16 minutes ago, mattwill said:

I hope he isn’t that shortsighted 

The real thing to consider is that this draft class has a ton of big, athletic, versatile line backers.

So $12 million for Baun, or a 3rd or 4th round pick for someone like Danny Stutsman, Deontae Lawson, Lander Barton, or Jaishawn Barham.

If Howie hasn’t changed his view of the relative importance of LB, then the opportunity cost gets even worse given the depth and quality of the draft.

Becton and Williams should be the 1st and 2nd priorities in terms of re-signing guys. You win and lose games on the lines.

Becton is a former top 15 pick, is only 25 years old, and has been dominant this year. I like Steen and he's fine but he doesn't have the ability to dominate like Becton.

Williams has really come into his own this year with more playing time and has been one of the most underrated players on this team. At 25 also his best years could easily be a head of him.

I like Baun and hope he is back but there is zero chance I am prioritizing him over two stud lineman, and I am also not breaking the bank for any LB.

It figures that most of the clowns on this board who know nothing about football would prefer to spend big money on a LB than bring back guys with the ability to dominate or at least play at a very high level in the trenches.

10 minutes ago, T-1000 said:

Becton and Williams should be the 1st and 2nd priorities in terms of re-signing guys. You win and lose games on the lines.

Becton is a former top 15 pick, is only 25 years old, and has been dominant this year. I like Steen and he's fine but he doesn't have the ability to dominate like Becton.

Williams has really come into his own this year with more playing time and has been one of the most underrated players on this team. At 25 also his best years could easily be a head of him.

I like Baun and hope he is back but there is zero chance I am prioritizing him over two stud lineman, and I am also not breaking the bank for any LB.

It figures that most of the clowns on this board who know nothing about football would prefer to spend big money on a LB than bring back guys with the ability to dominate or at least play at a very high level in the trenches.

The worst kind of drivel, the obnoxious kind.

You're never beating an elite QB with trash LB play. You could have a line of Garrett, Lawrence, Carter, and Crosby - if the middle of the field is constantly wide open, a good QB is getting the ball out in 2 seconds and those guys are paper superstars.

Williams has been good. The advanced stats especially are very kind to him. But he's playing next to a juggernaut who in a year or 2 will become the highest paid defensive player in history.

What you're advocating for is the worst example of "building on the lines." Paying a good DT FA market level money instead of the transformative LB. There's a reason Williams played against the Giants and Baun didn't even dress. 

You want the DL to be less productive regardless of talent? You want fewer turnovers? You want the NBs and safeties to get worse because they're overcompensating for a guy like Nicholas Morrow in coverage? No, you sign the transformative LB and you draft the next good not great DT (assuming Williams' market gets as high as a lot of us expect).

36 minutes ago, T-1000 said:

Becton and Williams should be the 1st and 2nd priorities in terms of re-signing guys. You win and lose games on the lines.

Becton is a former top 15 pick, is only 25 years old, and has been dominant this year. I like Steen and he's fine but he doesn't have the ability to dominate like Becton.

Williams has really come into his own this year with more playing time and has been one of the most underrated players on this team. At 25 also his best years could easily be a head of him.

I like Baun and hope he is back but there is zero chance I am prioritizing him over two stud lineman, and I am also not breaking the bank for any LB.

It figures that most of the clowns on this board who know nothing about football would prefer to spend big money on a LB than bring back guys with the ability to dominate or at least play at a very high level in the trenches.

Your logic makes sense in a non-Vic Fangio defensive scheme, but my suspicion is that the light boxes that Fangio regularly deploys make the ILB role considerably different … and more valuable.

Think back on all the important games over the years where the Eagles defenses were regularly lit up by quick release QBs hitting receiver targets crossing over the middle …  moving the chains and wearing out the Eagles defenders through both TOP and snaps differentials.  Fangio uses the extra body freed up by the light box deployment to plug that gaping hole.  The result is that the QB doesn’t have easy "hot” targets.  

Bottom-line, the proof is in the results, and the results are fewest yards allowed, fewest points allowed, TOP wins, and snap count wins.

A little discussed side benefit is that the old D-line player rotations we were accustomed to in order to spread the snaps and give the players rest has largely gone away.  Carter actually played 100% of the snaps in one game and is routinely over 90%, but his actual number of snaps is probably lower than the number Fletcher Cox took in recent years.

You need to evolve your thinking as Fangio evolves the Eagles defensive approach.

1 hour ago, T-1000 said:

Becton and Williams should be the 1st and 2nd priorities in terms of re-signing guys. You win and lose games on the lines.

Becton is a former top 15 pick, is only 25 years old, and has been dominant this year. I like Steen and he's fine but he doesn't have the ability to dominate like Becton.

Williams has really come into his own this year with more playing time and has been one of the most underrated players on this team. At 25 also his best years could easily be a head of him.

I like Baun and hope he is back but there is zero chance I am prioritizing him over two stud lineman, and I am also not breaking the bank for any LB.

It figures that most of the clowns on this board who know nothing about football would prefer to spend big money on a LB than bring back guys with the ability to dominate or at least play at a very high level in the trenches.

Hope you weren't one of the people bishing about getting gashed over the middle while the line got zero pressure last year because the linebackers were garbage. The line doesn't mean ish if the QB gets the ball out in under 2 seconds like they were all of last year because we had no linebackers. Yea you build from the lines out, it doesn't mean you just throw whatever JAG you find behind them because that's how we end up with Casey Matthews or Nick Morrow.

7 hours ago, TEW said:

Yeah, it’s possible — especially with Fangio in his ear.

That said, Howie has a long track record of not paying LBs, but he DID pay Shady McCoy big money.

The game is changing a bit now with rushing becoming a good bit more important again. 

Typical hoagie mounted know nothing fans. The most tried and true simple thing about football at every level throughout time is the fact that you win and lose at the line of scrimmage. Would I love to bring back Baun, of course. Would I do it at the expense of Becton and/or Williams, F no.

I still believe in building at the LOS, and I’m sure Howie does as well.

However, when that strategy is so extreme that it starts giving diminishing returns due to over investment, then iit’s time to reevaluate.

That seems to be what happened last offseason, and I suspect will be a more balanced approach going forward.

And yes, Fangio will be a big part of it. He made very explicit comments in training camp about how it is very difficult to win without good LB play.

So, they will, and should continue to invest significant resources in OL and DL, but not so heavily that it results in below average LBs and DBs.

5 hours ago, T-1000 said:

Becton and Williams should be the 1st and 2nd priorities in terms of re-signing guys. You win and lose games on the lines.

Becton is a former top 15 pick, is only 25 years old, and has been dominant this year. I like Steen and he's fine but he doesn't have the ability to dominate like Becton.

Williams has really come into his own this year with more playing time and has been one of the most underrated players on this team. At 25 also his best years could easily be a head of him.

I like Baun and hope he is back but there is zero chance I am prioritizing him over two stud lineman, and I am also not breaking the bank for any LB.

It figures that most of the clowns on this board who know nothing about football would prefer to spend big money on a LB than bring back guys with the ability to dominate or at least play at a very high level in the trenches.

I don't understand your level of stupidity but I am impressed with your commitment to it...

6 hours ago, T-1000 said:

Becton and Williams should be the 1st and 2nd priorities in terms of re-signing guys. You win and lose games on the lines.

Becton is a former top 15 pick, is only 25 years old, and has been dominant this year. I like Steen and he's fine but he doesn't have the ability to dominate like Becton.

Williams has really come into his own this year with more playing time and has been one of the most underrated players on this team. At 25 also his best years could easily be a head of him.

I like Baun and hope he is back but there is zero chance I am prioritizing him over two stud lineman, and I am also not breaking the bank for any LB.

It figures that most of the clowns on this board who know nothing about football would prefer to spend big money on a LB than bring back guys with the ability to dominate or at least play at a very high level in the trenches.

I've been waiting for Williams to light it up for the past few years and I think that a lot of the success we are seeing from him this year is related to so much attention being given to Carter.  I would even go so far as to say that if he signs a big contract with another team that doesn't have a Carter type of player, he won't have nearly as much success.  He might even revert to being "average" like he's been every year other than this year.

Schedule is nasty next year. Sign Becton and Baun, draft a DT. Baun is a huge playmaker not just a LB gotta have him. Becton 25 no brainer.

20 hours ago, Cochis_Calhoun said:

To be honest you could make the same argument about discounting the one thing he does do at a higher rate than any other QB in the history of the game.

People responding to you like 'they do it because it makes him look better'.  Really? No crap.

It's like Sirianni and Hurts both get zero credit for what happens to this team. Whole sections of the board believe we could achieve the same results if we had Blake Bortles, Blaine Gabbert or Al Bundy under center coached by Al Pacino's character in Any Given Sunday because the offensive roster is so great, despite having Big Red's last couple of seasons here with a similarly talented offensive roster and apparently a better QB coming out 12-28 like 15 years ago.

Sometimes the grass you're on is green enough and you should enjoy it a bit rather than nit picking about how if you just had a better this or that, because having what you perceive as all the best parts amounts to less than what you had.

This team is 17-0 with Al Bundy…you’ve obviously never seen the 1966 City Football Championship vs Andrew Johnson.

15 hours ago, just relax said:

Or it could be the design of the offense which, in fact, is what it is, and just as you define it. 
A while back you said, IIRC, that you preferred the QB under center and with a FB. We run some of that, with an offset FB, less now that Van Sumeran is injured. In that offense, the QB had better be a threat to run, a lot. Your basic triple option mixed in with straight power runs. We offset the FB basically for size reasons. You can’t expect a 240 pound guy to block 320 guys straight up. You have to give him angles, functionally trap blocks. Nor can you make this your bread and butter. You’re taking faster guy off the field for a slower guy who is no threat as a receiver. If you do that AND don’t run the QB you’ve made yourself even more one-dimensional.

What it boils down to is that our offense is very much a hybrid. Non-traditional if you prefer. The incessant whining about Hurts by certain folk completely misses the whole point and design of our offense. Does he have limitations? Obviously yes, but he has strengths that more than compensate for that. Our offense, when he plays well, is pretty much impossible to stop.

All very nice, but still leads to the major concern I have with this style which is that every single year, our QB ends up banged up at the end of the season.  IMO, they need to find a better way.  The QB runs far too much, by design, and that leads to extra hits on him and injuries.  This isn't about Hurts the player, this is about the basic design of the offense.  I don't like it.  Qbs get injured in the pocket, but have more protections in the pocket.  QBs on the run are hunted by defenders.   And I'm not naive in thinking that QBs in the pocket don't get injured, we saw that happen last week with Love, but the frequency seems to be much higher for QBs on the run, and even more so, that's when more of the concussions seem to happen.  

Personally, I have a hard time believing that a team can no longer be an effective offense running 21 personnel as their primary grouping, especially given that they'd be an anomaly and most defenses wouldn't be designed to effectively combat it.  Not many teams have 3 LBs that they are comfortable throwing on to the field, whereas 5 DBs is the norm.  And correct me if I'm wrong, but back in the day, when Daryl Johnston was leading the way for Emmitt Smith, he wasn't asked to block NTs and DTs very frequently, instead his job was to run through the hole and hit the first opposition color he saw, which was a LB or S more often than not.  Personally, I'd much rather this team ran an updated version of the 1980s/1990s WCO or even Dallas' offense of the early 1990s, rather than using our QB as an extension of the running game.  Philosophically, its just too much risk for me with the QB, especially with the investment that teams are making in that position. 

If they were cheaper, like RBs are currently, then I'd be fine with the exposure, but since they are the single most expensive position in all of sports (Patrick Mahomes accounts for over 25% of the Chiefs salary cap this year!!!) I think that more caution should be exercised. 

This isn't strictly a football discussion about Xs and Os, but a mix of the business side.  Why expose your most expensive asset to extra abuse for, frankly, minimal gains?   For example, the Buccaneers put up 502 points this season, the Eagles scored only 463.  Meanwhile, Baker Mayfield ran only 60 times... Hurts ran 150 times.  So, the Eagles scored fewer points, while exposing their QB 2.5x as much... and that is in only 14.25 games.  Had he played in all the games, that's likely another 30 carries Hurts gets.

19 hours ago, we_gotta_believe said:

Couldn't agree more. You should be able to demonstrate sustained success to get into the Hall. That's the reason why Sterling Sharpe isn't in, rightfully so, despite having 2 or 3 monster seasons in GB.

Sustained superior performance…the phraseology we used for stratification for promotion in the Chair Force.  Warner is an anomaly…and a darling fairy tale story.  That 2008 season was the 2nd time in modern history that I’ve seen the NFL obviously bend things to fit a narrative and they almost succeeded.  Ironically the Big Ben was the benefactor both times.  

This is exactly why I laugh at the Eli being a HOFr talk.  Rivers and Big Ben better be in before he even touches the ballot.  Transgressions aside, Ben should be a lock.  Rivers is where the debate starts for that era.

8 hours ago, Alphagrand said:

I’ve barely looked at any prospects yet and have nothing to compare him to, but I’m quite impressed by James Pearce Jr.  I assume he gets drafted top 15-20 so he might be irrelevant to where the Eagles will be picking, but he’s impressive for a guy who’s a bit raw.

Pretty strong bull rush, holds up well against the run, and his outside-inside move looked like a cheat code to the QB in some games.  On the downside, I saw twitch but not bend and he needs to diversify his arsenal.

I like Pearce but he seems reallllly lean. Built like Ricky Sapp.

7 hours ago, TEW said:

The real thing to consider is that this draft class has a ton of big, athletic, versatile line backers.

So $12 million for Baun, or a 3rd or 4th round pick for someone like Danny Stutsman, Deontae Lawson, Lander Barton, or Jaishawn Barham.

If Howie hasn’t changed his view of the relative importance of LB, then the opportunity cost gets even worse given the depth and quality of the draft.

Arguably, Howie has learned his lesson by trying to fill the LB role with patchwork FA's and mid-round draft picks.  Baun is 28 and has shown enough this season to know that he will be productive if he stays healthy.  I think a 4 year deal with an out for the Eagles after the 2026 season would make sense for the team.  This allows the team to draft LB's this year and let them develop.  

49 minutes ago, DawkinsOwnage03 said:

Schedule is nasty next year. Sign Becton and Baun, draft a DT. Baun is a huge playmaker not just a LB gotta have him. Becton 25 no brainer.

Don't disagree, but likely means losing two starters on the dline in Sweat and Williams.  And if we can't afford them it would be tough to afford their replacements of equal production.  Howie gonna have to earn his paycheck this offseason. 

One of the problems, if you want to call it that, with the Eagles impending FA class is that the four continually discussed are not only near or at the top of their game, but also the beset and youngest available at their positions.

Teams are going to want to sign these guys. I was really hoping to see an extension or two before their values skyrocketed. 

4 hours ago, T-1000 said:

Typical hoagie mounted know nothing fans.

4 hours ago, T-1000 said:

Typical hoagie mounted know nothing fans. The most tried and true simple thing about football at every level throughout time is the fact that you win and lose at the line of scrimmage. Would I love to bring back Baun, of course. Would I do it at the expense of Becton and/or Williams, F no.

So hypothetically speaking, if this were the late '80s roster, who would you prioritize resigning? Mike Golic, Ron Solt, or Seth Joyner?

1 hour ago, Breeze 44 said:

I don't understand your level of stupidity but I am impressed with your commitment to it...

Why is it stupid to look at things in a different light? Historically, the Eagles put a TON of value in both lines and next to nothing at LB. Milton Williams has proven he can be a very good DT playing next to Carter. There's no guarantee the next guy will be. They are the perfect duo. The Eagles lack pass rush punch from the edge so letting your 2nd best interior pass rusher go puts more pressure on finding edge pass rush and DT2 pass rush. Moro Ojomo has flashed but he's more of a tweener than Williams. I love Ojomo for depth across the line, not borderline starter. 

Becton is a 1st round talent who finally unlocked his potential here. I've been on the fence because of Steen, but bringing Becton back is the perfect Lane Johnson replacement plan. The question with him IMO, is if playing RG takes the pressure off of him from being on an island and he can play more confident in himself. Is there potential for him to implode if he struggles at RT? The hope is Stoutland has fixed him and he can dominate at RT too.

No one is saying don't bring back Baun. I think everyone sees how valuable he is. We went from garbage to Pro Bowler at LB. How would the defense look if they had two guys playing at the level of Dean? Dean has had his ups and downs this year, but if Trotter can make a jump to play at that level and Dean continues to improve, having two GOOD LB might be all the Eagles need.  Another thing to consider is Baun is 29. How many LB at that age are breaking the bank? 

There more I look at this team, the more I think Howie brings them all back. I don't see any outside player worth signing in FA. The big splash can be retaining your own guys. This team doesn't have many holes that need FA. The holes would be the ones created by not bringing guys back. Keep the team intact, sign some depth here and there and kill the draft again.

7 hours ago, T-1000 said:

Becton and Williams should be the 1st and 2nd priorities in terms of re-signing guys. You win and lose games on the lines.

Becton is a former top 15 pick, is only 25 years old, and has been dominant this year. I like Steen and he's fine but he doesn't have the ability to dominate like Becton.

Williams has really come into his own this year with more playing time and has been one of the most underrated players on this team. At 25 also his best years could easily be a head of him.

I like Baun and hope he is back but there is zero chance I am prioritizing him over two stud lineman, and I am also not breaking the bank for any LB.

It figures that most of the clowns on this board who know nothing about football would prefer to spend big money on a LB than bring back guys with the ability to dominate or at least play at a very high level in the trenches.

Your analysis glosses over the biggest difference between keeping Baun over Williams and that is the cost.  Williams is likely looking at an average salary over $10 million and Baun is going to be under $10 million. Williams will also be able to get a 5 year deal with more guaranteed money.  No one is going to give Baun that kind of deal.  So the cost of keeping both Williams and Becton is much higher and has a longer term impact than keeping Baun. Signing Williams also impacts keeping Jordan Davis and to some extent Jalen Carter. 

 Baun is an every down player on the defense.  Williams is rotational. Williams also is overrated, I think, by people on this board, in part, because he makes plays in the backfield.  He also gets washed out at time in the run game.  He struggled last season a lot in run defense.  Ojomo has looked better than Williams at times. Any player at DT playing next to Carter, is going to look better for it.  

Solak has a write up on ESPN that does a good job of showing what a player like Baun can do for Fangio and his defense.  I honestly don't think there's a chance they DON'T resign Baun.  Not saying they can't get the other guys as well.  

11 hours ago, greendestiny27 said:

Baun, to me, is first and foremost. Williams is right there too. Becton can come back for the right price but I want to keep him at guard. Sweat maybe can come back on a team friendly deal again. 

Sweat is going to draw a big offer in a weak DE group of FA. Dont see how we can keep him

16 hours ago, Waiting4Someday said:

Looks rusty.

Common misconception.  QBs often wear a red shirt, so that's what you are seeing, not rust.