Work to be Done
Posted: May 26th, 2016 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 100 Comments »Expectations are high for the Eagles defense this year. Jim Schwartz is an outstanding defensive coordinator. He will have a very talented DL, with Fletcher Cox as his star up front. The LBs are talented. The Safeties have a chance to be one of the best tandems in the league. Cornerback is a mystery, but there is enough talent for the Eagles to have effective starters.
Right now the defense is a work in progress. They struggled mightily when the media got to watch practice on Tuesday. There were far too many blown coverages and missed assignments. There is no hitting or tackling at this time of the year so the focus for defenders is being at the right place at the right time.
That would be fine except that Eagles defenders are learning a new scheme. Some guys are changing positions. Then you have quite a few rookies and second-year players in the mix. To put it mildly, this group has a long way to go.
But that’s the point of these OTAs. The coaches get to install their schemes and also get a feel for their players. Mistakes are okay. Players are learning. When July and August get here, the players better know where to be and what to do in just about every situation.
It is never fun to read things like this.
Jimmy Bama – The Eagles’ defense stunk today. There were wide open receivers all over the field, and the defensive line must have jumped offsides on at least a half dozen occasions.
Jim Schwartz – I have my own worries. You guys saw how crappy a practice that was: We’ve got enough worries on defense right now.
Ouch.
The good news is that we’re still in May. This is the time of year when Sean Considine and Lorenzo Booker look like stars. Don’t get too worried about a unit having ups and downs, especially with all the change.
I have confidence in Jim Schwartz. His scheme worked in TEN, DET and BUF. The guy knows how to teach and how to coach. The Eagles have smart players and key leaders. Give these guys some time and the defense should get a lot better.
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Mistakes were being made by Denzel Rice and Joe Walker, among others, on Tuesday. Rice is a second year corner and Walker is a rookie MLB. As Schwartz would say, “their heads are swimming right now”.
Jordan Hicks also made a mistake on one play. Per Tim McManus.
Jordan Hicks is participating after sitting out last Tuesday’s team drills with leg tightness. Kenjon Barner just found some daylight off the right side, and Hicks is not happy with himself as he runs off the field.
“I f___d that up. I f___d that all the way up,” he tells Schwartz.
I have faith in Hicks. He picked up the defense very quickly last year. He played multiple roles at Texas. He also will hold himself accountable. Some players have excuses when things go wrong. Hicks wants to get things right and isn’t hiding from his mistakes. Coaches love players like that.
Dave Spadaro wrote a piece on Hicks and the new defense today.
“It’s a lot different. Just the philosophy in general is different. Our D line two-gapped and our linebackers played a little bit side to side,” Hicks said. “Everybody’s got a gap this year and it’s your responsibility to take control of it.
“Coach Schwartz and everybody will tell you that his focus is to make it easy for the D-line, make them just go. He’s told the linebackers to play off of them and that’s what we’re taught to do and that’s what we do. I’m excited. Can’t wait to get out there Game 1 to get out there and show the progress that we’ve made as a team and all of the training and everything that we’ve gone through in the offseason. We’re still in the mix of things and still have Training Camp coming up, but it’s exciting and I’m real proud of everything that has gone on so far.”
Just stay healthy.
*****
#PhillySportsBirthday May 26, 1941: Jim Johnson (Eagles) [Deceased] https://t.co/xqJ3Jdcbfs pic.twitter.com/3mDb1bJQXf
— PhillySportPast (@PhillySportPast) May 26, 2016
If Schwartz can be anywhere near as good as Jim Johnson was in Philly, the Eagles defense will be very good and a lot of fun to watch.
I do look forward to the Eagles having a Top 10 unit that can take over games.
As for Bill Davis, he was dealt a tough hand in Philly. I honestly don’t think we know if he can coach or not. I think he can be a good assistant, but his stints at DC have all been under some serious hard luck conditions.
I will eternally be grateful for the 2014 shutout over the Giants.
That was glorious.
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And here I expected to read an article about you scheduling in-home LASIK visits to correct your initial attempt.
[…] Tommy Lawlor Expectations are high for the Eagles defense this year. Jim Schwartz is an outstanding defensive […]
Lorenzo Booker name drop? You savage!!
I signed in for the first time in ages just to comment on Booker. You beat me to it. kudos, sir. And kudos again.
Smallwood and McLeod are wondering at this very moment if they just got compared to Booker and Considine.
There will be mistakes made early, even early in the season. However, this D has the talent to be really good once the mental side kicks in. I don’t think we are even going to see the best this D will be this year. Next off season when we get to fill out the D with the depth we need along the DL and with the LB position is when the D will really be cruising. Not to mention the progression of young players and seeing how CB works out this year.
Despite there not being a very strong talent at the CB position they have enough talent around them to succeed, and make them look better then they really are. Here is to hoping that Rowe does start to prove he is a top talent jam CB.
Hopefully the simplicity of our scheme helps us get where we need to be (mentally) quicker than 2013 which was the last time we changed defensive schemes. Our defense struggled throughout the month of september in 2013, and it didn’t start to click Til after the Broncos destroyed us
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Not only is schwartz scheme said to be more simple, but our players have experince in the 4-3 defense we are transitioning to where as we only had a couple defenders in 2013 who had previous 3-4 experience..
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“Coaches job is to make a complicated game simple for the playërs”-schwartz
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Hopefully we see a smoother scheme transition than we saw in 2013, but there is certainly a lot to be excited about in terms of where our defense is headed, even tho the national media HASNT figured that out yet
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Love how stout we are in the middle of our defense at all 3 stages:
cox/Logan
hicks
McLeod/Jenkins
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That’s some nice talent in the middle of our defense,,. How great we can be will be up to the outside LB and Corners.
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I assume our CB roster will look something like
Leodis
rowe
Nolan
Ron Brooks
JaCorey Shep
jalen Mills
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a lot to be excited about how this defensive roster is taking shape.
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We NEED a #3’safety to emerge who can be solid injury insurance for our starters… Hopefully Ed Reynolds is progressing nicely
I think Reynolds is more meant for the post safety role in which Mcleod will play a lot of instead of how Chip wanted his safeties deployed. Should just be more natural for him if pressed into action. Schwartz also seems much more capable of adapting to a players strengths and weakness then Davis did.
When you list Nolan as the 3rd CB do you mean slot? I am worried about slot, and im not sure if that is a role he will succeed in. He is more of a pure outside CB to me. I really hope Shepherd fully recovers and is able to handle slot and impress. He abilities match more of a slot role then Carrol.
LB is the position in which I think there will be the most initial mistakes and will take some time for our boys to adapt. The Wide 9 puts a lot of stress on LB’s, especially ILB/MLB. I am happy to hear that Kendricks has moved up to 250. It should serve him well in this D. I just hope it doesn’t negatively affect his speed and athleticism too much. I wonder if Hicks has bulked up at all. He has the frame for it, but it is possible his injury has held him back from that a bit this offseason.
I really don’t know how things will shake out with our top 3 corners. if I had to bet on two corners starting, I guess I would go with Leodis and Rowe, but I wouldn’t completely rule out Nolan winning an outside job… Fortunately both Nolan and Leodis can play in the slot. Nolan was fine his first year as an Eagle when he and Boykin were our inside corners(nickel and Dime),,. However im not completely sure that the loser of the outside Cb battle will automatically become our Nickel, because guys like Ron Brooks, JaCorey Shepard, even Mills could have something to say about that… Hard to try and predict the CB Heirarchy when im not even sure the coaches know yet… I do think this will be the most talented group of corners we have had in years in terms of corners #1-6
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I assume the CB roster will look something like:
Leodis
Rowe
Nolan
Brooks
JaCorey
Mills
No idea what the order will be of those 6 corners, on paper we would think the first 3 will win the outside and nickel spot, but it wouldn’t shock me if we find out that a kid Like JaCorey or Brooks is our best slot corner instead of one of the “Big 3″….should be a heckuva camp battle
Agree on that those 3 in that order are our best CB’s with Leodis and Carrol being very close if not tied. I think our best slot CB on the team depending on how Shepherd looks (mystery) is actually Leodis. Would not surprise me if Leodis starts on outside and when its a nickel situation he moves inside and Carrol comes in and plays outside.
Or its possible that Carrol wins the outside job and Leodis only comes in during nickel situations.
You are right in that Carrol can play inside, but I don’t think he is a good nickel CB. When he was playing inside for us in 2014-2015 it was either going against the 4th WR on the opposing team or a TE. On many teams there is a big drop off in talent from 3rd to 4th WR. Playing a TE is a lot different then playing a faster/quicker WR on the inside. He can play inside in that role, but that is far different then playing nickel and going up against a slot WR on a consistent basis.
I am just not as high as you on Carrol’s ability to be a good nickel CB. His talent is more meant for the outside or going up against a larger player if inside.
Yeah, as much shit as we all gave Billy Davis…it’s not his fault that Chip demanded a pure 2-gap 3-4 despite having personnel best suited for a 4-3 or an Under, and Davis only ever having coached an Under, and the fact that no team has used a “pure” 2-gap 3-4 in the past ten years.
It’s just his fault for taking the job.
Really intrigued to see how the competition at CB works out this year. I do hope someone steps up opposite Rowe (and that Rowe takes a big step forward). CB has been shaky since Asante Samuel/Sheldon brown. I wonder how much the 2-gap system puts added pressure on the CBs. Now that the D-line is 1-gapping, hypothetically giving the QB less time, the CBs might look a lot better.
I’m more concerned with our linebackers than our corners. Hicks needs to stay healthy, Kendricks needs to understand his assignments and play well, and Bradham is a question mark.
What makes a talented veteran 3 down starter like Bradham with SAM and WIL versatility who came here to reunite with schwartz a “question mark”? How Bradham fits in this defense is probably the least of our “questions”
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The only questions is the durability of our 3 backers, truth is Bradham, Hicks and KEndricks, each one of them would probably be a starter for all 3 of our NFC east Rivals..
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We easily have the best 3 LB in the division, at least until Sean Lee and Jaylon Smith can prove to stay healthy
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LB depth and Durability are the questions we need answered
Let’s hope less is more for Kendricks. The way he plays, this may be the perfect scheme for him.
For a guy used to game planning against Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, and Tom Brady… I have to imagine Jim is salivating to go against the NFC East. I really can’t wait.
Here’s the thing, because this is a new system, no one knows what a DL with Cox, Graham, Curry, etc. are capable of when coached by a guy like Schwartz. I think he’s thinking he could easily resurrect his career if the Eagles D has a great season.
We already know he’s got very top notch guys who can get to the QB at the DL. The LBs are at least competent, maybe will be very good if healthy. The safetys might be a top paring. If Rowe is as good as his draft position then that leaves just one CB where the talent isn’t above average to great. I suspect Schwartz could have gone a bunch of places, and chose Philly in a large part because if the sheer raw talent.
As with most things football, defense comes down to talent, continuity, chemistry through winning together and execution as a cohesive unit.
As Belichick as stated many times: Do Your Job. However, explicit in that statement is everyone has trust the guy next to them is going to do their job too and that they are all capable of doing the job they are being asked to do at a high level consistently.
Building that trust and chemistry winning together takes time and patience. Normally when a team turns over personnel at multiple positions and brings in a new DC to implement a new scheme, there are struggles. When there is questionable talent at multiple positions too, it may take even longer since some of them will need to be upgraded during the season if replacements exist on the roster or off-season if they do not. We saw this first hand under Davis & Chip.
I think we need to be more realistic and patient this season in expectations for the defense. I think we are hyping Schwartz so much in hopes he can solve every issue – this is similar to what we did with Chip as an offensive guru. No DC is a magic wizard who makes everything alright. Schwartz can only work with the talent he has on hand. The bottom line is we need more elite talent since, currently, outside of Cox and maybe Hicks if he can build on his rookie campaign, I do not see any on this defensive roster.
Schwartz had multiple elite options on most of the other defenses he has led ranging from Kearse to Suh to Haynesworth to Bulluck to Vanden Bosch to Dareus to Williams etc.
I think your selling our D a little short as we have yet to see our D in a 4-3 attacking scheme that Schwartz will implement.
I agree that there will be growing pains as with all the changes we are making, but to say we don’t have talent already in place is a bit premature IMO.
Logan could prove to be worlds better in this scheme and the same can be said for Curry, Graham, Barwin and Kendricks as well.
I think we already have the talent in place to create an immediate impact on D, especially when you have a proven DC who has succeeded with at least comparable talent.
One could argue that Cox may be the best talent that Schwartz has had to work with since becoming a DC.
The lack of quality depth is my main concern but that is a problem that all teams are facing.
Curry is one of my favorites for breakout.
I agree, but in order for Curry to fully “breakout” he’ll need to top his 9 sacks from 2014.
I think he can get double digits this year. I’m really excited to see him in an attacking scheme finally.
I’m ok with that expectation. Great system for him.
That is the whole point, the defense is built on IF statements. If Logan is worlds better in the 4-3, if Curry is good starting at DE for the first time at this level and can maintain over a higher number of snaps, if Graham and Barwin are good transitioning back to DE in the 4-3, if Kendricks stays healthy and is good at WLB in the 4-3, if Bradham is good at SAM with a new team, if Hicks stays healthy and is good as the MLB in the 4-3, if the mediocre or unproven CB pan out, if, if, if, if.
What IF some or most of these things do NOT happen? That is just as likely, we’ve seen it happen as recently as last year with some of these same players.
All I’m saying is Schwartz cannot walk on water or turn that water into wine. We have a mixed bag of talent and there has been a ton of changes on a defense that was not good to begin with. It is going to take time and so expecting great things this season I think is unrealistic.
most offseasons are built on IFs right. I think scheme and coaching is huge and if there is one place it can quickly be changed its on the D. Of course, Im dreaming a bit to think they can jump to a top 10. However, just being smarter and aggressive can make a big difference. I also think that not having to watch a Billy Davis D ever again is a prize in itself. Hears radio guys going over some of Schwartzs stats in a bunch of his stints. Hes not always great but people love that year in Buffalo so you do need the horses, no doubt. Agree on the question marks on some of these guys transitioning. I think a lot of the optimism is drawn from feeling they were under utilized with chip/Billy.
I hope you’re right; I’m just trying to stay grounded this season. After gettin’ fooled again with Chip/Davis, I’m definitely in Missouri on this new crew: show me!
oh me too, more expecting the O to get stagnant at times and just hoping the D can keep them in games. I also think the new high octane offense driven NFL means every D will get taken advantage of at times, just have to hope you minimize the damage and have some players.
I don’t see Logan as an “IF” at all because he was a 4-3 player when drafted who we coached up into a good 3-4 nose. Schwartz’s system is really going to put Logan’s short area quickness on display and free him from the evils of two gap play.
If your job is taping the other team, Do Your Job. If it’s deflating footballs, Do Your Job!!
Last night I was at my neighbor’s fire pit (here in NE) and they were busting my chops for trading so much for Wentz and I said, listen I know this is hard to understand but some teams, rather than forfeiting their first round picks to the league, they use them or trade them for good players. Novel concept I know.
Careful, Brady might name you in a civil suit.
That doesn’t sound very civil.
Great response! LOL
If we can’t be excited about our defense. Then no one in our division can
Again, I could not care less what Redskins or Cowboys or Giants fans feel about their defenses – we are Eagles fans so we care about the EAGLES defense.
Just because other teams may suck more than we do at some part of the defense (which may not even be true) does not mean we are good. The point is to be good. Our defense has sucked balls for years now and it is going to take time for it to get better.
Hiring Schwartz, changing schemes and changing multiple personnel is not going to work magic. They will need time to build trust, chemistry by winning games together and getting better talent.
I call bs. With saying this you are saying you can take the players on one teams defense and put them on another and the results will be the same.
I literally have no idea what you’re referring to or talking about. I never said anything even remotely close to that.
See Wade Phillips/Texans
Could be said that his scheme greatly assisted in them being great.
RIP, Coach JJ. You were one-in-a-million. We miss you.
Easily my favorite coach in the history of all 4 Philly sports teams… I used to adore that mean old bastad.. On 3rd down I used to whistle at the TV because everyone knew JJ was unleashing the Dogs
I remember Dawk saying something about how JJ helped him unleash Wolverine.
Speaking of Dawk, he was at practice yesterday, Id like to hear his thoughts on our safety tandem, schwartz, and how he feels about our personnel
Hopefully, the young guys felt inspired seeing the great Dawk around.
God help the opposing offense once he looked up from his call sheet and started licking his lips.
One fundamental area of divergence between the two Jim’s: the blitz. Johnson’s D relied upon it as favored ploy for ending drives, and Schwartz is determined to have a strong 4-man pass rush, and only blitz out of strength, not need.
That could be a sign of the times, at least in part. Teams and QBs seem to have gotten much better at beating the blitz over the last decade. Do any teams rely on the blitz the way teams used to?
I don’t know if it’s that so much as Johnson was a master of exotic scheme adjusting, and part of the deal with having the versatility in his unit to pull off all of ’em was not having maulers upfront. Dick LeBeau was another heavy blitzer, but he was smothering the run with a 3-4 and had a built-in option to attack from multiple angles on almost every down. The Steelers, though weren’t as dependent upon blitzing for pass rush as the Eagles were. I really think Johnson was a rarity in his ability to use his players like chess pieces on very different chess boards from sunday to sunday.
Eagles spent more GUARENTEED money on UDFA’s than every other team. interesting stat, something like after round 1, 2 and 3, the most Probowlers come from Undrafted free agents. I really like what Roseman has done with the back end of the roster. I could see like 3 – 5 UNDRAFTED rookies making this roster
Roseman has done a fine job this offseason building a year 1 foundation for the schwartz/Pederson era. Our depth is LIGHTYEARS ahead of where it was when Chip Inheritted the team in 2013. It’s going to be much tougher to make the back end of this roster, where as in 2013 we gifted roster spots to scabs like Roc Carmicheal
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Something I noticed that I really like is that the few positions where we are perceived to lack quality starting Talent are the positions Roseman has added the most depth at.
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Percieved weakness in the starting lineup:
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1) Left Guard. no one is excited about Barbie Doll, but I am excited about the camp battle Roseman has created at that Guard spot:
Barbie
Gardner
Seumalo
Wisnewski
Vaitai
bunche
Darrell Greene
Tobin
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2) another perceived starting weakness is our CB position. Leodis, Nolan, Rowe and Brooks are locks to make the roster, but Roseman made sure to create what should be a solid camp battle between Talented young Corners: Jelen Mills, JaCorey, Rice, Watkins, Randall Evans all competng for one or two roster spots
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3) WR’s…. Not only do we have some talented young Undrafted players competing at WR, but Givens and Rueban Randle are better than many teams #4 and #5 WRs as a safety net in case our young WRs DONT have a breakout season
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Unfortunately we still lack depth at some positions where we have great starters in place, for example: McLeod and Jenkins are going to form a special safety tandem, but I don’t love the depth behind them.
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cox/Logan will form an elite DT tandem, but I have to root for a couple UDFA DT to make the roster because of the lack of talent we have behind Cox and Logan
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It wasn’t realistic to fill all our needs this offseason, but I really appreciate what a good Job Roseman did. If he can have another offseason like this next yeàr, we shouldn’t be far away from having a roster that can contend with the big dogs
Get the impression that people are expecting Schwartz to somewhat of a miracle worker. This was a bad defense last year that essentially collapsed down the stretch in the 2nd half.
New coach, new scheme (switching from 3-4 to 4-3), and question marks galore. If he even gets this to be a mid-tier unit that keeps the Eagles in games most weeks then I give him share of credit. Defense is going through nearly as much flux as the offense.
Wasn’t long(or long enough?) ago the Eagles made off season moves and were anointed the best CB’s in the history of the nfl(Ok, I stretched that a bit). Let’s wait til mid season to see the newly paired up safeties before getting ahead of our selves.
CB is a difficult position to evaluate in FA, so many big money FA corner busts almost every year,.. Byron Maxwell, Aturran Verner has been a mess for Tampa after he got PAID! NNamdi debacle
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Free agency is tough. A big name player from another teams scheme often doesnt translate to his new team, sometimes because of scheme, in some cases guys aren’t as hungry after getting paid…
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Seems like Roseman may have learned the trick to free agency. Punt on the top shelf big money guys and sigń guys from the next tier below like Malcolm Jenkins and Barwin
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And I really like signing our coaches former players where we already know that our coach knows how to use the player to give him a chance to be successful. Coach knows his Practice/study habbits. Knows what he can’t ask the player to do, knows how to coach the Player to get the most out of him. Bradham and Leodis ARENT sexy signings, but I can see them being successful signings who last in philly past this season
Mcleod since he has started has been a better S then Maxwell has been CB. Maxwell transitioned from being the #2 guy to the #1 guy and it didn’t work out. That transition is not there for Mcleod. Furthermore, Maxwell came from a completely different scheme surrounded by top end talent to help him out. Mcleod is coming from a very similar scheme, and while he had some very good pieces in front of him they were not at the same level and therefore he was not as reliant on them.
Why was it so bad? One reason may be due to CONSTANTLY being on the field.
Eh, I think this is an unfounded myth.
They played six extra snaps per game. That doesn’t explain their utter collapse (mid-season!) against two middling teams (Tampa and Detroit). Something was definitely going on, but it wasn’t fatigue slowly causing them to have breakdowns, not half-way through the season, not so abruptly.
Think it was pretty clear that the entire team quit as soon as Braford got hurt in the Miami game. The team quit, Miami came back and beat us, and I saw a completely demoralized team that had ZERO faith in sanchez completely quit and not even bother showing up im both the Tampa and Detroit games…. No coincidence, the next week Bradford comes back and the team fights enough to beat the Patriots
Miracle worker; not so much.
Same level of improvements he’s done every he’s been; yes.
I don’t think people think he is a miracle worker. Nobody thinks this D will be like the 2014 Seahawks or 85 Bears. With that said every stop he has gone he has produced very good D’s.
He has some very good pieces to work with, and the large majority of those pieces are more apt at his scheme then the one from the last 3 years. Then you have the addition of Mcleod who is a very good S. The addition of Bradham was an above average SAM during his time with Schwartz, and a CB in Mckelvin who had his best year under him.
The progression of Hicks and Rowe.
Curry finally getting much more deserved playing time in a system that perfectly fits him.
The D started out very good in 2014 and 2015, it then wore down. Not only did it wear down but Davis was horrible at making in game adjustments, and OC’s would watch game tape and be able to pick his scheme apart. It is not like our D started bad and ended bad. It was actually one of the better units to start 2 seasons in a row.
The D is now in much better hands, with better players, and a scheme that fits them. There is every right to be high on Schwartz and this D, especially with his track record.
Man, the Baylor story gets uglier and uglier.
WOW: “I did a damn good job with fhe saints(Defense) and I got fired for it”-Rob Ryan
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Ahhhh I can see someone is taking courses from the Chip kelly school of “Accountability”
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If a “Damn Good job” is considered the 32nd ranked defense, I’d hate to see what a poor job looks like”
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Sean Peyton: “Rob Ryan saying that it wasn’t his defense is silly”…
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Rob Ryan is also running his mouth about how they are going to beat Bellichick This year… The Ryan Brothers are becoming the NFL version of “Herpes”, they just won’t go away…
It’s a Ryan tradition to run your mouth…
It is sad, they are such blowhards. At least Buddy won something.
Buddy was such a charming (sort of) fellow that many of us were willing to lose with him at the helm.
haha, they are entertaining are they not lol
We haven’t seen anything yet… Those two clowns, together in Buffalo is going to be a spectacular TRAINWRECK of epic proportions… It should be comedic gold
And they’ve both been placed with an inept fool of a GM.
Report: both Ryan and the silly GM have been put on Notice: Playoffs or the unemployment line
[Insert inevitable Jimmy Bama slam for reasons of negativity and hating here]
I opt out. I was buying into the anti-Jimmy argument when he was slamming Chip before I came to the same conclusion. Personally, I don’t mind his hammering style. It’s often tongue-in-cheek, and it’s usually entertaining.
I’m with unhinged, though it does seem like we might be in the minority. I like Kempski. I find him knowledgable, and more satirical than negative. Plus, his stick figures are one of the funniest things around.
Kempskis done well for himself. I kind of wish he was still doing Blogging The Beast because he could be more irreverent there… At Philly.com he needs at least a pretense of professionalism, even if he can slip his goofy shit like stick figures in too.
I’m with Jimmy. I go to his stuff only second to Tommy’s write up. Its like having the Devil and Angel on either shoulder.
I don’t really like Jimmy because he just beats the dead horse to sand. Hard to slam him for legit observations. He isn’t that bad. It’s just hard to read him when he just get over some stuff. This time of year he is ok though.
Agree on Jimmy sometimes getting on a rant. However when he remembers to not take himself so seriously he does make us laugh.
Something for Memorial Day weekend. Two different people who served, in uniform, during WW2. The legacy that each man has left, outside of the military, may be of equal value.
The Poet: http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafdigby/aboutus/johngillespiemageejr.cfm
The Dancer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Manning
This is a good reminder, a necessary reminder. I admit I find myself thinking of Memorial Day as a time to chill, forgetting what we are memorializing.
There’s a marble plaque at a local college that lists all the young men from the school that gave their lives in the military dating back to WW1. They took a break to serve, by draft or volunteering, and never returned to school, their families, or the life they planned as young men. Strong stuff.
I got an blast email yesterday from someone wishing us a “Happy Memorial Day” weekend. Without being a jerk, I reminded him that the day is meant to be a solemn one in rememberance of our fallen soldiers. Well, not the day necessarily, but at least part of the day.
LolSixers.
Either LOL or CMAO.
Crying my arse off?!
Yes. For all the reasons the other guys posted. This organization claims to have a plan but it changes every other day.
What did the idiot “Boy Nepotism” Do now?
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Wonder if Bryan can execute a trade, or does ne need to get his daddy to work out a trade for him too? Grown ass man with decades of Experiemce who still can’t get a job without his crusty daddy…smh “FML” says every SIXER fan
What happened?
76ers happened!
Only Colangelo could manage to take all the fun out of having the #1 pick for the 3rd time in franchise History.
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Excitement has turned into total Fear.
I don’t see any news… what happened?!
Me either…. As Long as this moron doesnt trade The Lakers pick, the Kings pick, Saric, Okafor, or Noel, I don’t care what this Moron GM does
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I know that evenually OKafor or Noel will have to be traded. But ill be pissed if he doesn’t wait TIL this time NEXT YEAR to make that trade. Foolish to rush that trade now for multiple reasons
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And absolutely under NO CIRCUMSTANCES can he be allowed to trade th Lakers pick or the Kings pick… Once fans start to get an idea of how special next years draft class will be, they will understand how important it is that we don’t trade it… And the unprotected Kings pick may be out most undervalued asset. We are scheduled to get the unprotected Kings pick in the MARVIN BAGELY draft. once fans find out who that is they will quickily understand how valuable that pick is. There are some fantastic pro prospects who are seniors and Juniors in highschool, with some serious franchise Altering potential, yet we are talking about a 15 yr old Sophmore considered the top pro prospect in the world. The Kings are a TRAINWRECK, that Kings pick could be the best trade Hinkie ever pulled off. We could be in position where in 2019 we have a very talented young playpff team playing in round 2 of the playoffs, who could have a chance to still win the lottery thanks To the Kings, and add a special generational talent to whats already a talented young playoff team.
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Under No Circumstances can Colangelo trade the lakers and Kings pick. He just can’t. Im thinking the Kings waste another year, maybe two, until they come to the inevitable realization that they can’t win with Cousins and are forced to trade him and go into a full rebuild and be a bottom 4 team in 2018 and 2019 drafts…which could be HUGE for us
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If this imbecile regime had a brain, they wouldn’t trade ANY of our top young players THIS offseason, if he has a brain he won’t rush into mistakes, and use this year to further evaluate:
1) young players in a better environment, sorrounded by more Talent
2) measure the growth rate of our young players over the course of this offseason, and over the course of the next season
3) not only evaluate players as individuals, but evaluate different combo’s of players, how well different combos of our young Talent work or struggle.
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I know that eventually we have to trade a Bigman. I understand that. but there is NO REASON why we have to rush the process, especially when we have so many assets and ways to significantly improve this roster this offseason without having To trade any of our top young talent. Holding on to these players a just for one more season will allow us to make a much better informed decision. We are the ones who had to Sacrafice and endure pathetic years of basketball so that we can add this quality young talemt, the least boy Nepotism can do is have enough minimal respect one years worth of patience trying to get this very iMPORTANT decision Right… We are adding 5’rookies this year and 2 or 3 free agent veterans.. That’s more than enough change for one offseason,
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With all this change and added youth, we can make significant improvements to this roster this offseasn, but THAT IMPROVEMENT won’t pa dividends next year, there is NOTHING we can do to win more than 30 games next yeàr, but the year after is when we should see the improvements start to pay off and make a significant leap in the win column,,,, understanding all of that, there is no reason why we should rush this important decision of trading a quality young talent tbis soon…. Sit on your hands and use the yeàr to further evaluate, then after we see what happens in the stacked 2017 draft, we will have a better idea of exactky what we have, which means we will have a better idea of what we need, improving our chances of not making a trade that ends up haunting us
Get real Tommy. Davis has stunk it up whenever he’s gotten the chance to be DC. He can’t get the job done.
ZZZZzzzzzzz……. This part of the football season always sucks.
http://www.phillymag.com/birds247/2016/05/28/philadelphia-eagles-sam-bradford-carson-wentz-quarterback-controversy/
I might be alone here, but I don’t give a shit enough about who starts at quarterback this year for there to be a controversy. Obviously I’d like to see Wentz in action at some point and I don’t like Bradford’s burbling face but really it’s a building year, they can stick whoever back there.
QB battle……yawn!
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Same shit, different summer… Whether we have a bum like Tebow or a hall of Famer like Joe Montana, you can bet our media will find a way to create a QB contreversy like clockwork every summer
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Im good, I get to watch Bradford without having to care if he stays healthy or not… Works for me
But we kinda need him to make a decent amount of starts don’t we? I’m sure the coaches don’t agree with me but I’d rather watch Carson learn on the job than have to see Chase for an extended amount of time.
Here’s something to ponder while you force yourself to stay awake:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/sports/football/the-nfl-has-seen-the-future-and-it-is-wrestling.html?ref=football
Interesting. I don’t get NFL network so this is actually useful for me.
Schwartz and the coaches are stressing the importance of drilling the “Get Off” when it comes to our defensive line. Doing drills like getting defenders in their stance and throwing a small tennis Ball training the players eye coordination so that as soon as they see the ball move, they explode out of their stance, “Playing the ball on the way to the QB”… Schwartz wants “Our DL to get in the backfield and make a mess, and the LB/Safeties job is to clean up the mess”
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A few of the returning Eagles point out stressing the “Get Off” as one of the new differences that weren’t emphasized by previous coaches..you know that Schwartz has to be salivating over how Quickily Curry explodes off the ball and how he times the snap so well. Should be really fun to watch how much better Curry’s “get off” can be after schwartz emphasizes working on it all summer
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Sounds like constantly working on the “Get Off” every day is replacing the daily “Sled Work” which is what was emphasized under the last regime…. that Small change Speaks volumes of the difference in our new scheme compared to the 2 gap 3-4, And when your DL is probably the strength of the entire roster. It makes sense to excentuate the nasty DL with an attacking style. I doubt there is more than a defensive lineman or two on our entire roster that would rather two gap than play on Schwartz DL if the choice was hs. Im sure changing back to the 4-3 is very is exciting for the players
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Most of the excitement about adding schwartz is based off of how much better his scheme suits a lot of our best players and the improvements we should see on Sundays. but im equally excited about having Schwartz oversee the development of some talented young players like JaCorey, Mills, love McCalister. There are also some talented young Undrafted DTs and LBs for schwartz to work with, we Need this new coaching staff to mine some hidden Gems out of our late round and UNDRAFTED young talent.
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And if Schwartz can salvage MS2 career and do for him what Schwartz did for Jerry Hughes, that would be a huge bonus for this defense…
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When I look at how pathetic Rivals like Cowboys/Giants are at one of the most important positipn in football(edge rusher), can’t help but really appreciate what we have at DE. We don’t have an 18 sack DE, but we have 3 durable DE’s who are all capable of 10 sack seasons. can’t ask for much more than 3 Quality starters, and two young kids with some enticing tools to try and Develope in MS2 and McCalister…. A few players have already said that Schwartz wants to use an 8 player DL Rotation keeping all his pass rushers fresh. You can’t even try to play schwartz style defense with a tired DL. Exploding into the backfield each play is a draining style, and we are really going to need Marcus Smith or McCalister to step into that #4 DE role on gameday..
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Curry/BG are similar traditional DE’s, and Barwin/MS2 are more agile/athletic DEs, so it’s not surprising to hear that Schwartz has paired Curry/Barwin and BG/MS2 as the #2nd unit… I know it’s easy to assume that we will see a lopsided rotation where Barwin.curry and BG all play a similar amount of snaps and MS2 or whoever the #4 DE happens to be will get a much smaller percentage of snaps, but im not so sure about that… Every DC talks about keeping his DL fresh, but that’s more important than ever in this scheme. You have to depend on DL creating Havoc on each play, and you can’t play much more than 6, 7, 8 snaps in a row exploding into the backfield on each play… So MS2 or whoever the #4 DE is, might have to be counted on more than we think. We very well could see a platoon rotation where MS2 plays as many snaps as BG because they always will be on the field together… We could end up seeing something like Barwin/Curry playing 60% of the snaps and Brandon Graham AND Marcus Smith playinh like 40 percent of The snaps..
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The same thing holds for our defensive tackles, and im not sure Hart and Beau are meant to be exploding into backfields every play, adding up to like 40% of the snaps.. Which means we better pray that we get lucky with a quality interior pass rushing DT emerging from “The stripper” Destny Vaiao and the other Talented UDFA DT signings..
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between the UDFA DTs and BG’s former college teammate “The Hulk/wildman” we NEED to find at least one gem who can contribute to The rotation on game day. We cant handle an injury to Cox or Bennie this year
If Schwartz is able to get consistent pressure out of this front four especially with the mish mash of guys they have projected to play DE, he deserves a lot of credit. No Douglas, Cole, Kearse, or even Mamula right now at DE.
While it is always nice to have a Kearse I think you are really underestimating our DE’s. Not to mention that this scheme makes it easier fpr a DE to get pressure. Add the fact that Cox snd Logan will make it easier on the DE’s. I dont see why you would think it is impressive if Schwartz gets pressure with them. It is expected.
I believe the opportunities on the D-Line was the driving force for Schwartz to come coach here.
He has potentially a very nice rotation at DE.
Tickets for the 2 non U.S. soccer games at the Linc are hella cheap, anyone else considering going to one?
New post!!!