Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Little Rule Change

There's a chance a new rule could make a big difference next year, even though we won't ever get to see it.

For some time, the league has wanted to move its replay system to high-definition equipment, to give officials a better view of the action.  Makes perfect sense, but the owners didn't want to pay for the change because instant replay was scheduled to expire after the 2008 season.  Now this:

Yesterday at the NFL meetings, owners voted, 30-2, to make instant replay a permanent part of the game. As a result, teams must spend as much as $300,000 upgrading to high-definition replay equipment.

Now if we could only get them to pass a rule requiring CBS to show all of its games in HD, we'd really be getting somewhere.

Eagles Patch a Hole at Linebacker. Again.

Tonight, the Eagles' website is reporting the team has traded Darwin Walker and a conditional pick to the Buffalo Bills for linebacker Takeo Spikes and backup quarterback (?) Kelly Holcomb.  We'll assume they haven't jumped the gun again and that this deal is actually complete.

This is kind of a strange deal.  On the one hand, it's clear the Eagles have upgraded (most likely) the strongside linebacker position for at least one season (there's an '08 option on his contract).  Even coming off a devastating Achilles injury and missing four games to injury last year, Spikes still put up numbers similar to what Dhani gave the Eagles.  He's also only a couple years removed from two Pro Bowl appearances.  Clearly, if his wheels are still good, Spikes can play. 

On the other hand, this looks like the kind of deal the Eagles are prone to making -- in reverse.  Spikes turned 30 this season and appears to be on the downslope of his career.  He's also due to make $4.5 million this season and given his injury/age questions, it's unlikely the Eagles are going to look to do any sort of early extension.  Buffalo got a productive -- if occasionally asinine -- player in exchange for an aging vet who needed a change of scenery.  Um, and we got a quarterback too.  But there's no long-term fix here.

Which suggests a couple of things.  The first is that the Eagles simply weren't sold on the idea of Chris Gocong starting as the SAM this season.  As mediocre as Dhani Jones has been, they just weren't ready to turn the position over to Gocong, even before they got a chance to see him in mini-camps.  That's unfortunate.  However, the second thing this deal tells us is that Gocong very much remains part of their future plans at that position.  Otherwise, why not draft a guy who can be more than a one-year fix?   

There's a certain element of Kremlinology that comes into play when you try to analyze the Eagles.  They're such a tight-lipped organization that you really have to judge them by what they do, rather than what they say.  Which is to say I could be really wrong about this, but right now, this looks like a one-year move while they wait for Gocong to get himself ready to play.

Maybe we can give Spikes a ring to take with him when he leaves... 

Two Words: "P*ss Off"

The vultures are circling:

Attorneys for the Delaware County man in Britt's alleged road-rage incident and the Mount Carmel woman injured after Garrett allegedly rammed his SUV into her car said this week that they plan to file for damages.

Michael Pansini, the attorney representing Larry Johnson, also said yesterday he had hoped for a public apology from Eagles coach Andy Reid.

"I was very, very disappointed," Pansini said after he watched Reid's news conference on TV. "It's not all about football. It's about human lives. It's about how his son devastated my client's life by pulling a gun."

"I was waiting for two words - 'I'm sorry,' " Pansini said. "And that didn't happen."

Shakespeare had it right.

Reading the Tea Leaves

Shawn Barber, the veteran utility linebacker who returned last season for his second stint with the Eagles, was signed today by the Houston Texans.  It's a tribute to his versatility that Barber, who has never played in a 3-4 scheme, should have no trouble moving to a four-linebacker system. 

Barber's departure leaves the Eagles with a hole at the nickel linebacker position ... or maybe not.  Honestly, it's kind of hard to figure out exactly what the Eagles have planned at linebacker right now.  In last year's draft, they took Chris Gocong, a standout defensive end from Divisions I-AA Cal Poly.  The Eagles wanted to convert Gocong -- who has great speed, size and smarts -- into a strongside linebacker, the position currently occupied by Dhani Jones. 

Gocong had to miss some early mini-camps due to an NFL rule that says rookies can't practice with their teams until their college class graduates -- a restriction that hits Ohio State players every single year.  When Gocong finally showed up, some observers felt he was so far behind that the Eagles were forced to invent an injury for him so they could stash him away for a year while he learned the system.  In any case, Gocong is a complete unknown who may or may not be ready to play linebacker this year for the Birds.  If he can't go, that likely leaves the strongside position to Jones -- a prospect that makes Eagles fans break out in hives. 

In the middle, Jeremiah Trotter is still holding down the fort, even though he is coming off one of his worst seasons as a pro and at times last year looked like he had less range than Max Jean-Gilles.  For now, the Eagles' brass is saying they think Trotter will be fine as long as he comes into camp in better shape this year.  We'll see.

On the weakside, the Eagles have two young players to choose from right now.  Matt McCoy is the undersized second round pick from a couple years ago who started well but wore down quickly as the season progressed.  Omar Gaither was his less athletic replacement who won the hearts of Eagles fans by actually making some plays from the linebacker position -- I know! -- but also seemed less effective the longer he played.

It's fair to say the status quo at linebacker isn't overwhelmingly awesome. 

So far, the Eagles have done nothing in free agency to address the issue.  They tried to overpay a guy who couldn't start for the Cowboys, but he ended up taking even more ludicrous money to go play for the Titans.  Since then, nothing else has happened.

So. 

Could this mean that maybe the Eagles are looking to the draft for help? 

Could this be the year they draft a playmaker in the first round, rather than relying on cheap fill-ins with upside that never materializes?   

Every day that passes without some sort of news makes that more likely, don't you think?

Nice Bounceback

When Donte Stallworth left the Eagles to sign with the Patriots, were you one of those craaaaazy people who thought going into the season with Reggie Brown, Hank Baskett and Jason Avant as your top three receivers wasn't necessarily the best idea?

Well, apparently you weren't alone. 

On Thursday, the Eagles signed ex-Ram Kevin Curtis to a six-year deal, worth up to about $30 million.  It's a clear sign the team believed the future wasn't now for Baskett and Avant, two promising young players who now have a bit more time and breathing room in which to develop. 

I like the move.  I wish we'd kept Stallworth -- since he already knows the system -- but Curtis, who has great deep speed and is well-regarded by league talent scouts, is a nice back-up plan.  The question with Curtis is how the career #3 wide receiver will adapt to a starting role with the Eagles. 

Learning the offense shouldn't be a problem.  Curtis scored a 48 on the Wonderlic test, used by NFL teams to gauge the intelligence of all players prior to the draft.  This is rumored to be the second-highest score ever achieved on the 50-question test. 

More importantly, Curtis had a five-game test run as a starter in 2005 when Isaac Bruce was injured.  (If you're interested, see the October games here.) So how did his production in those games compare to what Stallworth gave the Eagles last year?

Well, here are Curtis' per-game stats for that five-game stretch, along with the per-game stats for Stallworth last season, not counting the final game against Atlanta when the starters came out after one series:

	Rec	Yds	Avg	Lg	TD
Curtis	4.0	77.6	19.4	83	0.6
Stallworth	3.5	65.9	19.1	84	0.5

Now that's interesting...

Another thing Curtis brings is long experience working out of the slot.  Quarterbacks love those guys who know how to work the inside and get open when the team really needs a third-down conversion.  At this point, I would bet Curtis starts on the outside in the Eagles' base package, but moves into the slot when they go three-wide and bring in Baskett.

This is another way in which Curtis -- potentially -- might have more value that Donte.  Stallworth was great on the outside, but one thing we didn't see from him was much work over the middle.  I don't want to overstate the case, because Donte did a lot for this offense, but I like Curtis' versatility.

It should be interesting to follow these two guys over the next few seasons.  In the short term, however, signing Curtis is a good move that certainly takes a bit of the sting out of the last few days. 

Here's an 'atta boy,' Joe. 

Last Thing I'll Write About Stallworth

I hope.  Anyway, here's what I said a couple of days ago:

"[H]ere's what I think happened.  The Eagles determined several months ago that they weren't going to be able to afford to keep Donte.  So they did all their offseason planning with that in mind...  Then all of a sudden Donte's price started falling.  Next thing you know, he's dropped right down into what everyone would agree was a very reasonable price for him.  But this team couldn't pull the trigger.  And so he's gone..."

And here's what the Daily News is reporting today:

"Stallworth expressed disappointment that his eagerness to return to the Eagles didn't result in agreement. Team sources have said the Birds pretty much gave up hope of signing Stallworth when they heard Rosenhaus' initial demands."

Nice audible, fellas.

On the Horns of a Dilemma

Going into next season, the Eagles are in a bit of a catch-22 situation.  In order to win the Super Bowl, it's pretty clear they need to keep Donovan McNabb healthy, which means running the ball more often to minimize the chances that a recovering McNabb takes that one bad hit that knocks him out for the season.  The problem is that the Eagles also won't win the Super Bowl without Brian Westbrook and, right now, running the ball more often means putting a greater load on his plate. 

Some will say -- including Westbrook himself -- that his workload over the second half of last year proved that he could stay healthy operating as the focal point of the offense.  The problem is that there are two kinds of injuries in the NFL.  The first are wear-and-tear type things, which Westbrook proved in his fifth season he could avoid.  The second are fluke injuries, like torn triceps or blownout knees that can happen at any time.  The more carries a running back gets, the better the chance he will eventually succumb to one of those problems. 

The obvious solution is to bring in a second running back who can provide more than just an occasional change of pace.  I admire what Correll Buckhalter has done to get back from all his injuries, but at this point, I don't think he's the guy the Eagles need.  Take a look at his adjusted statistics over on Football Outsiders.  Buck has a very high "success rate" of 58 percent, meaning he is good at getting the team the yardage they need in a particular situation, but his "value per play" is much lower.  According to FO, "A player with lower VOA and a high success rate generally gets the yards needed, but doesn't often get more."  That sounds kind of like Buck -- good runner, but not much burst left.

One problem, however, is that a lot of the running backs who have been moving around this offseason really haven't been much better.  Dominic Rhodes, who's still floating around out there as a free agent, is actually listed well behind Buckhalter on those tables.  This probably means the Eagles are going to need to look for help in the draft, since Ryan Moats has shown no signs of turning into the player I thought he'd be. 

I'll keep dreaming. 

The Eagles Fight Back

Recently, Eagles President Joe Banner took to the media to defend the team's approach to free agency and the salary cap:

"I can't really explain what's going on [with the fans] -- I honestly can't," Banner said. "The reality is that we're returning virtually the whole team, from a starters' perspective."

He is bullish on the team's future prospects:

"The reality is we should go into next season with people having every reason to be very hopeful and excited," Banner said.

He also expressed some frustration with the team's fanbase: 

"I'm not sure you can win even if you win," said an exasperated Banner. "We had a discussion the other day, asking if we won the Super Bowl, how many days do we get before the criticism starts...  And I've got to go on the radio to defend us for an hour every other week? It's kind of crazy."

Oh wait, that story is from 2003.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I want to be clear here.  I'm not indicting the team's whole approach to building a team.  And I don't think the front office only cares about making a profit, or being "competitive" or any of those other bogus charges that people throw around.

But the Eagles do sort of look like the guy at the five dollar blackjack table who just keeps pushing his one red chip out there on every hand.  He may be playing perfect strategy, and even have some thoughts on card counting that give him a bit of an edge, but he's never going to win the big one without taking some risks.

Maybe some green chips are coming later this summer, but right now it's just five-dollars five-dollars five-dollars...

Donte Stallworth and a Technical Glitch

I was on the road this weekend when the Stallworth deal broke, so I used my mobile posting software to put up my quick thoughts on the news.  Due to an evident technical glitch, that post came through a bit ... strangely. 

Looking back on it, that pretty much summed my first response up.  A long string of unprintable characters.

One day later, here's what I think happened.  The Eagles determined several months ago that they weren't going to be able to afford to keep Donte.  So they did all their offseason planning with that in mind.  They pulled tape on Kevin Curtis and Wes Welker.  They thought about doing something in the draft.  They determined that they would be spending their money in other places.

Then all of a sudden Donte's price started falling.  Next thing you know, he's dropped right down into what everyone would agree was a very reasonable price for him.  But this team couldn't pull the trigger.  And so he's gone and while his departure won't cripple our offense -- by any means -- it's a real loss that leaves us much less well-positioned next year should we lose one of our other playmakers to any significant injury.

Obviously, I just pulled all that out of thin air.  I don't know anything that you don't know.  But it makes sense.  And it certainly fits the Eagles' pattern under Andy Reid: rock-solid long term plan, but maybe not that flexible in fast-moving situations (see: last few minutes of the Super Bowl, end-of-half clock management, play-calling, etcetera).

I'm not a sky-is-falling fan.  I understand you can't sign everyone you want and even if you could, it wouldn't be the best way to go.  But Stallworth was a big help to this offense and now that he's gone, we shouldn't kid ourselves that everything is going to be OK.  Reggie Brown is fine as our go-to, but we saw a few years ago what happens when you take a guy who did well in a smaller role (Greg Lewis the UDFA success story) and move him into a larger role he may not be prepared for (Greg Lewis the failed #1 receiver).  Baskett and Avant looked good last year doing what they did, but their success once teams are focusing on them is certainly not assured. 

The Eagles may not be done making moves.  There's at least a chance they will be signing Kevin Curtis, who has done well serving as the third receiver for the St. Louis Rams.  But even if they do sign him, the question will be if he is prepared to be a full-time starter.  And how much money does he get?  If it's not that far from what Donte received, maybe we should just have kept the guy who already had success here...

Penny wise and pound foolish

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