Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Thinking About the Linebackers

I had a thought the other night while brainstorming some topics for upcoming posts.  The general sense in Iggles Land seems to be that after year of making a complete hash out of the linebacker position -- letting Trotter walk, making poor draft picks, signing an endless array of washed-up stopgap veterans -- the Eagles have finally figured out how to put together a linebacking corps that could: a) be pretty good and b) stick together for a few years.

Obviously we don't know for sure what to expect next year.  I'm looking forward to Omar being back home on the weak side, but Gocong needs to take it up a couple notches and Stewart Bradley is the walking definition of unproven.  (I don't think anyone's going to find a Reid quote saying he was playing at a "Pro Bowl" level at the end of last year.)  But there's at least the potential that this could be a pretty good group. 

What I find interesting about this is that the Eagles didn't change a single thing about how they approached the position.  They refused to go sign a big money free agent, nor did they spend one of their top two picks on a blue chipper like Paul Posluszny. 

Gocong and Bradley were both third-rounders, but Gaither stuck around until the fifth.  And all three guys had question marks coming out of college.  Gaither was a little undersized, Gocong was a small-school defensive end, and Bradley had a somewhat subpar senior season due to recovering from a serious knee injury suffered his junior year.  It goes too far to suggest they were plucked from the scrap heap -- way too far, in fact -- but none of them was a slam dunk NFL starter.  The fact that they all might make it is either a credit to the Eagles' scouting/coaching staffs or perhaps also a sign that they finally got a little luck at the position. 

Of course, it's also true that they didn't roll the dice with just these three guys.  The last few years, they've been carpet-bombing the position with mid/late-round draft picks and UDFAs who have some question marks.  Just this year, they drafted Joe Mays (undersized) and Andy Studebaker (another DE conversion, this time from Division III) to add to the mix.  I almost feel like the Eagles signed Rocky Boiman just to add some big name credibility (Notre Dame) to their linebacker mix.

So it's an interesting discussion question.  Did the Eagles have the right approach all along, and they just didn't pick the right guys / had some bad luck with draft picks?  Or was it instead that they just happened to get lucky with these three particular guys and that bailed them out?

This Is Pretty Sweet, Right?

Not one but two stories on Andy Studebaker in the two big Philly papers this morning.

Time to go have that celebratory cup of coffee.

I Go On One Little Business Trip

And this happens.

For What It's Worth

I've never heard of this show, but hey, I'm all about supporting the local theater. 

The Philly Fan
Theatre Exile presents a return engagement of its hit show The Philly Fan by Bruce Graham, starring Tom McCarthy, and directed by Joe Canuso.  A one-man tour-de-force in which two-time Barrymore Award winner Tom McCarthy takes audiences on a hilarious journey through the frustrations of the past fifty years of Philadelphia sports.  This production is an in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is romp through the memories of a hard core fan used to seeing sure-thing victories turn into “oh-my-God-they-blew-it” defeats. 

June 10-15 at The Playground at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street.  Tickets are $25 - $30 ($50 for the Opening Night Gala); call (215)922-4462 or visit www.ThePhillyFan.net

Here's the page with reviews / press clippings.

And I think we're all familiar with the four seasons of Philly fans.  Triumphant jubilation goes by so quickly.

It's DeSean Jackson Day

Two interesting DeSean Jackson reads on Philly.com today.  There's a short bio box that includes this amazing stat:

As a returner: Career average of 16.7 yards per punt return set a Cal record and ranks second in Pac-10 history behind baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, of UCLA (18.8).

Seriously, Jackie Robinson pops up in all kinds of crazy stats.  That man was an incredible athlete.  Although, not to be outdone, here's Jackson's baseball background:

On the diamond: Was ranked by Baseball America as the third-best all-around athlete in the Major League Baseball draft prospect pool in 2005 after hitting .380 with 20 stolen bases in his senior season in high school.

Our man Les Bowen also has a very in-depth, very long profile on Jackson that does more than hint at some of the interesting parts of his background:

Older brother Byron, a former member of the Chiefs' developmental squad, started filming DeSean's every movement when he was a preteen, and continued through his college career.

...

"His coach at Cal said we were too involved in his life,'' said Bill Jackson, 63, who is retired from FedEx. Moments earlier, he had concluded a phone conversation with DeSean in Philadelphia...

"I ask coach Tedford, 'Why not be involved with your children?' . . . I've heard Andy Reid doesn't want me anywhere near his facility. I'm like, 'Damn, what did I do?' ''

...

Tedford said if the Eagles fashion the proper environment for Jackson, he will work hard and he should succeed.

"I don't know that he worked as hard he could have, because he's a very natural player,'' Tedford said. "Now that he's in the NFL, and he has to compete with guys who are all as good as he is, he'll figure out he needs to work . . . He got away with doing things on natural ability a lot at this level, that he probably won't be able to do at that level. I don't think he's opposed to it, but he'd probably even admit he can work harder.

Tedford goes on to say that Jackson's a good kid overall, but oh boy, this could be interesting.

In Defense of Sean Considine - Kinda

In yesterday's post, it turns out I made a bit more of a leap than some were willing to grant when I said that besides Brian Dawkins "there's not a single other safety on the roster who's proven he's a legitimate NFL starter."

I got kind of called out on it in the comments, which I always appreciate.  That's a lot better than just thinking everyone agrees -- when they don't -- and it also indicates areas where I should spend more time doing some research.  So while I did cover some of this ground before, there's certainly a lot more we can discuss here.

Here's the thing about Quintin Mikell.  I like him just as much as you do.  Everyone likes rooting for the guys who come into the league as unrestricted free agents, bust their tails on special teams for a few years, and then earn their spots on the field.  Much better than the top ten picks who get handed a bunch of money right out of college but then fall short of the hype. 

So there's nothing personal about my concerns about him.  Hell, I really hope he proves me wrong, since that would be a great sign for the defense in 2008.  I'm just not sure, based on what I've seen so far, how Mikell is going to handle a full-time starting role once teams start going after him.

- - - - - -

Let's begin with the stats.  To remove the special teams effect as much as possible, these are only the numbers for the games during which these four guys started last year:

Those numbers aren't that easy to compare, however, so here's the same table with every guy's stats extrapolated over a 16 game season:

The obvious first takeaway is that Dawk clearly wasn't himself last year.  No sacks and one interception just isn't his thing.

But we knew that already, so the second takeaway should be that we should avoid reading too much into small sample sizes, because J.R. looks like an absolute monster in those numbers.  Especially because we don't know how many of those 15 tackles might have been picked up on special teams (although Mikell and Considine both played on STs as well).

Randy Moss certainly knows his name, though.

And the final takeaway is that Mikell had a nice season, but it's a big old stretch to claim it was anything like Pro Bowl caliber. 

In fact, if you compare Mikell's season to a couple other recent samples, you can get a better sense of context:

The 2004 season was the year the Eagles sent three guys from the secondary to the Pro Bowl, including Dawkins.  I picked it randomly from his five Pro Bowl seasons mostly because I wanted to look at Michael Lewis' stats as well.  That guy sure could tackle. 

Here's the 16-game extrapolation:

Now I think we really need to take Considine's tackle numbers with a grain of salt, because he tallied a fair number of special teams tackles that year according to the Eagles' stats (although, again, these tables are based only on the games each player started).  Also, it's generally not a good sign when your safeties are making too many tackles ... especially on running backs ... 10 yards downfield.

But Dawkins' sample season was clearly much better than either of the other guys.  Beyond that, I'm not seeing a whole lot of obvious separation there between Mikell and Considine.  And while Considine's injury history is certainly something to consider, we know now that the first surgery he had to fix the problem didn't do the job.  Maybe this time the doctors have it figured out. 

- - - - - -

So those are the numbers, but let's talk about what we actually see on the field as well.  Generally speaking, fans only notice two things while the game is going on:  1) the really, really good plays and 2) the really, really bad plays.  We don't see everything in between, like when a safety correctly plays a coverage and takes away a deep receiver or when a defensive tackle holds up two blockers so a linebacker is free to make the tackle.

It's actually really hard to judge these guys properly in real time, so what we end up doing is a kind of evaluative shorthand where we tally up all the good plays (big hits, interceptions, passes knocked down), compare those to all the screw ups (missed tackles, balls caught on their coverage) and then see how things net out. 

The problem is that this really isn't a very good way to evaluate players.  It misses 98 percent of what they do on the field.  And it's prone to serious perception biases, like how Considine can miss a tackle and he's a bum, whereas Dawk misses the same tackle and "boy that guy made a great move."

Considine's problem is (mostly) that he's missed some very visible tackles in some very embarrassing ways.  We may not be able to explain any of Jim Johnson's zanier zone coverage schemes, but we're pretty damn certain that the whole point of being on defense is bringing down the guy carrying the football.

In Mikell's case, we don't see the same kind of thing, because tackling isn't his problem.  He's great at that.  But I know there were times when I was re-watching games last year when people caught balls on that secondary and I thought -- although you can never be sure -- "that sure seemed like Mikell's responsibility there." 

- - - - - -

And that right there is my concern about Mikell in a nutshell.  We saw just two years ago with Michael Lewis what can happen when a safety who is very good at playing near the line of scrimmage starts getting picked on by teams further down the field.  You need a whole lot of tackles for three-yard losses to make up for one blown coverage that leads to a 60-yard touchdown. 

Right now, Dallas is going through the exact same thing with Roy Williams, a multiple Pro Bowler who admits that sometimes he hopes the quarterback doesn't throw the ball his way.

Now maybe I'm wrong to worry about that.  Maybe Mikell will be even better this year than he was last.  But I wouldn't bet against there being some shuffling again this year at that very important position. 

Might even be time to dust off that old Considine jersey.

You don't? 

Shocking Oversight

I have to admit, I'm kind of amazed that Mr. Positive missed the opportunity to mention that the chances of Brian Dawkins returning after the 2008 season are at least somewhat enhanced by the fact that there's not a single other safety on the roster who's proven he's a legitimate NFL starter. 

Maybe he's turning over a new leaf?

A Tale of Two Seasons?

One of the things every Eagles fan knows is that Donovan McNabb struggled mightily in the first half of last season, but rebounded nicely in the second half after he had some time to better recover from the catastrophic knee injury of 2006 (not to be confused with the catastrophic sports hernia of 2005 or the semi-catastrophic broken ankle of 2002). 

Just check out the per-game stats (Miami removed because of the injury):

Pretty black and white, right? 

Nah.  Never that easy. 

Here's the problem:

McNabb actually played a great game in week nine against the Washington Redskins.  It's the inclusion of those results that so dramatically skews the first half / second half results.  Here's that chart from above if you count weeks 1-9 and then 13-16:

Certainly some improvement, right?  But not the massive performance increase everyone keeps talking about.

And I would argue that this way of breaking down the season makes far more sense.  If you want to split it after week eight and use the "injury comeback" explanation, you have to explain how McNabb magically healed so much between Dallas and Washington that he was able to drop four TDs and a 138.5 passer rating on a decent pass defense.

I'm open to suggestions, but that's not going to be an easy story to tell.

Now I guarantee at least some people right now are saying to themselves: "Yeah, but if you took out the Detroit game, that wouldn't look so good."  And that's certainly true.  But why is it only the Detroit game that doesn't count?  Shouldn't we be just as ready to strip out the season-ender against Buffalo?  After all, it was a meaningless game between two non-playoff teams.  Most guys were planning their vacations by that point.

Here's another thing to consider.  Check out a graph that matches McNabb's passer rating (red line, left axis) with the rank of the pass defense he was facing (blue bars, right axis):

He should have looked good those last two weeks -- he was facing two of the worst pass defenses in the league.

Now I'm not trying to argue that McNabb didn't get better as the season progressed.  He absolutely did.  But he wasn't all that bad in the first half of the year either.

I think people feel like McNabb made a big jump in the second half for three reasons: 

1. He ran more.
2. No one sacked him 12 times.
3. The Eagles won four of the five games he started and finished.

But those last two reasons have as much to do with the rest of the team as they do with him.  After all, if Kevin Curtis hadn't busted his butt downfield to recover McNabb's fumble in the first quarter against the Saints, we might not be talking about "just" an 8-8 team.

In the end, team wins and losses dramatically skew our perceptions of individual performances.  Heck, all anyone wants to talk about these days is the emergence of Eli Manning, like last year was the season he finally put everything together.  Well, the guy's season-long passer rating was 73.9.

Or more than 12 points worse than McNabb's "crummy" first eight weeks.

Good NFC East Draft Overview

The FO guys come through as usual with a solid look at how the Eagles and their division rivals did in the draft. 

I'm not going to excerpt much, because the whole thing is worth reading, but this is the first time I've heard this about Ikegwuounu:

Fourth-round Wisconsin defensive back Jack Ikegwuonu was a surprise pick. He was accused of stealing an X-Box, and then tore up his ACL, but before all that he had been expected to go on the first day. Given his superior tackling ability and lack of speed, he may be moved to strong safety once he’s healthy.

So if you're keeping track at home, the Eagles drafted a safety who played cornerback last year and a cornerback who could eventually be moved to safety.  Interesting. 

Eagles Cheerleaders Go For Diversity

No, not that kind, the new squad could still mostly hide in a snowstorm, but in a stunning turn of events there aren't two women on the whole team who share the same name. 

If you're the type of person who follows this sort of thing -- and I am -- then you understand the incredible unlikelihood of assembling an entire squad without at least two Kimberlys, three Brookes and a handful of Katies. 

Think I'm joking?  Check out the Washington squad.  They have a Brittany and a Brittni, two Crystals, three Jessicas, two Kellys (and a Kelley), a Lee-Ann and a Leeanne, two Michelles and the mandatory Tiffany/Tiffani pairing.  (Also a "Klohver," but we won't judge.)

The closest the Eagles come to a match is with Jenna and Jennifer.  I'm wondering if this is like when a rookie comes in and a veteran already has his number.  If Jennier leaves the squad, would Jenna then get to take that name?  Or is she actually a Jenna? 

I suspect foul play here, in fact.  The odds of this just randomly happening are about as good as the odds the Eagles run the ball more than they pass it next year.  Something seems fishy about this...

- - - - - -

By the way, it's easy to pick out the rookies at the moment -- someone needs to go into Photoshop and up the contrast and saturation on those headshots a tad.

And yeah, it's been an eventful week on the blog.  We can't be serious every day.  Would get dull.