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THE RIVALS 2019 (PT 2 of 3)

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/11/09
Posted in: Conversations, Defense, NFC East, NFL, Offense, Players, Rivals, stats. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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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.

This is where we left off Part 1 

This is where things are today:

Washington Redskins: 1 – 8, 4th in the NFC East

There’s the basement, and then there’s being thrown into the Rancor pit. It took playing the Miami Dolphins to get this team a win. The Dolphins. The ones tanking publicly, and throwing out players like a desperate mother pitching her babies from a burning building. With 8 losses already, the Redskins ceiling is .500.

They’re ranked 31st in offense, only because the Jets are, well… the Jets. The bright spot of their season was that Week 6, 17-16 win over Miami. It was the last time they scored more than 9 points. (Perhaps for a long time.) Let’s take a look at their personnel.

In the backfield, starting QB Dwayne Haskins has an interception percentage of 9.1, and has yet to throw or run for a single touchdown.

1-Rypien on the skins

Methuselah is their starting RB, but he produces. Everyone behind him is trash. Just pure trash.

The ‘skins leading receiver is 200 yards ahead of the next closest guy on their roster, despite not catching for more than 40 yards in three weeks. Their second leading receiver doesn’t start, and hasn’t played a down in three weeks. The guy in third is a professional WR with 6 starts in the 9 games he’s played.

This offense isn’t just bad. It’s nuclear waste bad. It’s cancer risk bad. Right, Trent?

Defensively S Landon Collins is everything the giants hyped him up to be this offseason. (I know, I know. That was mean.)

All jokes aside, DE’s Jonathan Allen and Matt Ioaniddis come to wreck shit every week. I’d jump at the chance to see either of them in midnight green.

 

New York Giants: 2 – 7, 3rd in the NFC East

“YOU had dreams, of a Lear jet

But then it ended up, like Aliyah’s jet” – Loaded Lux

When QB Danny Jones took over an 0 – 2 team, in Week 3, giants fans were eager to see what the kid had. Then after two straight wins (over bottom feeders), you couldn’t tell giants fans anything. “Eli was holding the team back!” “We love Danny Dimes!” They were convinced that the team would battle back, and win the East this year.

Then, the worst thing that could happen to a breakout rookie, happened to Danny Dimes: Teams got some tape on him. PFFFT!!! Don’t look now, but if you compare Jones to deposed starter QB Eli Manning, they look a lot alike this year. So what? The giants still have RB Saquon Barkley. Right?

giants fan

Barkley is the worst kind of tease. He’s like watching partly scrambled, soft-core porn, on a “chipped” cable box. Just when you think you see somethiiing… NOPE! Nothing at all. Typical Saquon is 17 carries for 36 yards, and then 1 carry for 65. For that day it’s a 6.1 yard average, but it doesn’t reflect his actual average carry. And so the giants stall on drive, after drive, after drive. His deliveries often fall so short, that if he worked for the Post Office, most of the time you’d have to walk to the curb to get your mail.

As far as catching the ball, there’s TE Evan Engram! Did I mention that right now he has an injured foot and will miss at least Week 10. At least. Through nine weeks the leading WR for this team has 29 catches. I could go on, but it just keeps getting sadder. This isn’t me picking on the team. This is actually who they are. Look it up. If you root for this team you should already know this stuff.

Midway through the season and the giants two leading tacklers are their Safeties, with 65 and 67 stops. Safeties leading a team in tackles isn’t unusual, but 132 tackles this early in the year, indicates that teams are bypassing the LB level at an alarming rate. Especially when sporting a minus 10 takeaway figure, and surrendering 28 points per game.

This team not being in the basement, tells you just how awful the Redskins truly are.

 

Dallas Cowboys: 5 – 3, Top of the NFC East

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Boasting a Top 10 Defense, a Top 5 Offense, and an amazingly healthy roster, the Cowboys have ridden their good luck all the way to a staggering, one game lead in the division. Media pundits everywhere, say that QB Dak Prescott (15TD, 8INT) is finally playing his best football. Um, okay.

Accompanying the virtuoso passing, is RB Ezekiel Elliott. He had a 27 yard run in Week 2, and a 27 yard catch in Week 5. His longest plays of the year! He remains a player you have to watch for on every down, despite the fact that his explosive plays get less explosive, every season, for three straight seasons in a row. But who cares?! What he lacks in explosiveness, he’ll make up for in volume. In fact, he’s on pace for another 350 touch season, and is showing no ill-effects from that workload. Nor will he next year.

The catalyst to this whole thing is The Anointed One, WR Amari Cooper. Cooper leads the NFL in recep- Wait, that’s actually the Saints Michael Thomas. Well Cooper leads the league receiving yar- Hold on! No, that would also be Thomas. Okay, yards per catc- Nope! Chargers Mike Williams owns that. How ‘bout them touchd- Ooops! Tampa Bay’s Mike Evans, and Detroit’s Kenny Golladay share that lead. So what’s all this Cooper talk about?

You know, when I step back, their offense doesn’t look quite as dominant as we keep being told it is by football pundits. Perhaps we should talk defense.

You can’t argue with 17 points allowed per game, and a plus one turnover margin. Those are either luck vs a couple of early winless opponents, or pretty good marks with such a weak pass rush They only have 22 sacks so far. That’s one ahead of the Redskins, tied with the giants, and two behind the Eagles.

All the media buzz aside, this looks like a pretty stoppable team to me. 

TRIVIA: During the 2019 season, only one NFL team allowed the Jets to score 24 points on them, while losing to them mano y Mono. Who was that team? (Hint: It was not the dreadfully awful Redskins. Then again the Jets and ‘skins don’t play until next week. So the Jets could hang 24 on them, but if they don’t, man, it’ll just make this trivia question so much more amusing.)

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So that’s the state of our division rivals as your Eagles head into Week 10

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FOUR THINGS REVIEWED – WK 7 – COWBOYS

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/10/21
Posted in: Coaching, Defense, Four Things, NFC East, Offense, Players, playoffs, Reviews, Rivals, stats. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 2 Comments

 

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There’s joke here for those who get it.

IT’LL probably strike you as odd that I’m not as angry as most of you. If you remember, in this week’s Four Things article, I start off by saying, “Fact is, even with a win and sole position atop the NFC East, we’ll still be just 4 – 3, with 9 more games to go.” So it’s easy for me to keep our 3 – 4 record in perspective. That said, we need to take an assessment.

We got blown out. Let’s table that right now. Don’t duck it. Don’t dodge it. Don’t run from it. We got shit-canned tonight. While the Cowboys offensive line did a great job of opening holes to keep the chains moving, nothing else about their play said “37 – 10”, yet me made that score possible.

The word I would use to describe the Eagles on both sides of the ball, tonight is ‘listless’. They barely seemed interested. No one came out fired up. On Defense, our LB’s looked to be little more than numbered decorations. Offensively, I don’t understand why the Eagles pay any WR besides Jeffery.

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EAGLES 10 – Cowboys 37

As has become our habit, we simply self-destructed on the field. We opened the game with a fumble by TE Dallas Goedert (4 – 69 – 17.2 – 1) and followed it with a strip/sack of QB Carson Wentz (16/26 – 61.5 – 191 – 1 – 1). By the time the dust cleared, it was 0 – 14 in the first quarter, and it was clear that we had no way to stop them on the ground.

The new LB trio of OLB Kamu Grugier-Hill (2 – 0 – 0 – 0), MLB Nate Gerry (7 – 0 – 0 – 0) and OLB T.J. Edwards (1 – 0 – 0 – 0) was weak and ineffectual. They were incapable of getting off of blocks to limit runs, and did a piss-poor job of underneath coverage, as most of what ate us up in the passing game, was “Dink-and-Dak” stuff.

It needs to be said that RB Jordan Howard (11 – 50 – 4.5 – 0 – 0) looked very good running the ball. My mind boggles that we don’t use play-action on second down much when he’s out there. HC Doug Pederson not elevating RB Coach Duce Staley to OC, last year, looks like a worse and worse decision by the week. (Even going back to last year.)

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I hear you asking, “What about all the stuff that stats don’t reveal?” Well, that’s the reason for these “Four Things” articles. We introduce an idea of what needs addressing BEFORE the game, so that fans have to honestly answer questions about those things, AFTER the game. This helps to get us, and keep us, all on the same page.

So, of the Four Things we were looking for in this here game, what exactly did we see?

1) Play some Cover Two: HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Yeah, no. The Eagles don’t do that. To be fair, there were a couple of downs where we did. On one occasion FS Rod McLeod (2 – 0 – 0 – 0) was in position to hustle over and limit a big catch to just a catch. Otherwise it was mostly that Single-high stuff. Oh, and some nifty Cover Zero! You might remember Cover Zero, from the Atlanta loss. Good times. (NOT DONE)

2) Early misdirection/Late power: Nope. The Eagles came out using a paint-by-numbers offense that is highly uncharacteristic of them. There was too much that was weird about this game. Same as with the Falcons game. The Eagles just seemed flat. There was no indication by them that this was a division game, and that we needed to roll out new wrinkles that they hadn’t seen. (NOT DONE)

3) Stop the run: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! By the end of the game, it seemed like Cowboys owner Jerry Jones could have run for 100 yards on us. Our players stuck to blocks like Velcro. (NOT DONE)

4) Someone step up: This was one of the weeks when we would need a WR in addition to Alshon Jeffery (2 – 38 – 19.0 – 0), to make 4 or more grabs, so we could horizontally stretch the opposing defense. While seven different Eagles caught passes, the only other WR to do so, was Nelson Agholor (2 – 24 – 12. 0 – 0). That is to say, on 9 targets, Wentz’s WR’s caught 4 passes for 52 yards for him. Dear Anonymous, THAT is why he targets his TE so much. So for next week, catch more balls and throw less shade.

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(NOT DONE)

This week we had a Four Things score of 0 for 4. That makes our season total 12 of 28. That sort of deal won’t cut it next week, when we conclude our road trip in Buffalo vs a 5 – 1 Bills team.

Despite their record, the Bills have trouble putting points on the board, and their highly ranked defense, has so far only played one decent offense. Oh, by the way, they nearly found a way to lose to the Dolphins, on Sunday afternoon. So we could get back to .500 in a blink, if we get OUR shit together.

On The Whole:

While it was hard to stomach that “game” tonight, it might be a blessing in disguise. No, this is not me looking for a silver lining. It’s a statement of an honest to God, fact. We didn’t just lose to “some team”. We took a fourth consecutive loss to a division rival. One who now seems to score at will, against us. I promise you, a public statement by owner Jeffery Lurie, or GM Howie Roseman, will not portend good things for someone.

Howie to players

They say that winning is the best deodorant, and winning it all a couple years ago, behind our high-powered Offense, covered the stench of many defensive deficiencies that were literally on world-wide display, in that very game.

Today, (PFFFT! actually going back to last year), our Offense isn’t nearly as high-powered, and those defensive deficiencies are now a team-wide liability. I said last week, “teams with legit playoff hopes, don’t invite upheaval in the middle of the season.” I stand by that 100%. However, if our playoff dreams become less than legitimate…

DC Jim Schwartz has been getting a free ride for the last 3 years here. If we fall to 3 – 5 next week vs a team that is 20th in scoring, especially if we allow 24 points or more, it will be time to stop deluding ourselves about a deep playoff run in 2019, and fire Schwartz next Monday morning. After which Pederson should elevate LB’s Coach Ken Flajole to interim DC, and see if he has the chops to keep the gig in 2020.

FOUR THINGS – WK 7 – EAGLES – COWBOYS

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/10/17
Posted in: Coaching, Conversations, Four Things, NFC East, NFL, Offense, Players, Preview, Rivals, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

WK14-DAL

ONE step at a time. The temptation is to talk playoffs, seeding, bye weeks and home field advantage. Fact is, even with a win and sole position atop the NFC East, we’ll still be just 4 – 3, with 9 more games to go.

So let’s pump the brakes, do what Doug said, and focus on going 1 – 0 this week. Then we’ll take the rest as it comes.

Remember being 1 – 2? Remember when the Cowboys were 3 – 0? Funny thing is, that was the same week. After that point, The Eagles battled back and climbed to 3 – 2. During that same period opposing teams got behind the curtain of the Great and Powerful Cowboys, and exposed them. Dallas fell to 3 – 2.

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Due to NFL tie-break procedure, the Eagles ended up as the “technical” head of the division. Both teams subsequently falling to 3 – 3 the following week, meant that there was no change in the pecking order.

This strikes me as weird, given that Dallas has two division wins to our one, and a higher conference win percentage (.500 to .400). Whatever. Doesn’t matter. After this week one of us will have beaten the other, making one team 4 – 3 and the other 3 – 4. There’ll be no need to split hairs, or cut farts into quarters.

Those are the stakes. This is what we’re playing for.

So let’s talk about the Four Things we need to focus on this week versus the Cowboys :

1) Play some Cover Two:

Last week, 4 touchdowns were thrown on 3 different CB’s. Three of those plays featured no deep Safety help. We have 12 DB’s on this team. Seems to me, before we bulldoze 20% of the roster, maybe we should try to see if there’s another way to squeeze talent out of at least a few of these guys.

In any case last week the Vikings handed the NFL a blueprint of how to dismantle our defense. We would be foolish not to throw a serious curve this week. We don’t need to stay in Cover Two, but for 2nd and 7 or longer, we should show that or some Tampa Two.

2) Early misdirection/Late power: Dallas prides it’s defense on it’s speed. So why not turn their strength into a weakness?

Early in the game, hit them with play-action bootlegs to the right, so that QB Carson Wentz can load up for deep passes, or easy runs of 5 yards here and there. Middle Screens to RB Miles Sanders would be a great addition. So would Slot WR Nelson Agholor, running Drag routes back to the strongside, in the shallow area cleared out by the TE.

Later in the game when the Cowboys are gassed from all the chasing we made them do earlier, bludgeon their quicker edge players with power running. On 2nd and less than 5 situations, use play-action and go deep to the Slot or TE.

Zach Ertz Dallas Goedert

3) Stop the run: This one doesn’t just mean the Cowboys RB, it means their QB too. If he wants to become a runner, present him with an exorbitant price tag.

4) Someone step up: This game needs an Eagles WR not named Alshon Jeffery to catch at least 4 passes. If Jeffery wants to have a big game, great! But he needs help on that other perimeter

If we do all these things, we’re just about guaranteed to win. Now that we’ve covered what should happen, let’s get into what likely will happen:

The Eagles will play a ton of Single-high coverage, because they hate me, and DC Jim Schwartz has a learning disability. Noise will be a factor only briefly. Once the Eagles get the lead, the crowd will quiet down.

PREDICTION: EAGLES 27 – Cowboys 24.

yeah-bitch

THE RIVALS 2019 (PT 1 of 3)

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/10/06
Posted in: Conversations, Defense, NFC East, Offense, Players, Reviews, Rivals, stats. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN KIDDIES!!!

CHANGE MY MIND

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.

This edition had to wait until the edge of Week 5, because the Eagles had a short week last week. That meant cramming Four Things Reviewed (Lions), Four Things (Packers) and Four Things Reviewed (Packers) into a Monday to Friday window. After which came the Eagles Quarterly Report Part 1. So there just wasn’t time (with a day job), to fit in researching three teams, and writing about them. But now it’s done.

And of course it’s worth the wait. I am always, worth the wait. So let’s hit it.

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This is where things are today:

Washington Redskins: 0 – 4, 4th place in the NFC East

Which is worse, being 29th in scoring (16.5 ppg), or 31st in points allowed (29.5 ppg)? Unable to run (31st, 49.8 ypg) or unable to stop it (29th, 147.5 ypg)? Is it worse to be the prey, or the predator that takes 17 weeks to starve to death?

As I write this, QB Colt McCoy is getting set to start his first game of the 2019 season. This is after QB Case Keenum went 0 – 3, and then was yanked early in Week 4, for rookie QB Dwayne Haskins. Presumably to capture some of the “magic” that the giants had experienced benching starter a week earlier. The thing is, the giants rookie got a week to prep. Haskins came off the bench, cold. So yeah. They Redskin’d it up.

2019 Redskined

Haskins came out, and proceeded to prove everyone who’s ever doubted him, as being right on the money. His 17 attempt, 9 completion, 3 interception debut, had all the “magic” of a 16-wheeler, sliding on its side through an orphanage. Today the Redskins QB position sits in shambles. A perfect representation of their team as a whole.

New York giants: 2 – 2, 3rd place in the NFC East

Two weeks ago the giants were 0 – 2 behind QB Eli Manning, and the organization said “Fuck it! Put the kid in!” The kid, is rookie QB Danny Jones, whom we all mocked the giants for drafting in April. They gave him a week to prep. Eli got a week to play diplomat. It was a tasteful ceremony. Everybody hugged and had s’mores. The transition went smoothly. (Did you hear that Washington? Smoothly!)

The second Jones hit the field, BAM! the “Anybody But Eli” movement got an emotional lift. The giants (behind a stunning four touchdown debut from Jones), beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 32 – 31, after the Bucs missed a field goal that would have iced the game. A week later, Jones would look a lot like Eli, and get his struggle face on, in a game against the lowly Redskins.

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This week they get a hungry Vikings team with a chip on their shoulder. It was different when the season was in the shitter, and the giants were just grooming a kid. Problem is, today 2 – 2 is just two games out of the division lead. Problem is, today there’s NFL tape on Jones. Problem is, today NYC will have expectations of and from the kid.

Throw the stats out the window. None of them mean diddly. The giants are a team in transition now. They are not who they were in Week 1. They’re trying to figure out who they are now. Unfortunately for the kid, there is no worse place, no less patient place on Earth, than New York for doing that.

Dallas Cowboys: 3 – 1, 1st in the NFC East

Had this report come out on time, this section would have been written very differently. Perhaps even deferentially. In light of that, I want to send a shout out to my friends, the New Orleans Saints… Good luck during the season, fellas. We’ll see you here. After our first round Bye.

Now to the Cowboys.

If your team has yet to win a game, the Cowboys are gonna smash that ass. They have hung no less than 31, that’s THIRTY ONE, points on every team they’ve beaten this year. If your team’s defense already can’t stop anyone, the Cowboys offense is a machine.

Until they finally beat someone who comes into a game against them, with a win, they’re basically the Tommy Gunn of the NFC.

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Paper Champion.

Three weeks in, there was serious talk about QB Rayne Dakota “Dak” Prescott, being the NFL MVP at season’s end. He was completing 156% of his passes, while throwing 18 touchdowns per game, with a passer rating of “Where do you want it?! Where do you want it?!” Those numbers are of course an exaggeration, but you get the idea. Cowboys fans were in Greasy Hooker Heaven.

People were talking about how Prescott’s price tag was just going up and up. Everyone was saying that Cowboys team owner Jerry Jones, was foolish for not rushing to get Prescott signed to long-term deal.

All the rumblings of Prescott needing RB Ezekiel Elliott to carry the Cowboys to win games, seemed to quiet down. Except, the entire time Prescott was playing well, so was Elliott. Until Week 4 when Elliott didn’t have a great game vs the Saints, and the burden was shifted to Prescott, who also had WR Amari Cooper playing in that game.

Suddenly all the excuses were gone. Elliott was playing, but he was struggling. They had a #1 WR. They had a Hall of Fame TE, in Jason Witten. They had their entire starting offensive line. They had a bookend DE. Good Lord, they even had a healthy Sean Lee! It was Prescott’s moment. His time to shine! 

Final score: 10 to 12. 

Saints.

And the Cowboys bandwagon…

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The MVP talk has suddenly gone stone silent, and those rumblings about Prescott have now re-started. The conversations around the Cowboys are suddenly very different. People want to see what happens this week against Green Bay before they say anything else. They likely sense what I’ve been saying the whole time.

Lean in. Close. Closer than that dammit! It’s a screen, I can’t bite you! 

Have you ever heard the term “overrated”? Inflated? Propped up? Paper Tiger? I’d been saying that for weeks now. No matter. A week ago, this section would have been written very differently. Perhaps even deferentially. But one game against a decent team, with a so-so back-up, and well…? Well here we are. 

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So that’s the state of our division rivals as your Eagles head into Week 5. The Eagles have their issues. There is absolutely no room for patting ourselves on the back. That said, this is still a wide open division. We’ll check back and see how things are shaking out after Week 9. (No short week for us then. That one will be on-time.)

WHAT NOW, COWBOYS?

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/09/04
Posted in: Conspiracy Corner, Conversations, NFC East, Offense, Players, Rivals, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

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BACK in July I told everyone that Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott had all the leverage, during his holdout. The Cowboys talked tough, and said they would not re-set the RB market. The owner Jerry Jones joked “Zeke who?” They brought in a former back-up, and tried to talk up a rookie change of pace back.

They barked, postured and ultimately caved entirely, to Elliott’s demand to be the highest paid RB in the game’s history. They gave him a 6 year, 90 million dollar extension, with a whopping 50 million of it guaranteed. In the process, they totally re-set the RB market.

But Elliott is beside the point. He was always going to get everything he wanted. I made that point over a month ago, with people telling me I was wrong.

(sigh)

i'm right

Again, Elliott is beside the point. The real question is what about QB Dak Prescott? Remember his demand for 40 million per year? The QB sits at the head of the table right? If the Cowboys caved to one of Prescott’s supporting cast, surely they have to be about to cave into him as well, right?

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If Prescott doesn’t get an offer that he likes this season, he can fly the coop and test free agency in March. That would leave them with no QB and limited options. The Cowboys could franchise tag him, but if he doesn’t sign it, they are again without a QB.

Jerry Jones is in a position where he either has to grossly overpay Prescott, or tell him to his face that he’s not worth the money. Either way, Prescott’s contract talks will do visible harm to the team, starting in March of 2020.

So the question is: What now?

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POOR EZEKIEL ELLIOTT

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/08/22
Posted in: Conversations, Front Office (F.O.), NFC East, Offense, Players, Rivals, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment

ezekewok

ALL jokes aside, I feel bad for RB Ezekiel Elliott, and RB Melvin Gordon. And for that matter pretty much any football player who holds out seeking more money. I say football player, because holdout situations are more common in pro football. By far.

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It’s an indication of a broken system. More on that in just a moment.

Whenever an athlete holds out, the fans almost always side against the guy that they spent years rooting for. Elliott is no different here. People who bought his jersey are now calling him “a diva” and “a baby”. They want him to “just go back and play” on his current contract. Which is hilarious. It will never happen. That’s why Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, quickly made him an offer.

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Why do fans want him to go back? Because they feel like their team needs him. Not his back-ups. Not a rookie. Not an aging free agent, who was sitting on his couch, hoping for his phone to ring. Cowboys fans want Elliott. They feel they need him. So if he’s so valuable, why are the fans against him being paid like he’s so valuable? Why not pay “the best” RB, like the best RB? This question vexes me.

You know what? Why not just forget about him, and focus on winning the division with who’s on the roster? LOL. We all know the reason for that. The mediocre QB who wants more money than he’s worth, will be even less than mediocre without his best crutch.

Without signing Elliott, the Cowboys don’t stand a chance of winning the division. Last year they swept an injury decimated Eagles team (9 – 7), and still only finished one game ahead (10 – 6), despite being a mostly healthy team. Without Elliott, the Cowboys go from predator to…

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As for the broken system. The primary reason that players hold out, is because they want deals that generally will challenge or exceed the salary cap. So as a matter of sound accounting practice, the first ask practically has to elicit a “No” response from organization. This is S.O.P. Then both sides get into negotiations as to how to make the player’s deal cap friendly.

But hold on! Who decides on what the salary cap is? You? Me? Congress? The ghost of Steve Jobs? No. It’s the owners. This is a self-imposed problem. It’s an artificial cap, imposed by the owners themselves, so later they can say to players “I can’t do nothin’ for you, man”.

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For instance, without the salary cap, how easy would it be for the Cowboys (worth 5 billion, remember), to pay Elliott even as much as 14M per year? Doing the math, without the cap, that 14M is .0028% of the team’s total value. Putting that in working class terms (aka you and me money): That’s like you have $1,000 in your pocket, and someone you claim to value highly, asks you for $2.80. 

However, with a salary cap, a billionaire can point to the guy who he profits off of, and say,professor hinkle.jpeg

“Look at him! Isn’t he greedy? He wants more than we have to give! He’s stealing from his teammates.” Mind you, those teammates are also laboring under the manufactured problem, known as the cap.

It’s the old Abbott and Costello ‘Two Tens for a Five’ routine. (It’s just 1:18. Totally worth your time. This smile is on me.)

They get you with the fast talk about Cabo, or an off-hand joke. Meanwhile just beyond your focus, is the blurry world of what’s really going on, i.e. this broken system. A system that’s deliberately being kept in a broken state. I mean, don’t you find it weird that the owners are never responsible for any of the mess that they legislate?

Fuck it. Let’s just keep blaming the players, right?

EAGLES WIN WAR WITH COWBOYS

Posted by The BEAST on 2019/08/14
Posted in: Conspiracy Corner, Conversations, Front Office (F.O.), NFC East, NFL, Offense, Players, Rivals, stats, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

THE Cowboys swept the Eagles in 2018. That was a classic case of winning a battle, but losing a war. Make no mistake, from a long-term perspective, the Cowboys have already lost this war, because the Eagles have effectively shut any Super Bowl window that the Cowboys may have had.

2019-Nailed it Carsons deal

When I said that, I was under the impression that the financial issues that Dallas is enduring now, wouldn’t hit until March of 2020. I figured QB Dak Prescott would play out his rookie deal quietly. I figured WR Amari Cooper would play out his deal quietly. I figured RB Ezekiel Elliott would play out his deal as well, mostly quietly.

I saw this financial bind coming, I just didn’t think their players would trigger it. There was no way to see this coming. Had you told me in June, that Dallas would be going through this in 2019, I’d have dismissed it as a delusional fantasy, from a rival fan. I’d have said “You’re playing at FARCE! There’s no way the Cowboys players would derail their own team in that fashion!”

Yet here we are. So then, why do I credit the Eagles with what is happening in Dallas. How does QB Carson Wentz signing his contract, derail an entire franchise 1,500 miles away? How can the two things be connected? Surely I’m grasping at straws, right?

I’m going to keep this VERY simple. I’m going to draw three Simple Lines of Reasoning, and make it so that anybody who’s literate will understand it. There is no rocket science here. There is no “fuzzy math”. There is no smoke, nor mirrors. Here we go.

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(FACT) Wentz signs his deal in Philly for 32M$ per year on his extension.

(SLR) Dak Prescott in Dallas realizes that he hasn’t missed any games, he has won two division titles, he has played in actual playoff games, and head to head he “owns” Wentz. Prescott thinks he deserves more money.

(FACT) At the end of 2019 the Cowboys have to re-sign both Prescott, and Amari Cooper. If Prescott and the Cowboys don’t reach a deal during the season, Prescott will be Franchise tagged at about 33.9M$ per year. Cooper will command between 18 and 20M$ per year, and is a MUST HAVE, to legitimize Prescott’s tagged cap figure. On the low side, that comes in at 51.9M for those two players in 2020.

(SLR) Ezekiel Elliott has two years remaining on his rookie deal, but realizes that all of his potential extension money is going out the door NOW. Especially if he gets hurt, or has already been hurt, and is hiding it from the team to keep his value from depreciating. Powerbacks don’t have long NFL careers. If he or his doctor already sees a coming issue, he HAS TO hold out now. Once Prescott and Cooper have their checks in hand, there’ll be no more room at the feeding trough in two years.

(FACT) The Cowboys could’ve locked Prescott up for about 27M$ per year last year, but they didn’t. Prescott being paid less than QB’s Russell Wilson (35M per year, 1SB win, 2 appearances), Ben Rothlisberger (34M, 2SB wins), and Aaron Rodgers (33.5M, 1 SB win), was one thing. However, when Wentz with ZERO playoff wins, signed for 32M, it changed the valuation metrics.

(SLR) Prescott could sign with the Cowboys for a one year extension, and then once the new CBA is done, (with a much higher cap figure), then giving him a deal of 35M to 42M would be an easy lift. However, salary figures are ego driven. It’s not just about how many dollars a contract is worth, it’s also about what percentage of the cap can you get a team to commit to just you as a player. Making 34M of a 188M cap (18.0%), is less valuable than making 45M of a 260M cap (17.3%). There’s a difference of 9M in dollars, but it’s not about the dollars. Prescott can make up that 9M on an endorsement deal for Ford pick-up trucks, or Charles Schwab investments or whatever. It’s about being able to say “I mattered this much.” “I was this important to them.” “Once upon a time, I was the top. I was the pinnacle.” The QB that had to wait four rounds to hear his name, wants to say that he made it. In that regard he HAS TO beat Wentz’s deal. It otherwise invalidates beating his stats.

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People keep missing the forest for the trees. We live in age of loud voices, too much make-up, and movement for the sake of movement. What are you saying? Who are you underneath all that? Where are you really trying to go? Nuance now seems lost on most people. People disregard the small details, even though they influence everything.

Like the way one small signature in South Philly, tore down an entire franchise in Dallas.