EXPLAINING CHIP KELLY’S “PROMOTION”

Posted by The BEAST on 2015/01/05
Posted in: Coaching, Conspiracy Corner, Front Office (F.O.). Tagged: , , , , . 14 Comments

DISRESPECT wasn’t my intention three days ago when I referred to Chip Kelly as having received a “promotion”. Putting the word ‘promotion’ in quotation marks wasn’t a shot at Kelly. I was driving home my point. I told you in a couple days I’d explain why I did it, and that you’d agree with why I did it.

And now I owe you an explanation.

While  Kelly will oversee blahblahblah, and people will report directly to him over blahblahblah, I think it’s extremely important to take an ACTUAL look at the Eagles Front Office and where Chip Kelly fits in it:

taken personnel

Did you notice the name that was missing? Seems that Kelly isn’t part of the Front Office at all. That’s no big deal until you realize that many Eagles fans think he’s not just part of the F.O., but that he’s a powerful figure in it. In reality (as you can see) he has no executive power at all, but publicly he’s in the crosshairs for all of the blame. That’s why I called it a “promotion”.

When this move was announced, I looked to see where Kelly’s name was in the pecking order, but it didn’t appear anywhere. Over the weekend the Eagles organization hadn’t updated Howie Roseman’s promotion either, so I figured it would illustrate my point better if I waited and let the organization make my point for me. And they did.

You know, when Andy Reid had “final say”, Jeff Lurie had actually made him the Executive Vice President of Football Operations. Chip Kelly on the other hand, is still just the Head Coach. Only now he has more public responsibility, but no actual authority to do anything that he wasn’t already doing the day the season ended. And it’s right up there on the that chart put out by the Eagles.

 

 

WILL NFL LOSE ANY CREDIBILITY?

Posted by The BEAST on 2015/01/05
Posted in: NFL, Reviews, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . 4 Comments

no call

YESTERDAY the NFL took a serious hit to its credibility when hours before the Lions/Cowboys kicked off, it was reported that the Head of NFL Officiating, Dean Blandino, was seen partying on the Dallas Cowboys bus. This is an old report, but still. There was no doubt going to be an inquiry into what he was doing there. It all could have very well turned out to be harmless.

But then there was that play.

Full disclosure: I did not watch the game. I was avoiding sports after learning of Stuart Scott’s passing, and instead decided to continue my personal ‘Breaking Bad’ marathon on Netflix. (And YES, I’m aware of the irony there.)

However, once I came out of my cocoon, it was impossible to escape the replay. If you were sitting anywhere near a screen, you couldn’t avoid it. At such a critical point in the game, to get a call wrong is bad enough. But picking up that flag was more than just wrong. It was a deliberate and blatant an act of sabotage.

To call that anything less than tampering is to deny what the entire world saw. Former-referee-turned-FOX-rules-expert Mike Pereira, has said that flag should not have been picked up. HOFer Warren Sapp (a proud Cowboys fan) described it on Twitter as “Home Cookin”. As you saw (if you clicked the link), Sapp wasn’t the only former player to make it known that he thought tampering had taken place.

The real issue here is the appearance of allowed impropriety by the NFL. Overwhelming public sentiment is that something shady happened, and that we all (figuratively speaking) saw it go down. Overwhelming public sentiment is that we all know who the culprits are, because we saw them commit the act. Who won or lost this single game, is immaterial. The public sentiment and trust in the NFL as an institution, is what is at stake here, and is what must be addressed.

If this was just one bad call, it would simply be a blown call; but the sheer blatant nature of the act, set against the backdrop of Blandino getting all cozy-cozy, nice-nice with the Cowboys…It looks bad. There’s prima facie here people. LOADS of it. On record and broadcasted nationally.

Sweeping this under the rug, won’t do. Waiting for it to blow over, won’t do. This one (like the blown Fail Mary call by replacement refs a couple years ago), is burned into our collective, public memory. And just like we’ll remember this for years to come, we’ll also remember if the NFL acts like nothing, specifically nothing wrong, happened.

R.I.P. STUART SCOTT

Posted by The BEAST on 2015/01/04
Posted in: Fans, Rants, Uncategorized. Tagged: . 4 Comments

stuart

TO be clear, I’ve lost one of my heroes today.  This morning I learned that Stuart Scott, long-time sportscaster for ESPN had passed away. After 8 years of battling cancer on and off, he finally succumbed today at the too young age of 49.

I discovered Stuart Scott in my late teens. There was a period where things were thin and we couldn’t afford cable anymore. Not being from a sports family, I’d never bothered trying to watch ESPN before then. One day I had the idea to try an use the cable wire as an antenna to get picture as sharp as cable, so I ran the old cable wire into the IN on our living room VCR. Just to see if I could get anything. My younger brother sat by watching. And hoping.

We still had one of the old VCR’s that had the UHF/VHF/UF tuner gears, and I found if I twiddled with them I could get a weak signal through the VCR. I didn’t have to fish long before I got something. I twiddled more to get a better picture. What I ended up with was a few cable channels. They came in grainy and in black and white, but there they were.

And one of those channels was ESPN.

In my experience sportscasters were people like Big Al Meltzer and Howard Eskin. But ESPN had these guys Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann. They also had this awesome duo of Rich Eisen and Stuart Scott. They transformed how I saw sports. The way they talked about it made me want to hear about it and learn about it.

They spoke about each sport like they were fans of it. If you did something awesome, they cheered it. If you got taken, they clowned you. Their delivery was as much about them and their take on the sport, as it was about the sport itself. I adopted the style of “This Is My Take” and now I tell my perspective even if the world disagrees. As a result, the duo of Eisen and Scott is in the DNA of every word you’ll ever read from me.

To be clear, I’ve lost one of my heroes today. Not only for the early days when I first stumbled across SportsCenter, but also for the way he continued to do what he loved even as he battled for his life. Thinking he’d beaten this thing and then having to do battle with it again.

In 2006 I lost my grandfather to cancer, it started in his lung and then went everywhere. In 2012 I lost a friend who was like a brother to me at the age of 34 to pancreatic cancer. That monster leaves its mark on survivors, but when it claims someone it’s nothing short of brutal as it takes people away from you a piece at a time. Reducing them to shadows before turning out the light. Yet Stuart battled it. He kept going. He kept living. He stayed as cool as the other side of the pillow.

And again, to be clear, I’ve lost one of my heroes today.

THE (LOL) LAST WORD

Posted by The BEAST on 2015/01/03
Posted in: Coaching, Conspiracy Corner, Conversations, Front Office (F.O.), Players, Rants. Tagged: . 1 Comment

chip rub

SO Chip Kelly now has the final say on personnel decisions. Really? (LOL.) Lots of fans (the ones not as smart as us), have gone all frothy over that news. Functionally speaking, how is that different from a week ago? While others had input in those decisions, ultimately the guys we brought in, were Kelly’s guys.

The biggest difference between now and last week is, no one will argue with Kelly over “This player instead of that former Duck player” or “That player over this PAC12 player”. Now Kelly gets the final say without any argument first. It’s more of a stress saver for both he and Howie Roseman, than it is any actual, functional change.

What has me cracking up, is seeing people who are actually excited that Kelly has the reigns now. Like he’s been held down or was oppressed since he got here! Seriously. Show me another NFL roster with FIVE Oregon players on it. The closest is the giants with 4. Only one of those were drafted (in the 7th  round), by the giants, (2 were veteran FA additions, 1 an UDFA).

We drafted 2 (Josh Huff  and Taylor Hart  ), in the first 5 rounds just last year alone. For the last two years we’ve had Jeff Maehl  and Brandon Bair  taking up roster space. That’s it for Ducks if you don’t count attempts to shoehorn players like QB Dennis Dixon, RB Kenjon Barner  and WR Will Murphy  (who in three seasons at Oregon, totaled 24 receptions, 240 receiving yards, and one touchdown in 30 COLLEGE games and still collected pro money from US), onto this team.

Remember last year when Kelly hugged Taylor Hart and told him “We’re putting the family back together”? Brother, you had better believe it.

I included links in their names so you could see the level of talent we “kept from falling into enemy hands”. (LOL!) The only Duck on this roster prior to Kelly’s arrival was LB Casey Matthews. Long considered a flop by fans, Matthews has so far, been BY FAR, the best Oregon player Eagles fans have seen in an Eagles uniform.

And it’s not just the Ducks. It’s all the soft, candy-assed players who’ve come aboard since Kelly got here. We weren’t exactly brimming with roughnecks under Andy Reid either, but these last two years have been flat out ridiculous, and the on-field results are telling the tale.

Last year we had O-linemen who struggled to run block. RUN BLOCK! Please, if you played O-line before, weigh in and tell your fellow fans how ridiculous that is. I sound like a blowhard when it’s just me doing it. Somebody else please, if you played or coached it; tell people just how silly it is that your O-line can’t open a hole on a 22 Dive, on 2nd and 6. It goes right to the heart of the issue!

But now Kelly has full control so it’ll be different, right? Food will taste better, the sun will shine brighter, sex will feel better… MY ASS! This “promotion” changes nothing except who gets the shit shoveled onto their plate if it doesn’t work. By the way, there’s a reason I put the word promotion in quotation marks. It’s not a sign of disrespect at all, and when I bring it up again, you’ll see why and you’ll agree with why I did it.

PROMOTED, CHIP KELLY LOSES POWER STRUGGLE.

Posted by The BEAST on 2015/01/02
Posted in: Coaching, Conspiracy Corner, Front Office (F.O.), NFL. Tagged: , . 4 Comments

coach-chipkelly537px.nbcphiladelphia

MEANWHILE we still don’t know why Tom Gamble was fired. But to hell with that. They apparently fired him and promoted Chip Kelly whom Gamble served (as an advisor), to a position that would have had Gamble reporting to Kelly. Go ‘head, read that last sentence again. Now Kelly will “run the personnel department”. This promotion is such a boss move from Lurie, that it has my jaw on the ground.

Here is a direct quote from Jeffrey Lurie: “Chip will not be doing this work by himself, obviously. He has been charged with recruiting and hiring a new personnel executive that will report directly to him and together we will move forward with this new, highly integrated approach.”

Howie Roseman gets a “promotion” where they’ve taken away his ability to select players, and given it to Kelly. What’s interesting however, is at the end of that article, Lurie says that Roseman has also been given a contract extension. What makes that interesting, is that Kelly so far has not been given an extension.

Kelly is in a position to either make the Eagles look really good, or make himself look really bad. If he nails the player personnel gig, Lurie looks like a genius. If Kelly tanks it, nobody’s fingerprints but his are all over the decisions he’s made. Even Lurie’s golden boy, Roseman is insulated now. Oh yeah! Don’t be ashamed if you missed that. That sort of detail gets lost unless you look at the fine print. (Which is why you’re smart enough to come to this site.)

Last year’s three-headed monster of Kelly, Gamble and Roseman butting heads over players to draft is gone. This year it’s all neatly on Kelly.

For Lurie and Roseman it’s ‘heads I win, tails you lose’. It’s downright Machiavellian. Quite frankly I’m a little stoked. I had no idea that Lurie had something like this in him. It takes balls to even try this, let alone pull it off: Fire a guy’s right hand man; promote the guy you isolated; make him the point man for hiring his buddy’s replacement; and then give him enough rope to hang him and only him, as you insulate you and your buddy from any mess he could make. IT’S FUCKING BRILLIANT! I have to like it.

Meanwhile in the event that Kelly tanks and is fired, the Eagles handling of Tom Gamble, will come back to haunt us; as candidates to replace him will weigh this organization’s past, against their own futures.

This situation is a lot of things, but the one thing it isn’t, is over.

LURIE COULD BE HURTING THE EAGLES FOR DECADES

Posted by The BEAST on 2015/01/02
Posted in: Coaching, Conspiracy Corner, Front Office (F.O.), NFL. Tagged: , . 5 Comments

article regular-red-pill-blue-pill

TOM Gamble being fired as the Eagles VP of Player Personnel may hurt the Eagles for decades. Yes Eagles fans you read that right, and no I’m not exaggerating. I did in fact say decades.

Prior to our December collapse I said that you could bank on Chip Kelly getting an extension. However with the Gamble firing, reports are all over the map about whether or not the Eagles will want to keep Kelly after this season; and whether or not he’d even want to stay.

Scour the internet. You won’t find any mention of the Eagles extending Kelly beyond 2015. Or of even making an offer. This is something to be concerned about. With no unified vision in the Front Office, our next Draft could be a bigger mess than our last one. As horrible as that would be, there are ripples from this firing (so far) that go further than the Spring of 2015.

It’s not the firing of Tom Gamble that’s an issue, as much as it’s all the speculation that surrounds it, and that is being allowed to keep surrounding it. I can’t say how it looks to those inside the situation, but from out here, it looks like Jeffrey Lurie is a king with little control over his castle or direction for how it should be governed.

Over the years we’ve bleed some pretty solid Front Office talent: Tom Heckert, Joe Banner, Tom Gamble, Ryan Grigson…just too many self-inflicted wounds.

When the Eagles fired our All-time winningest coach in Andy Reid, no stream of candidates to replace him knocked on Lurie’s door for the job. In fact if you recall, it was getting to be sort of embarrassing how no one seemed to want the job. Even Kelly said ‘No’ before he said ‘Yes’. 

Now imagine we let Kelly walk after this season. Or worse if he decides not to re-sign.

If you were a head coach looking for a job, would you want to work for a team that chews up winning coaches, and bleeds top evaluators of football talent without  so much as a decent explanation? We could end up with the same problem that Oakland has had with hiring coaches. Or Buffalo. Or Detroit.

The perception of Jeff Lurie being someone you don’t want to work for could haunt this franchise for as long as he owns it. Good coaches attract good players. Sometimes for less money than they’d sign for elsewhere. That impacts who we can get and possibly make room to keep, on an annual basis. Stretched out over decades that’s high damage. And Lurie will likely own the team for decades.

That decades-long problem could be stemmed right now, and needn’t be a problem at all. Just tell everyone why Gamble was fired. Don’t make it a guessing game. Don’t make it a thing where it can be speculated that you can be fired over a “power struggle” or any other popularity contest. If there was a legitimate reason for firing Gamble, it needs to be known. Not just by fans and the media, but by any professional who may wish to manage, coach or play for the Eagles, as well as any player or coach or executive the Eagles may now or someday covet. Otherwise we may end up as a place that talent avoids instead of runs to.

OUR DEFENSELESS COORDINATOR

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/12/30
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Fans. Tagged: , , . 10 Comments

article regular-red-pill-blue-pill

THE season just ended Sunday. Players were cleaning out lockers on Monday. Here it is Tuesday and we’ve already had our first collective kick to the balls as a fan base. According to Head Coach Chip Kelly, Defensive Coordinator Billy Davis will return for a third season in 2015.

Chip Kelly said that he thought Davis’s unit did a “really good job” and even made some improvements. A MOMENT IF YOU WILL!

I’m guessing that Chip Kelly isn’t counting on Eagles fans looking beyond whatever he says. Seems he’s underestimated you and I. Look. Here’s where our Defense ranked in 2013 and 2014:

 

Interceptions did jump from 8 to 21. Sacks (not on that chart) also went up from 37 to 49. Those are the bright spots.

Total Yards we went from 29th to 28th. Technically that is an improvement. Qualitatively, it really isn’t.

Points Allowed we went from 17th to 22nd. That’s a regression.

Takeaways went from 3rd to 6th. Also a step back.

Kelly said that he felt that the run defense improved. The truth is no, it really didn’t. In 2014 teams attempted fewer rushes than in 2013, but we fell from 10th best run defense to 15th and rushing TD’s allowed went from 15 to 21.

Pass defense shows no signs of improving. We went from 32nd to 31st in passing yards allowed, and from allowing 14 TD’s to allowing 28.

There are conceptual inefficiencies that our opponents have become expert at exploiting. Add to that Davis’s inability to make in-game adjustments, and you have a recipe for failure.

Some might want to argue that Davis’s system has helped us to 2 consecutive 10-6 seasons, or 20-12 overall. Maybe. But I’d wager that Davis’s system has more to do with that 12 than that 20.

Regardless, we’re gonna roll the dice on this guy for a third year. I feel a little less optimistic about 2015 already.

THE 2015 OFFSEASON

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/12/29
Posted in: Conversations, Fans, NFL, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . 5 Comments

FOR those of us who’d wear an Eagles jersey to a Phillies game, there really is no offseason. You exist in one of two states: Either feasting on football or starving for it. We now will get months to lick clean the bones of “What went wrong”.

I love my Eagles. I think the world of them and so I expect much of them. When they fall short and fail to play up to their potential, I question why. I question who. I want heroes praised and bums shown the door. I want a team that’s at least as tough as me. I’m hard on my team, but if they’re strong enough, they can take it.

After a 9-3 start the Eagles went 10-6 again, but missed the playoffs this year. Some fans are going to say we should be happy about that, because we were 4-12 just two seasons ago. Then again most of those same fans will go dormant until the first preseason game. You know the type. They’ll talk of putting away their Eagles jersey and breaking out the Flyers one.

While many fans see 10-6, I see a 1-3 collapse down the stretch. I see a team that crumbled when the heat was turned up. I see players who don’t care if they come back; players who shouldn’t have to question if they’re coming back, who have no idea if they are; and I see an owner and a head coach offering no support for the return of a man who mere months ago was our future for 1,000 years.

Two consecutive 10-6 seasons would have most teams building around a solid foundation. Instead we seem to be disassembling ours. Two consecutive 10-6 seasons should mean looking for that one piece to put you over the top. Instead, we have more questions than answers.

If you go to the Eagles website it’s all backslaps, and blowjobs over how well they did by accomplishing less than last year, while doing it in embarrassing fashion. Observe:

lurie

and then there’s…

kelly

Well I’M HERE TO TELL IT! If you want to REAL TALK some Eagles football this “offseason” this is the place to do it. Here’s another good place to do it. There may not be any more games on the schedule, but if you can’t get enough football, bring your ass to where the season NEVER ends, and where your opinion carries weight.

 

 

EAGLES/GIANTS PREVIEW

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/12/26
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Offense, Preview. Tagged: , , , , . 5 Comments

12.28.14-Wk17

SUNDAY 1:00 Metlife Stadium – East Rutherford, New Jersey

 

STUPID. STUPID. STUPID.

SO we’re gonna play our starters, because Our coach wants to put our best guys out there and WIN. Despite the fact that this will likely push our draft position (reportedly at 20th right now) even farther back. And before you say dropping a spot or two is no big deal, let me just say 4 word in dispute of that: Ha Ha Clinton Dix.

Because we missed Dix by one pick, GM Howie Roseman and Head Coach Chip Kelly decided to traded back 4 spots. We drafted Marcus Smith #26 overall. We’re about to deliberately jack-knife our own Draft.

 

EAGLES

Defense

Many fans want to pretend that our pass defense JUST became an issue this year. But last year when everyone (except me) was cheering about playoffs and what a genius Chip Kelly was, we were ranked DEAD LAST against the pass. DEAD LAST. The 253 passing yards per game we’re giving up this year, is down from the 289 per game we were giving up last year. If you’re just now upset over our spotty coverage, shame on you for not paying better attention this whole time.

Since we don’t commit much to playing pass defense, it allows us to play more guys up front so we get decent pressure and shut down the run pretty good. Which is a shame, since the NFL is a passing league now.

Offense

Our pace is slower and we’ve stopped doing certain things like calling for deep routes and calling Bubble-screens to spread out the opposing secondary. We also don’t involve RB Darren Sproles anywhere near as much as we should. None of these can be laid at the feet of execution. What you stop calling and who you stop playing are coaching decisions. These are deliberate moves spanning weeks.

 

GIANTS

Defense

They bleed points and cough up as much rushing yardage as any team in the league. We’re talking total bottom feeders here. But the giants won’t be playing to win, since THEIR coach isn’t an idiot.

Offense

The giants will be playing their starters too, BUT the difference is, Tom Coughlin’s team will be giving work to young guys that they’ll depend on for at least another year. We on the other hand will be allowing guys we don’t want to keep to audtion while guys we need to learn about will sit.

 

BOTTOM LINE

I’m so fucking disgusted, that I’m almost numb. Unless Chip Kelly has a trick up his sleeve (the likes of which no one has ever heard), we’re about to add insult to injury. No! Scratch that! We’re about to add long-term injury to short-term injury. Because Tom Coughlin can recognize the faux value in winning what’s basically the first preseason game of 2015.

PREDICTION

EAGLES 21 – Giants 14

 

 

CHIP KELLY IS AN IDIOT.

Posted by The BEAST on 2014/12/23
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, Draft, Front Office (F.O.), Players, Rants, Roster. Tagged: , , , . 9 Comments

kellyore

FIRST off, I wasn’t a fan of his hiring to begin with. So before your mouth begins to form the word “bandwagon” you can just dry swallow that.

Here is an excerpt from Monday’s press conference when Chip Kelly was asked about playing his back-ups:

“It’s not about trying to see what the future is,” Kelly said. “It’s about we got a game. I would not be fair in any of my beliefs and I would not be fair to any football player right now if I said to some guy, ‘Hey, I know you’re a better player, but I’m going to play a younger guy now.’ That’s not what we’re all about. If you want to go do that, go somewhere else. That’s not us.”

So we’re gonna play to win. That’s right EAGLES faithful; we’re gonna get one more long look at QB Mark Sanchez (expiring deal). “OLB” Brandon Graham (expiring deal). WR Jeremy Maclin (expiring deal). CB Bradley Fletcher (expiring deal). SS Nate Allen (expiring deal). DE Cedric Thronton (expiring deal). Naw. No need to get an extended “live” look at the guys behind those guys though.

So instead of getting a long look at the depth on our roster, we’re going to be playing to win. WHY!? Of what POSSIBLE benefit could a win by our starters be NOW!? If our back-ups can win a game, then maybe we don’t need to draft so high, but starters winning tells you nothing. It nets you nothing. Apparently picking 20th in the Draft isn’t low enough for Kelly’s taste. We’ll be looking to deliberately dig our hole deeper.

Here’s the deal: You get to be an arrogant dick when you WIN playoff games. Not when you get manhandled by a finesse team like the Saints one year, and then utterly fucking face-plant while running away with the division during the following year. He is one more bushel of Oregon bench-warmers away from setting this franchise back 4 years, after his bitch ass goes 8-8 next year and he bails for the comfort of the college ranks.

“It’s not about trying to see what the future is,” is a direct quote. Right out of his mouth. He just doesn’t fucking get it. The future is literally half of this game. It’s what the film study is for. It’s why scouts work year round. It’s why teams trade picks sometimes years in advance. Then again, not looking ahead may be why his draft record is so shitty. It would explain why the EAGLES Draft board was in so much disarray this year, when a couple of guys they wanted were off the board already. For a college coach Kelly certainly has no feel for young players.

Seriously, name one player drafted here in the last two years who developed into an NFL starter with a dramatically better game than they had coming out of college. The closest you get is Bennie Logan. Our last 1st round pick, sucks too bad in practice to even play. He’s making 1.5 million to watch football games. Us they charge for the same thing. But this is who Kelly wanted. Because the future. “That’s not what we’re all about.” You said it, Chip.