Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

Of COURSE I Want to Hear More About Chris Gocong

UPDATE at the bottom

Inasmuch as I understand where the local sports media are coming from in their approach to covering the Eagles, I'm must admit I'm somewhat baffled by the contention that their hands are pretty much tied in terms of what they cover.

The Smallwood thing has been pretty comprehensively covered since it came out (here's a good take), but let's look at another example. 

I'm a fan of Les Bowen's.  I like what to read what he writes.  I like the approach he's taking on the new DN Eagles blog.  And I think, unlike some other local guys, he actually takes some enjoyment out of seeing the local teams do well, in of course the most objective way possible.

But I just don't understand statements like this:

I suppose Reid is disappointed that the focus of minicamp coverage was 1. Lito Sheppard, here and untraded, and 2. Donovan McNabb, returning to an offense that did not make any dramatic upgrades at skill positions, something McNabb and other Eagles had seemed to imply was necessary.

If that's the coach's gripe, well, Andy, tough beans. I think our collective news judgment is a lot better than yours. I'm not getting a lot of fan e-mails asking me to stop writing about Lito and Donovan and focus on Andy Studebaker.

Well consider this that email. 

Look, everyone understands that the two biggest stories in minicamp were Lito (because he wasn't traded) and Donovan (because he's the lead character in As The Eagles Turn).  But it's not like we live in a world where we're still trying to cram as much as possible into some set number of column inches.  You don't just have to cover one or two topics anymore.

You can do it all.

I realize there's a subset of Eagles fans that gets its jollies from arguing all the time about the Eagles:

• Being cheap
• Not caring about winning
• Passing too much (Okay, this one's on me too)
• Having a quarterback who tends to miss some passes low
• Employing a coach who doesn't like to air the team's dirty laundry in public

So go ahead, feed the beast.  Keep the base happy.  But there's another, much larger, subset of Eagles fans that simply want to learn as much about their team as possible.

That's why so many people visit PhiladelphiaEagles.com every day.  It's not because we crave the incessantly pro-organization editorial slant.  It's because you can learn a lot about the team, its players, the coaches and generally what's going on at the NovaCare Complex by checking in.

This really came through to me the other day when I was (back pat) talking to David Akers.  We talked for 10 minutes, but I could easily have filled two hours with questions and follow-ups.  And yeah, it was a pretty cheesy interview, but did you know he ran a 4.6 40-yard-dash coming out of college?  Did you appreciate, as I did, hearing about Sav's development as a holder?  Did you really, really want to find out what kind of shoe he likes to wear when he works out?

Ok, maybe not that last one.  But the point stands:  Every single player on the Eagles has an interesting story.  And I want to read about it.

And I don't think I'm alone.

I'll tell you what's most frustrating about this.  I'm not one of those newzpaperz sux / bloggers rool kind of people.  If the local papers went away tomorrow, I'd be completely screwed.  They're the guys who provide the nutrients for the commentary ecosystem.  Without them, there would be nothing to feed on, nothing to ruminate over, nothing to analyze but some stats and what we see on television 16 (and maybe one day 19) times a year.

And yet, for all the access they have, what happens far too often?  They all get in a big room, ask the same questions, and then complain afterwards that the answers weren't any good.

Meanwhile, I can't get the Eagles media staff to respond to an email, the players don't even think about getting back to me when I track them down through their personal web pages or MySpace (I'm not a stalker, man), and the organization says it wants to get positive stories out but then doesn't give two craps about the bloggers who write every day and would be thrilled to be manipulated in such a way. 

So here's my challenge, and it comes in two parts.  For the local reporters we all read every day, we do care about the Andy Studebakers of the world.  In fact, here are 10 stories I can think of off the top of my head that I'd love to read about in tomorrow's paper:

1. What's it like for Winston Justice hanging out in the city?  What's the funniest thing any fan has said to him since that Giants catastrophe last year?
2. How is Sav Rocca adjusting to life in the States?  Now that he's had a year under his belt to start to understand Philly and its fans, what does he think about the city and its people?  How do we compare to what he dealt with back home with the 'pies?
3. What is Mark Whipple's role on the coaching staff?  Are we going to see any elements of the whiplash offense this year?
4. J.R. Reed has a great comeback story that's been written about many times.  What I care about now though is how well he can play safety.  Does he have a potential future in the league at that position?  How did JJ think he did last year when he got on the field?  How did Reed think he did?  Is that foot injury always going to limit him to spot duty and special teams?
5. Why does it seem like the Eagles blitz so much less than they used to?  Someone at the NovaCare has to have those stats going back a few years.  Ask Johnson about it and try to find out if it's because his linemen are better or because his back seven doesn't actually blitz that well.
6. How is Dan Klecko handling the transition to full-time fullback?  What's that learning curve been like coming out of minicamp?
7. Likewise, how's Gaither handling the move to WIL?  We know he misses the control that comes with being in the middle, but does he think this could be a better long-term spot for him given his size and playmaking ability?  What do the coaches have planned for him this year in terms of maybe cutting it loose a bit more and getting after the QB?
8. What's up with Victor Abiamiri?  The guy didn't get on the field much last year.  How did he look in this minicamp?  Has he improved his quickness at all?  Do the Eagles plan to use him as a nickel DT at times given his size? 
9. Defensive line coach Pete Jenkins came to the organization with a reputation as a master teacher of technique.  He's been here two years now -- are the results what they thought they'd be?  How's Bunkley coming along this offseason with developing a pass rush move or two?  Will Trent Cole have any new tricks up his sleeve for attacking the stud left tackles of the NFC East?
10. Finally, shouldn't we know more about Asante Samuel by now?

As for the non-reporters out there (i.e., the rest of us), I would say the gauntlet has been thrown down.  The local writers don't think we care about this kind of stuff.  Let's prove them wrong.

Here's a good place to start:  bowenl@phillynews.com (see update below)

I would imagine emails that are cordial and thoughtful have a much better chance of getting read and could have significantly more impact in the end.  And there's no point in blaming someone like Les for the crap that happens on WIP.  Those are two separate things.

But he says he's not getting emails asking him to stop writing about Lito and cover some of the other things mentioned above?  Let's change that.

Seriously, don't leave me hanging here.  Email him.  See what happens.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

UPDATE:  Ok, time to call off the dogs.  I received a very nice note from Les a few minutes ago on this issue.  It addresses a number of the criticisms and I think is quite fair in its approach. 

Hey, Derek: Thanks for the mention, I have gotten a few e-mails. You seem to have a most thoughtful, worthwhile blog.

I think you at least partly misunderstand my point RE Andy (and feel free to use this if you want). Yes, I know there are things other than Donovan and Lito that fans want to know. The one day I was at minicamp I wrote about Lito, because he spoke that day, but I also wrote about Todd Herremans/Max Jean-Gilles and DeSean Jackson.

To me, it's logical to put the primary focus on the stories that are going to have the most impact on the season. At the first minicamp, those stories were Lito and Donovan. That won't be the case forever, I hope (I got really sick of writing about T.O.), but it was the case then. Andy would rather we skip those situations altogether or adopt Dave Spadaro's attitude toward them ("Lito, isn't this going to be just the greatest defense ever?") If we did that, we would not be doing our job. It's unrealistic, and silly of him, I think, to expect such issues not to be front and center.

I understand what you're saying about the internet giving us the chance to do "everything" rather than what will fit into a specific hole on a certain page of the newspaper. However, 1. There's only one of me, and 2. More to the point, we don't have access to everybody, every day. Most days during the media access time in the Eagles' locker room, you would have an easier time finding a live kangaroo than Sav Rocca. He doesn't spend a lot of time with us. Winston Justice, ditto, and I would have to say that though Winston was a standup guy, discussing what happened against the Giants last year, he hasn't shown much of a sense of humor about it. Also, assistant coaches who are not coordinators are not allowed to talk to reporters, under Andy Reid's rules. So far, I don't know Mark Whipple from Mr. Whipple.

But I do hope to be able to offer more on the blog than I am able to get in the paper, on a wider range of subjects, particularly after we head to Lehigh, where the access is probably greatest. And I really appreciate your interest.

Thanks, Les

As I mentioned in my reply back to him, I think Bowen is one of the good guys.  So the criticisms were more general, but maybe we scored some broader points for the office water cooler about what we're hoping to read about? 

Maybe?

Either way, you all can stop emailing him now.  We took our shot.

But thanks again for doing what you did. 

Call Me Old Fashioned

Is this really an improvement (click-able image)?

And they say they can't do fluffy, positive pieces at that paper.

Is DeSean Jackson Just Ted Ginn?

I had kind of an unsettling thought last night.  What if DeSean Jackon is really just Ted Ginn in a different college uniform?

I should explain.  For three years, I watched Ted Ginn play at Ohio State and I thought he was one of the most overrated players in college football.  Sure, he was fast.  You had to be careful kicking the ball to him.  But as a receiver, he didn't seem like anything special.

I know he kind of owned Michigan, but in three years against Penn State he accumulated a whopping seven catches for 78 yards and no touchdowns.  Great straight line speed, dangerous with the ball in his hands, but no route-running ability and easy to keep in check if you stayed disciplined.

In fact, last July I wrote this in my (yes, imaginary) mailbag:

Which rookie will have the biggest impact on the 2007 season? (Drew, Orlando)

... Keep an eye on Teddy Ginn though.  If there's one guy out there poised to change the way an entire fanbase thinks about its team, he's the one.  Or maybe he won't suck.  There's always a chance

So yeah, not a big fan.  Although I know not everyone agrees.  This Dolphins blogger has a good long post evaluating Ginn's rookie season.  (And it's worth reading that post if only to set realistic expectations about what NFL receivers are usually able to contribute in their rookie seasons.)  At least there's some room for optimism if you're a Miami fan -- although mostly because the team can't be any worse from this point forward so Ginn probably will have to have better numbers by default.   

But back to Jackson, take a look at the respective scouting reports coming out of college and tell me who's who:

Player #1

POSITIVES: Game-breaking skill player with home-run speed. Quick releasing off the line, has opponents playing back on their heels, and consistently stretches the field. Possesses a terrific burst of speed and runs to daylight if given the slightest space of open field.

NEGATIVES: Not big, and beaten out in physical battles. Easily brought down at the initial point of attack. Has trouble handling the jam.

ANALYSIS: A track and field sprinter who translates his natural speed onto the football field, [Player 1] is a vertical receiver who loosens up the defense. Must get stronger, but he's a game-breaking threat every time he steps onto the field.

And:

Player #2

POSITIVES: Game-breaking receiver with home run speed. Quick off the line, immediately gets to top speed, and possesses the second gear. Easily makes the difficult catch downfield running at full speed and not afraid to go up in a crowd for the reception. Shows excellent focus, looks the pass into his hands, and makes the reception away from his frame. Plays with good balance and body control and gets vertical to grab the high pass. Effectively positions himself and uses his frame to protect the ball. Extends and offers the quarterback a nice target. Adjusts to the errant throw and makes the reception in stride. Elusive handling the ball and can run to daylight if given the slightest bit of open space. Possesses soft hands and plucks the ball from the air.

NEGATIVES: Lacks the big frame and loses out in battles. Must be more disciplined running routes, as he tends to float out of breaks. Durability has been an issue the past two years.

ANALYSIS: [Player 2] is a tremendous athlete with rare speed and the ability to impact games in a variety of ways. He strikes fear in opponents and his ability to beat defenders downfield is highly respected. [Player 2] must physically mature and improve his playing strength, yet he should produce in a variety of ways at the next level.

Pretty similar, yeah?  And no, I didn't edit those other than to take out the names. 

...

I know the suspense is killing you ... so I'll tell you that #1 is Ginn and #2 is Jackson.

The good news is that Jackson's report talks more about how well he catches the ball.  That was a concern with Ginn coming out of college, but other than that, we're talking about the same guy.  Except that Ginn is an inch and a half taller, 10 pounds heavier and somewhat faster (according to their 40 times). 

Hmmm...

I guess the good news is that the Dolphins drafted Ginn at #9 and the Eagles took Jackson much, much later.  That's important.  On the other hand, I'm not convinced Ginn is ever going to be a #1 receiver in this league, so what does that mean for Jackson?

- - - - - -

Open discussion time: 

My brother watches more college football than I do.  When I sent this idea over to him, his response was: "I always thought Jackson was a more complete receiver than Ginn. It didn’t seem like he was just a track star. But I’ve only seen him play a couple times." 

What's the rest of Eagledom think?  Anyone out there feel like they watched enough of both guys in college to form a good opinion of the ways in which they're different?

For comparison, here's a good site with the college statistics of both Jackson and Ginn.

Eagles fans want to know.

They're Still Standing By This Guy?

I was a little surprised to read this item by Don McKee today on the issue of how the NFL is treating former players with medical problems:

But the biggest scandal around the NFL is not Spygate. It's the plight of former players who lack medical care.  At 36, Brian DeMarco walks with a cane and is unable to get in and out of a chair without assistance because of a spinal injury.  Mounting bills have left the former Cincinnati and Jacksonville offensive lineman and his family homeless three times.

"Oftentimes in our lives, we walk around and we turn a blind eye to things," DeMarco said. "We see the homeless guy in the street . . . and we kind of just walk on by."

DeMarco is the kind of tragic figure that the Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund was established to help - former NFL players who can't get medical care from the league or from their union.

I think the league should do more to help these guys (hey, it's not my money) but I'm wondering why all the burden should fall on the players, rather than the owners who built their franchises on these former players?

Either way, has anyone ever answered the charges Chris Mortensen leveled against DeMarco in particular in this piece he did last summer:

DeMarco, who was unavailable for comment Monday night, acknowledged to the Sun-Times that he had received about $10,000 in assistance from the NFLPA, yet he still complained about the union's response to his plight.

Another union official told ESPN that it's DeMarco who has been non-responsive, saying he has not returned disability forms which have been sent to him twice and has ignored the NFLPA's instructions to fill out forms for an annuity worth more than $40,000. DeMarco also has received a $50,000 severance claim when he left the NFL after the 2000 season and has a 401(k) plan with $151,000 in it, the official said.

The NFLPA official said it also had lined up a job for DeMarco in Austin, Texas, but that he "no-showed."

...

A prominent ex-Jaguars player told ESPN that he and another former teammate "cringed" when they saw DeMarco appear at Monday's press conference. The ex-Jaguar did not want to be identified but said DeMarco has been given significant financial help by his former teammates, including three jobs "that he's blown."

"Now he's walking with a cane in front of cameras," the ex-Jaguar said. "Last time we saw him -- and it was in the past two weeks -- he didn't need a cane. He has some physical problems, yes, but there are other things going on there."

Seems like it's time for a new poster child here.

Hangin' With David Akers

I have only a few rules on this blog, most of which aren't really important and are actually more like general guidelines rather than rules when it comes right down to it. 

With that said, I think I've decided that my number one rule is that I will gladly put your company name (Reebok) in big bold letters (REEBOK) all over this blog (REEBOK) if your PR firm contacts me and asks if I'd like to speak with one of the Eagles' current players.

I'm talking to you, Campbell's Chunky Soup.

Which is how I ended up talking to David Akers by phone this afternoon.  They said I had five minutes, he ended up giving me 10, and this is how it went:

IB:  What happened last year and what are you doing this summer?

DA:  What happened last year?  Well, we didn't win enough games and this summer we're working hard to change that -- come home with a Lombardi Trophy down Broad Street.  How's that for you?

IB:  That sounds awesome, how about you?

DA:  Myself... I'm really doing a lot of training.  I changed up my routine and I'm doing something a little different.  If you understand, it's really more like a plyo[metrics] and quick explosion ...  Also, lost a little weight, which I didn't really know I needed to lose, but I tried it that way and ended up losing weight and that's been pretty cool. 

I'm actually getting a lot more time with my holder and my snapper, because we were all kind of new last year together.  [We did] pretty well under 40 yards last year and really bad over 40 yards, which made us have a so-so season...

So we're really working on that.  We've all three been here for the whole offseason, so we're doing that together.  And just trying to get better.

IB:  That's awesome.  What's your 40 time at your new weight?

DA:  My 40 time?

IB:  At your new weight...

DA:  Ha ha.  I don't know.  I haven't run 40s for 12 years.

IB:  That sounds about right.

DA:  I ran a 4.6 coming out of college and I haven't run that since then.

IB:  That's gotta be up there for a kicker.

DA:  Yeah, it was pretty good.  Probably out of everybody [which = other specialists], I'd be pretty close to the top of the chain there, except for Buffalo's punter, who's like a world-class sprinter.  I can't mess with Brian Moorman, but everything is going pretty well that way.  I lost actually like eight pounds of fat.  I didn't know I had that much fat to lose.

IB:  That's impressive.  So everything's coming together with Rocca and you feel like some of the holding stuff may be ... we're not gonna see Detmer as a late season signing again?         

DA:  [Pause]  Well I'd never be disappointed about getting Detmer as a late season signing.  [Laughs]  Sav has increased his percentage of hitting the mark, tremendously. Where he left off last year -- the thing is it's the same way he was as a punter.  As you saw the season progress with Sav as a punter, he just increased each week, got better and better.  Take the one week out where they wanted him to do all these crazy punts against Chicago, he had some big, big bombs in crucial games.  So I was really, really impressed the way he improved as the season went on.

And the same thing happened with his holding.  Before, if he got a snap that was a little off, and he had to make adjustments, it was a little slower.  Now, I was just telling some other people that we were actually told this minicamp to slow down.  We were going too fast.  And that's usually the opposite.  Usually you have to kind of speed yourself up, especially this time of year and then you get in through training camp and you find ... how everything needs to be timing-wise and we were right on the money.

I was really, really kind of surprised about that.  I think that was the most consistency as far that goes this early in the season.  Mainly because those years with Koy and Mike, we were always apart during the offseason.  We've had some time to work together this year with Jon and Sav and myself.

IB:  I know you've gotta pay the freight here with the REEBOK thing and the reason we're talking, is there anything you want to say here about that?

DA:  I was talking about this with some other guys, Reebok joined up with me about six years ago -- or I was able to join the Reebok team.  I was having a hard time finding cleats that would benefit the way I kick.  I have a very unique style as far as how I come down on the ball, very much like a golf club does, and I needed some shoes that would actually be able to withstand the impact.  I wanted a football bottom, rather than a soccer bottom, to give me more grip and I wanted a soccer top.  They said fly on up here and we'll design a shoe.  I've been using them ever since, been able to go to the Pro Bowl with them.  So it's really been a great relationship that way. 

But also, doing this offseason training, Reebok came out with this new technology called the Reebok HexRide Rally.  Instead of me having to fly up to their offices to design a shoe, shoot man I can go right over to Dick's Sporting Goods and pick 'em up.  They're only 85 bucks over there.         

Especially this time of year.  People that know me know -- and literally I'm not trying to be some promo guy -- I'm so in tuned to what I have to wear on my feet, both on the field and off.  So when I'm training, I have to have the shoes that feel good to work out in...  For myself and a bunch of other guys in the NFL, it's the only shoe we'll wear.

IB:  That's great, so I guess my last question:  Are you doing any more of those cool commercials this year?

DA:  That's very interesting.  You'll have to ask those guys that. 

That was kind of cool [last year].  It was kind of a last second thing.  That was kind of an interesting thing, because everyone always asks: "Was it real or not real?" 

We went out to a local high school and they said:  "We'd like to do a deal where we snap the ball and you kind of volley it out of the air."   I said, all right, well, how about this, whenever I'm walking around and I have three or four footballs in my hands and I need to grab another one, I kind of kick the ball against my one foot and it pops the ball up in the air so I can just grab it.

So I kind of did something like that, so then I started wondering, what if I could pop it up in the air and kick it?  I popped it up and kicked it and [thought] that's cool, let's try it again.  So we went through the whole thing and it took us about six or seven takes to get it all right, but I did pop it up and kick it.

Did it go 60 yards?  You be the judge.

- - - - - -

All in all, he seemed like a really cool, down-to-earth guy.  And I'm glad to hear about Rocca (as are 100,000 of our Aussie friends). 

Here's that video he was talking about:   

Here's a Question

Would the amount of new material local sportswriters had to work with if Andy gave more expansive press conferences be enough to cancel out all those 800 word columns on how Andy doesn't talk enough?

Net-net, I think it's close.

Closer Look at the Red Zone

I've been mulling over another red zone post for some time now.  I covered it a couple times during the season, but not in a really systematic way with year-end stats.  So that's what I'm hoping to do here.

First, a quick aside.  I started working on this post over the weekend -- these stat-heavy ones take awhile to work through -- and didn't see that some good stat work had been taking place on the same issue over at Wingheads.  Since that's out there, I figured I'd better address it and then move on to a broader picture.

Here's Ig_L's thesis:

I broke the season down into halves and took out the Detroit blowout. Well we were worse than pathetic in games 1-8 (excluding Detroit). We scored touchdowns on 26.1% of our Red Zone appearances...

In the 2nd half of the season we really improved. We had a 61% TD rate (NFL average is 52%). This would have put us in 4th place in TD percentage...

What does this mean? At a minimum, it means we CAN be in the top 5 in Red Zone production. I don't know what the cause of the problems in the first half of the year, but they were eliminated in the first few games of the 2nd half. Then we slid back to just above average in the last few games.

He's done up a number of good tables to show his work (although his numbers differ from the ones I've found, inconsistently).  But I don't find this convincing.  You can't argue for a trend that says:  "We were bad for two games, then good for one, then had six bad ones, four good ones and then a few OK games."  That's not a trend, that's just normal variation. 

Furthermore, there are just too few red zone opportunities on a week-to-week basis to say anything meaningful about performance from one game to the next.  In fact, you can take that idea another step further and argue that ANY attempt to understand red zone performance is meaningless due to the unavoidably small sample sizes (unless you're the Patriots). 

This is what Brian Burke, who runs the football stats site www.bbnflstats.com, told me when I emailed him back in early March to get his take on the issue.  Brian is clearly a very, very smart guy.  And the stuff he does with statistics is way beyond what I usually cook up.  You should definitely check out his site when you have some free brain cells. 

His response to my email:

From the analysis I've seen and done, there is nothing special about any offense that makes them particularly well suited or poorly suited to red zone success. In other words, teams that are good elsewhere on the field will tend to be good near the end zone, and teams that are generally bad will tend to be bad near the end zone.

Red zone performance is a small subset of general offensive performance. It is likely that it is no more different from overall performance than if you took any random subsample of all plays. For example, say that red zone plays comprise 5% of a team's offensive snaps. If you took any 5% sample of plays from a random location on the field and looked at performance there, you would see the about the same deviation from overall performance.

There probably aren't enough plays in the red zone to compare to overall performance to conclude that any team is significantly better or worse in the red zone than anywhere else. And if there were enough plays to analyze, the effect would necessarily be so small as to not be that important. It's a little bit like "clutch batting" in baseball. Statistics can't prove it doesn't exist, but it can conclude that if it did, the effect would be tiny.

So, I would take heart with the Eagles. Their very high rate of reaching the red zone indicates they have the talent to move the ball. Their lack of red zone TDs last year are probably due to 1) randomness, and 2) game situation (being either ahead or in close games so that FGs are attractive).

I found some data to support what he's saying, too, at ProFootballWeekly, another good statistical site that tracks red zone performance throughout the season.  Check out the following graph that shows red zone scoring efficiency for every team in the league in 2006 and 2007:

If red zone scoring were a "skill" we would expect teams that were good at it one year to also be good at it the following year, since there isn't that much turnover in rosters, coaching, etc., from year to year. 

But that's not what we see with this chart.  Rather than the dots "clumping" around an imaginary line that rises from left to right, we actually have what appears to be a rather random distribution.  (Correlation coefficient of -0.09, in fact).   

The situation isn't quite the same for touchdowns, but it's pretty close:

There's more of the clumping here (correlation coefficient of .23) but it's still not a huge effect.  By the way, that data point over on the left is the Oakland Raiders. 

So case closed ... or not.  Take a look at the Eagles' five-year trends in terms of red zone performance:

Looks can certainly be deceiving, but does that look random to you?  Because it kind of doesn't to me.

- - - - - -

So why was the team so good at scoring in the red zone in 2003?  Or, to rephrase that for our stats-minded friends, in what way did the Eagles score all those touchdowns that year?  Here's an interesting chart:

That's pretty intriguing, isn't it?  In the last five years, you have three seasons with 15 red zone passing TDs, one with 14 and one with 27. 

Here's the full table:

I find this almost insanely interesting, because people have a tendency to say, "Well, the Eagles used to be just fine scoring in the red zone when they had Todd Pinkston and James Thrash, so clearly they should be OK now."

Uh no, the reason the Eagles were so good at scoring touchdowns in 2003 is because the Three-Headed Monster of Westbrook, Buckhalter and Duuuuuuce was so good at pounding the ball into the end zone on the ground.

So could that be the answer?  Just run the ball down more by the goal line and watch the points pile up?

One problem.

- - - - - -

For the next section, I'm just going to steal from an earlier post I wrote.  I haven't updated the numbers (life is too short), but I continue to think this is really a key point for the Eagles:

And what we saw this year is that Westbrook is too good to be shut down in the middle of the field.  The coaches can do too many things to get him the ball in space for any team to consistently hold him in check.  But when the Eagles get down by the goal line, things change.  The space compresses, safeties who no longer have to worry about helping deep can start creeping up, and there's just not as much room to spring Brian free. 

I put together a couple of tables to show just how big an effect this has.  The first compares Westbrook to the other backs in the league's top 10 in rushing:

Now obviously, all these guys are going to have lower averages in the red zone, just because there's not as far to run when you're close to the goal line.  But Westbrook has the biggest gap of all these guys between his rushing average in the red zone vs. the rest of the field...

In short, I think a big part of the reason the Eagles have had a lot of success between the 20s and not as much in the red zone is because you can't defend against Westbrook in the first case, but you can in the second.

I still think that's true.

- - - - - -

But what about 2004, anyway?  If we compare 2004 (Owens) to 2007 (no Owens), what will we find?

Weird, isn't it?  Inasmuch as Owens was a bona fide red zone threat, it wasn't really just about him.  Owens, Westbrook and LJ all had six red zone TD catches, with Chad Lewis chipping in five more.  In 2007, no one guy had more than three.

In fact, if you just look at the wide receiver position as a whole, the group managed nine touchdowns in 2004 ... and nine touchdowns in 2007.  The difference was all the other guys (especially the tight ends).  Did Owens really draw so much attention down by the goal line that it could have that big an impact on everyone else?  Or was the trio of Smith / Lewis / Bartrum just that much better than Smith (injured) / Celek (rookie) / Schobel (sucks)?  And how much goes on the shoulders of the rehabbing McNabb?

Not sure there's any way to tell.

- - - - - -

So what's the lesson here?  That it's not about having that one guy who's your "go to" red zone threat?  But, rather, what matters is being able to spread the ball around and keep the defense off balance so that everyone has better chances to score?  Or does it take that big time guy to open things up for everyone else?

And would spreading the defense out mean that the running backs would find more room to run?  Maybe increasing scoring chances even without throwing the ball?

Most importantly -- have the Eagles done enough this offseason with the additions they've made to get to that "spread out" level? 

I guess we'll see.

Another Philly Guy Gets It

Leave it to Philly's own Sal Paolantonio to jam Goodell the way he needs to be jammed:

In the days since former New England Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh emerged from his Maui hideaway and surrendered eight tapes to the NFL, there has been a hasty conclusion that the whole sordid Spygate affair is finally finished -- a judgment reached by some of the media before NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has had the chance to depose Walsh by asking some tough, pointed questions.

That's a bad idea. The world of pro football has waited since February for Walsh to step before Goodell -- and hopefully this time the commissioner won't be in a rush to dismiss the possible implications.

Instead, on Tuesday in New York, Goodell should grill Walsh and sort out some still unresolved issues regarding Bill Belichick's now-documented system of cheating, which is clear from Walsh's tapes that go back seven years.

Funny.  Sports Illustrated has always had the reputation as being the more "serious" news outlet.  Yet their guys seem to be in a rush to bury this whole thing as quickly as possible (summer vacation plans?) while we've got a couple of ESPNers -- I count Easterbrook in this -- who aren't willing to let this go away until we know the full story. 

Good for them.  Now it's Yahoo Sports' turn, since it seems like those guys now break all the big news, even though no one ever reads them the rest of the time.

King's Changing Tune

Peter King, Monday Morning Quarterback, April 28, 2008:

The Eagles always ask for too much in trade. Always. They couldn't get rid of Lito Sheppard last weekend, but that was primarily because Sheppard, who gets hurt too much, wants a new contract even though he has four years left on his current one.

Peter King, Monday Morning Quarterback, May 12, 2008:

And they hung on to the dissatisfied Sheppard. His value to the Eagles, simply, was more than the value of a second-round pick, even though he's missed 14 games in the past three years due to injury. I applaud Philly for not dealing him, though to be truthful, a big reason why he wasn't dealt was because he wanted too much money in a renegotiated contract.

So, the Eagles asked for "too much" in a trade, but Lito's value would have been more than they got back for him.  Makes perfect sense.

He then goes on to cite some good stats about how much third cornerbacks play in this league, as many people have been pointing out for weeks (but he has numbers). 

In-Depth Red Zone Analysis...

... is coming tomorrow.  Couldn't finish it last night. 

Some surprising results so far.  I'll have the post up tomorrow morning.