4 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

Ignore the cowboy fans take, just listen to what cosell had to say. Frankly this year i think we will find out a lot about how accurate cosell is or isn’t 

I don't know if they made that change in 2022.  I think the change was in 2021.  I am not sure many offenses actually require the player to read the entire field.  I mean Shanahan's passing game is heavily reliant on rollouts and play action to one side of the field.  

1 minute ago, LeanMeanGM said:

 

10 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

I don't know if they made that change in 2022.  I think the change was in 2021.  I am not sure many offenses actually require the player to read the entire field.  I mean Shanahan's passing game is heavily reliant on rollouts and play action to one side of the field.  

I don’t know cosell specifically said during their Super Bowl season they cut down on the offense because he wasn’t able to/ was challenging to be a full field reader. It’s pretty definitive that’s what he was told by coaches during that season which was also backed up on what he said he was seeing on film (why he asked them)

9 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

 

The 49ers are dumb.  I enjoy this.  

4 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

I don’t know cosell specifically said during their Super Bowl season they cut down on the offense because he wasn’t able to be a full field reader. It’s pretty definitive that’s what he was told by coaches during that season which was also backed up on what he was seeing on film

Yeah, I think he may be mistaken on the year.  The offense didn't change over the 2022 season.  It did in 2021.  The team was 8-0 to start the season.  They didn't lose their second game until week 16.  The offense averaged 28.12 ppg over the first 8 and 28 over the last 9.  Hurts averaged 242.25 yards per game passing in the first 8 games and 226.5 in the games in the rest of the season.  There were no changes in the approach.  He's wrong and likely conflating the 2021 and 2022 seasons.   

1 hour ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

Ignore the cowboy fans take, just listen to what cosell had to say. Frankly this year i think we will find out a lot about how accurate cosell is or isn’t 

He can't even progress past his first target. I don't see him being able to do that. They had to dumb the offense down for him holy hell. He is not the guy.

1 hour ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

Ignore the cowboy fans take, just listen to what cosell had to say. Frankly this year i think we will find out a lot about how accurate cosell is or isn’t 

I tend to think it's BS/half truth.  I can argue all I want that field vision is not a strength for Hurts.  But if it's so bad that in his best-ever season the coaches had to simplify and eliminate half the field for him....then shame on Howie for giving the guy a quarter billion dollar contract.  The problem is the FO, not Hurts, in that case.

1 hour ago, NCiggles said:

Yeah, I think he may be mistaken on the year.  The offense didn't change over the 2022 season.  It did in 2021.  The team was 8-0 to start the season.  They didn't lose their second game until week 16.  The offense averaged 28.12 ppg over the first 8 and 28 over the last 9.  Hurts averaged 242.25 yards per game passing in the first 8 games and 226.5 in the games in the rest of the season.  There were no changes in the approach.  He's wrong and likely conflating the 2021 and 2022 seasons.   

I don’t think so. I think he meant 2022. He even said the fans wouldn’t have noticed it but when you watched the film and asked the coaches, they said that they did. And he mentioned the sb season twice 

42 minutes ago, NOTW said:

Sadly the announcers butchered it.   "Woooooo-der"... not "wood-er".

There's been a lot of smoke this offseason(not just from WIP either) about how Hurts isn't the biggest fan of Sirianni as a coach. We don't know if this is true or not. But say for argument's sake for a minute it is true. If so, I think it's interesting the Eagles chose to keep Sirianni as head coach. If Pat Mahomes was the QB and the coach finished a historical collapse and the coach didn't have his endorsement, it's a virtual certainty he would've been canned.

If true, perhaps an indicator after a regression last season, Hurts lost some pull in the organization? I don't think the Eagles have a policy where they don't allow player voices to matter. Brian Johnson was made OC the year prior largely because of Hurts' endorsement.

But this is all obviously moot if Hurts really likes Sirianni. My hunch says at a minimum, there's something to this smoke though. He may not hate Sirianni, but at the very least I think his confidence in him may be shaken.

3 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

Tbh by the end of the year I’d argue there were 5 QBs playing better than him in the NFC. If we are just going off last year and how it ended I’d could argue Stafford, Goff, love, Dak and purdy. Jordan love his last 8 games had a 18:1 TD to int ratio while completing 70% of his passes. Goff helped the lions get to the nfc title game. Dak imploded in the playoffs but was considered an mvp candidate til the end. As much as people dislike purdy he was playing well. And Stafford was pretty good his last 8 games including the playoffs. Completed 67.5% and had a 18:4 TD to int ratio 

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with the list.

45 minutes ago, Sack that QB said:

There's been a lot of smoke this offseason(not just from WIP either) about how Hurts isn't the biggest fan of Sirianni as a coach. We don't know if this is true or not. But say for argument's sake for a minute it is true. If so, I think it's interesting the Eagles chose to keep Sirianni as head coach. If Pat Mahomes was the QB and the coach finished a historical collapse and the coach didn't have his endorsement, it's a virtual certainty he would've been canned.

If true, perhaps an indicator after a regression last season, Hurts lost some pull in the organization? I don't think the Eagles have a policy where they don't allow player voices to matter. Brian Johnson was made OC the year prior largely because of Hurts' endorsement.

But this is all obviously moot if Hurts really likes Sirianni. My hunch says at a minimum, there's something to this smoke though. He may not hate Sirianni, but at the very least I think his confidence in him may be shaken.

While the team stunk on both sides of the ball during last year's skid, seemed to my eyes that the defense, mostly DBs, didn't have their heart in tackling. Given Slay's on-the-record issues with Patricia, I would pose that there were some career decisions being made on that side of the ball because some were invested in the D not performing well after the coaching change. Short version, if any player quit and it was related to coaching during this stretch, it looked more like on the D-side of the ball.

I think people tend to overreact when it comes to QBs reading defenses. I'd argue almost any QB in the NFL is somewhat decent or they wouldn't even be able to throw a single completion. Sure, Peyton was above anyone else, but there's very few Peytons in history. 

Last November -only 8 months ago when Hurts was considered the MVP frontrunner- he was able to read defenses incredibly well. Here's an example from the first Cowboys game:

https://x.com/EaglesXOs/status/1721896050397765666

IMHO it's a matter of how you adjust the whole offense when a defense figures it out. Our coaches didn't have an answer to that by the end of the season.

 

*How do I embed a Twitter post?

Moore touched on it in his chalk talk but no one in here seems to have picked up on a critical element of motion:

IT TELLS THE QB SOMETHING ABOUT THE DEFENSE!

You cannot blame Hurts for failing to read the whole field if he isn't given the tools to do it with. If you don't motion guys, there's less to see. Sirianni talked about the three things motion does: "We motion for a very distinct reason,” Sirianni said. "We’re going to motion if we can create an advantage, if we can figure out what defense they’re in, [or] if we can get a guy in position to do his job better. We’re not a team that’s just going to motion [just] to motion. We’re going to do it for those three main reasons.” 

Yet he almost never motioned. 

Sirianni also never mentioned how motion stresses the defense, how defensive assignments can get screwed up, and how to run different plays out of the same motion. Much more than three reasons, Nick.

It wasn't Hurts, at least not much. It was coaching.

27 minutes ago, Next_Up said:

While the team stunk on both sides of the ball during last year's skid, seemed to my eyes that the defense, mostly DBs, didn't have their heart in tackling. Given Slay's on-the-record issues with Patricia, I would pose that there were some career decisions being made on that side of the ball because some were invested in the D not performing well after the coaching change. Short version, if any player quit and it was related to coaching during this stretch, it looked more like on the D-side of the ball.

I could possibly see Hurts having an issue with the firing of his friend, Brian Johnson.  So there could be some animosity there between him and Nick Sirianni.  That said, Hurts is professional enough to let it go.  I say this only to point out that I do think there is (or was) something going on on the offensive side.

That being said, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the defensive problems were far worse.  I don’t think the offense looks as bad if the defense doesn’t collapse the way it did.  I think the offensive issues were magnified because they were constantly in a bad situation.  that’s not to say that there aren’t corrections that are desperately needed, but it is a team sport and one side of the ball can definitely affect the other side.
 

 

28 minutes ago, beto_eagles said:

I think people tend to overreact when it comes to QBs reading defenses. I'd argue almost any QB in the NFL is somewhat decent or they wouldn't even be able to throw a single completion. Sure, Peyton was above anyone else, but there's very few Peytons in history. 

Last November -only 8 months ago when Hurts was considered the MVP frontrunner- he was able to read defenses incredibly well. Here's an example from the first Cowboys game:

https://x.com/EaglesXOs/status/1721896050397765666

IMHO it's a matter of how you adjust the whole offense when a defense figures it out. Our coaches didn't have an answer to that by the end of the season.

 

*How do I embed a Twitter post?

Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were probably among the best ever at reading the entire field, but I agree with you. I think many people assume that a lot of quarterbacks read the entire field all the time on every play.  Statements like the one Cosell made gets a lot of fans up in arms.  
 

Another poster mentioned it earlier, it would be a grand failure of any front office to give a quarterback the contract that Hurts got if he was incapable of reading defenses.  The posters that already have their minds made up that Hurts is not that good, will just use this as confirmation bias.  Even the smart ones that know better (if they’re asking themselves about it honestly).  
 

23 minutes ago, McMVP said:

I could possibly see Hurts having an issue with the firing of his friend, Brian Johnson.  So there could be some animosity there between him and Nick Sirianni.  That said, Hurts is professional enough to let it go.  I say this only to point out that I do think there is (or was) something going on on the offensive side.

That being said, I wholeheartedly agree with you that the defensive problems were far worse.  I don’t think the offense looks as bad if the defense doesn’t collapse the way it did.  I think the offensive issues were magnified because they were constantly in a bad situation.  that’s not to say that there aren’t corrections that are desperately needed, but it is a team sport and one side of the ball can definitely affect the other side.
 

 

The offense needed to be perfect almost every game in the second half last season with how bad the defense played. The defense gave up 34 to Buffalo, 42 to SF, 33 to Dallas, 25 and 27 to the Giants, and 35 to Arizona. I get the offense played a role in stalling which in turn left the defense out to dry, but overall the defense gave them zero chance in these games. 

3 hours ago, LeanMeanGM said:

 

 

 

My guess is that he ends up with the Redskins or Steelers.  Would be awesome to see the 49ers end up trading him.  

14 minutes ago, BDawk_ASamuel said:

The offense needed to be perfect almost every game in the second half last season with how bad the defense played. The defense gave up 34 to Buffalo, 42 to SF, 33 to Dallas, 25 and 27 to the Giants, and 35 to Arizona. I get the offense played a role in stalling which in turn left the defense out to dry, but overall the defense gave them zero chance in these games. 

The defense was atrocious. But our offensive had issues picking up the blitz. And it was repeatedly. And we have had issues with it even the year prior. Solak and Sheil discussed this before last year and during the season. Besides the high amount of turnovers we had which can vary year to year, a massive issue was poor adjustments to blitz and blitz pickups 

26 minutes ago, BDawk_ASamuel said:

The offense needed to be perfect almost every game in the second half last season with how bad the defense played. The defense gave up 34 to Buffalo, 42 to SF, 33 to Dallas, 25 and 27 to the Giants, and 35 to Arizona. I get the offense played a role in stalling which in turn left the defense out to dry, but overall the defense gave them zero chance in these games. 

Indeed… All someone needs to do is look at our offensive and defensive stats from a year ago and where this team ranked compared to the rest of the league.  The Eagles defense was among the very worst the last eight games.

I am praying that Fangio, finally being where he truly wants to settle down and remain until he retires, makes a difference.  I don’t think he really wanted to go to Miami a year ago, but that’s the way it worked out due to circumstances.  

There are a lot of people out there that believe Fangio’s system has been figured out.  I laugh at that, honestly.  Not every Fangio disciple knows how to run it the way he did, and not even Fangio always has the best pieces to run it himself.  At the end of the day, the offense always has an advantage over the defense in today’s game.  All defenses can really do, at this point, is to confuse the opposing QB as much as possible, and to try to stop the run with less beefier guys in the front 7 (or front 6 now) than they used in the past.  A good offense is always going to win more than they lose.  A great defense used to be defined by not allowing more than 14-15 points/game.  Now a great defense is allowing less than 21.  

if Fangio can turn us into a defense where we’re allowing 20 points or fewer on average, I like this team’s chances

 

41 minutes ago, just relax said:

Moore touched on it in his chalk talk but no one in here seems to have picked up on a critical element of motion:

IT TELLS THE QB SOMETHING ABOUT THE DEFENSE!

You cannot blame Hurts for failing to read the whole field if he isn't given the tools to do it with. If you don't motion guys, there's less to see. Sirianni talked about the three things motion does: "We motion for a very distinct reason,” Sirianni said. "We’re going to motion if we can create an advantage, if we can figure out what defense they’re in, [or] if we can get a guy in position to do his job better. We’re not a team that’s just going to motion [just] to motion. We’re going to do it for those three main reasons.” 

Yet he almost never motioned. 

Sirianni also never mentioned how motion stresses the defense, how defensive assignments can get screwed up, and how to run different plays out of the same motion. Much more than three reasons, Nick.

It wasn't Hurts, at least not much. It was coaching.

If you watch Hurts last season, he went through his progressions, but there was often no one open b/c the route design was so bad, I think Johnson was just too big college oriented where you have the better athletes and can dictate mismatches. At the pro level, not so much, you have to scheme to get even your best receivers open, especially against good defenses - and if they take away the big play, be prepared to dink and dunk down the field.

A good scheme attacks both horizontally and vertically, and disguises how they're going to attack play to play.

I think I saw a stat somewhere that Hurts was one of the better passers to covered receivers, which was a good thing because his receivers weren't getting a lot of separation.

If I was defending the Eagles last year, I'd focus on the big three and go man to man with Watkins, Swift, etc. b/c the Eagles never threw to those guys anyway.

3 minutes ago, McMVP said:

Indeed… All someone needs to do is look at our offensive and defensive stats from a year ago and where this team ranked compared to the rest of the league.  The Eagles defense was among the very worst the last eight games.

I am praying that Fangio, finally being where he truly wants to settle down and remain until he retires, makes a difference.  I don’t think he really wanted to go to Miami a year ago, but that’s the way it worked out due to circumstances.  

There are a lot of people out there that believe Fangio’s system has been figured out.  I laugh at that, honestly.  Not every Fangio disciple knows how to run it the way he did, and not even Fangio always has the best pieces to run it himself.  At the end of the day, the offense always has an advantage over the defense in today’s game.  All defenses can really do, at this point, is to confuse the opposing QB as much as possible, and to try to stop the run with less beefier guys in the front 7 than they used in the past.  A good offense is always going to win more than they lose.  A great defense used to be defined by not allowing more than 14-15 points/game.  Now a great defense is allowing less than 21.  

if Fangio can turn us into a defense where we’re allowing 20 points or a few on average, I like this team’s chances

 

The other key is forcing turnovers. You can't dominate an offense without allpro personnel, but you can confuse them and force mistakes, turnovers and stops on 3rd down are the key, let them chew up the yardage between the 20s but force turnovers, stops and field goals.

3 minutes ago, austinfan said:

The other key is forcing turnovers. You can't dominate an offense without allpro personnel, but you can confuse them and force mistakes, turnovers and stops on 3rd down are the key, let them chew up the yardage between the 20s but force turnovers, stops and field goals.

Agreed

32 minutes ago, BDawk_ASamuel said:

The offense needed to be perfect almost every game in the second half last season with how bad the defense played. The defense gave up 34 to Buffalo, 42 to SF, 33 to Dallas, 25 and 27 to the Giants, and 35 to Arizona. I get the offense played a role in stalling which in turn left the defense out to dry, but overall the defense gave them zero chance in these games. 

Teams win games.   Teams lose games.   The end of the season was a complete failure.   The defense gave up, no doubt.  They were lost out there, their coaches left them confused.  Meanwhile, the offensive coaches left the offense out to dry too.  They had no answer for how to deal with the way they were being defensed.   The only reason that the offense put up any points down the stretch was the ridiculous amount of talent on that side of the ball.   If that offense was the one that the Eagles had back in 2001 and 2002 - with Torrence Small and Charles Johnson at WR.. or 2005 or 2006 with Reggie Brown, James Thrash, etc.  or even 2020 with Deontay Burnett, Travis Fulgham and Hakeem Butler, they don't even get to double digits in most of those games.

And we KNOW that the offensive players were disregarding the coaches, because we have Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown improvising with the game on the line against Seattle.  Who knows how often they did that down the stretch beyond that single play that ended in an INT?