Posted April 1st, 2025 | Comments Off on Nick & Jeff SpeakNick Sirianni and Jeffrey Lurie both spoke to the media while down at the owners meetings. I would love to tell you that we got all kinds of great insight, but that would be stretching things a bit.
Here is Nick.
The takeaways from Nick. He’s going to miss the players who left. He is high on the young talent the team has. He’s also very excited about all of the players the Eagles added. He did offer his thoughts on the tush push. Nick talked about the White House visit. He addressed the Dallas Goedert situation.
None of his answers were all that interesting. That’s not a criticism. Nick was in Coachspeak 101. I thought his best comments came when talking about the challenges of coming off a SB win. He made a great point when talking about whether players will be hungry after winning. If anything, that may make them hungrier than ever. They got a taste of what being a champion is like. That’s got to be an overwhelmingly powerful feeling. Who wouldn’t want to repeat that?
Nick also talked about how team leaders like Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley would keep everyone focused and working hard. Those are incredibly driven people. They aren’t going to let teammates slack off.
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And here is Jeffrey.
I found his comments a bit more interesting. He was asked about Sirianni being in the final year of his contract. Jeffrey said that Nick will be the Eagles coach for a while. The extension will happen. Lurie got questions about Howie Roseman and offered a lot of praise for his GM.
Lurie made the Eagles case for keeping the tush push. The most interesting point was when he said it is actually safer than the traditional QB sneak.
Lurie got multiple questions about the moves the Eagles made this offseason and the players who signed elsewhere. He stressed that this was all done so that the Eagles can keep the young talent they have drafted in recent years. He used the phrase “win big” multiple times. As much as you want to keep everyone, you have to focus on keeping the key stars and building around them.
The 2024 roster was loaded.
You just can’t keep everyone.
Maybe the most interesting nugget to me was a comment made about the players being people and not just names. He then talked about having dinner with some of the players. That’s not a huge deal, but it has to help with player relationships. Any advantage a team can get when it comes to bonding with players can be a good thing. If players feel the owner genuinely cares about them, that’s a good thing. Clearly not all 31 owners (GB is group owned) have strong relationships with their players.
It is funny to think there was a time when Eagles fans would have probably killed to have Jerry Jones as the owner and not Lurie. That was a long time ago. Lurie has helped deliver a pair of SB wins to Philly and has the team in position to keep winning.
And just maybe winning big.
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The tush push vote got tabled. The situation will be re-visited in May.
Most experts say that’s not good for the Eagles. The powers that be new it wouldn’t pass with current language so they tabled it. They will adjust the language and have another discussion after the draft.
There were some rules adjustments.
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Posted March 31st, 2025 | Comments Off on Howie NuggetsHowie Roseman is down at the NFL owners meetings. He spoke to the media for the first time since free agency and offseason moves so it was interesting to hear some of his comments.
Dave Spadaro has some of Howie’s comments.
Signing RB A.J. Dillon: “Talented guy, out last year with an injury, seems healthy, determined to succeed. He’s a great complement to the guys we have here – obviously, Saquon is in a league of his own and we drafted Will Shipley last year and we’re very confident in Will with what he did last year as a personal protector on punts having never made a tackle in his life and playing as well as he played on special teams, and then when he had time on the field at running back he had a couple of long runs and we are excited to see what he can do.”
The comments on Dillon aren’t noteworthy. I did find the comments on Shipley to be interesting. The vibe I got is that the team sees Shipley more as a role player than a backup RB. His value is more on STs than offense. Maybe I’m mis-reading his words, but that’s the vibe I got. There is nothing wrong with Shipley being a KOR and STer, as well as a RB. It will be interesting to see if the Eagles add another RB this offseason. They have shown interest in Jaydon Blue, who is far more athletic than Shipley.
Signing LB Joshua Uche:Â “This is a guy that we’ve had our eye on for some time. We were interested in him as a free agent last year and he decided to go back to New England. At the trade deadline, he was traded and we had some interest there at that time, too, but felt we had a good rotation going with the edge group. Joshua is a talented guy with a great work ethic who has shown the ability to get to the quarterback.”
It sounds like the Eagles have had interest in Uche for a while. The Eagles have liked situational rushers for a long time. You can go all the way back to a guy like ND Kalu. The Eagles didn’t spend much on Uche so there won’t be a lot of pressure on him. He can come in and do his job without having the focus on him.
Signing TE Harrison Bryant:Â “A lot of these guys, when they hit free agency, you’ve done a lot of work on them as they enter the NFL Draft and we did a lot of work on Harrison at that time. He has a dual-skill set in that he can block and he can run routes and catch. He was probably known a little more for that part of his game when he played at Florida Atlantic. You see him in some of the positions that we ask our tight ends to be in here and the roles that we ask them to play.”
If Dallas Goedert is gone (more on that later), Bryant could be your starting TE. He has a complete skill set. He’s not as big as DG. He’s not as good a blocker or running after the catch, but Bryant is younger and could develop into a solid starter.
Signing CB Adoree’ Jackson:Â “Another guy that we’ve had a lot of conversations about to bring to Philadelphia through the years and we’ve always had tremendous respect for his skill set. The first thing you think about with Adoree’ is his ability to run. He’s an extremely twitched-up, fast guy with really great movement and ball skills. I’ve said this to him, that I don’t know that we’ve seen the best of him in his career yet, so we get excited to get those kinds of guys who have that kind of talent in their body and are determined to come here and work hard, so it’s a great opportunity for him and for us.”
This feels like a bit of a stretch, but I’d love to be wrong. Most CBs don’t play their best football at age 30. To be fair, Jackson has spent most of his career playing on bad defenses. That puts a lot of pressure on CBs. The Eagles led the league in defense last year and should be good again in 2025. Playing on a unit like that could bring out the best in Jackson.
Signing OLB Azeez Ojulari:Â “We obviously know him well with us playing the Giants twice each season. He played at Georgia and we’ve got a bunch of guys from there who have played well for us. Azeez fits in right away. He’s got the ability to rush the passer and he has a lot of the physical and intangible traits that we look for and we’re excited to bring him here and hopefully help him play his best football.”
The Eagles spent more on Ojulari than the other free agents. This feels like less of a sales job. Howie is saying “The guy is good. We liked him. We signed him.”
Howie talked about LS Charley Hughlett, LB Patrick Johnson and RS Avery Williams. He focused on character in all of those comments. That matters on STs. You need guys that embrace doing the dirty work. Some players struggle when they aren’t starters or key backups. When you find guys that have STs ability and the right mindset, they can be valuable. Howie might feel that adding high character players has real value, even if they are backups and role players.
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Howie talked about the CJGJ trade.
He admitted the trade wasn’t about getting great value. It was financial. Howie also let us know that Sydney Brown is going to have a real shot to win the job. Don’t think about adding a veteran safety for now. The team wants a young, cheap solution at safety. Brown is healthy and will get his chance. The Eagles will likely draft a safety, either to challenge Brown or to add depth to the position.
Howie’s comments on Dallas Goedert didn’t say anything new or noteworthy. That’s kind of what makes them noteworthy. Rather than shoot down the rumors of a trade, Howie gave a generic statement. That tells us money is still an issue and something has to happen. I hate the thought of trading DG, but it feels more likely to happen than not at this point.
If this is the price of having Barkley and Baun, I can live with that.
Here is Zach’s piece on Howie’s comments.
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There was a lot of talk about the tush push. I’m not getting too fired up about this.
A bunch of coaches got asked about it. A majority of them said they were against banning it. They don’t vote, though. It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out.
Sean McDermott keeps playing the safety card, despite a lack of evidence that it causes injuries.
I hope the play stays because the Eagles are so good at it. If it is banned, it will put a chip on Nick Sirianni’s shoulder and that can help the team as well.
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