Back to the Start
Posted: May 19th, 2017 | Author: Tommy Lawlor | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | 90 Comments »The Eagles have had a pretty darn good offseason. They’ve made smart moves and been able to add some really talented players, through the draft, free agency and even a trade. It is almost easy to forget this all started with Alshon Jeffery. In my mind, he is still the most important piece the team has added.
Imagine him in green as you watch this.
I love his physicality and ability to ignore tight coverage. Jeffery focuses on the ball and could care less about the DB that is clinging on to him.
Remember these moments?
DGB got killed, but he drops it before he even gets hit: #Eagles pic.twitter.com/lX6JlxzQjt
— Jeremy Klump (@JeremyKlump) December 4, 2016
NELSON AGHOLOR DROPS ANOTHER PASS#AgholorDropsAnother #NoHandsNelson#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/tGfiziqiJg
— Nelson No-Hands™ (@NelsonNoHands) December 23, 2016
If you are a real glutton for punishment, Jimmy Bama has all the drops and info here.
Jeffery is going to be an impact player this year and it is going to be fun to see how he and Carson Wentz play together. Wentz is going to think he’s throwing to friggin’ Jerry Rice after what he had at WR last year.
Can’t wait to see these guys in action.
*****
Charles Walker is out, but sounds like he might be back.
Gods plan ….so I'll be back after I heal up from my surgery and go out there and do what I do #FLYEAGLESFLY #BIRDGANG #TrustTheProcess
— Charles Walker (@C_Walk97) May 18, 2017
6-8 weeks and then I'll be back for training camp better then ever #birdgang #FLYEAGLESFLY
— Charles Walker (@C_Walk97) May 18, 2017
He would be an interesting IR move. Get him completely healthy and in top shape and then see what he can do in 2018.
He isn’t officially on IR as of this morning. We’ll see what happens.
_
Its funny that Blount ended up being the best (only?) RB in the 2010 draft. The only one even in the conversation otherwise is Ryan Mathews…
He’s not better than Mathews. Same YPC (4.4) 12 more TDs earned while playing 14 more games and having that inflated by being on the best offense in football. 34 of his total 49 TDs were with the Patriots, but he only played less than half of his career with them. Ryan Mathews also has more yards while playing 14 less games.
Ryan Matthews was great and badass. . but he just gets injured ‘alot’ and at least 1 very demoralizing fumble
If you wanna go history Mathews is the better RB, but if we are talking who would be the better RB for the Eagles this season, then I think Blount beats out Mathews by a large margin.
You have to factor in the money and if you look at it from an injury perspective, you have side with Blount as well and it’s even more obvious who you need to roll with.
I heard somewhere that the best ability is availability.
Playing 14 less games is a significant negative for Mathews, not a positive.
Best bang for buck. Blount hasn’t even made that much money despite being in the league for that long.
Mathews has actually been a substantially better RB over his career – as long as he has been healthy. Its hard to compare the two, but a healthy Mathews has been a fair bit more talented than Blount up until the beginning of last year.
Love how people act like durability doesn’t factor in to evaluating who is better
Well. I love how people always assume that injuries are tendenciary when most of the time they are simply random occurrences. Do you really mean to say that Ryan Matthews had a ‘tendency’ to break his neck running the football? The ‘injury prone’ label is fine in some cases, but mostly does not make any sense given the tiny data samples.
agreed but point is there is only two RBs worth talking about in the entire draft…
Nah nah, nah nah, hey, hey, hey gooood bye.
Should be a competitive camp in year two of the rebuild. Surprising how much havoc was created by Chip on the field, personnel and front office.
Ha so next year we can potentially have depth studs/IR alums with McAlister and Walker tearing it up on the DL.
37 first round picks!
These guys were going to be a long shot for the roster this year, and next year they’ll be competing with a whole bunch more long shots next year. I hope they work out, but expect that they won’t.
Of course.
If they can stash him on IR for the year- that gives him time to adjust to his meds and make any sort of micro changes which will be needed to keep him on track psychologically speaking.
He has the physical traits that we look for in a d-linemen; if he can begin to really put his life back together and dedicate himself to football, there is potential for him in the future.
Mental illness is an under appreciated aspect of the sports world; these kids (and I say kids because most of them start in the early teen years) begin to feel pressure which most adults cannot handle. Some need an extra hand in help, which doesn’t make them less as a person.
Competition as I see it now is a sliding scale:
Love it/addicted to it………….nothing…………..debilitating fear/depression
I’d be willing to bet that most successful athletes are competition junkies. They probably hate the thought of having their drug of choice taken from them, and seek out competition in areas of life where it shouldn’t even exist.
Far and away, you would want to build a team out of players who fall on that side of the scale (with the middle being sociopaths who have no feeling whatsoever) rather than people who find that the “rush” of competition crushing.
It’s hard to say where he lines up on the scale- any sort of mental illness can have profound effects on all aspects of a life. In the case of Brooks, he appears to get too worked up emotionally (in a good way), which had negative side effects on his body.
We don’t know where Walker fits in with all of this- it could be sports related, or just life in general. It’s nearly impossible to establish positive boundaries within a few months psychologically; hence, my contentment and hope that he is able to land on IR and take some time to set a good foundation as he builds towards the future.
I’d argue that your example of sociopaths would be to the left of Love it/Addicted to it. Something like this……….
Sociopath…. nothing…. love it….. nothing…. depression.
But this is an extremely rough and simple outline for the conversation- personality plays a key roll in all of these athletes (as you stated) and is often the determining factor of whether a player makes it in the NFL or not. We are just becoming (publicly) aware of these issues.
Too many variables to pin it all down to just one thing, but I was just bringing up one small aspect of it that I feel I’ve seen in my life. I’m horribly debilitated by competition. The combination of being way to “keyed up” and simultaneously filled with self-doubt quickly ended any ideas I had of playing competitive sports in high school… especially team sports because I get extra down when I feel as though my failure has some how harmed other people.
I do hope that by working closely with athletes, there will be some good new research that will benefit people in general society as well.
As to the putting the sociopath directly in the center of the chart, I felt it valid due to the general lack of feelings of any kind and lack of concern for others, but that it also creates a certain interesting dynamic of pushing people away from the “center” where you would normally assume a balanced person would be, in this case making the center the least attractive option.
Sociopaths are often drawn to comptetitive environments due to the way they prefer to deal with other people; domination, control and hierarchy. Which is why you get an increased number of sociopaths among business leaders, lawyers, etc.
That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the input… to you and everyone else on here.
I agree with sociopath being on the far left of the scale.
Sociopaths have feelings, they just don’t value human beings in the same way as other people. I would guess that elite players have a higher rate of sociopathy in a similar way that CEOs have a higher rate.
I was trying to figure out how to get Tom Brady into the center… I see you’ve done it for me.
Ever watched In the Company of Men, by any chance?
No, but I’ll check it out.
While this is probably sensible its worth recognising that depression and other mental illnesses can hit anyone at all, for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with things like success of pressure. Evidence suggest that depression can have a strong inheritable element. Factors completely outside your career can unravel you. Athletes who are addicted to competition could certainly just as well suffer from depression.
Depression can be quite confusing… trying to connect the dots to a trigger, when there may not even be an event that triggers it.
Mental illness surgery? What did I miss? He said surgery.
Knee lobotomy
Anybody have any clue what tender Davenport is talking about here for the Blount signing?
“New England designated a rare tender on Blount on May 9 that would allow them to be rewarded a compensatory pick and make it more difficult for him to sign with another team. The tender put a time limit on how long Blount would be able to remain a free agent.
If Blount signed with a team other than the Patriots before July 22, losing him counts towards the formula that would determine New England’s compensatory draft picks. Blount was only able to sign with another team before the July 22 deadline.
If he didn’t sign with a team before the deadline, the Patriots would be the only team he could sign with this year. The tender that New England placed on Blount guaranteed the Patriots to either have exclusive negotiating rights if he didn’t sign by the deadline or benefit from his departure through the compensatory pick formula.”
http://theeagleswire.usatoday.com/2017/05/19/how-the-eagles-signing-legarrette-blount-helped-the-patriots/
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2017/05/10/patriots-made-may-9-tender-offer-to-legarrette-blount/
With all due respect bud, all it took was a very quick google search. Granted, I read the original thing and remembered what I was looking for…
I’m was a project site reading updates on my phone, which limited my browsing this morning.
Thanks for the link.
It looks like something Belichick made up and everyone is too afraid to call him on it.
I’ve seen that somewhere else recently too.
What boggles my mind is how something like this exists. It feels like an exploitable loop-hole built in just to benefit the rare few that know of its existence. Sure to be removed by May 9 next season.
Take note of the “it feels” I am in no way willing to argue that feeling as fact. Just bitching because I am a fan and what else is good about being a fan?
Yeah, it’s definitely strange.
Overthgcap has a couple articles which explain it. Apparently, you have to offer 110% of the player’s most recent salary, which counts immediately against your cap, so this is not really feasible for teams to do with high-priced players. But Blount was on a bargain-basement contract last year, so they could do it. If he doesn’t sign anywhere by late July, then the team would get some control of the player back. I’m sure the Patriots would not have minded getting him back at another dirt-cheap contract.
https://overthecap.com/patriots-tender-rb-legarrette-blount/
However, overthecap also delves into the real reason for the move. It’s mainly based around compensatory picks, though not necessarily about getting an extra low pick for Blount, but protecting their existing (high) compensatory picks from evaporating if one or two other guys fail to make the final rosters of other teams (which can later affect the compensatory pick formula). If a player lost to another team ends up getting cut, but Blount does not, then they will still have the same lost vs gained differential and would keep their compensatory picks.
https://overthecap.com/why-the-patriots-would-use-the-may-9-tender-on-legarrette-blount-for-compensatory-pick-purposes/
Hi!
Hello!
He counts against the Eagles comp picks (which shouldn’t matter). He may improve the Pats comp picks. It’s a very little thing, though for Belicheck little things certainly add up.
It’s the Low Ball Pressure Tender. It auto-deflates after July 22.
It’s related to the Signals Videotaping Tender.
https://media.giphy.com/media/PMR7CrwbKoupW/giphy.gif
Didn’t realize how twitchy Marcus Smith was. too bad he doesn’t have Derek Barnett’s #ankleflexion
Marcus Smith should have been an outstanding OLB. Too bad for that scarecrow syndrome.
My least favorite part of that play is when two Eagles defenders try to attack the same gap and run into each other which takes them out of the pressure package.
He didn’t have a brain? I thought he was pretty smart….
The counterpoint to that is that the guys spends a lot of time falling down on the ground when pass rushing. I can remember who tweeted that out two pre-seaons ago, but it seemed very apt.
TOAST… That’s what the Eagle’s current CB’s situation is…boy do the birds need help there yet again…
Oh well. We’ve got new faces there, which is all you can do. Hopefully one of Douglas or Jones works out.
Can’t have the all-Madden squad every year.
Boooo! We should have drafted 7 corners and signed Revis, then put him in a time warp machine!! Booooo!!!
The point is not necessarily the actions available to Roseman this year, but understand he has been the GM during this long dry stretch of bad CB play.
Possibly. We are all aware that our corner situation is shaky until proven otherwise. I’m glad we addressed it in this draft, and I’m sure we will continue with Douglas here.
I can’t blame Howie for Nnamdi and Maxwell being complete manginas.
Maybe don’t blame him for any of the other sucky CBs he drafted or brought in either. Maybe he should never be blamed for any of his other failures, either. I mean, why judge him on results, right?
If you’d like to rip Howie for failing to address corner via adding proper cost controlled draft picks, that’s fair. But they made multiple free agent attempts to fix that position. I’m not going to act like they didn’t try and/or ignored the position. That’s a different criticism than Reid and WRs from 1999 through 2003.
Reid failed because he thought his offense was good enough without WRs. Howie has failed because the players he brought in didn’t pan out. Bottom line is, neither got the job done… I don’t put too much stock in fans evaluating the GMs every move, there’s too much hidden information. What is open to us is whether it worked or not.
It will be fun to see some young guys out there trying to earn their way in the NFL though. Better than seeing a group of retreads again.
You enjoy watching other teams take advantage of our rookies while we lose game after game because of the spectacle?
Do we have a great group of CBs? No. But we have some young guys there with potential who will be helped by having an excellent Dline, as well as, one of the top safety duos behind them.
I’m not too concerned.
Every team has young guys working in (Falcons/Dak). The ones that have good seasons generally catch fire with them.
You are that giants fan right? If not, negative assumptions are for asses…
They upgraded the roster with the draft pics and $ they had available as well as could be expected on paper. Nobody thinks the 2017 corner group is even close to being done.
On a separate note; the Giants are bullshit. The Eagles threw a winnable game vs. the Giants in the trash with unforced errors and then slapped the Giants around in the 2nd game. Evan Engram is a ballerina, Brandon Marshall is over the hill, and the Giants still can’t block anybody.
It seems like all the Eagles free agents said that Wentz was going to be great and that was the reason they signed with the Eagles. So my questions are:
1. Are these guys just giving lip service to the Eagles leader or do they really believe it?
2. If they do believe it do they have the ability actuall tell, just because they are football players, or in particular offensive skill players?
They may believe Wentz will be great, but they signed because the Eagles gave them the best contract offer.
But having players together so want to make it happen is also kind of important
These 1 year contract players are betting on their own performances to parlay into a future big payday. Wentz is part of their plan. So for them to praise Wentz` ability sounds reasonable.
That too.
yes. What would they say, he stinks but they offered me good money? Maybe they do believe it, but #2 why would we think they know? They should be totally biased, and too busy with being a player to be a scout.
izzylangfan – It seems like you are trying to read value into football players answering media questions that they are obligated to appear for and answer… I don’t want to tell you what to do, but in my opinion, it’s worthless to read into that.
It’s like when you were a kid and your parents tell you to tell your great aunt that you don’t know who gave you a crappy holiday gift you don’t want “I love you and thank you, this is awesome!” – and you do it….
Lip service mainly. It would be incredibly foolish for them to criticize Wentz.
You would expect them to say something positive about their new team especially on a 1-year deal.
Anyone see this one yet?
Newly signed @Eagles RB LaGarrette Blount says his new nickname is “Philly Blount”. Classic.
Get the shirts ready !!
Bgn has em
Im DYING to see what Barbi Benton looks like now. . . Used to play in the dunes in Avalon before they got developed, yep circa 1972 and we’d find forts covered in plywood with playboy’s in them. .. thats how i saw her
she used to appear on the TV show – the Girls Next Door. That was about 10 years ago.
lol at 41 pt lead at halftime
celtics should see if they can use their #1 pick at halftime
Wow, those mothers really did flip a switch. Very rare.
Think maybe they could use Jimmy Butler? Most mediocre team to ever get the #1 seed.
古人日三省其身，我从博客里吸收养分！
I believe Birds add a CB before training camp. To go in with the depth we have is very scary. Mills is best in the slot, does not have the speed for the outside. Douglas is a rookie, Robinson is average when healthy and the other guys are just guys until proven otherwise.
I think that the CB glass half full folks are assuming the following:
– Zero significant improvements from the pash rush helping the CB
– Zero significant improvements from 2nd year players like Mills, CJ Smith, Grimes, Brooks (here)
– Zero chance of better health outcomes for Brooks and Robinson
– Mostly bad play from Douglass
I think that’s not a given.
Not saying I think CB will be a strength, or that we are good to go per se, but if the offense clicks (not a given), and the pass rush clicks, we have good safety play, and I am not that concerned about the CB play. Worse case scenario, the CBs play consistently poorly and we don’t in the Super Bowl. We’re not used to that outcome so it would cause mass mayhem in Philadelphia.
Yes, absolutely NO way any of the young players improve. I don’t even know why they would be invited to camp.
I believe that would be the “half empty”folks… Just sayin
Ha, yes indeedy.
That’s a strong list. I firmly believe a few of those line items will wind up being positive outcomes.
I don’t understand the notion that Mills is better suited for the slot. It seems to be pretty popular. When has he shown that he does well in the slot?
Mills is best suited for the bench. He should be a #4/#5 in a decent secondary .
Probably right. Maybe he can develope into a very good back up. Unfortunately we have to spend another year with him heavily involved.