished product.
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looks like we need another high Caliber offensive lineman, and another stud potential ILB….I really dont have any desire to see us upgrade DBs and not solidify the Ol and ILB once and for all……on top of all that. We obviously still need to add a high caliber weapon or two knowing our coach is an offensive freak
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Maybe we can make a splash for a Guard Like Iupati, and eliminate offensive line from major needs we need to adress in the draft… But it’s going to be very very hard to fix our DB issues in free agency this year, Byron Maxwell is the only good corner, Devin McCourty is the only good safetyl not only will there teams possibly keep them from ever HITTING the open market, supply will be so low, since they have little competition at their positions in this market…and themDEMAND will be really high… Think you will be stuck having to drastically overpay outbidding a bunch of teams for McCourty or Maxwell, so I wouldn’t hold my breathe expecting to fix our DB issues in free agency….
Revis is #1 again this year… do you think NE keeps him or will he be back looking for another pay day? why not him?
We had an opportunity to get revis and didn’t really try so dumb
How do you know we didn’t try?
Did u see reports he came for a visit or anything. If we really tried we most likely would have got him that’s what we do. 9time out of 10 if we really want someone we get them.
Not a good cb market early in the draft anyway.
We definitely agree on how to build a team. The trenches are where the game is won and lost (and QB, but that’s not the issue here) and we are close to being super solid.
I’d love a Kendricks duo as our ILBs, but I worry he’ll be off the board when we pick. We definitely need a G, and probably could use a T too. I love Peters, but unless we can find the fountain of youth, we’re not building around him.
I like to see what they can make of this kid they just got in FA. Maybe good coaching can make him a solid S. If so, we don’t need to go and spend a pick.
We’ll also get to see more of Watkins and Reynolds next year. Maybe we get surprised. I know this is a lot of ifs, but it’s all we have to hold onto.
I’d also like to see a stud WR take the place of Cooper. Maybe Huff is the guy to replace him, but I don’t see why we keep Cooper for big money with minimal production.
When we lose to better teams, our faults/issues are front and center. I’m cool I guess w/Sanchize as the backup, but he is who we thought he is.
Interesting points / ideas… Not counting on the new safety though – that sounds like a Hail Mary
You’re right, it is. We can see we’re pretty far off from being elite, and the pieces we need we can’t get this offseason.
I’m a little late to this discussion, but I really can’t see any defense for not rotating Nolan Carroll and Jalyn Watkins in at some point this season. Especially Carroll – he’s not a rookie that needs to have his fragile psyche protected. I give Davis good marks overall for what he was able to accomplish with this group, but there are some fairly glaring errors that I just can’t explain.
I’d like to see them move Fletcher to Safety. He is physical and tackles well. His speed limitations won’t be an issue.
I still believe the arrow is pointing up on this team. The problem is that we have holes on the team at key positions and have had quite a few injuries to overcome. The fact that we’ve won 9 games is still very good. We’re a step below the NFL’s elite, and that’s OK. We’re still only year 2 in the Chip Kelly era. We’re going to need a good draft and free agency period, but there’s no reason to believe that the team won’t continue to improve.
I will say that I firmly believe that Bill Davis is not a good coordinator. Great in a press conference, possibly a good position coach, but not a great coordinator to say the least. I’d like to see him replaced but I hate to disrupt the continuity of the coaching staff. Granted, he has little talent to help him in the secondary, but that was painful last night and he just seems to have been over-matched in our losses.
I want that foot loving, skinny fat man… REX RYAN!!! he might make fletcher look good…
I want a pink unicorn
very rare… the soon to be fired Rex will be easier to catch with a stick, shoe box, and a pair of ladies heels.
You have as good of a shot at getting Tom BRADY as you do of seeing chip kelly work with rex… Not to mention this entire debate is a waste of time, because I’m certain there is a major major discrepancy with how fans are viewing Billy, and how Chip is viewing Billy…
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Billy is doing so much of a better job than fans are pretending…. Just so happens we still have some holes on our roster that we won’t be able to hide every single game,… Our current defense is good enough to win playing with the type of Offense that is supposed to Be carrying us, putting up a ton of points, if the Last years offense was playing with this years defense, we would be sitting pretty..
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We could do nothing, just keep the same guys and let them continue to improve And build chemistry and we would be a better team next year than we are today… Hopefully we do a little better than NOTHING… We are 3’defenders away from having the personel for a top defense in place…
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cary can stick around as a number 2, if we out a true #1 CB talent across from him
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Amazing how well our front 7 plays with one of the 7 members playing a crucial position is average at best Casey Mathews,…how much scarier van our front 7 be when we upgrade casey with a first or second round talent at ILB next to budding star, Kendricks?
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And if we could get our hands on anither quality starting safety…. Those 3 moves would launch us into a top 5 ranking,,,
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The problem is we need 3 starting Caliber defenders, but our offense also needs work and chip is obsessed with offense. We also have a ton of players to extend…need Ol and more weapons….on top of 3 defenders during an offseason where we have to give extensions to our current players…. Wonder how much of this to do list we can adequately address this offseason?
Great post, esp last paragraph.
Agree that most fans (myself included) would say that overall, Davis has done a good job
Our defense is maddeningly inconsistent and are DBs are pure garbage (and that is not hyperbole either). But, we kind of knew that. We expected them to struggle. If anything they’ve been better than we thought they’d be.
However, Chip Kelly’s inability to scheme his RBs into the passing game or design a single successful screen that wasn’t immediately sniffed out by the opposing team this year is mind boggling. How can you not get dynamic receiving threats like Sproles and McCoy involved in the passing game? Is it that hard to scheme them some open space to work with? And if the answer is that the defense is doubling them every play, why can’t our other offensive weapons take advantage?
Our secondary is horrible, the front 7 is fine. The front 7 did okay last night, but it’s hard when your CBs are getting burnt or taking stupid penalties.
DBs are actually mediocre. But they are horrible against stud WRs. Dez Bryant can make the best look silly. Mediocre isn’t going to cut it against him.
The reality…same as it was last year…is this defense can do one of two things – stop the run or stop the pass – they can’t do both. Last year against the Saints it was to stop Brees and Graham…they did that. Dallas game was to stop Murray. They did that. Game plan was solid each time.
Ultimately you can only do so much with average to below average talent.
Murray looks bruised up. That bad Cowboys defensive backfield just got a lot worse by them running into each other. And Romo really does not look healthy. Hold out hope–Things are looking good for them to drop a game to Indy, who still has a chance at a bye week.
Dallas is also not great at home, so we have that going for us as well.
Someone said last night in one of the comments that Huff is feast or famine. I have to agree. When he’s on the field I worry about mistakes. He had a nice play last night, but the opening kickoff pretty much set the tone for the game.
This team has made too many mistakes and it’s starting to cost us. I also didn’t like the game plan to start our offense. I don’t know why we started with a WR screen to Cooper. He caught the ball and ran into his own man and then danced around like he was going to juke someone. I hope he gets cut next year because I think he’s stealing money at this point.
I felt Davis could have done a better job on some of those calls. I hate seeing a 3-man rush all the time. You have to pressure and hit Romo to make him ineffective. It seemed like his game plan was the opposite.
Huff has got to be the unluckiest guy in the world. A fumble is on him, but a high pass that bounces off his fingertips? Common wisdom suggests that he should catch anything touching his hands, but that’s not entirely on him. And that kick off last night… I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a ball bounce like that off of a kick off. You don’t usually see a ball bounce like that off of a punt. Brad Smith assumed it would have bounced backwards which is the only reason it was Huff’s responsibility in the first place. And where was the blocking?
Yeah, it’s mind boggling with him. I think for me his worst play was the punt return in GB, he just looked like he was lost on that play.
Last night was just bad all around.
Houston in his first real NFL action, he breaks a tackle gets down to the 5 and gets creamed by a 300 lbs DT 15 yards down the field, that never happened to the poor guy in college. It’s been very much a case of Murphy’s law with Huff this year.
Def not one of Davis’ better games in terms of strategerie
Carroll isn’t outside more because the team values him at Dime too much. It’s similar to Boykin not going outside (despite height) because he’s pretty good at the slot
not a great year for Boykin
We all know Riley Pooper is to blame. Gowton posted something that Pooper is 168 yards and no tds in the past 6 games…… Woof!
It is just disappointing that if you look at every loss except maybe Seattle, the biggest constant is a Brad Fletcher big play or 20. Nolan Carrol is here, why not make the switch mid game? That way you aren’t starting a different guy, you were just protecting one. People will notice, but you have less egg on your face if it fails and Brad has to start next week.
It just felt like Brad Fletcher was the starting pitcher and the manager refused to pull him after like 10 runs in the first 3 innings. I have had that feeling with him a lot this year. Cary is certainly not a star or strength of the team, but we can win with him. We can’t win with Brad. Replacing him is the number one priority above finding a QB (not saying Nick couldn’t be the guy, but whats wrong with being late 2000 Cardinals?).
Those 3 man rushes were killing me.
I know Vinny got the forced fumble on that one play, but we let Romo get comfortable. He struggled against the blitz, so letting him sit back there and get comfortable had way too much negative.
You blitz him early, get him jumpy then maybe work in a fake blitz, 3 man rush to throw him off.
I agree. I was screaming the whole game about that. Pressure is what kills Romo, and we didn’t even try much blitzing.
GE’s “Top” 10
1. The Eagles are showing signs of regression in Chip’s second season. Despite some pleasant individual surprises (Kendricks, Cox, Barwin, BG), both the offense and defense units have not made a step forward. The latter mainly thanks to
2. Bradley Fletcher, who is arguably one of the worst starting CBs in this league. The sad part: he is still starting. Thanks to
3. Billy Davis, who is flat out terrible in making in-game adjustments on time. Only God (or Chippah) knows why he has waited to put Cary on Dez until the last quarter last night. Here’s hoping that
4. The Eagles front office and coaching staff will seriously look into upgrading DC. Billy might be a very nice guy and eloquent at press conferences and interviews, however his defenses are what they were supposed to be: mediocre. No matter the personnel, the simple fact that his defenses have never been in the top 10 should be alarming…
5. What happened to Malcom Jenkins? The playmaker from the first quarter of the season is not making any (game-changing) plays anymore. Not only that, but dropped picks and blown coverages are also part of his game now. Last night he only made his presence felt when Dez and him were changing heated words before the kickoff. We should expect more from Mr. Bow Tie.
6. If Barwin and Cox are not making the Pro Bowl this year, we shall all be demonstrating in Hawaii.
7. There are – I repeat myself – NO gimmies in the NFL. At the moment it will not overly shock me if the Eagles will not only miss the playoffs, but also even lose out to finish the season at 9-7 after a highly promising 9-3 record just a couple of weeks ago.
8. Speaking of point 1 and its questionable progress. The offense also took a step back, and in almost every category. However the most alarming trend is their red-zone woes, ranking at no. 25 with a 48% TD percentage (2013: 53%).
9. Cody Parker is great, yay!
10. Get well, Nick.
It would also be nice if we had a first-round pick who could actually get on the field. Dallas’ o-line might not live up to the pre thanksgiving hype, but at least Martin is on the field and a solid starter.
When they came back from 21-down, I couldn’t believe I was watching that. Too bad they pissed it away just as quickly.
Sorry to vent, but that was one of the most frustrating losses in my 33 years as an Eagles fan.
With the level of play we are getting at OLB, I am perfectly fine with MS riding pine. Think Lito Sheppard, Sheldon Brown.
Yes, I want a repeat of the 2002 draft. Give me 2 CBs and 1 Safety with our first 3 picks. Shame though that our aging O line will need to be addressed as well. And ILB. …
The future is certainly bright. #sarcasm
2012 brought a monster DL, ILB, nickel back, and top 15 QB.
2013 was no slouch either, Logan is beasting.
I really don’t know that I can agree there has been regression in year 2 of Chip. Last year was not unflawed. Foles played at an all-time level. Just to reach equal results this year you would have to expect the rest of the team to raise their level of play for the predictable regression at QB.
I think you will note that by the end of this season the Eagles will have one the East again and have a better record than last year. The game hurt last night, but lets keep it in context.
Oh also, yeah I like Bill Davis but BRO ya gotta be better than that. Don’t just keep hitting your head against the brick wall and hoping to eventually punch through.
Thanks GE great post.
Good post. My replies:
1. Opposing D Coordinators are finding chinks in the wall. Opposing O Coordinators find more chinks than wall.
2. I guess the coaching staff feels Fletcher is better than the other options. I don’t get it.
3. I was screaming all game for Carey to be put on Dez. I hate to think someone with my limited brain is smarter than an NFL Defensive Coordinator. Well, except for Juan Castillo.
4. I hated the Davis hire. Then I started to warm up to him. Now I hate it again. Am I fickle or insightful?
5. His coach is not “Putting him in a position to make plays.”
6. They certainly should be in the Pro Bowl. Regardless, I happily accept your invitation to take us to Hawaii.
7. I was going to but a bunch of money on the Eagles to win over Dallas. I remember your saying in a pre-game post that there are no gimmes in the NFL. I’d like to tell you I didn’t bet based on your advice, but I’m happy to say I just never got around to placing the bet. If I didn’t lose a bet, does this mean I won?
8. Why aren’t Matthews and Cooper overpowering smaller cbs in the RZ?
9. Parkey is on his way to setting a rookie record for kicking accuracy.
10. I hope St. Nick is doing better than Eagles Nick or we’re all without presents under the tree. Eagles Nick isn’t playing against Wash, so there’s a good chance we don’t see him again this year. Puts Chip in a tough situation because he still doesn’t know if he has a real #1 qb to run his team.
11. Dallas still sucks.
Re your point no. 7: yes, you actually won money. It’s called opportunity costs.
Totally agree with no. 11. And no, I don’t have to budget to invite y’all to Hawaii. Maybe Shorty’s in Manhattan instead?! 😉
I think the hardest part of this season and these losses in particular has been the realization our team is not as good as we hoped and that the hype about Chip appears to have been overdone. Terms like genuis, guru etc. have been used a lot with Chip and, while he has been successful and laid a very good culture/team first foundation here, many of us, including myself, got sucked into believing this was our time, that it would happen quickly and that we would be special.
We were over-promised and, coming off the end of the Reid era, we fans eagerly bought in hard. We’ve also been eager to excuse away any issues and/or ignore them because we knew Chip would find a way around them or make moves to mitigate them.
I hope now the hype machine on Chip will slow down and we can start to evaluate this team and him within a real context. I’m still a firm believer in Chip, he is our HC and we have to believe he can get us that SB title we’ve been chasing for decades, but there are issues with him and the team that need to be addressed and have lingered for too long this season to be excused away any more.
QB is the main issue, but S, CB, LB, WR and OL need attention as well. The lack of another WR threat to complement Maclin. The inconsistency, depth and age of the OL. The inconsistency of the running game. The talent gap in the secondary and lack of alternative options to challenge the starters. Boykin’s struggles in the slot. The dissappearance of Ertz as the season has progressed. The usage or non-usage of Sproles & McCoy as pass catchers. The simplified scheme and lack of adjustments to how defenses have played us all year. The loss of Chip’s creative side where he finds unique ways to attack a defense that maximize our effectiveness.
We’re still on track to have a good year and are a rising team, but reality has set in and the Eagles, Roseman, Chip, the coaches and players better learn the lessons and find the right answers this off-season or we’re in danger of becoming the latest fad team that over-promised and under-delievered. This is a critical off-season and I expect some real hard introspection, evaluation and changes to be made.
Man… maybe its because I live outside of Philly, but I don’t get this.
To me this team is ahead of schedule. I never expected this roster to have this record. Of course I am a guy who really expected regression in year two. Really though, at the end of the season the record will be better and a 2nd consecutive division title will have been won.
This team can’t hang in the play offs though. Not these corners and not this QB.
The 4-12 record in 2012 was not indicative of the true talent on the team, it was mostly exhaustion with the Reid regime, bad coaching and scheme, injuries and poor execution. Most of the talent that is performing was brought in under Reid/Roseman. Chip/Roseman have added some pieces, but the core was already here.
Chip has done a wonderful job of bringing that talent rogether as a team, reinvigorating the culture and getting everyone pulling in the same direction. He has also improved the execution by simplifying the offensive scheme and the practice routine. The coaching has been vastly improved.
But that only gets us to the good level where we can beat bad teams regularly. To get to the great level we all want to reach, Chip/Roseman need to bring in more talent, get more creative with usage of personnel and scheme and keep focusing on the execution aspect so turnovers/penalties are limited etc. That is the challenge and this off-season is vital for that process.
I think you’re right however in we should have expected or been more prepared for regression this season due to teams adjusting to Chip’s scheme and how to play us. I have mostly seen Chip as surprised by these changes or not having prepared the team to overcome them or utilize other aspects to force teams out of that approach…he has seemingly just continued to run things the same way hoping improved execution will beat the new approaches. It has not worked against good teams. Thus I think Chip needs to re-evaluate what he is doing offensively and adapt.
I’d also not be counting the division title as given. It is out of our control at this point unfortunately. If Dallas wins out, we lose it and have to battle for a wild card. There is a chance we do not make it at all which would be a serious blow.
its not a finished product.. minor overreaction here Gary.. the Media over promised you things not Chip or the Eagles.. but you have very solid points in the second half of your post.
I never said it was a finished product, but I do expect better performance by the team and Chip and expect Roseman, Chip et al. to realize this off-season is critical and they need to get it right. We’re a good team, but to make the jump to great is not easy and their decisions will go a long way to fixing our issues if they make the right choices. I realize it is a process, but people’s patience will only last so long with a new HC and I am concerned that Chip will likely not stay here past 5 years anyway.
I agree the media are mostly to blame for the over-selling of Chip’s genuis, but the Eagles certainly pushed it as well to promote the hire and get fans fired up…Chip has never proclaimed anything to his credit, I do not blame him at all.
with our front seven being so talented, it seems ridiculous to stay in a single-high safety look when a CB is getting torched like that. you have to adjust sometimes
It’s hard to imagine why Davis wasn’t thinking this same thing.
It’s pretty evident we need another highly talented young offensive lineman, most likely one that can compete with Herremans at RG in the immediate future. not saying we need to start him over Herremans in September, but we do need to get younger on the OL, starting to groom eventual replacements. I’m sure the Ol we add will be able to i play guard in some capacity…
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What do people think is the bigger immediate need? I will use the Oregon prospects as an example, since we can eliminate the guess work with chip knowing them as men, and more importantly chip knowing they can play OL at his crazy fast tempo… What would fans prefer (using Oregon OL prospects as perfect example:
A) Somene like Hroniss Grasu who fits our freakishly athletic offensive lineman. Grasu is someone who can start at RG for us, while also providing an elite backüp for Jason Kelce…
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B) someone like Jake Fisher, who can start off competing and playing RG, but eventually when JP retires, Fisher can move back to his tackle position and be the future book end across from Lane Johnson
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Forget which you view as the better player, stylistically what do you think is more important for us, adding a versatle starting caliber G/T, or a starting Caliber G/C???
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Also the free agent market for DBs is pathetic this year, maybe we go sign a free agent lineman, so we don’t have to draft one, and we can use picks to bolster the secondary,,..maybe make a splash with someone like Iupati. I’m just throwing his name out there, I have no clue how he looked this year and what he has left in the tank….
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Immediate Eagles needs:
1) OL
2) future CB talented enough to grow into a #1
3) Malcolm Jenkins running mate at safety
4) ILB… And immediate Need
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Those are 4 clear positions that need upgrading whether it’s an instant starter or depth that can eventually grow into a starter…. But besides those 4 NEEDS, we have to keep in mind that we probably lack a weapon or two in chips mind. I doubt he “reconfigured” the WR position in one offseason…I assume more high caliber weapons will be added sooner or later…. Hopefully we are able to make a quality upgrade or two in free agency, and handle the rest in the draft
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The positions we upgrade from the draft, I hope we have a veteran that can start the season playing ahead of the rook. I hate counting on rookies, and I only view anything they are able to provide as a bonus…..of course it won’t be easy to pay for another big free agent from another team like Iupati, do you really want your young players see us giving Iupati monster contract, while we are probably trying to lock up young players early to team friendly deals…not even sure we can afford to throw money at another teams free agent when we have so many young players we need to extend
Ok Geagle, here is the dream situation in the draft because as of now, there aren’t many corner worth taking early. First round, trade down a couple spots and pick up Kendricks, pick up a 4th. Second round get me Coates and then if you have to trade the 4th and the 4th from the BB trade to get Grossu or another T/G with upside. There are some interesting cb options later that we can go for. Stephen Murphy from SCSU and I have to watch Ladarius Gunter again but I know he is a big mamma jamma.
Not opposed to that scenario,… Tho, the DBs I really want are the two Jalen’s from LSU
In the later rounds. They aren’t goin in the first, the second? Probably not that’s more PJ williams/Darby territory. Maybe 3rd/4th. I only got to see one tape of one of the 2 and he was covering Sammie Coates. You can guess how that turned out.
No man, they are late first/second round picks, neither will fall past the top 100 IMO.. 6’2 195lb Jaylen Collins tons of experience playing bump n run on the outsider is one of the corners they talk about possibly putting on a big show at the combine… I like Jaylen as much as any CB in this draft… And the other LSUDude, the safety, what’s his name, jalen mills or something is also a quality player I would love in our scheme…
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Both players are going in the top 100
Second maybe, not first.
Fall in love with Jalen Mills.
Let me know once it has happened.
Love both of them… Both Prob have the versatility to play corner or safety in Billy’s scheme…
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I would love to add both and call it a day in the secondary..
Bet you all my money they won’t take Mills.
Us taking any safety early this year is a long shot
Especially one that KO’s his girlfriend!
Yeh, the safety had a battery charge in June.
I was so hoping you would fall in love so I could break your heart with another shitty human DB.
Yes, I’m a dick.
I figured. IDK about the cb but the S looks similar to the rest of the second tier crop.
Nevermind, I’m getting confused with these two Jalens……..
yeah, OL is a sneaky big need. looks good on paper but guys like mathis and peters are getting up there in age. that run on Olinemen in this year’s draft really hurt the eagles. and we can def. stand to get deeper at each OL position.
ILB/CB are the most immediate/critical needs followed closely by S and OL. depending on the development of huff we might be in trouble on the back end of the receiving corps. after maclin/matthews it gets a little sketchy.
Count me as one that does not think our season is over and as one that we still have a winning QB on this team. All talk of not having a franchise qb is way way way to early to even have clue to that answer.
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Keeping things in perspective…. Jenkins, who started out on fire hasn’t been stellar lately. We all know Allen and Matthews are just warm bodies. Boykins? Where’s the improvements after last years success? I expected better out of Ertz this year.
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Colts are not operating on all cylinders is a concern. However, Dallas is capable of losing that game. The Eagles should come out firing, with anger, next week.
They should have came out firing with anger this week.
True that! With some urgency at least.
Unfortunately Dallas read the comments to your blog, where we all were afraid the gameplan was to just throw jump balls to dez all day, and sit back and watch Sanchez make bad throws.
I just don’t get all the panic. I see the Eagles either winning the division or getting the top Wild Card. So in all likelihood its rd 1 of the play offs vs Dallas. If that happens I put the odds over 50% that we advance to round two. Where we lose.
That is what I *hoped* for this year; win 1 P.O game. I guess for those of you who thought we were Super Bowl contenders, the panic is understandable. I just don’t understand those expectations.
The issue is the Wild Card tie-breakers. We don’t have 1-on-1 tiebreakers with any of the contenders (GB, AZ, SEA).
Our conference record will be 7-5 if we win out. The only path may be if Dallas loses a game.
That is interesting. I don’t see Dallas beating a Colts team that is rolling, so I am really just feeling very confident we win the division.
Also Seattle has 2 very easily lose-able games. The Rams aren’t a good team but they have already demolished the Hawks once this year.
The Colts are not playing well recently. Luck is throwing INT’s like their are on a blue light special at K-mart. A couple of those were returned for pick 6’s. RB is weak as is their defense.
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This is not the same Seattle team that played the Rams earlier either. Their defensive players that missed that earlier match up are back and playing outstanding.
Colts have their division locked up & have nothing to play for, save the miniscule chance at the #1 seed. And T.Y. Hilton is hurt. They’re not beating Dallas.
it really is (barring historic collapses from three playoff contenders). dallas has to lose one (indy is our best chance) and we have to take of business against teams we should beat.
They have to go to Washington and win, and considering the rivalry, that’s no easy task. They could possibly lose two games.
i really hope rg3 starts that game.
My thing is, I really don’t care much about the outcome. I care about the growth this year was supposed to provide. If we can’t see FOles get the experience to grow, while we aren’t winning, that’s a major LOSE/LOSE for me. I don’t need to win a Super Bowl this year to be happy with our team, but I do need to see our young players gain the game experience they need to grow into veterans we hope they willl be,.
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Inot the end of the world for me if we lose this year, but I do NEED Nick to get his game time, especially in high pressure settings like DECEMBER in a close playoff hunt and the playoffs…
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Playing Sanchez in the playoffs for me, would be a MAJOR MAJOR disappointments whether he wins us the first game or not… No score or record this year realistically within our grasp is more important than othe growth of our special young Qb…he will never grow into who wee need him to, if he isn’t getting to compete against the very best….. I don’t care how this year unfolds as long as it unfolds with Nick back as our leader, gaining the playing time he needs…
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But you are absolutely Right….. I don’t really see how anyone can view Dallas as the favorite against Luck and the Colts… Dallas is undefeated on the road, and Luck is almost impossible to beat at home, both of these teams on paper would have benefitted if this game were played in Indy… Who has the intangible advantage of this game being played in Dallas, where th Cowboys struggle to win, and Colts aren’t as good as they are at home?
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Thinking luck and the Colts passing offense will be way too much for poor inferior Dallas Sevondary….luck should be able to throw on them all game….so we certainty are still in the Hunt for the division. But unless FOles is in the game, going to be hard for me to enjoy watching sanchez.. Because
A) him playing well against putrid skins defense is fools gold
l..
b) and when I watch Foles and he looks bad, ATleast I can chalk that up to inexperience and still growing as a QB.. I know that he is still growing as a QB and will ATleast have a chance to grow into a Qb that won’t repeat the young player mistakes we see him make now… When I see Danchez stink it Up, he is a polished veteran, not a developing young Qb.. So when he stinks it up, I don’t have the silver linnning that rough times and struggles will be something sanchez grows out of,,,sanchez can still improve, but no way he still has anywhere near as much untapped potential FOles has that will give him a chance to grow into a quality franchise Qb,..
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I really can’t stomach much more of not having Nick at Qb,, when Nick struggles, at least I can take some comfort in that these struggles are part of the growth process, he needs to experience these struggles, needs to hit slumps when defenses adjust to him, and part of maturing as a player is that once they adjust to stopping you, you will struggle again, and you have to adjust to them, and overcome their adjustments,.,THATS when you will have grown into a mature quality veteran QB…
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For example:
RG3… Great rookie year, but he wasn’t okaying the game a way he would be able to sustain success, so didn’t take long for DC’s to adjust to him… For Rg3 to take that next step and mature as an NFL QB, now that they adjusted to him and he is struggling, he needs to grow his game, grow into a QB that can overcome the DC’s adjustments and get back to playing at high level you were playing before DCs adjusted to them… Once a young QB grows to counter the Defensive coordinators initial adjustments, that most likely forced the young QB into a slump, THATS when your young QB has grown into a quality veteran you can go to war with…
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FOles put up the numbers to show the crazy potential… DC’s adjusted to him… Now he has to work to grow his game into being able to overcome the DC’s adjustment,…once the young QB takes the DCs adjustment on the chin, and raises his game to beat the adjustments, that’s when your young QB has arrived and matured into a quality veteran you can win with
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The initial success never matters..l what matters his how successful can you grow to be, once the DC’s take away your initial success in the NFL… How you overcome the adjustments is what decides if you grew into a legit quality starting QB who you can win with in this league, or not…
Applies to other young players as well… Would rather they get experience and coaching staff gets opportunity to evaluate them, than maxing contribution from vets who we know will not be part of any super bowl effort
I would like some of what you’re drinking this morning
I’m supremely confident we will win out and Dallas will lose to Indy.
And way too many people were supremely confident we’d win last night.
Ok then :=)
I hope we move up and get Mariota I know he says he does t need a qb with wheels but it would be pretty sweet to have a competent qb with wheels and knows his scheme inside and out
The odds of that happening are the same as you seeing a flying dragon.
It can happen I’d be cool doing the rg3 trade we have a few missing pieces but the biggest piece of all is a franchise qb. We get one of them a good safety and cb and whoever we trade with will be getting pretty Hugh first rd picks hopefully pick 30-32
Sure it can happen, just like the sun can burn out but it’s not going to happen. Eagle would have to mortgage their entire future draft stock. There’s no good logic to that…
I’d rather give 3 first RDS and get Mariota than get 3 Marcus smiths
I’ll talk to Howie about it
LOL, tell him I said hello.
I’ll be talking to Howie tonight, he is back from the owners meeting…
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I want to ask him: needing to lock up Ced, Cox and Logan longterm, what would it take, or what has to happen for us to also be able to keep VInny Curry in Philly LongTerm?
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Doubt he gives us any real info, but I’m curious to read between the lines of the answer he gives
u serious? what on the radio? who are you?? haha
For what people say is a “sure fire franchise qb.” I saw what happened with RGIII and would not bet 3 years worth of draft players for one guy. And sure Julio is a beast but the Falcons aren’t that good, looks like they could use some draft picks….. And a better coach.
The RG3 trade was 3 first rounders and a second. That was to go from 7 to 2. Somewhere from 18-24 to move up to 1 or 2?
The Washington slurs front office is a bunch of idiots and got douped they prob could have made a better trade. Howie is masterful at this stuff he will work something better out.
No.
Well what do u propose we do as a solution we don’t have a legit franchise player at the most important position. We have probably the worst secondary in the league. In reality we really need a Qb,S,CB and Guard and a better DC (sexy rexy) let Bill Davis hold his clipboard.
Build up the defense and hope Foles can become as good as Joe Flacco and Eli Manning
How about better?
I could kind of live with that but we have a offensive mastermind HC who doesn’t have a franchise qb which is vomit inducing. If we got awesome defensive players we still lack a awesome DC to put them to good use.
Just because we don’t have that player at QB doesn’t mean clicking your heels, saying theres no place like home and assuming we will get Mariotta is logical.
Work with what he have an continue to take good players in the draft. I would rather keep building and have stability like the Patriots than mortgage everything for one player, which may or may not work out.
One difference between us and the patriots is they are not afraid to take superstars who are unsavory characters we are. It is hard to find high character superstars they exist but sometimes we need to get the vocal or the occasional miss a fee games because they smoke weed but are awesome players.
It’s also like year 15 of “The Patirot Way”. The culture permeates all levels in New England. That took time.
They still had not so savory characters during the early years. The eagles only look for eagle scouts scholars and gentlemen
patriots really haven’t been great in the draft for years. CBs both FAs. So high on Chung they let him walk, before resigning him. Collins Easley Wilfork McCourty only non FA acquired starters on their D. So much for their ability to draft defensively…
Much better on their O… but that’s harder to gauge of how successful they really are vs Brady being Brady
Not gonna happen.
I dont see the point in crippling our ability to build this team by mortgaging the next few years to trade for a young QB, when we already have a special young Qb. If Nick had 50 plus games of experience under his belt like Cam Newton and was struggling like this, I would certainly be close to the point where I would have to consider a QB change
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But I Genuinly believe he can be one of the special young QB’s, and that, no young QB will ever be good enough if we only give him 20 games to develop him…. These young QBs need 2-3 years to grow into the QBs we need them to be, unless your young QB is being added to an elite, stacked roster like Big Ben, and Russell Wilson’s early years.
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Marriotta is an awesome prospect, but I’d bet anything that he won’t prove to be this cities answer if you only give him 20 games,… You put in half the work with Nick already, and if you arent going to develop young QBs the correct way, no young QB will ever prove to this fanbase to be the answer, including Marriotta…so you might as well, ride it out and give FOles anoter 10-20 games to grow
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Trading for Martiotta means we won’t have the assets to improve the team around him enough. The only way you can entertain something like this is if a team with a playoff roster in place, that’s missing a QB, is extremely high on Nick FOles, and would rather add someone with some experience who is halfway groomed already, to a quality roster that’s ready to compete NOW, instead of wasting his roster that’s ready to compete now, having to develop a young QB for a year or two… Someone like the Houson Texans, maybe the Bills, or even the Browns.. If they feel like they are a QB away from really competing, maybe they prefer a young QB with experience enough to win now with, instead of dealing with the ups and downs of a rookie roster… If a team like that values FOles enough to give us there top 1st round pick for a package of FOles, and not an absurd amount of draft picks, then I would be ok with considering it)…. But we would have to be pretty dumb to trade away so much value for a young QB when we have a quality good ones and give away the picks we need to grow into a good enough team…
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I 100% believe FOles has “IT”.,. I see him developing into an upper echelon QB, 3 years from how when we start seeing a changing of the guards,,so while I like Marriôtta, I like Nick FOles and getting to keep two 1st round picks and 2 second round picks even MORE!!!
.l
In my eyes Nick is special so i really couldn’t care less if we don’t add Martiotta, I would rather have Nick and the talent we add keeping our valuable draft picks..
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But if I’m playing Devils advocate, there could be two appealing Reasons to get our hands on Marriôtta:
1) chip seems to be madly in love with him lol. If getting Marriôtta will keep Chip in Philly for the next 15 years like Tom Brady was able to keep Bellicek in New England, then I could see an argument for why we would want to drive ourselves crazy trying to get Martiotta, if Marriôtta Guarentees I get another decade of chip, that would pique my interest.
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2) The other argument for adding Martiotta, is it resets the clock of us getting the services of out QB for cheap. next year we would have to pay FOles. But if we add Marriôtta, we get another 4 years of paying our starting QB, cheap rookie contracts, which we saw Seattle use that as the formula to win a SB. They took advantage of paying their QB peanuts on his first contract, so they could use the 10 million other teams pay for QBs, to invest in quality olayers around the QB… So Martiotta, allows us another 4-5 years of cheap QB Labor, which leaves you the most money to put an elite roster around that young QB
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Those are the two Devils advocate arguments, for adding Marriôtta, when you already have a quality young QB… But we haven’t given FOles enough time to grow and fail yet, I think it’s foolish to give up on our young QB before he has even had enough time to fail or succeed..
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But at the end of the day, FOles vs, Martiotta is a win win for me…. Think both can grow into upper echelon Pro QBs you can win with if you have the right talent around them…….. But we would have to get a lot of value for trading FOles to mitigate ATleast half of the losses we would take trading for Martiotta… But I don’t really view this as a very realistic situation…getting Marriôtta, will cripple our ability to keep building the 53 man roster we need to bring a SB to philly
jury is still out on foles. very smart nfl experts that i trust say a young qb needs at least 3 years before you can make a call on if he’s good or not. patience is not a virtue, its THE virtue when comes to young qb evaluation.
completely agree on your mariotta stance. history has shown these mega trades never work out for the team getting the “marquee” guy (bears trading for cutler, vikings trading for walker, skins trading for griffin). smart teams know one guy isn’t going to take you to the promise land. it’s a long, calculated process that takes MULTIPLE draft picks over MULTIPLE years to build a contender.
Nah, it’s not three years. Maybe it is, but it’s after 6-8 games to see whether he’s really got enough of the good stuff. It’s three years to deal with warts on a Giselle.
What’s really disturbing is how badly Chip and his staff was out coached by a mediocre at best coach in Garret. No adjustments, completely unprepared to play mentally, seemed like no game plan either. The players certainly played as if they expected to win just by showing up, and when that happens in the biggest game of the year that is going to determine if your season is a successful one it is a terrible reflection on the coach.
Going into this season I felt like Chip wad a good, possibly great coach. Now I can’t help but wonder if he is mostly gimmick over substance.
I think he’s a good coach, but we are devoid of talent in some key positions. Think of it this way:
CB – Williams is average at best. Fletcher is mediocre. We don’t have anyone that could beat them out on the roster. We need two here.
ILB – We lost Goode, then Meco, and right now Matthews is your starter. He’s average at best. We need a new starter here.
S – Jenkins is above average, but Allen is below average. We need a better player here.
WR2 – Cooper is garbage, and we are seeing it played out. He’s good for blocking, so I guess he’s the new Avant.
G – Herremans got hurt and we have a backup there, and he’s playing like it. We need a upgrade here.
QB – Foles played hurt all season, and Sanchez is your backup. We had to pin our hopes on Sanchez who is at best a backup. We needed better play from this position.
We were 4-12 two years ago, and we are still turning over the roster. When we have the talent, then we can see what Kelly is. He’s a smart guy, but he can’t make more out limited talent.
If last night’s loss was a talent issue, I could live with that. Last night was a planning and motivation issue, which is a much more disturbing problem.
I questioned some of the decisions, but a better game from Sanchez and it might be a different story. But every time Davis left Fletcher 1-on-1 with Dez, Romo took advantage of it. That’s definitely talent.
I think that opening kickoff deflated the team, and they didn’t recover.
Or coaching….
Leaving the other teams best receiver in single coverage despite him beating you all over the field seems like a pretty bad coaching decision.
They mixed up coverages, Fletcher wasn’t 1-on-1 all the time. If you do the same coverage every time, a team can adjust to burn you in a different way. There are going to have to be plays where he’s left on an island.
Yeah, saw the clip of Romo standing behind center, looking to Dez,gave him a `thumb up` nodding his head and proceeded to pass to Dez for TD.
completely agree. couldn’t have said it better myself. sanchez is a game manager not a play maker. 2ndary has been suspect for years. long term we’re not going to miss djax but short term, hell yeah we miss him. that run on Olinemen in this year’s draft seems to loom larger each week. we have capable starters but not as much depth as we thought. plus injuries killed our continuity up front. casey matthews is a short term band aid. need to upgrade that ILB position to give kendricks some help. jury is still out on goode.
Good coaching wins with talent, very good coaching wins with less talent. Chip needs to do better.
At least Avant could catch…
Just couldn’t run.
I give Dallas credit for mauling us. Our secondary was completely exposed. LOOK at this shit! You can’t expect to win big when you’re being completely out-schemed like that.
it’s been no surprise over the last five years that our 2ndary is shitty. but when they have a bad game, like yesterday, dear god in heaven it’s going to suck.
That is not out-schemed, its just bad secondary play. There is zero schemes that has the WR that wide open
They showed it on the replay during the game, and pointed to a slot guy (Boykin?) turning out and up the field after starting to the inside with Dez.
Hate having to wait for Dallas to lose to get in. Still possible that Foles comes back on fire. He wasn’t so hot before injury though.
glass half full; maybe foles was injured most of this season before the shoulder injury…
glass half empty; maybe 2013 was a huge outlier season…
won’t know till he comes back and plays.
My take is Last year was possible with a healthy O-line and dominant run game makes for an extremely impressive Nick Foles. Without those things, not so much. I expect somewhere in between last year and earlier this year in performance, predict however…
yeah we thought Herremans was meh, but maybe not having a starting quality guy at the right guard spot his hurting more than we thought?
Herremans on a bad day is better than either Tobin or Gardner at this point. They’ve both been brutal.
very reasonable assumption
If only he could.
billy davis might have a little sean-mcdermoittitis. it’s a good system but he doesn’t have the personnel to pull it off (remember Mickey D had success in carolina bc he had the players). bottomline is the 2ndary isn’t consistently good enough to be counted on to help win games.
all that being said, davis should have given fletcher more safety help on dez fucking bryant of all people.
Isn’t it weird that aside from the OL coach who never should have had the job, the other recent DCs have gone elsewhere to do really good jobs for the most part, particularly Todd Bowles?
I think youre thinking about Todd Bowles only. What’s happening in Carolina?
McDermott did a pretty good job last year. Remember, that Carolina DB sucked ass last year, too. Just not as badly as this year. And when I’ve seen Carolina, including yesterday when I was hoping for a Webb sighting, the D is mostly competent. They have pass rushing problems without Hardy, and little talent in the secondary.
They let too many people walk from last year’s team. The GM isn’t doing anyone any favors down there.
One thing about Howie, we aren’t in cap hell.
We will be able to lock up Cox, Kendricks, and others to longer deals. So when we really make a run, we’re not losing some key pieces to FA.
We need someone that can evaluate talent in the secondary, or a new scheme that gives the secondary more help. Maybe the fact that our ILBs are so terrible is hurting our ability to do things on the backend to help the DBs.
I think it’s fair to say ILB. Kendricks is legit, but we have practice squad level players manning the other spot.
yeah didnt mean Kendricks, thought he could have had more tackles i have him in fantasy.
Man I’ve been thinking over the past few weeks what it would be like to have been able to keep Bowles. What he’s doing in Arizona is BEYOND amazing. Hell McDermot is doing the damn thing in Carolina too. If only…
It’s all on Washburn. No reason a DL coach should have dictated the entire defense.
still have to go into work tonight and face all the jackass cowboys fans i work with. that’s always fun…
Ask them what it was like living in Dallas, or growing up in Dallas. Bet you any amount of money, like big fat slob Christie, they have never even been to Dallas.. Ask them if their self esteem was so low that as as kid they latched on to a team that won 5 Super Bowls because they were such losers that it somehow made them feel better about their pathetic, stupid lives.
Edit: I’m sure Pigstie has been to Dallas, but you know what I’m saying.
i know. they’re all 1990s retread dallas bandwagon fans. fuck them.
Detroit is such and up and down shitty team I could see them going into Chicago and losing. Then they finish in Green Bay. That leaves an opening if I’m not mistaken. The Colts just won their division and have virtually no shot at moving up. Little did I know that I wanted Detroit to lose yesterday until last night. This weekend we go for the Colts and da Bears. I hate that we have to play this stupid game, but shit we’ve seen a lot worse, the miracle that was 08. We had like a 17 percent chance of making the playoffs that day and crazy wacky things happened and the next thing you know we were moments away from the Super Bowl.
Yeah, Detroit would have likely lost if they didn’t block a chip shot Blair Walsh FG.
That FG could end up being the difference between playoffs and no playoffs for the birds.
I wasnt even mad last night. I wanted to win, but seeing the playoff chances slip away didnt bother me. This team as it stands is not good enough to go far in the playoffs. I feel bad for some of the older guys who might be slipping. Foles wasnt great when healthy, Sanchez is just sanchez. Cooper keeps getting reps, the ILBs are all hurt. It was fun to have a good team this year, but this was never a great team, and at best this is a one playoff win team. The good teams have our number based on exposing our holes.
Lets suck it up and get better again next year. I do think the team improved, and Kelly can keep the momentum going. I still want to win the next 2, but the odds of that being enough to advance are slim, and I completely accepted that in the second quarter last night. Too many holes
Yeah it’s sad coming off last year. Honestly in the beginning of the season I saw flashes of a SB quality team. But we’re just too sloppy all over the field. Need must better DB if you’re going to consistently put them on an island.
Given the importance of DBs to the scheme why do we have replacement level DBs on both sides. Fletch. just has a target on his chest and there’s no help.
this game also felt nfccg-esque when we played the cards. just such a horrendously awful start which in turn took a lot of energy to comeback from and take the lead only to have that not be enough.
Notice all the brand spanking new Cowboys attire you’ll be seeing as you’re out and about. Shit, you’ll see tags hanging from their shit.
Bench Cooper. Start Huff. WASteam would be a good time to get Huff some confidence.
yeah I mean it’s all garbage time now.
My apologies if you’re being sarcastic, but it’s not garbage time until we’re eliminated.
and the cowboys still have a couple more games in dec. something the haven’t been good at.
at least cooper can hold on the ball when he catches it. the biggest thing holding huff back is he is a turnover machine. that TO he had against AZ swung the game and that KO he fucked was one of the bigger eagles mistakes.
prove to me that he can hold onto the ball and only then would i put him in cooper’s place.
Are you really defending Cooper though? That guy is complete trash. At this point, I’ll take the risk of Huff’s turnovers because at least he can do SOMETHING with the ball.
i defend him as a good #3-4 receiver. agree he is garbage as a #2.
At this point I think he is a #4.
that KO was on smith. Even if huff accepts blame for it it wasn’t on him. Smith was 2 yds from the ball and huff was 15 yds away.
Also the biggest thing holding back Cooper is being terrible, so no real reason to have him out there at all.
Let’s be fair. Do you think Cooper would have a catch and run for 45 yards like Huff did last night? Huff is having everything go wrong for him right now, but I’d definitely think he’d give us a lot more than Cooper.
good point
good point, but i trust cooper to at least catch the ball. right now i don’t have that confidence in huff
Huff a – can’t be trusted to catch the ball consistently. b – runs so hard that he’s sloppy with ball security. Huff’s ass should be glued so hard to the pine you don’t even realize he’s on the team. I’m not saying he can’t become a good player eventually, but clearly he’s not ready now.
If we’re going to pull our worst players and start someone else, I vote for Carroll and Marcus Smith. Carroll cause I’m tired of Fletcher’s toast routine. Smith because I’m tantalized by the athletic ability and he’s not improving on the bench. Also on Smith, Matthews is being hidden in the scheme anyways, so why not start the better athlete?
You want smith setting up the defense? Nah, that’s ok. I’m fine with him being shelved until the offseason. If we lose at WAS or we blow teams out the last two game then he can play.
Kelly said in the presser today that was Brad’s ball.
it was clear he should have gotten that. did he say anything else worthwhile?
Yea he basically said the reason they have Brad as an upback is his experience, but he kinda understood cuz it looked really good off the kickers foot and then the wind caught it and killed it and it took a weird bounce. More or less saying Brad should have had it but sometimes shit happens.
In general it was his typical press conference. The old school beats who don’t understand football asking terrible questions.
He mentioned that early in the game they were doubling dez. Which is why Witten was killing them. So they pulled the extra guy off dez and Dez killed them. So they tried double teaming Dez and it caused us to be down 21-0.
Media tried getting cute about the style of defense we run asking if he was suddenly going to change it, Chip explained it was based off personnel. Media member goes “well you didn’t have any of the guys that do what you want to do when you got here” Chip was like “Cox, Thorton, Cole, Graham, Curry weren’t all here?”
Thank you for relaying that. I feel quite illuminated.
I wouldn’t be upset to see Huff start. I think we could definitely get more out of him than we are Cooper.
man, not catching the opening kickoff is usually a recipe for disaster
What would our record be if we had Romo?!
Undefeated. We poo poo Romo but he’s actually the right level of QB — you can win a SB with him if you give him the right tools.
Sad but true. I am still waiting for him to choke. And waiting. and waiting. And waiting…
lets pump the breaks for a second. he’s a top tier QB when he’s healthy. he doesn’t stay healthy all that much. our success in an alternate reality with romo heavily depends on his health, which has never been stellar. and considering our Oline problems/injuries we had all year that just decreases the likelihood of him playing all 16 games in one piece.
Long term, Dez Bryant is the guy I would love here. Since he was drafted he is tied for 1st place in recieving TDs (he has 53 in little under 5 seasons, Maclin has 32 and Desean has 26)
I don’t want to look at that yelling mess every damn game.
Dez deserves Top 5 WR money, Maclin does NOT.
I would give Maclin 11 per year if we get real desperate because of the rising cap anything more is ridiculous and even 11 is too much, Dez should get like 14
I can’t see him getting over 8 or 9. I mean i guess you’re screwed b/c there’s really nothing else out there this year but damn, talk about getting overpaid.
you keep repeating it, but I havnt seen anyone argue against you about it.
Maclin is not getting over 12 mill per year that is top 5 WR money next season
I will keep rolling the drums until Howie hears me!
Can’t u just call in his,shows at5pm on Monday and tell him?
Of course I can. Great idea!!!
at worst 11-3
Someone build a time machine and go back 2 years and tell them to get Wilson with the other 2nd rd pick instead of curry
while we’re bitching about past draft picks, im taking my time machine back so i can punch management in the face for not taking graham over thomas.
it’s the curse thomas/dawkins i tell you!!!! every since we let bdawk walk (hey that rhymed!) and we didn’t draft thomas our 2ndary has been horrible.
seriously guys this on par with the curse of the bambino.
Yes, because a 5’9 200lbs safety who has run fits on every play seems like a good idea.
even with that he’s still a 100x better than any safety we’ve had since bdawk.
Foles ruled out against Washington.. We’re boned.
We should beat Washington with Sanchez. They didn’t all the sudden become a playoff team.
I hope so.
I look at it this way. If we can’t beat them with Sanchez, then we don’t deserve to make the playoffs. Sanchez has issues, but he has shown he can be effective against bad teams.
There’s been some knocks on the coaches on boards as is to be expected, nothing like when Andy would lose two in a row, but I actually googled for a reminder of Kelly’s contract, which, combined with his w/l record and league rep means there’s a 0% chance of a firing. I quite enjoy rooting for Kelly rather than against him, just as in the AFC East not having to root for your so-so coach against Belichick. When I heard about the Florida rumors, as Saban is out-earning him, I thought of this scenario in which he doesn’t like his situation, he walks back to college until someone ups the offer in the pros, but that’s very risky, would irk a lot of people, and he’s built a culture here.
Which gets to Chip’s belief in continuity. I think he’s had an influence on what people like and don’t like about Billy Davis’ year: the schemes that have maximized a young DL, and the LB vets on the one hand, and the stubborn DB personnel continuity in the other. Kelly believes in getting a group together, teaching his system which takes some people time to absorb, working them hard in practice, then having their back and not making fitful roster moves and lineup changes. Billy Davis isn’t going to damn his DBs with faint praise. I would like to see Boykin in a Scandrick role but Boykin hasn’t been good all the time.
The good news down the road is that the Eagles have a young DL, their LBs signed long term, and there are a ton of CB free agents, with a draft with some CB depth starting late 1st round. Just now they split a season series against the top RB in the league behind a line of 1st rounders, the 2nd rated QB having a good game, and Dez Bryant against you-know-who. A few breaks and they could have won but that didn’t happen. I stand by my post that they should have used Molk instead of Gardner.
Also, Chip makes adjustments with the best of them, and still wants to prove that in the NFL. That relates to the 2014-5 season.
w/o faking injuries like Scandrick that is
The Cowboys down the road have to deal with Romo’s decline, and how their messed up cap situation deals with Dez this offseason. That doesn’t help right now but they’re going to end up with Murray and the OL with a mediocre defense.
WOULD anyone be against bringing in a guard in free agency Iupati is probably gonna be too expensive but what about Franklin or Carpenter, obviously corner is a bigger concern but no one seems to talk about getting a guard which we need
Idk Iupati’s game but if he’s athetic i dont care break the bank on him (guard money) because we can see o-line is the most important unit on this team
Iupati is more mauler than athlete.
Carpenter may be the least athletic guard in football.
Franklin was apparently pretty pissy about moving to guard. I imagine he will look to play T in the free agency market. If he sits on the market for a while is ok with paying guard and the money makes sense (4-5 apy) I wouldn’t be opposed.
dont normally like spending big free agent $ on guards but line is a huge fix coming up since peters,mathis,herremans are old. Can’t realistically expect to draft 3 guys in next year or so and have them all be great. so wouldn’t mind spending $ on a guard this year.
Looks like no more Foles in the regular season. Which leads me to the following question:
Where would the Eagles pick when finishing the season at a) 9-7 and b) 11-5???
I don’t see us losing the last two games. Maybe the Giants, but we should beat DC. They are a mess and Sanchez can be effective against lesser competition. He’s already proven he can, they just need to do it.
I don’t recall the Cowboys D being a juggernaut either, but we all know the outcome.
Cowboys offense is much better than either Washington’s or NY’s.
where’d it say that? EDIT NVM
Okay I want to give everyone here some positive spin on our secondary. Coming into the year, we knew we thin at CB. Fletcher and Williams were our starters on the outside. Boykin was solid inside. Our depth was Roc Carmichael and Curtis Marsh. Remember Roc in the NO game last year?
We’ve gotten better at least with Carroll as the depth guy. Do we really want to relive the Carmichael and Marsh fiasco? We’re marginally better, but better nonetheless.
Our S position we had Chung, Allen, Wolff, and Coleman. This year we’ve upgraded over Chung and moved on from Coleman. Not perfect, but better than last year.
It’s a slow process, but we are slowly getting better. We can’t change over all the players in one year and I really think we’ll keep progressively getting better.
Our expectations were just way too high for the season. The blowout wins didn’t help at all.
We became the same team we were in the Saints game last year. The same team we have become when playing good teams this year, just sloppy sloppy football by everyone in a jersey. Yes there were a couple of standout players (Cox mainly, but the whole DL) but everyone else…
Yeah, and it’s a shame Foles is hurt. We really needed to see a full year out of him, so we knew exactly what he have moving forward.
I have to keep reminding myself we are in Year 2 of this new project and I have to have patience, which is not something I have a lot of.
I don’t know if anyone has brought this up, but how’s this for a deal with the devil? Instead of putting money into keeping Maclin, spend it on Dez. Yea, I know we tried this once before with a certain idiot with intials for a name. Still, Bryant would bring an immediate upgrade to the entire O. I’d go so far as to say that Foles instantly becomes a much, much better qb with such a stud wr.
If you are going to argue that culture beats scheme, I get it. Otherwise, I want to be a fan of the team which has a wr that beats the crap out of other peoples secondary.
Preach it brother, preach it!!! Amen.
That would feel like admission that cutting you know who was a really bad idea. I doubt they’d do that.
Dez is in a different league than Mac and DeSean though.
Both Maclin and Desean is better than one of Dez.
This is something I can’t really argue with.
plus Dez headache is way more than Djax headache. I think they have to make a real play for Vjax in the offseason and get him to renegotiate his deal. They really fucked up the WR FAs last year were really good and really cheap and we ended up with probably the worst FA.
Mathews on the outside and Huff in the slot next year?
Interesting idea.
Yeah honestly, Mac can walk or he can take a discount $7m b/c i don’t see him breaking any games. Vjax at 35 would still be an upgrade.
Coop can play ST. I mean we’re paying james casey $4m and we haven’t heard from him since like week 3.
dez headache is because the guy is a competitor that wants to win. djax headache is he is a baby that cares only about himself
nah
oh if we had dez fuggetaboutit…
they will tag him probably and we wont make that move.
remember what happens when you get your QB a big time receiver like DEZ? you go to the bowl that’s what.
QB has to be bigtime, too, you know.
big nick foles all day to dez.
*visions of Mike Glennon to VJax*
eeeeewwwww
don’t know is this a surprise to anyone but just saw on espn that foles has been ruled out for next weeks game
didn’t kurt warner say he wanted to play again? As much as I was pulling for sanchez i don’t know if i can watch that.
for sure, it’s pretty frustrating when you know your qb can’t throw 20 yards down the field with any consistency.
or 10 or 5 or make swing passes or run the RO, or have good pocket awareness.
Or maybe it’s just that JMAtt was hurt…
don’t remind me
The biggest problem for me is I never get the sense that these coaches will change anything after a big loss like this. They just don’t seem to learn from their mistakes, whether it’s playcalling or personnel.
“We just didn’t execute” has become the new “I need to do a better job.”
i mean i don’t think anything is wrong with Kelly’s scheme (i can’t say the same for BIlly D) i think it’s the quality of the players. Not getting new players so what else to do on offense?
On D, scheme has to change, gotta be more help on fletch’s side. Exposes Cary more, which is obviously also bad, may expose nate which is also bad. May expose the ILBs which is also bad. But damn, just let someone else get beat besides brad.
If you watch the tape, you will see we doubled Dez and gave him plenty of attention. When we allocated resources into stopping Dez, Romo found Witten and made us play..
..
Romo was also toying witH Nate, Looking him off, momentarily freezing him, and then firing at his intended target..
..
The notion that we didn’t double team Dez or give him enough attention just ismt true
i think it has more to do with the talent level on the field than coaching. i mean we have the Sanchize playing qb right now. we have fletcher, williams, and natedog playing major league snaps in our 2ndary. you need talent to be considered a talented team.
Davis is way too slow making adjustments. Romo killed us on those awful 3-man rushes. Yet Davis still kept calling them (the Curry sack notwithstanding). He kept singling Fletcher on Bryant. He just doesn’t seem to see the game as it’s unfolding.
And we have Carroll waiting in the wings. How much worse can he be than Fletcher? Yet Davis still insists on using him.
I’m going to say it: Fletcher is worse than Casey Matthews.
By far and Casey Matthews is really just getting runners in his gap it’s not like he’s doing anything at a pro bowl level.
that’s stretching it a bit.
Well, at the very least Matthews isn’t costing us games.
matthews isn’t on an island all game like fletcher is.
That’s because Mathews isn’t really allowed to. Mathews badness is silent in the sense that he isn’t capable of making a wide variety of plays in different contexts, so you don’t see him fail conspicuously that much.
Which makes it that much more baffling that the Eagles don’t take more steps to help the CB burned deep more than anyone in the league. I agree wholeheartedly about Matthews and he’s done a good job when allowed to attack what’s in front of him. He’s still a disaster in space or coverage.
They did, and Witten ate them alive. Chip said as much in the presser today.
I’d rather let Kendricks and Barwin try to single up on Witten and live with them getting beat occasionally then let Brad get destroyed by Dez. Miscalculation on Chip’s and Davis’ part.
Not that much.
i’m not going to say who’s better than who, but i will say casey is protected a lot more schematically than fletcher.
have to wait to see all 22 break downs from people that are smarter than me in regards to the pass rush situation but i will give a lot of blame to davis for not giving fletcher more help. it was reminiscent of andy reid giving winston justice no help against the giants during that 13 sack game,
I mean do you want them to come out next week in 22 personnel and run 50 times for three yards and a cloud of dust? You want the defense to suddenly be a 33 stack?
And once again, can you please be more descriptive than “playcalling”? The complaint of “I didn’t like the playcalling is becoming the new (insert popular fan complaint of the week)” What specifically did you not like about the play calling? Should Chip have emphasized more high-low concepts in the passing game? Should he have tried to run more outside zone to try and tire the defense?
So is your point that there’s nothing we can do better with the talent that we have?
To an extent yes. There’s no magical scheme that’s going to make our corners good. On offense we have guys running open Sanchez just isn’t getting them the ball. Plus there are changes week to week. They aren’t big dramatic changes but the gameplan certainly changes.
Feels like We’re going to need 2 very nice drafts at this rate to set up a real run. By the time we get this secondary set It’s sort of like trying to plug a leak in the boat but every time we do a new one will pop up. It feels like by the time we fix our secondary most of our O-line will have been turned over and Shady will be past his prime. It doesn’t look like there will be any easy steps forward without some luck, because the Illusion that we can coach our way into contending in spite of personnel issues has been dispelled. Maybe you’re right and there’s nothing Chip could have done to change the outcome. But everyone catching up to that fact is a let down. See, before, we did, people believed.
it’ll also be a real fun league by then. the top tier HOF QBs (absurd we’ve gotten to see this much good play for this long from legends, knowwhatimean?) will all be retired. Luck, Rodgers…Wilson I guess. Bunch of other “meh” guys at the moment.
this short window talk is real silly. We have young playmakers on offense and a coach who can get them open; we need a better point guard QB (with deep 3pt range) and some new OL parts.
also, great young DL and guys like Kendricks and Jenkins to build around. great rookie K and great ST overall.
No short Window, Window isn’t open yet. Just moving the window out a bit. The window we thought we might have had with the O-line and Shady isn’t big enough to squeeze a lombardi through. Going to need to open a new one. Not all at once a reboot or anything crazy. We’ll stay relevant, but there is no inherent momentum to take us over the top, It will be 3 steps forward, 2 steps back sort of deal. Need to get a nice 5 step forward, 1 step back type of off-season sometime to push us over the top. My argument is, we need some luck and to catch a few breaks just like everyone else if we want to get a superbowl. Just Philly doesn’t seem to get a lot of that.
But i want to win noooooooow (makes hissy fit).
That was always obvious.
Drafting Marcus Smith III has boned us more comprehensively than I thought, even 10 games into the season.
These days, even though I know 27-2 and all that, I’m really freaking regretting that the Eagles didn’t draft Bridgewater. Bridgewater has something of a erratic accuracy problem, where he’s throwing the ball higher than it should be, and he threw a ball that Jennings caught anyways, on the wrong shoulder. However, at this juncture, Bridgewater looks every bit the Matt Ryan caliber QB. Assuming we made it while working out his rookieness earlier in the season, Bridgewater now looks like a better QB than Sanchez, and he certainly is leagues beyond Foles.
And now that I think about it, this is exactly the sort of game where Kelvin Benjamin would have seriously helped out Sanchez.
Fuck need. Draft the best talent, always. Even if it doesn’t fit, or you have talent at the spot. We sure didn’t know Fletcher Cox was going to be turned into a two-gapper when we drafted him. We certainly didn’t realize just how much we could have used a better performance out of the QB position. ()*)*&(^(*&%*&%*$&*$&
Agree, need a guy that can dominate a game. The bad thing is Sanchez can’t throw down field so KB wouldn’t be as effective, though he can catch patches meant for basketball players.
No, Benjamin isn’t a burner. He’s basically a faster Plaxico. Dude would have been grabbing BBall firsts all night as Sanchez’ second and third reads.
I really think the 3-man rush on 3rd down is not a good idea, especially when it’s 3rd and long. It’s like they didn’t see that Cowboys/Giants game where the Giants tried that and got burned. You have to hit Romo early to rattle him, and you can make him ineffective. They could have blitzed and forced a bad throw instead of letting him sit back there with time to pick them apart.
I think the personnel is a big problem on this defense, but they have no one to blame but themselves. I’m not buying that playing the dime is the reason Carroll can’t get outside. They moved Cary over in the 4th quarter to cover Dez, but at that point it was too little too late.
This is me venting a bit, but I was disappointed that the first play call was a WR screen to Cooper. I think that killed the first drive, just like when they were getting going last week and they throw a bomb down the field to Cooper. I want him gone next year.
The D started by letting the Cowboys go 4-4 on 3rd down. They then were 1-9 down the stretch. 5-13 is a pretty good job by the defense on 3rd down.
Do penalties count in that stat?
No live ball penalties negate live ball plays. But most of the DB penalties came in that opening 21-0 barrage.
Those hurt us. I think that 2nd Williams penalty was bogus, but the first one was him being a bonehead.
The second one was major bull. The first one was ticky tacky but probably justified.
The penalty that I was most angry about was the one against Mac. There was no reason for them to call him for unsportsmanlike conduct when he didn’t do anything.
Surely you know football better than I. But if Dallas leads the NFL with 3rd down passes going to Witten — shouldn’t the Eagles have game planned for that prior to them going 4-4? It’s not secret Romo loves Witten in that spot. Did that 4-4 lead to 14-0?
Kelly explained this earlier in his presser. He said they doubled Bryant and Romo would go to Witten. They’d put two on Witten and Fletcher would get beat by Bryant.
It’s a damned if you do or damned if you don’t kind of scenario. They just lack talent on the defensive side of the ball. Our CBs aren’t very good. Allen isn’t very good, and we are down 3 ILBs and using Matthews and Acho as the replacements.
Meh — so all the other teams this year did that too? This isn’t a one game fluke where Romo looks for Witten. It’s been all season. It’s a nice excuse by Chip — but as D3FB pointed out they went 1-9 down the stretch. What did they do different to stop them? They made an adjustment – just too late in the game…
I think it was the fact they moved Cary to the opposite side to cover Dez.
ok.
No it’s not a scheme issue it’s a talent issue. Don’t have ILBs that can cover witten so we give help. That means Cary or Fletch is on an island, Fletch can’t cover Dez. If we give help on Witten and Dez then we are way less effective at stopping the best RB in the league. Right now it’s a talent issue — we had an article about missing Meco, we’re missing Meco (and Goode).
so then I’ll ask the obvious question — didn’t the Eagles have the talent to beat the last time?
Fletcher had a much better game on Thanksgiving. Part of that was luck, but he was able to break up at least one deep pass that I recall. This week he was toast all game.
Different Romo. Romo did a lot of scrambling last time he would just fall down. Do i think the eagles are the better team? Yes. Do i think they came out flat probably b/c if last game? Yes.
The way Dallas had been using Witten prior to this week especially on third downs was block and release. He would pass protect for a few seconds, his man would either green dog or look for someone else to cover and he would sneak out into the flat, it’s what they did in the first game and its what they did all season. Immediately releasing Witten was a changeup and it took the defense some time to adjust.
Yeah, as if that simpleton could ever answer questions like that lol,… He just leaned what a stunt was last week, too soon to be asking the donkey about 33 stacks
You just followed a comma with an ellipses. Grammatical simpleton.
i agree with your point, but yes, i specifically think there should have been more outside running. not a lot more, but keep the interior of the front seven guessing a little
I’ve brought up specific issues with playcalling before. Things like starting the Seattle game with three straight passes, repeatedly rushing three against Romo when he thrives without pressure, etc.
But my point here has nothing to do with a specific play. It’s the coaches’ insistence that nothing needs to be done other than have the players perform better. At some point you have to adjust your scheme to the players you have. That isn’t a radical idea.
The three man rush was effective last night. 5-13 on third down.
How many of those were 3-man rushes? I only remember the Curry sack.
A decent number. There were 4 or 5 where the coverage just did its job and led to a throw away or an inaccurate in completion.
I went through the game and counted 2 third-down stops where they rushed three (including the Curry sack), and 5 stops where they rushed more.
Altogether there were 7 third down stops (not sure why 2 wouldn’t be counted in the ESPN numbers–the play by play clearly shows 7?). Either way, crediting the 3-man rush for them is a stretch.
Keep in mind that many of the plays in Kelly’s offense aren’t a strict pass or run, and that the QB gets to opt to either when he reads it.
Totally agree on the last part. What’s the plan to beat good teams? While “play better” has a simple elegance to it. The benefit of the doubt that we can actually do that can only go so far
basically if we had maybe 10 less turnovers or where in the average for them we would be way better. turnovers have absolutely killed us, our drives, and given the other team easy points. int’s fumbles, its what has killed us. if we didn’t turn it over the outcome of many of these games would be different…. San Fran, Arizona, Dallas.
yeah i think i saw a graphic last night that we are a league worst in giveaways.
yup it they are coming from everywhere though the QBs definitely aren’t helping.
only need 3 more TOs to equal the 2012 disaster year
QBs having a mike vick sort of season 🙁
We’ll get there
It’s remarkable that the Eagles have been able to win as often a they have given how sloppy they’ve been with the ball.
only beating terrible teams.
Not just the turnovers, also on pace for like 120 penalties, up there withthe terroble 2012 year
ugh the penalties too! geez its been bad.
Correct. Lazy, sloppy, disinterested, and careless mentality by this team all year. Poor ball security is the sign of a team lacking the desire and motivation to perform at a high level.
What happened?
It seems like our tempo may be as hard for our guys to execute consistently as it is for opponents to keep up.
I feel like my wife left me.
I’m going to hate this entire week.
Question is — will your wife?
Well, the defense did break Murray’s hand.
I’d be happier with turf toe that kept him out of the Colts game.
I’m not sure how a running back plays with a broken hand. With Cole they can put a club on it and he can play at a relative level of normalcy. Not sure how you could protect the hand without effectively crippling a running backs ability to play the position.
Can’t switch hands with ball. Even hard to two-hand cradle.
Doug free might be a bigger injury.
Man, I got to dreaming about what if….what if we got Logan Thomas?
xxxxxxxroll of Logan Thomas lowlights scroll byxxxxxxx
And then I just laughed to myself, and felt sorry for Arians all over again.
Well, FOles,hasnt been cleared by the doctor, won’t be practicing this week, won’t be playing on Saturday…. If he can’t play vs. The Giamts in two weeks which looks to be the case, the season for me is over!
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Good times or bad times, the #1 goal for this season in my eyes was just letting Nick play, great games, bad games, he needed every bit of experience he could get this year…. We were a good enough team, to where we had a chance to compete, get hot and who knows what type a run we could have gotten… But for me, ultimately the results of this season weremt as important as FOles and the young players gaining experiwnce and growing as players.
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Even if we can win a playoff game with Sanchez, that does nothing for me because I know sanchez is not a starting QB. It be nice to win and play an extra play or two, but I would have rather lost with Nick, then win with Mark..
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We all over analyze every single performance of FOles and our young players, when really, the important part was just leaving the kid alone and let him get playing time…. FOles not playong against the Giamts and in the p.ayoffs will be really really tough to swallow for me, Even if we weren’t going to be sure about whether Nick is the franchise or not at the end of the year, Nick gaining 16 more games of experience would have made the season a success, no matter how it ended…
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Really really was expecting Nick to be cleared today…. Now odds are that he won’t play Again this year, which IMO is the worst Possible outcome. I really will need to muster up the strength to watch sanchez on Saturday. I would prefer seeing what we have in Barkley the rest of the year, but chip can’t disrespect his veterans im the locker room that busted their ass all year. We haven’t been eliminated yet, chip has to play sanchez and give the locker room the best Chance to win and get in the playoffs, but it’s tough for me, because I don’t see what I could get out of watching Sanchez again. I know what he is, and I know what he isn’t, sucks we can’t use these games to see what Barkley can do with the starters..,
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This FOles news is depressing
Were you a fan of Foles in college or just when he joined the Eagles? Sounds like you like Foles more than the Eagles team by your comments?
No.. Became a fan of his preseason of his rookie year, and in 2012 when he handled such a dysfunctional imploding mess of a situatipn with poise Typucally not seen im a young player.
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I just happen to Genuinly see the makeup in him that I believe can be cultivated into a qualityNFL QB….and he seems to have the work ethic that I can count on busting his ass to realize the most of his potemtial eventually. Where as talented mutts like Kapernick or RG3 be lucky to realize 50% of their potential..
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I whole heartedly believe this kid has what it takes. And will put in the work to grow into what we need him to grow into. If you put a gun to my head and told me that my life Depends on guessing a young QB in the NFL after Wilson and Luck that will grow into a quality franchise QB, FOles would be whp I bet on after wilson and Luck…
Not looking like he will be back this year.. So next year Foles gonna have to show that he belongs in this team n be that QB answer that everyone is questioning
I really don’t think Chip is down on Nick right now, like most people seem to think. Fans and media put everything on the QBs. They eitjer get it done or they don’t…. OUR COACH looks at it different, chip knows al the QB mistakes he sees, ISNT always the QBs fault, where as fans and media automatically pin everything on the QB… Chip knows that the performance of the other 10 players impact Nicks performance where as fans put every single mistake on Nick..Chip also understands that young QBs ARENT groomed overnight. And when he sees Nick make mistakes, chip knows how hard he will work to correct it and not be doomed to make the same mistake over and over again..
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Chip knows, when you see Nick playing behind the #1 run game, and the best OL in the history of this franchise. It’s not going to look like that when you put Nick being an injured riddled line with no continuity that used like 14 different OL combinations.. Chip knows that circumstances like that won’t allow Nick to have the same insane success as last year.
..I’d bet anything Chip is still high on Nick. And that nIck will be the starting QB of the 2015 Eagles. It’s possible that chip promises sanchez open competition to get him to stay on as a back up for 1 more year, but chip would make that promise feeling comfortable that Nick would out play mark and win the battle
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Dude,
forget about the playoffs for a minute. The Eagles have a 35% chance of making them.
Basically I am not sure if we will know much more about this team once the season ends. Highly frustrating.
What have we learned:
Like it or not, Foles is the QB for 2015.
O-line is crucial to success. Time to start grooming some young blood.
Turnovers are delicious at a pastry shop, but ruin an otherwise good performance. Chip’s bad turnover season is much better than Andy’s.
It’s hard to overcome attrition at a single roster spot (ILB) when another spot on that side of the ball needs work (DBs).
Our healthy O-line and D-line are very good.
Opportunistic special teams and defense can win sloppy games.
Smiley Pooper has to go.
Had you till smiley, give it chips discretion. Maybe play him less, he is good at st.
No, he needs to go. Why would you pay this guy that much to be good at ST? He’ll why dnt we just but Maragos as a receiver then cause that’s basically what we have with Pooper.
Eagles pay their st people. I don’t think eagles care about his contract and will keep him for depth (lost two wr last year). If cap becomes tight release him.
I don’t give a crap about the playoffs. The most important thing was giving pour young QB the gametime he Needed to grow into ythen QB we need him to become. Friggin 1st round pedigrees like Aaron Rogers and Matt Ryan, needed 4-5 years of growth and maturity before they were ever ready to win a play off game,..FOles needs many more games than I think people realize.
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I liked that he was having to face so much adversity and learn to win ugly, since we were still winning. Thought those tough games would be good for his growth, more than throwing 7 TDs in a game where nothing goes wrong… I enjoyed him facing all that adversity because I figures it’s good for his growth and it sets up perfectly to get his healthy OL back at the end of the years so let him claw and scratch to win and grow during the first half of the season, and then he had the second half of the year to play in a healthy situatipn behind his starting OL and he would get to show everyone how much he improved in year two, but he got hurt and was robbed of being able to play behind a solid lime this year,….so now I have to spend the next pffseason hearing ridiculous fans and media talk abpit Nick as if he is exactly the player we last saw play, even tho in reality, managing to go 7-2 behind 13 different OL combinations for a year two QB is fucking unheard of….but most fans just take the lmost recent performance they saw and think who he was that day is exactly all he is destined to ever be,..
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I’d bet Chip is still really high on Nick much ore than a lot PF fans and media realize… To fans and,edia, it’s black and white, QB gets all credit and blame, QB is expected tp be able to overcome everything…BUT NFL coaches want to no WHY a QB is playing bad and a coach understands that QB needs the 10 people around hm to execute, to really be able to show what he can do…
.,.
I’m anticipating a bunch of FOles bashing this offseason, people jumping off the bandwagon, Eagles nAtion obsessing over every QB prospect in this draft… Where as I wouldn’t be surprised if we bring back these same 3 QBs next year
You have ranted on here repeatedly about the playoffs and now that the odds are a bit stacked against the Eagles you don’t care?
I ranted about getting everyone back in time to go into the playoffs healthy.. How can I be happy about going to the playoffs, winning a game, maybe even two, when the most important thing was to grow Nick FOles and give him the game time he desperately needs to grow
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I don’t look forward to an offseason of donkey fans writing Nick off because he didn’t play like a MVP candidate going 7-2 behind 13 different OL combinations which is Practically unheard of to ask of a young player
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I don’t look forward to silly media/FANBASE over reaction, months of Eagles fans focused only on talking about every QB prospect in this draft, only to see Nick,Mark and probably even Barkley all back here next year, and not having drafted any QB after this media spends the next 4 months how we have to draft a QB who can run,
NF isn’t the most important thing about the team. You’d give up a deep playoff run bc NF wasn’t involved? That’s silly. Plenty of young guys and plenty of vets need the experience. Think it would mean more from a team perpsective if we were able to get there with MS.
Has to be frustrating for Foles. He’s been saying he feels fine for weeks now. Doesn’t feel injured, just gets to be told that collar bone is vulnerable to breaking and sit on the sideline until the x-rays say otherwise. It’s got to be killing Foles watching his team lose control of it’s own destiny and powerless to do anything about it….well now he can understand the fans just a bit better.
Yeah it’s def hard on him, especially playing in this city where our media aren’t too bright and will drastically over react to everything, pushing the buttons of our crazy FANBASE…sure the young man who gave us a special year last year and fought his way to 7-2 injured under horrible circumstances is going to have a lot of people jumping off his bandwagon, writing him off, wanting him to be replaced
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I know that chip and the locker room know how special he is and the real circumstances of this tough year, but it can’t be fun to get ready for an entire offseason off our hometown fans trashing you, writing you off going forward, especially when he really doesn’t deserve it….that’s what it means to play QB in this meds market
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I look forward to seeing him come back pissed off next year, after a summer of his fans abandoning him, just watch the new Badass FOles that shows up for training camp..he will show ,pre of his “Dark Side” I’m what will be the equivalent of quintessential “Good Guy/Hero” Hulk Hogan, taking off the red and yellow, and putting on the all black, joining the NWO…breaking Hulkamanic hearts across the globe…
sometimes you just take it to another level. Foles is seeing the good and the bad of philly fans, just like his play saw the good and the bad. I think as fans we’re ready to annoint someone, anyone.
There’s way less pressure on him for next year, there’s much less to live up to. I think this season he heard everyone comparing him to tom brady next year he can just be himself and let things happen. There’s no guarantee the line gets better, everyone can get injured that’s just the way the game goes.
So, in reading through the most recent 100-150 comments, it seems there are three main complaints about the defense:
1. Blitz, pressure Romo. The three man rush wasn’t enough.
2. Double Dez. Fletcher can’t guard Dez by himself.
3. Cover Witten. He can’t be allowed to get open over the middle.
First, Murray didn’t destroy us. That is a big deal. I think there is one other team on their schedule that held Murray in check.
Second, I am sure those three things were written on a board somewhere in the Novacare this past week. Those are the things we wanted to do, and we did those things successfully, just not all at the same time. And we did those things well enough to win, just not combined with the other mistakes and shortcomings. To accomplish all three things to a higher level we need (a) more players on the field, (b) better players on the field, or (c) a QB who is unable to capitalize on our mistakes.
Good post. And they all defeat each other. Double dez, less to rush. Rush 4 hard to double dez. Double witten, can’t double dez. On and on and on.
so that means the cowboys are more talented I guess?..
Jump balls to dez work, we kind of knew that.
did you see that red zone TD over fletcher? I was just like damn, fletch can’t even compete athletically.
On this Sunday, they were less flawed. I think that’s a better descriptor than more talented 😛
At least we kicked the NFC South leader’s arse….
South leader = tallest midget.
Going to be fun sitting at home while one of those scrub teams get in by default. Oh man…I know it’s tradition but, not sure why that one is some sacred cow. It’s not a case of a bunch of great teams beating the hell out of each other and keeping each other’s records down. Just, make the pre-requisite to get into the playoffs as a division winner be .500 or better record please? Subbing in a 3rd Wildcard would not tear the fabric of everything we know about football. It would raaaarly happen, but when it needs to happen it needs to happen.
At the very least don’t reward such scrubs with a home game in the playoffs.
Unfortunately the injury to Foles is the worst thing for eagles next post season, if he had played a full season FO would know whether to move on or double down on Foles. Eagles will exercise the option to keep Foles in 2015 but could’ve done contract early to save cash.
If Foles is lights out in 2015 he will get a Flacco paycheck instead of a discounted one done before his contract ended. If he sucks then eagles lose out on a year of QB searching and year of developing the future QB.
Foles was a third round pick we can’t use the option on him
Really? What year is he signed through.
Next year. Standard 4 year contract.
But eagles could sign new contract at end of this year? Or no?
I’d let him play it out. I like Nick and think he has potential, but his poor play this year has been disturbing. He still has to prove it to be worth a big contract.
hoopefully it’ll be good, both mac and coop outperformed in their contract years.
You can but why would we be in any rush to extend him unless he comes at a bargain
They could but it doesn’t make sense for either party to do so.
So Trent Cole and Demarco Murray must have been in a fist fight.
Can someone explain why a possible surgery to Cole’s hand is season ending while Murray is likely to play on Sunday???
More than one type of break my friend.
Understood. Still wanna see how Murray will carry the ball on Sunday.
Must be significant if Cole cant just put a club on it.
Maybe it’s displaced, a good chunk broke off, a tendon was pulled off in addition to the break or the same with a ligament.
It’s the 4th metecarpal(however you spell it) not his dominant hand that he mainly caroes the ball with
Still no way Murray can play if he has cask on, a RB needs both hands
Multiple people on this board have referenced Chip Kelly’s press conference and specifically the Witten/Dez conundrum. Chip said that Witten was beating them early so they doubled him leaving Dez one on one.
Quick poll . . . who do you think will beat you faster if you leave him one on one?
a – Jason Witten
b – Dez Bryant
I would much rather have singled up Witten with Nate, Jenkins, Barwin, and Kendricks then allow Dez to beat Fletcher like a rented mule. You don’t need to double Witten to limit how much he can damage you.
at least doubling witten you know you’ll be getting the ball back quickly since dez is just going to catch tds over fletch.
The problem was as simple as frustrating: our safeties, especially Jenkins, were overmatched against Witten.
Oh boy do I miss Dawkins.
I think missing Dawkins is a prerequisite anyone who’s been an Eagles fan for more than a decade.
Dawkins stunk in coverage his last 2 years here and was a scheme liability in pass coverage.
This press coverage was frustrating though because I seriously wonder why the Eagles thought Whitten was more of a threat vs Jenkins 1:1 than Fletcher 1:1 vs Bryant.
Really the first time I have questioned some of the decision-making that Kelly talked about in a post-game conference.
Jenkins is sort of terrible in coverage, nate allen isn’t great either (see the mystery of the double move). Then we complain about having no pass rush — we just weren’t good enough, i don’t think you can blame the scheme. Witten has had his share of 150+yd games.
You are soooooo wrong.
When the he’ll did Dallas’ offense become better than ours? Same with the d? Answer: turnovers.
They certainly weren’t on Thanksgiving, but the Eagles approached last night’s game with no urgency at all.
Sielski destroyed them for it today.
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/eagles/20141215_Eagles_don_t_come_up_big_this_time.html
I hope the coaching staff learned a lesson about not having the team motivated to play well in a division deciding game.
Think we should put away that bullshit notion that any QB can play in chips system… It’s disrespectfull to Nick, and the healthy offenses spectacular year. Clearly any QB can’t be plugged into this offense. I’m not putting all of it on Sanchez, but I Think he should have been able to do more with the OL being so much better then the 13 different OL combinations in 9 games that Nick had to play with. Think sanchez shpuld have been able to do more with the run game he got compared to Nick barely having any run game this year. I think Sanchez should have been able to do more with the way our front 7 elevated its play the past few weeks…it kills me that we aren’t getting to see him play in a functioning offense to show us how he has improved.
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There was no doubt in my mind that Nck would grow into,a better QB than Sanchez, I just didn’t know if he was ALREADY better than sanchez, because no one was really certan what Mark was having onlY played for the Jets aka QB Hell…..
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It sucks that this year, the only Gametime our developing young QB got was playing on such a dysfunctional offense. I do think the Dversity could be really good for hos development, but as fans it sucks that he didn’t get to play with hs healthy functioning offense
Curious what y’all think we should do at wr I don’t know how much Maclin could command but you we hoot for the stars and get Dez or Thomas or maybe have a backup plan of Crabtree,Cobb or Smith and then VJax should be on the table regardless of what happens with Maclin
I don’t see Dez, D Thomas, and/or Cobb actually hitting the market. Vincent Jackson is interesting because they liked him at the trade deadline. Crabtree is a “sorry” receiver, so I’m not interested in him.
Maclin could be back, but if he’s the top WR on the market his value could rise to the $12 mil / season level. I’m not sure we pay that.
I disagree about Cobb I can see him hitting the market
Maclin will never hit the open market
What do you think his valur I really don’t want to pay him much
No clue… But I’d be shocked if they didn’t work it out.
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Think the bigger question is Cooper? Forget his chemistry with our developing young QB, we were forced to bring Coop back, because we had to give Nick some continuity from the season before. We couldn’t take Coop, Avant and Desean away from our young QG, and ask him to play with Maclin who he hadn’t played with in two years and a bunch of rookie WR’s…. So if we wanted to get rid of Avant and Desean, we had to bring back coop. Of course it he,so that the WR coach loves him, and he can block his ass off….but as soon as we get Maclins signature on a 5yr deal, along with bringing back jordan and Huff, that’s enough continuity to make Coop expendable..
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I don’t know hiss contract off the top of my head, if it’s feasible to cut him this year or much better to wait a year, but that contract was probably never going to be more than a two year deal…”Reconfiguring the WR position” I interpretted as full makeover, Keep MACLIN, and gradually turn over our entire stable of WR’s, this was going to take more than jjust last offseason….
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But basically Coop did his job. He was here to transition to 3 new key WRs Mac, Huff and Jordan…. Now that they will all be back next year, Coop is completely expendable. MACLIN played his way into having a future in chips “reconfigured WR arsenal”, Coop served his purpose. The moment it’s contractually feasible to do so, I assume Coop will find his head on that chopping block, and one Or two new WRs still need to be added to complete his reconfigured arsenal
Cooper will not get cut this year too much guaranteed money you’d save almost nothing only worth taking the hit if you’re getting an asset back in a trade, Coop will be here one last year
Yeh just saw the deadl… Think we were all in agreement that it was really a suped up two yr deal,
Indeed, Cliffs not here so I am the self appointed capologist do I am in agreement with that lol
Unless you’re hungry to eat some dead money, Cooper will be here in 2015.
Yeah I thought so… That’s why I said it would be a two year deal when we signed him
Curious do you really think Cobb, Dez and Thomas will all extend before free agency I mean all three of those teams are in pretty tough spots
To cut Cooper, I’m real hungry.
But the contract isn’t structured in that manner and they will eat some meaningful money if they release Cooper if they can’t rework his contract.
Yeah that contract was extra dumb.
They eat a little under 2 mill if he is released this year, that is very small money and they most likely restructure his deal to a lower yearly amount and he stays
There was 8-10 mil guaranteed so you’re eating all the guaranteed that wasn’t on last years cap which is well over two mil
What’s wrong with Maclin and Matthews? With Huff coming along, hopefully. Now if the young tight end could just HANG ON TO THE BALL in game-changing situations!
This is awesome:
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/andrew-luck-s-trash-talk-style-confuses-the-heck-out-of-opponents-185418866.html
I see a dejected FANBASE ready to start talking about NEEDS and the OFFSEASON, and that’s certainly understandable,,, hopefully we learned some lessons since last year, when we over reacted to Logan not playing well in the playoff game, arguining all offseason about how NT was a giant need for us cuz Logan wouldn’t be good enough…fast forward a year later and he is one of the best NTs in football. We questioned if Vox could ever fit in this sche,em because he didn’t develope fast enough for our instant gratification thirst last year, and now Cox is one of the best DL in the NFL playing behind this scheme we questioned…
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Moral of the story, hope we learned a little from last years mistakes (I know I try to get better Every offseason at understanding this team and front office). I hope we learned that just because you have a certain impression of a young player burned in your brain, it doesn’t Neccessarily mean that young player can never be good enough and that he is destined to be the same exact player he was when you last saw him play… young Players can improve by leaps and bounds. Young veterans like Barwin can even improve with continuity in scheme and time to Gel with team mates… On the other end of the spectrum it’s possible some of our older players start to fall off and won’t be as good as the player we remember them being…… So just because a young player didn’t quench your thirst for instant gratifction Dominance this year, doesn’t mean he isn’t going to be a much better player next year, then the player you last saw him to be,,,
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We should have learned that continuity is important. Gelling as a unit is important, and most importantly players need to be placed in healthy situations to flourish. In this ultimate team game, how your team mates are playing Will EFFECT how you perform… You can’t expect what we saw yesterday in Dallas to be a clear dipictin of what we have and who we are..we are better in some areas them we showed yesterday, and in other cases we are as bad as we showed yesterday…. but we were still a young team in its infancy phase,…I don’t at all think it’s a telling sign or a big deal if we don’t make the playoffs… BUT I will say. This is the END of the Honey moon period! This will be Chips third offseason to build this team in his image, and next year will be the first time since we hired Chip, that Im going to need to start seeing results. Next year isn’t Super Bowl or bust year yet, but a certain standard does need to be met in year 3, certain goals need to be reached, individual and team growth should start being apparent..
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Right now we are in year two, so there isn’t really many outcomes for this season that would have dissapointed me or made me get down on chip or the direction of this team, but in year 3, I expect to start seeing some results and some progress. in year 3, just making the playoffs isn’t good enough, I need to see a win (assuming normal circumstances of course)… Next year is the first time I’m really going to have strict expectations and judge chip on the outcome
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Year 3 need to prove that we are in the right direction, knocking on the upper echelon of the NFL… But going into year 4, we are starting to get close to the Super Bowl or bust area, get further than the year before at the very least…year 5? Super Bowl or Bust!!! I love this coach, I have an insane belief in him. But he needs to be held to fair standards…I’m no longer interested in potential in year 4-5, that’s when pete Carrols team became elite, and that’s when pocket passers like Matt Ryan and Aaron Rogets were ready to beat top teams in the playoffs…
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I don’t thnk chip will get the credit he deserved for this year. He will have won as many games as last year if not more, with a mess of an OL compared to last years best OL in franchise history, without a run game when last year we had the top run game, and with QB injuries and struggles, oh and by the way, we managed to over come all that, win as much as last year, and this years schedule was so much tougher than last years… Bad coaches and bad teams would never overcome everything we have to win 10 or 11 games…. It’s ain’t as pretty as last year, last year was much more fun, but overcoming so much might make this year even a more impressive coaching job then last year
If ppl complain about the coaching (CK) they gotta GTFOH. They can complain about personnel moves in the offseason, i think that’s valid they can complain about Billy D getting outcoached, players not being mentally ready to go, just a bad game.
This goes against my whole point but how does Arizona still win games?
Rookies get more time to develop. DL will get better. There are no rookies or even young players in the secondary, I don’t think another year is going to matter there. especially not for fletch.
Foles is the great unknown. His numbers were dismal but his line play was dismal. McCoy, not sure what happens there, i’d probably pressure him to renegotiate down in exchange for an extension, otherwise last year will be it for him (assume a trade will never happen at $12m a year).
Cole went from clear lock to tough decision after the last couple of games. No pass rush anymore, lots of bad plays, but it’s unclear if BG is better, maybe he’s close enough.
Hope MSII becomes Meco’s replacement but think Meco / Goode should be back next year merely b/c you can only replace so much on defense.
Bold prediction is Nate Allen still here next year. I dont’ know if you’re going to get at least one starting CB, and a starting safety and an OLB in one offseason (not to mention needs on offense).
I think next year will be a rebuilding year a little.
Then what they have been working/building on the last 2 years as a progressive arc in terms of longer term roster development doesn’t make much as much sense nor does Kelly’s statements starting from the end of year season through this year.
They need to rework the defense but I don’t think they are going to have the wholesale change in the secondary that everybody is expecting.
Jenkins will be back (ditto Boykins who has had a down year quietly and Carroll) and even possibly Allen depending upon what they want to do with other positions and the draft. Fletcher is gone and so is Williams if too I bet unless he is willing to rework this contract.
Eagles will sign at least veteran CB to take over one of the positions and draft another/sign another.
You are a moron if you think we are replacing two outside corners in a year where the cornerback free agent market is terrible…
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A little more looking at things like a front office exec, and a little less of the fanboy bulshit…its such a complete waste of time..
I think we need one new free agent corner there are some upgrades there ilb and s is where there’s nothing we can do because the market is trash but corner and guard are places to look in free agency
I’m definitely part of the dejected fan base talking about needs I’m hurt honestly it’s the only way to cope with it
Think we all are brother
First time I was disappointed a bit in Kelly’s press conference answers today. Seemed to be a bit more defensive than he has been at any point in his tenure along with I thought providing half-answers to a couple of questions.
Understand he is obviously frustrated but felt he didn’t give through answers because Kelly’s knows his team wasn’t mentally prepared to play last night & it showed early on along with the lack of adjustments in his game plan compared to the 1st time they faced Dallas.
Give Garrett and his staff even more credit than I did thought last night. Clearly made some early adjustments including going no back-field/4 WR & even 5 WR at times and emphasizing max protection when Murray was back there.
Eagles did get some pressure but instead Davis was more reactive willing to drop 7 or even 8 guys into coverage at times. Romo had the time & space to pick them apart because even with the year that Cox/Barwin are having the Eagles don’t have that pass-rusher who can get by double-teams consistently. Cox got doubled all night last night & was largely a factor and when the Eagles did send Barwin they made sure to chip him alot or help with Murray.
Surprised McCoy didn’t get a bit more scrutiny too. Granted the 21-0 lead really took the Eagles out of their element but McCoy yet again seemed tentative most of the night trying to cutback or look for an additional holes to develop to try to bust a big play.
Thought it spoke volumes that on that drive where the Eagles were desperate to get back in it that Sproles played alot too. Additionally, when the staff apparently wanted a RB to punch it in Polk got the call and not McCoy.
McCoy’s role in the passing game has also notably diminished this year & that surprises me a bit in a year where the Eagles have had 2 QBs who have had issues with throwing deep routes.
Doesn’t surprise me that McCoy has had a bit of down year. Last year he had 335 carries (including the Saints’ playoff game) and combined with pass catches had 388 touches last year.
That is a hell of a lot of carries and even if the ‘Curse of 370′ was largely debunked by Brian Burke at NFL Advanced Stats 2 years ago (followed up on the earlier work including Aaron Schatz’s ’04 piece really started interest in this topic) it doesn’t surprise me that McCoy has had an off-year after what was almost certainly his career year last year.
McCoy is also on pace to end up with just about the same number of regular season attempts (~315 carries) although the number of touches he had will be greatly reduced especially if the Eagles don’t make the playoffs. It would put him #2 in the NFL and tightly among another group in RBs who are distant runner ups to Murray who is on pace to finish with nearly 425 carries. That’s insane and the track record for RBs the following year & in their career after those type of years is abysmal. Boys are basically red-lining Murray and he is going to blow a gasket sooner than later.
Question to me is whether McCoy really has one more great year left in his next year. If you look at his career touches/carries and age, the numbers favor it although the numbers for RBs after age 27 and 1700+ carries does not fair well and their performance falls off quite quickly with only a few exceptions.
I would say he does but that this O-line needs a real retooling including at least one high draft who step in at LG/RG and maybe even 2 because Herremans didn’t play well this year even when he was in, Peters has slipped a bit this year, and Mathis’ age and injury this year should given the Eagles room for concern. None of the holdover OL played well and Gardner has been below average/terrible especially the last few weeks.
and he seemed to slip and fall a lot (ok, not too technical using ‘seemed’ and ‘alot’ ..but ther it is)
I’ve been reluctant to support moving up to get the #1 pick to draft Mariota because of the likely high asking price. If the Eagles miss the playoffs and fall far enough in the draft rankings, I wonder if the asking price would be tolerable. A lot depends on how confident Chip is in Foles. IMO Foles is legitimately good and last year was not an accident. But it was not the norm either. He might just be a mid-tier starter for the rest of his career. Teams can win Super Bowls with a mid-tier QB but need to be deep all-around the roster in that case. The Eagles have multiple holes in the secondary, an aging OL, and could use another WR. Not to mention we dont know how long Shady will be good. He could be in decline as I speak. On the other hand, the difference between Foles and Mariota might not be that much and for all we know Foles turns out to be the better QB. That risk is definitely high. Mariota might take time to develop too and by the time he’s acclimated to the NFL, Shady, Peters, and Mathis might be gone. Foles has already played at Super Bowl level before. I honestly have no idea what I’d do.
Lack of running is a big thing. Personally i think it would unlock the offense to mike vick levels for the running attack. But i don’t like Mariota, i don’t like the injury concern but having a mobile guy who is familiar with the system (and huff) would be huge. We just won’t get there unfortunately.
The read option is just one play (well, technically there are many variations, but I digress) in the playbook. It is WAY more important that he is an effective passer than a runner. If he is not a better passer than Foles, then I do not want him.
NO BS: WHEN REX RYAN IS FIRED FROM THE JETS, I WANT DENNIS THURMAN NO MATTER THE COST! WE NEED SOME BIG BALLS IN OUR BACKFIELD, PERIOD!
Your cap locks got stuck?
BIG BALLS, BIG LETTERS.
NEED MOAR CAPS!
Yeah. My pinky finger was stuck in arthritic anger mode. Sorry.
The size of the balls is immaterial. That part of the male genitalia will never be proportionately bigger than 10 minutes after birth. At least the container, I mean. Don’t understand the male fascination with the size of the gonads. Where size might just matter is in the center organ.
Raise your hand if you thought Kyle Fuller was going to be a great CB in the pros!
Him, odell and Barr was the 3 guys I really wanted
Fuller struggled mightily though.
That means NOTHING! Nothing I hate more than rookie CB’s. I don’t trust them AT ALL! If it were up to me, we would NEVER have to play a rookie outside corner…
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That’s why for me our cornerback problem is complicated, I know we need to get younger and significantly more talemted at outside cornerback, but I want absoluteky NOTHING TO DO with starting rookie CB’s, so it’s trickier, not only do we need to get young talent at the position, but we need to have veterans that can keep the rookie CB from having to play too soon,
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I know we have to upgrade our corners, but not wanting to play rookie CB is why it’s so important for me to have cary and Brad or Nolan next year..
ODB is rookie of the year. Just flat out dominant at times.
yeah i mean when you’re basically scoring all of your team’s points…
Heard the billy Davis Fuller talk was nonsense…my understanding is the corner the Eagles kicked the tires on in round 1 was Bradley Robly, but his issues scared us off,,,, personally, I would have prefered Fuller
Holy crap, I must have been more drunk than I realized yesterday lol. I didnt realize they were kicking those Kickoffs intentionally. I thought Baily was hurt or something and his kicks were landing short lol…
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Props to see Parkey overcome his groin injury and manages to maintain his excellence..
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Next year we should have more depth in the secondary, I’m sure we will add some DBs but even a kid like Jaylen should be more ready to compete for a role… So if Jaylen or someone can look good in the dime cornerback role. It would allow Nolan to compete on the outside which is where he was competing for the most part in the offseason, before he got hurt in preseason.
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Nolan can play! Curious to see his future here
Dallas used Seattle’s approach on D. Force Sanchez to throw small to intermediate. Put safety help on Maclin. Abuse #66 Gardner to set pressure, forcing Sanchez to hurry. (notice that Sanchez didnt have the time that Romo had) Play zone on run to keep Shady from busting long runs. By taking away the long ball, and the long runs, it slows down Kelly’s offense. The only option was to go to Celek and Ertz, both had alot of targets. I dont understand why they dont throw to Shady anymore on screens. It seems like Sproles gets one or 2 screen targets a game. We got away from screens. Also wouldve liked to see Polk more as he is North-South, Shady dances too much sometimes and runs to the wrong hole. I wished Sanchez would take off and run for those 3 to 5 yard scampers to keep defenses honest. Its like he’s afraid of getting injured. I am not sure if having Foles wouldve made much of a difference though, I thought Sanchez played decent, he was off (high) on some throws, the only bad interceptions he threw were near the end of the game as we were trying to make up a 11 point deficit.
Dez is tough to stop, big and strong and we only have 2 decent corners. If you put safety help on him (Jenkins) then Witten kills you. Pick your poision.
There’s like 60 CB free agents this year. I think we should be able to find at least one to be an upgrade.
[…] The Blame Game – Iggles BlitzThere are a lot of things to talk about this week. When you lose a key game and it’s to Dallas, there are going to be lots of issues that need discussing. What happened? Why did it happens? What does it mean? What’s next/ We can’t get to them all at once so try to be patient. […]
The way Romo was laying down like a cheap whore, Davis should have been blitzing every passing down. A good pass rush is the best pass defense, especially with our cb’s.