More Picks to Play With

Eagles pick up three "compensatory" draft choices, per PFT:

The Bears, Colts, Eagles and Redskins got three compensatory picks apiece...  Fourth-round compensatory picks went to the Eagles, Bills, Ravens, Titans and Packers. Only one team, the Chargers, got a fifth-round compensatory pick.

Sixth-round compensatory picks were awarded, in order, to the Giants, Eagles, Colts, Colts, Eagles, Dolphins, Colts, Ravens and Bengals. The rest of the compensatory picks are seventh-rounders.

Frankly, I think the whole compensatory pick system is a pretty dumb vestige of the days when everyone in the league was scared of free agency.  But hey, three more picks is three more picks.  Might be just the added value needed to swing a draft day, move around trade.

(Thanks to Dan L. for the heads up.)

Great Profile Of "Nails"

In honor of opening day, here's an unbelievable New Yorker profile of Lenny Dykstra and his newest non-sports venture.  It advances the stories a few years past the "Holy crap, Nails is a successful businessman???" stage.

A Different Approach to the Blog

If you're not a huge fan of the house style around, check out the gizoogle version of this page.

Thanks to a buddy from California for passing that along.  Cracked me up.

Uneasy About This

Although it doesn't seem like things are all that "imminent" -- there's a world of difference between a third-round pick and a sixth-round pick -- I'm not thrilled about the prospect of this kind of talent entering the division:

Adam Schefter of NFL Network reports that a trade that would send suspended Tennessee Titans cornerback Pacman Jones to the Dallas Cowboys is imminent. According to Schefter, the Cowboys and Titans spent Thursday discussing the trade and should be able to work out a deal soon.

Although Schefter reports that the teams are still a few rounds apart in discussing compensation — the Titans have asked for a third-round pick and the Cowboys have offered a sixth-round pick — the deal could get done within the next couple of days.

The kid's an idiot, but he's a solid corner and a great return man.  If the deal happens, we'd have to root for one of three things:

1. He remains an idiot and can't stay out of trouble.
2. Goodell doesn't let him back in.
3. He and TO get into a massive training camp smack talk fest that progresses to a brawl giving both players season-ending injuries.

It certainly would be awesome if the Cowboys traded their third-round pick for a guy who never got reinstated, though.

Great Proposed Rule Change

This sounds like a great idea:

Being an NFL division winner may no longer guarantee a home playoff game... The two division winners with the best records in each conference would still enjoy a first-round bye, but seeds No. 3 through No. 6 would be slotted by record, although division winners would have a tiebreaker edge over wild-card qualifiers.

Should the proposal receive the 24 owner votes needed to pass, the regular season's final week could get much more interesting than it was in 2007...

"We do support the idea that a (system) re-working can (make) more games count late in the year," Atlanta Falcons President and Competition Committee co-chairman Rich McKay said Wednesday on an NFL conference call. "We think that's a better solution than trying to get into the business of legislating who a coach should play."

On the one hand, I like the traditional set-up of rewarding division winners.  On the other, there's nothing worse than those sham week 17 contests where two teams have a vested interest in the results and the others just want to stay healthy.

Not all the proposed rule changes make much sense, however:

Revamping the "force-out" definition for a wide receiver not getting both feet inbounds when making a sideline catch.

"The rule says a receiver can't be carried or pushed out of bounds by an opponent," McKay said. "We would delete 'pushed'...There are so many levels of judgment that go into a force-out call. This would be much more consistent. Either you get your feet down or not."

First of all, don't change the rule.  If you allow defensive backs to push people out of bounds, you're going to end up with a lot of defensive backs who are good at pushing people out of bounds.  I think all the rules to encourage offense have gone a little overboard, but this is one case where you'd just be making the game less fun by making it harder to score in the red zone.

More importantly, what's the dividing line between "pushing" someone and "carrying" them.  Is it only a "carry" if the receiver attempts to make a football move while being contacted by the defender?  You're just replacing one judgment call with another.

The only real problem I see with the force out rule comes with the replay review.  I don't think there's a provision for making a two-stage call on a play -- i.e., a referee rules that a player was in bounds when making the catch but even if he hadn't been then it was because he was forced out.  Maybe the refs handle this unofficially with coaches, but I think that this "backup call" thing should be codified.

Overheard in our apartment

It's 11:30 at night, I'm flipping around on the TV and settle on Sportscenter, which is showing cool Darren McFadden footage.  Then, looking up from a magazine on the other end of the couch in the most interested and friendly of tones:

"Oh, is the draft this weekend?"

"No."

"When is it?"

"Like a month."

"Oh."

[Beat.  Eyes return to magazine.]

"Whatever, I had to sit through the season premier of The Hills earlier."

(Just think of how much worse it would be if I still had NFL Network.  I'mjustsayinizall.)

Dunavin demonstrates mastery of sports cliches; future career as blathermonkey seems assured

While Donovan McNabb has made no secret of his post-football TV blathermonkey ambitions (and we think he'd actually be pretty decent at it -- he's a sharp guy, decent sense of humor, watches a lot of sports), and while we tend to support his direct-to-consumer PR strategy on Yardbarker, we're going to have to snicker a bit at his latest blog entry.

Is it cool that he has opinions about college hoops and the street cred (he played hoops at Syracuse his freshman year -- JUST IN CASE YOU HADN'T HEARD THAT MILLION TIMES ALREADY) to back them up?  You betcha.  Does said street cred excuse the train wreck of cliches that he stuffed into that blog post?  Not even a little bit.   His thoughts on Davidson:

I've have the opportunity to watch Stephon Curry on numerous occasions and I can say he might be one of the best, if not the best, pure shooter in the college game today. With the help of the nation's assist leader at point (Jason Richards), I see this backcourt pushing this Davidson team to the Elite 8 to face a strong Kansas team. But that's where the train stops.

"The best, pure shooter in the game today"?  "With the help of the nation's assist leader at point"?  Yikes.  His next paragraph includes gems like "with fundamental play from Louisville's big-men, I expect the Cardinals to have a strong presence down low."

I dunno, maybe I'm being a little tough on him, but we don't read Dunavin's blog to get the bullet points that the generic robo-announcers would share with us in the pre-grame show.   As regionally perused blogger of questionable renown, even I know that folks read blogs because they want opinions and data that couldn't necessarily find in the MSM (and if it comes wrapped up in some decent prose, all the better, but I wouldn't hold my breath).  We don't need a rephrased version of the AP story. 

Of course, if Dunavin wanted to critique my (in)ability to throw the deep ball or sign lucrative endorsement deals with national advertisers, well, I suppose I couldn't really argue with him.  Point taken. 

Eagles Sign League's Worst Tight End...

...or running back.

Ok, so look, you can't put too much stock in statistics, guys fit different systems, etc., etc.  But one of the first things I always do after the Eagles sign a new free agent is to head over to Football Outsiders to see how they've performed in the past. 

So I called up the page of tight ends and did a search for "Wilson" and ... nothing came up.  Which is weird, since the guy caught 24 passes last year, well more than enough to qualify for their ratings.  So on a hunch I checked out the running backs page and did the same search.

And there he was.  List as the 58th-best running back who was targeted with at least 25 passes.

Only 58 guys were ranked.

But maybe that's because he's misclassified.  What if you compare him to tight ends instead?  In that case, he'd only be ranked 43rd among guys with at least 25 targeted passes.  Which yes, is also dead last.

I realize Tony Gonzalez is an All-Pro, but here's a comparison using FO's stats for the Chiefs two tight ends last season:

On the plus side, he was only slightly worse than Matt Schobel in 2006. 

I'm a little less excited about this signing than I was two hours ago when I heard we signed a former second-round pick... 

Spadaro Gets His Smacks In

This whole thing is awfully inside baseball, but regular readers of PFT and PE.com (i.e., almost anyone reading this right now) are probably aware that frontmen Mike Florio of the former and Dave Spadaro of the latter had a little bit of back-and-forth a few weeks ago around the departure of Takeo Spikes.  So it's not without some relish that Spadaro gets to write the following this afternoon about the Eagles' signing of tight end Kris Wilson:

Let's clear things up about what Kris Wilson is and how he fits in with the Eagles: He comes here as a tight end. Oh, he can play fullback, as he did at times with Kansas City the last couple of years as the Chiefs searched for ways to get him on the field. And he may, in some formations, line up as a fullback, or an H-back, or at any number of places in the formation, but he is a tight end.

Plain and not so simple.

Doesn't seem that inflammatory to you?  Well then you missed this:

Anyway, the Philadelphia Eagles officially have announced that former Chief Kris Wilson has signed a three-year contract with the team.

And we continue to hear that he primarily will be a fullback, and that he’s trying to get a number in the 20s.

And this:

We’ve also heard that Wilson’s primary position in Philly might end up being fullback, and that his choice of jersey numbers could reflect that.

And this:

The Philadelphia Eagles have announced that free-agent tight end/fullback/H-back Kris Wilson is visiting the team on Wednesday...

He would likely help out considerably at fullback, given that the departure of Thomas Tapeh to the Vikings has been addressed only via the acquisition of Dan Klecko, whom the Eagles plan to convert from his prior position of defensive tackle.

I know, who cares, but I eat this stuff up. 

And it's a slow football week.

Bye Bye Schobel

Another free agent visit coming today:

Free agent tight end Kris Wilson is visiting the Philadelphia Eagles today. He will meet with the media following his visit at 3 PM, we will have complete coverage throughout the day here on PhiladelphiaEagles.com.

The 26-year-old Wilson spent the last four seasons in Kansas City, where he caught 42 passes for 345 yards and four touchdowns as a tight end, H-back and fullback. Wilson also has 15 career tackles on special teams. In 2007, Wilson registered a career-high 24 receptions for 180 yards and one score.

Born in Harrisburg, PA, and a product of J.P. McCaskey High School in Lancaster,  the 6-2, 251-pound Wilson was a 2nd round draft choice of the Chiefs in 2004 from the University of Pittsburgh.