Gored

Posted: May 20th, 2024 | Author: Tommy Lawlor

Jason Kelce, gone. Fletcher Cox, gone. Today we found out another Eagles legend was walking away.

DeVante Parker is retiring. He allegedly wants to spend more time with his family. I prefer to believe that he’s intimidated by the thought of facing James Bradberry in practice and just decided to hang up his cleats.

Go ahead and put DeVante Parker in the Frank Gore wing of the Eagles Hall of Fame.

Joking aside, this isn’t a shocker. The Eagles were his third team in four years. Parker is a player on the decline and he knows that. I’m guessing the idea of playing for a title contender really appealed to him, but as offseason activities got closer he realized he didn’t want to deal with the grind of camps and practices. That is understandable.

The game of football is fun. The practice and preparation are not. Well, at least not to most people. There is always the occasional guy who enjoys all the work and the grind of the offseason.

The Eagles still potentially have good depth at receiver.

WR – AJ Brown – Johnny Wilson

WR – DeVonta Smith

Slot – Parris Campbell – Ainias Smith – Britain Covey

Campbell can play in the slot or outside. Smith might be able to play outside, but he’s better suited for the slot.

The Eagles need to add a veteran to the mix to help them get through the spring and summer. They also need someone in case, god forbid, there is an injury. The free agent market is pretty bare. You know Howie will be working the phones to see if anyone is available in a trade. He will also try to figure out who is likely to cut a WR worth claiming. There are different options. The good news is that the Eagles don’t need anyone right now. They can be patient and see how things go.

The rookies have an opportunity here. If they perform well, it will help them to not only secure roster spots, but also to make the coaches think they are worthy of a role this season.

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If you need to win a bar bet, Zach Berman has your trivia to pull that off.

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The Eagles have now signed all of their draft picks except first rounder Quinyon Mitchell. Cooper DeJean just signed his deal on Monday. There was some thought he could be the last to sign because second round picks can be a bit trickier these days. Howie and his staff do a great job with contracts so it isn’t a surprise to see that they figured out something that worked for both sides.

Mitchell should get done soon. The days of draft picks not signing for months is long gone.

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Jimmy Bama put out his roster prediction. Spoiler alert…he had Parker making the roster. Here is his exact quote.

I guarantee you that DeVante Parker will make the roster. Bet your mortgage on it. Bet your parents’ mortgage. And your neighbors. He is a one-million percent lock. There is zero chance Parker doesn’t make this team.

At least I assume that’s what Jimmy said. I saw Parker’s name on there and quit reading so I could come over here and point out the error, like any good friend would.

http://igglesblitz.com/2024/05/gored/

18 hours ago, time2rock said:

The Eagles still potentially have good depth at receiver.

WR – AJ Brown – Johnny Wilson

WR – DeVonta Smith

Slot – Parris Campbell – Ainias Smith – Britain Covey

They need to add someone. AJ and Smith are incredible but right now there’s no appealing slot option. Ainias Smith may develop in to a good player but you can’t go in to a year with him and Parris fighting it out for WR #3 there’s just no way.

The pre-Moore offense under Sirianni simply didn't utilize the slot like other teams typically do. That doesn't mean we didn't have guys that could be productive slot receivers. Face it, with Reagor and Watkins, it was used as a field stretching decoy. When it was JJAW or Pascal, they were just extra blockers. There was no plan to get that position the ball more often. 

Quotes from Sirianni:

"I love Zach Pascal. Zach Pascal for the five, or the four years I’ve been with him, has always done the dirty work. Always. And it’s great when you can reward a guy that does the dirty work, who might not have the stats. It’s awesome to be able to reward him for that. And that’s what happens sometimes when a guy’s doing the dirty work — everyone’s focused on the other guys when he’s doing the dirty work, that he ends up wide open for a touchdown.

Zach doing all those little things, all the little things that are important to a football team, that’s sweet and I loved it. I love to see that because I love the guy. You aren’t around a guy for that long and not have a good relationship with him, and I’m so glad he’s here. I knew he could do all the dirty work we wanted him to do, and man, that was sweet.”

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"The message to the receivers is, ‘Hey when that ball gets out on the perimeter, you never know when that's going to happen, so you have to be blocking your tails off every single time,’” Sirianni said. "Because when that ball gets on the perimeter and you do your job, we can turn a 10-yard run into a 20-yard run or 30-yard run or 40-yard run or whatever it may be."

"And I saw J.J. do that very well and very efficiently. And we didn't just throw him out there to do that because we didn't have a feel that he was going to do that. He's been showing that to us every single day in practice.”

"He'll be rewarded with catches from that,” said the coach. "I know he wasn't (Sunday), but we're going to have to marry things together so he's getting some touches off that, as well. So we have that threat to run and pass it. But I thought he did a great job.”

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"Our passing game runs through three guys,” he said. "That doesn't mean we don't want to get the ball to some other guys here and there, but the main passing game goes through those guys. The Cowboys and the style of defense they run, which is obviously a very good defense, allows you to kind of get the ball to where we were going with it.

"That's where the ball was designed to go. It has nothing to do with anything else. We wanted to get A.J. going. We wanted to get DeVonta and Dallas the ball. Every plan is thought of through that. …That was by design to throw those guys the football, and that's why the football went there.”

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"We know that's how we like to play offense, too. That's who the offense runs through. That's no secret. We run the offense through - now we have three guys to really run the offense through, and we're excited about that.”

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"I will always say, no matter what the pass game will go through A.J., DeVonta and Dallas and the plays will be planned for them. That's how the game works and then there's times where the ball, based off coverage, goes somewhere else."

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We had Greg Ward at least on PS and he's unspectacular, but solid. We had OZ, who was solid the season before on his previous team. We had Julio who had career lows in targets, receptions, yards and yards per reception. We had Quez who was productive on the outside before being moved to slot to facilitate the acquisition of Brown. 

I really hope Moore has a different approach with the slot, whoever is in there. Opponents need to believe we will actually thrown to somebody else. I disagree with people that don't think we have guys already here that can produce if given the opportunity. A. Smith and Wilson are rookies  that haven't proven anything at this level yet. Campbell has experience and has played well when healthy. Covey didn't get much of a chance, but I made a clip of all his targets last season --- watch them and tell me what he did wrong and explain to me why he can't be an NFL slot receiver.