APRIL FOOLS!
C’mon there’s no way our team could be that stupid.
P.S. Don’t tell the others 🙂
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ANDRE Dillard is the Eagles future at LT, and the future should start this season. Still, it would be a smart move to bring back Jason Peters as a starter as well. (Note: I started this article the day before Head Coach Doug Pederson said that he’d like to have Peters back. I nearly didn’t release this, but since Doug and I have different reasons for bringing him back, I decided to voice my side.)
I’ve been saying for years now that if Peters were to move to LG, it could add Pro Bowl caliber years to his career. I’ve said that for years, and even with him being 38, if he kicks inside, his rare issues with edge speed, completely disappear. Those instances where LG Isaac Seumalo finds himself forklifted into the QB’s passing lane, would also disappear.
Moving Peters inside means we get a powerful, mountain of a man, still quick, and still able to play in space. It means a Hall of Fame caliber mentor, playing beside Dillard. It means we get a Hall of Fame caliber back-up at LT, if we need it. Imagine: A HOF caliber, back-up.
Money? Peters played for 9 million dollars last year. Some people would say that he should be paid less if he plays G, but why dick him around? Is haggling over a 3 or 4 million dollar difference, really worth risking having to see him in a Redskins jersey? Certainly not. Just “overpay” him at G, which is easy for both the team and he to agree to.
This needn’t be an exercise. Three years, 18M, 9 guaranteed, with a signing bonus of 9M. That’s a 27M cap hit, spread over three years. Build the contract with the third year being a false floor, with a $0 salary, and of course amortize the whole shebang. That breaks down as:
2020: 9M base/3M bonus (Only year with a guaranteed base salary)
2021: 9M base/3M bonus
2022: $0 base/3M bonus
This means that if we don’t bring him back in 2021, or he retires, the team is just on the (dead money) hook for the 6M in bonus money. Everybody walks away happy.
If the move adds two years to his career, then he’s ours at a rate so affordable, it’s practically stealing. If he and the team decides to do a third year, then “restructure” his deal by moving the remaining 3M of his signing bonus to his base, and give him a final restructure bonus of 12M.
At that point the new CBA will be in place, and that 12M will be like a final high-five to an All-Time Great. But what do I know? I’m not a GM. LOL
WIDE Receiver Greg Ward is a WR who’s played collegiate QB at a high level, yet in two years we’ve yet to utilize that. No Wild Cat, no Holder for Field Goals (as I’ve suggested over the last two offseasons). For a team that says it values versatility, the Eagles are doing a shitty job of holding onto it, and utilizing it. Allow me to elaborate!
Remember TE Trey Burton? Of course you do. TE, WR, RB, QB, Hands Team member, minister, bus driver, pilot, brain surgeon, Maytag repairman… Trey did everything. He made plays on Offense and Special Teams. He even threw perhaps the most important pass, in modern Eagles history.
If you look closely at #53 Kyle Van Noy, you can hear him shitting his pants in this photo.
We let him walk in 2018 because we already had TE Zach Ertz, and Chicago backed a dump-truck full of money (4 years 32M, 22 guaranteed), up to Burton’s door. We were already on the hook for 5M to Ertz, and couldn’t afford to counter. Chicago’s offer made Burton leave here so fast, that he was still getting dressed as he boarded the plane.
It worked out fine though. Burton is still a #2 caliber TE, but he has to start, because the Bears realized they grossly overpaid him. Meanwhile we were forced to draft TE Dallas Goedert. (Boo-hoo. Poor us, right?) He’s not as verstaile as Burton, but Goedert may end up replacing Ertz in 2021.
Now back to Ward. (Back toward Ward? Towards Ward?? Whatever.) Though we’re primarily a 21 Personnel team, we do run a fair amount of 31, as well.
This is why Josh Norman got cut.
When Ward is on the field, he can be used on Jet Sweeps (we already do this with him), and standard routes. He can also be shifted into Wild Cat QB, or motioned to RB, then used as a Screen receiver vs tight boxes, or fed Shovel passes when the defense spreads out. There are too many possibilities to ignore here.
I won’t write another paragraph about why he should be our Field Goal Holder. I’ll just include a link to the article where I wrote about Ward specifically being the Holder. (I wrote another in 2019 but it doesn’t mention Ward by name.)
In any case, we have a player who is a match-up headache. He has the ability to keep the defense guessing, and therefore keep them uncomfortable. That should be something we really want to do. Especially when we can do it so easily.
Scroll down and leave a comment dammit!
OUR pass rush took heat this year for having lost something, even though we had 38 sacks in 2017, 40 in 2018, and 43 in 2019. There’s some truth to us having lost something, and I do cover that later in this series. However, the issue isn’t sacks.
The issue is opposing QB’s being able to throw the ball off of a three step drop, because their receiver is unchallenged to the spot. Most NFL offenses are timing based and our Defense scarcely ever disrupts passing game’s timing.
Most Eagles fans don’t know this, but during our Super Bowl year (2017), we were ranked 4th in points allowed per game (18.4). The following year (2018) we ranked 12th (21.8). This last year (2019) we ranked 15th (22.1). Raise your hand if you see a pattern. Stand in the corner and face the wall if you don’t.
And so despite an increasing number of sacks, we allow an increasing number of points. These are facts. They are absolutes. They cannot be argued. Let’s keep going.
We play a lot of soft man coverage. However, what we’ve seen over the last few seasons, is that unchallenged routes lead to easy completions, high completion percentages, and an increasing number of points surrendered.
Last year’s 22.1 points allowed, also factors in two division games against two rookie starters, a game against QB Case Keenum, and a game against now retired QB Eli Manning. All of whom we made look very good. The passers in this division will only get better. We need to figure out a way to keep them in check.
The knee-jerk response is always: “More pass rush.” “We need to be more aggressive with our pass rush.” Give me a BREAK! We roll these platitudes out every year, generally to similar numbers from the year before. Really, HOW can we be more aggressive when we rarely blitz, and still routinely only rush four? So stop. Just stop.
The problem is that we make the game too easy for opposing passers. We need to play more Bump and Run, to throw receivers off their routes, so that when the QB looks in that spot…his guy isn’t there yet. That makes the QB have to look elsewhere, which means (ABRACADABRA!), that he has to hold onto the ball a little longer.
Now pass rushers get a shot at him. Now passes get rushed. They aren’t pinpoint. They get tipped! They get juggled! They get intercepted! That’s how to generate turnovers, kill drives, and snuff out hope. But none of that happens if we keep allowing receivers free releases into their routes.
I’M on record as saying that if Head Coach Doug Pederson hired anyone else to be the Offensive Coordinator besides Assistant Head Coach Duce Staley, that Staley should walk. Well, Doug didn’t hire anyone else. What he did was tweak and jiggle his staff a little, but he basically kept last year’s alignment.
Dismiss any talk of needing to replace Mike Groh. During the 2019 season Groh was the OC, but it was in title only. Offensive Line coach Jeff Stoutland served as the run game coordinator, which essentially made Groh just the passing game coordinator. Doug determined the system, and called the plays from the sideline, thus making him the de-facto OC.
In 2020 Doug will still call the plays. New Defensive Line coach Matt Burke will coordinate the run. (Yeah, I don’t get that either.) The new passing game coordinator is Press Taylor (last year’s QB coach). So as I said, it’s mostly a re-shuffling, and the way the Eagles function on game day, won’t change very much.
What WILL change is the mix of ideas in the room during meetings. While Doug will lay down a concept, the play designs will come out of new heads. Taylor (passing game), and Burke (run game) are unproven, but with so much technical and analytical support around them, I’m interested to see how their imaginations impact our approach to the 2020 season.
I’m most curious about Senior Assistant Rich Scangarello, who will probably take over G.J. Kinne’s duties in Offensive Special Projects. QB Carson Wentz will also have a new voice in his ear, in the form of Passing Analyst (QB coach) Andrew Breiner.
Scarangello was only Denver’s OC for about a year, to no particular distinction beyond having a hand in rookie QB Drew Lock’s 4 – 1 record. That said, he has worked continuously since 1998 (22 years) as an offensive coach or coordinator.
No Defense. No Special Teams. Nothing just to “have a job”somewhere. Scangarello has been dedicated to just one side of the football for half of his lifetime. (Sort of like former Eagles DC Bud Carson was.) That level of singular interest has me curious to see what little trinkets are rattling around in the guy’s head.
I’m not interested in the big stuff. Not the broad strokes. Everyone does those. I wanna see the wrinkles. The nuances. The small concepts. Those are the things which will show up as ripples throughout our play design. That’s where the difference between last year and this year will be.
Still, in the end, it’s Doug who lays out our system concept, and calls the plays in the heat of battle. Doug Pederson is your OC. He always has been, and as long as he’s the coach, he always will be.
EARLY Bye weeks kill Super Bowl chances. Thus, I am standing in the rain, bare-chested, appealing to the schedule gods to hear this mortal’s plea: O’ YE GODS OF SCHEDULING THINGS! Hear my plea, and give the 2020 Eagles a Bye Week during the Sweet Spot!
The Sweet Spot is that period between Week 8 and Week 12. Of the last 10 Super Bowl champions, 8 have had their Bye in week 8 or later. Even the two outliers had week 7 Byes, and each faced a SB opponent who also had an early Bye.
It’s that mid to late season breather around the holidays, which helps teams rest, and get a little healthier. The static week also allows the coaching staff to assess where the team is, and how to get the most out of it, specifically vs their remaining regular season opponents.
My wet dream is a Week 11 Bye. Ten games down with an 8 – 2 record. A guarantee of no worse than .500, but just enough losses to keep the team from dipping into arrogance, or complacency. Six games to go, chasing homefield advantage,
Then parade.
None of the Week 4 nonsense that we were served up in 2016. Bleh!
I’m hoping for another parade to come up Broad Street. History says that for that to happen, we need a Bye in the Sweet Spot. So I’m putting it out into The Universe. I’m asking for it. I’m steering it towards us. Thus, I am standing in the rain, bare-chested, appealing to the schedule gods.
ASIDE from possibly getting a Wide Receivers coach who can actually coach Wide Receivers, this team won’t be much different from last season. In fact, it’s basically the same team it’s been since 2016. And that’s sort of a problem.
Regardless of who is named our Offensive Coordinator, what we run on Offense will still be built on Head Coach Doug Pederson’s TE-based West Coast concept. What we run on Defense will still be Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz’s Wide 9/Single-High concept.
In failing to move on from Schwartz, we missed an opportunity to level the playing field, by wiping the board clean of all of our tendencies, keys and “tells”. We also missed an opportunity to stabilize the Defense. Honestly, even the most ardent Schwartz supporter, would have to admit that the week to week product of this unit is anything but consistent.
And it’s been that way for years.
While on one hand it’s great to have a solid identity, we’re in a division where every one of our rivals will be brand new in 2020. We are the only known quantity in the division, and the only team which has plenty of film on what we run, how we run it, and how we want to run it.
Are we seeing the body language here? Someone is happy that he doesn’t have to compete for daddy’s love anymore.
Though it’s true that Dallas and Washington’s coaches have highly trackable histories, radically different personnel will change how thee coaches implement their favorite concepts. Those conditions put us at a MASSIVE disadvantage in terms of initial intelligence gathering.
Nothing communicates power and dominance, like lower-case letters.
New York’s head coach comes with no trackable history whatsoever. However, if they sign Jason Garrett to be their offensive coordinator, there will be a definite power shift in the middle of the division, since he has a deep working knowledge of every roster in our division. New York goes from third place, to threatening for first.
Garrett also has an intimate familiarity with every weakness and mental flaw possessed by each of the Cowboys key players, as well as knowledge of how Dallas likes to cover or hide those flaws. It would then be a matter of the rest of us watching NY vs Dallas, to learn how to take the Cowboys apart.
Understand, if New York can pull off signing Garrett, it will be seismic for the division, and the aftershocks will not be survivable for Dallas in particular.
Our saving grace may be the preseason. Since these new coaches need to make sure players understand the concepts and their own roles, smarter coaches will run some of their concepts. Thereby tipping their hand. and giving us a sneak peek. Idiot coaches will decide not use the practice games for practice, and likely get off to slow (sputtering) starts.
All this basically reduces the importance of our assistant search, to near nil. That is, unless the Eagles promote from within. (HEY DOUG! PROMOTE DUCE STALEY!! IS THIS TOO SUBTLE!!!? AM I DOING IT AGAIN!? BEING TOO SUBTLE, I MEAN?)
There’s a ton of chatter about the Eagles needing a new voice in the room, but a new voice doesn’t necessarily mean a trusted voice during high pressure moments. Getting a person to listen against what their instincts tell them, is no easy sale. It’s harder when they don’t implicitly trust you.
While yes, Staley is part of this old regime, his elevation would allow him to put a more definitive stamp on Doug’s system. Play design, play install, package assignments, formations, and rotational patterns, are all things that would subtly impact a system that was only the same, on the surface. Regardless of who calls the plays.
As of today, the Eagles are behind the curve in terms of intel and element of surprise. Without any new wrinkles added, the story of 2020 will be of how the rest of the NFC East has caught up to/caught onto us.
I am genuinely concerned about the Redskins.
IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN KIDDIES!!!
GENERALLY when I talk football, it’s about my Eagles. I tend to keep mum about our rivals, unless we have a game coming up against one of them. Otherwise, I’ve reserved most talk about them for my Pre-Draft Preview, which drops each April. (Look for it).
In 2017 however, I decided to try something new, and give our fan base a running commentary of what the division is doing around us. This ensures that Eagles fans ARE actually the best informed, and most knowledgeable fans, in the NFL. (Provided you visit this site often.) These updates will come out three times during the season: After Weeks 3, 9, and 15.
Note: This was supposed to come out weeks ago, but since the Eagles playoff push was going to affect how Dallas’s season was viewed, I pushed it back so that a clear verdict could be written for the Cowboys season. Then there was the workload for OUR playoff week…
Since then every team beside the Eagles, has fired their head coach. This report will focus on the state of the team as of season’s end, and not attempt to calculate the impact of the firings or hirings. I almost skipped this, but this report HAS to happen so that I can wrap up the 2019 season.
This is where we left off in PART 2.
This is where things are today:
Washington Redskins: 3 – 13, dead last in the division
Congratulations on the number two pick in the next draft! (That’s assuming that the next draft doesn’t involve Iran.) If they could, the ‘skins would use that pick to draft an entire offense. They need to. Ranking 32nd in points and passing yards, 31st in yardage, and 22nd in rushing, is a sign that maybe your team has trouble winning ball games.
Defensively they’re nearly as awful. While coming in 31st vs the run, 27th in both points and yards allowed, they fared okay vs the pass. They managed an 18th ranked spot there, despite the most injury decimated secondary in the division, and possibly the NFL.
Washington’s RB of the future is Adrian Peterson and their best QB is Case Keenum. They spent a 2018 second round pick on RB Derrius Guice, and he’s played less than six games in his two year career. 2019 First round QB Dwayne Haskins started 7 games, and threw all of 7 touchdowns. Which was equal to the number of interceptions he tossed. They do have WR Terry McLaurin, but that just seems like a punchline to a joke with no set-up. For instance: “THE ARISTOCRATS!” See? The set-up is important.
They have a front seven worthy of my envy, as pass rushers. However, their 2019 3-4 system, exposed them to any offense where the QB was awake for 60% of the game. I’m gonna miss that predictability.
New York Giants: 4 – 12, 3rd place in the division
Look at that sweet #4 draft spot!
What’s to say about this team? The floundering started in 2018, after the new GM started a fire-sale and divested the team of key talent. So this was a continuation of that. All season long, the giants looked like a team with no focus, no direction, and no personality.
This was only natural, given that they took keys to the kingdom from QB Eli Manning, and gave them to rookie QB Daniel Jones. Basically, in search of a “spark”, the coaching staff switched from Dasani to Evian.
Okay that may have been a bit harsh. March of Dimes may not be the most exciting guy, and might not have the best arm, and might lack any major intangibles, and…and… Where was I going with this?
Oh, right. In truth, rookies are just trying to figure stuff out. So it was only natural that the team looked a little lost out there this season. It will be interesting to see how Jones approaches his first pro offseason.
Dallas Cowboys: 8 – 8, runner-up in the division
How does such a “talent-loaded” team finish .500? This despite a very healthy roster, in a division where half the teams are rebuilding, and the division winner was decimated by injuries. How indeed! I’m not going to talk around the issue. You already can, and already do, get that from any professional journalists. I’m a fan. So let’s real talk this motherfucker, shall we?
The Owner’s answer to Dallas’s woes, was poor coaching. So poor coaching is how a team finishes offensively 1st in yardage, 2nd in passing yardage, 5th in rushing yardage, and 6th in scoring. (In case you’re wondering, that’s solidly a Top 10, and likely a Top 3 offense.)
It’s also why they finished 9th in yards allowed, 10th in passing yards allowed, and 11th in both rushing yardage allowed, and points allowed. (That’s also a Top 10 unit.) Yeah. That sounds like some pretty shitty coaching, right? (In case you missed it, that was sarcasm.)
The fans and media’s favorite flavor of the month, is blaming the Owner for meddling all the time. It’s true that he does, but this team was poised to win even with the meddling. In fact, the Owner has meddled every year since he bought the team. If you want to blame him for the meddling when it doesn’t work, you have to praise him when it does work.
The problem wasn’t the coach, and it isn’t the Owner. Well, it is, but not how you think it is.
This team is loaded with players who can’t deliver in the clutch. How many Cowboys games this year turned on just a handful of downs? Division rivals won’t want to hear this, but the Cowboys were probably 15 to 20 made plays away from being 12 – 4 or 13 – 3. And I mean 15 to 20 plays collectively on the season.
Because the Owner doesn’t hold his players accountable for anything, on or off the field, nobody on this team has any deep motivation to give all-out effort when the Cowboys backs are to the wall. You saw how they rallied to save their coach’s job, and how hard they fought to win what everyone knew would be the division’s lone playoff spot. (That was also sarcasm.)
The team is wall-to-wall with guaranteed money. It’s a boarding school filled with rich kids, and now they’re getting an interim (7 – 9) headmaster. And trust, this is an interim (6 – 10) situation. Being that it’s the Owner, not the coach (5 – 11) who’ll sets the culture of the Cowboys, you can expect a similar mindset from the players for next season.
Didn’t even need the mic for that.
So that’s the state of our division rivals as your Eagles head into the offseason. It’s about time to start looking ahead to how these four teams will go about re-arming for the 2020 season.
FIRING Offensive Coordinator Mike Groh and Wide Receivers coach Carson Walch seems to have caught everyone off-guard.
Everyone except me, that is.
I know, I know. At the joint press conference with General Manager Howie Roseman, Head Coach Doug Pederson outright said that the two would be back. And you believed him. This is why everyone was confused.
Well, that was PARTLY what had everyone confused…
I have to say, when Doug said that both would return in 2020, THAT is what left me confused. It would have meant Doug spending a second straight offseason defending the job Groh has done, had Groh stayed. Had Walch stayed, it would mean keeping a position coach who A) failed miserably to develop young players, and B) couldn’t help any player (young or established) once they started to struggle.
ESPN reporter Chris Mortensen, said on December 2nd “Barring a run in the playoffs, I would say that there is going to be some significant changes on the Philadelphia staff“. Local scribe Rueben Frank echoed those thoughts on THE SAME DAY.
Two reporters, from two different agencies, with one story? Folks, that’s what we sportswriters call “a done deal”. I think many people (both fans and media) either ignored them, or forgot that they said it. I did neither. So for me, these firings were natural. They were the final result, of sustained poor results.
I’m in that large pool of people who thinks that the OC job should go to Assistant Head Coach/Running Back Coach/Run Game Coordinator Duce Staley. I hate the idea of losing him as a position coach, because we’ve generally gotten great results out of his pupils. However, it’s time that Staley got a chance to see if he has higher level coaching chops.
Snubbing him a second time… If the Eagles do that, he should leave. He’s done nothing but succeed for this team, both as a player and as a coach. He’s earned it. More than earned it.
If we don’t give him a bigger nibble, we are officially an obstacle to any higher aspirations that he may have. If we don’t offer him the spot, a serious question has to be raised as to (and I can’t believe it’s me raising this issue), why Duce keeps being passed over, for lesser qualified White candidates. (It’s a non-issue of he gets the nod this time.)
At Wide Receivers Coach, I’d like to see us bring in someone like former WR Cris Carter. He’d bring Immediate Hall Of Fame credibility, high standards, and would make Philly a more attractive destination for free agents, who want to work with coaches who understand what they go through.
I also like Ricky Proehl, but I doubt he could be coaxed up here, from his life in North Carolina. Carter on the other hand, may be (ahem) looking for a next move. Making the move here, could be just the doctor ordered for a man with a much knowledge as he has. Especially, given that it could finally grace him with the Super Bowl ring that has eluded him.
In any case folks, I hardly think we’re done with this overhaul. And just so we’re clear, my 6th sense is telling me that Defensive Coordinator Jim Schwartz won’t be here in 2020. Regardless of whether or not Cleveland hires him as their new head coach. .
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