My very amateur evaluation of Huff...

He's short (listed at 6'3 for some reason, really 6'1.5), has short arms (<32 inches), and despite being rocked up just doesn't have the weight to compensate for the first 2 (he's like 250 something lbs). His speed and lateral movement aren't good enough to drop consistently, and his instincts there are weak anyway. He can only win charging forward after a great get-off and long runway.

All of this means he's completely useless holding his ground, stacking and shedding. There's a clip last week or the week before of the TE3 pancaking him. And if he's chipped, which teams have done to him at a rate disproportionate to his skill level (indicating they see what I'm seeing), and his timing his disrupted, he is a big nothing rushing the passer.

There's a scenario Huff goes on a heater in the playoffs, but it will be extremely matchup dependent. When he wins, he wins impressively and often violently.

He doesn't fit Fangio at all; Hunt will be a better option an overwhelming majority of the time.

Hurts remains in the protocol even though he was a full participant at practice yesterday.

 

Quarterback Jalen Hurts took an important step in his road to recovery as he was a full participant in Thursday's practice, one day after he returned to the practice field for the first time since suffering a concussion in Washington on December 22.

Hurts will still need to be cleared by an independent neurologist before he can play Sunday in the Wild Card Round against the Green Bay Packers at Lincoln Financial Field.

 

 

3 hours ago, HazletonEagle said:

Interesting, Notre Dames Jordan Faison won the national championship on their lacrosse team this year.  Now one win away from doing it on the football team as well.

I wonder if anyone has ever won 2 national championships in 2 different sports before. 

Google says:

Cornell dual athlete Bob Rule won the NCAA title in both lacrosse and ice hockey in 1971.

Jim Thorpe in football and ballroom dancing in 1912 at Carlisle.

Anthony Munoz in football and baseball in 1978 at USC.

Jared Mitchell won the football title in 2007 and baseball in 2009 at LSU.

 

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

 

Again, just so weird the Eagles keep putting this out there. In what world do they ever tell everyone the plan when it comes to star players? They are force feeding these beats to keep saying it. If it's all "part of the plan" shouldn't they be saying something like "we'll see. You'll see when the injury report comes out. I still have talk to trainers" etc etc and play the competitive advantage game when in reality he's fine?

It's almost like they know he's banged up and if he plays he'll be a decoy at best and they just want to force the Packers to gameplan for him.

11 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

 

I’m psyched to see Richardson fail again next season and for Howie to trade a bag of chips for him, coach him up for 2 years, then flip him for a first.

11 hours ago, Eriv20 said:

PSU did not have a single completion to a wide wr

ND certainly did. That may have been the difference.

27 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

yeah...

Its just so frustrating to have this talent on offense held back by the QB. Whenever this era is over, whether they win a super bowl or not, we will always be left wondering how much better they could have been if they had a QB who could really make this offense great. How much better the careers numbers for Smith, Brown, and Goedert could have been. Hate it for those guys. We are so lucky to have them, especially for the fact that they arent disgruntled all the time over it. 

Have to wonder if we will ever experience this level of talent all together ever again. And... to a certain extent, we are wasting it. 

 

As long as Howie is here, I’m confident we’ll be able to put a sh** ton of talent on the field.

33 minutes ago, DaEagles4Life said:

How many of these will result in teams getting the ball because of a holding call or PI. Just bring back the onsides kick ya bunch of ****. 

Hopefully there is some kind of clause. Defensive penalties will just give the offense a retry attempt. After 3 consecutive penalties then the Offense gets the ball.

 

I dunno, this is all so stupid. 

1 minute ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Again, just so weird the Eagles keep putting this out there. In what world do they ever tell everyone the plan when it comes to star players? They are force feeding these beats to keep saying it. If it's all "part of the plan" shouldn't they be saying something like "we'll see. You'll see when the injury report comes out. I still have talk to trainers" etc etc and play the competitive advantage game when in reality he's fine?

It's almost like they know he's banged up and if he plays he'll be a decoy at best and they just want to force the Packers to gameplan for him.

He's played fine through this knee issue whatever it is, he had over 100 yards and dominated vs Washington and that was with a backup QB. And then scored a TD vs Dallas. I think he's fine to play I don't think they want everyone to panic leading up to the playoffs. Not sure why they changed course on the competitive advantage aspect of it lately, but it seems this week they've been more up front with the injury stuff. Sirianni declared Hurts would be practicing earlier this week, which was also breaking from the norm.

5 minutes ago, TEW said:

Google says:

Cornell dual athlete Bob Rule won the NCAA title in both lacrosse and ice hockey in 1971.

Jim Thorpe in football and ballroom dancing in 1912 at Carlisle.

Anthony Munoz in football and baseball in 1978 at USC.

Jared Mitchell won the football title in 2007 and baseball in 2009 at LSU.

 

4 minutes ago, hputenis said:

Considering it’s Jim Fing Thorpe, I’m going to allow it.  

4 minutes ago, TEW said:

As long as Howie is here, I’m confident we’ll be able to put a sh** ton of talent on the field.

I definitely agree. Just seems like this level we are at on offense is pretty unobtainable for any GM and somehow the stars have just aligned. Mailata and Becton are unforseeable opportunities that kind of fell in to our laps. Opportunity to trade for a player like AJ Brown is rare. And even then he wasnt a top 3 WR in the NFL. Now he is playing that well. Having him paired with another pro-bowl caliber WR... Signing a free agent RB who is a generational talent, who has been injury plagued and happens to stay healthy...Jergens replacing Kelce as well as can be expected...

Its all there except for an elite QB.

10 minutes ago, Sack that QB said:

He's played fine through this knee issue whatever it is, he had over 100 yards and dominated vs Washington and that was with a backup QB. And then scored a TD vs Dallas. I think he's fine to play I don't think they want everyone to panic leading up to the playoffs. Not sure why they changed course on the competitive advantage aspect of it lately, but it seems this week they've been more up front with the injury stuff. Sirianni declared Hurts would be practicing earlier this week, which was also breaking from the norm.

Yea but if he came out on Wednesday for practice, lasted less than 10 minutes, after having a full week off, then you have to wonder if he made it worse on Wednesday. They can keep saying "it's all part of the plan" but the part they conveniently left off is part of the plan after he had to leave practice Wednesday. It makes no sense to have a plan ahead of time that he'll practice for 10 minutes Wednesday, miss the most important practice of the week and then maybe will or wont practice Friday. For a playoff game. 

Inside the birds said that the Titans were worried about Browns knees long term as if he has an underlying condition. 

2 minutes ago, TEW said:

Considering it’s Jim Fing Thorpe, I’m going to allow it.  

The guy's been dead for over 70 years, and I'm still a little scared he's gonna beat me up for making fun of him.  

13 hours ago, eagle45 said:

Kind of fascinating that ND and PSU are matched up in this game.  Neither one can beat a top 5 opponent in a big game, but someone has to win for the right to not hang with OSU next week.

Well, at least Franklin won't get thumped by OSU yet AGAIN.

Just now, LeanMeanGM said:

Yea but if he came out on Wednesday for practice, lasted less than 10 minutes, after having a full week off, then you have to wonder if he made it worse. They can keep saying "it's all part of the plan" but the part they conveniently left off is part of the plan after he had to leave practice Wednesday. It makes no sense to have a plan ahead of time that he'll practice for 10 minutes Wednesday, miss the most important practice of the week and then maybe will or wont practice Friday. For a playoff game. 

Devan Kaney said this morning on WIP that she was at practice and he basically just laid on the turf and did stretches for 10 minutes and left, so he didn't actually run routes or anything. She didn't think he did anything to tweak it on that day.

Seeing articles saying that Franklin pissed Freeman off during their press conference and that the ND players carried that anger out onto the field to help impose their will  Penn State physically dominated that game, their QB just sucked.  

7 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Yea but if he came out on Wednesday for practice, lasted less than 10 minutes, after having a full week off, then you have to wonder if he made it worse on Wednesday. They can keep saying "it's all part of the plan" but the part they conveniently left off is part of the plan after he had to leave practice Wednesday. It makes no sense to have a plan ahead of time that he'll practice for 10 minutes Wednesday, miss the most important practice of the week and then maybe will or wont practice Friday. For a playoff game. 

44 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

yeah...

Its just so frustrating to have this talent on offense held back by the QB. Whenever this era is over, whether they win a super bowl or not, we will always be left wondering how much better they could have been if they had a QB who could really make this offense great. How much better the careers numbers for Smith, Brown, and Goedert could have been. Hate it for those guys. We are so lucky to have them, especially for the fact that they arent disgruntled all the time over it. 

Have to wonder if we will ever experience this level of talent all together ever again. And... to a certain extent, we are wasting it. 

 

I can't see us ever having much more talent on offense than this.  WR, OL, and RB.  We could probably see a better TE at some point and certainly should see a better QB.  That being said, if he win the Super Bowl and Hurts throws for 600 yards total in 4 games and has 15 TD from the push, I won't care at all.  A Super Bowl is a Super Bowl, just like we won the luckiest Super Bowl in history with 2nd and 3rd stringers!

Just now, Khani1 said:

I can't see us ever having much more talent on offense than this.  WR, OL, and RB.  We could probably see a better TE at some point and certainly should see a better QB.  That being said, if he win the Super Bowl and Hurts throws for 600 yards total in 4 games and has 15 TD from the push, I won't care at all.  A Super Bowl is a Super Bowl, just like we won the luckiest Super Bowl in history with 2nd and 3rd stringers!

yep

10 minutes ago, greendestiny27 said:

Inside the birds said that the Titans were worried about Browns knees long term as if he has an underlying condition. 

Yes, this was reported at the time.

We also got 3 straight all-pro level seasons from AJ Brown. 

9 minutes ago, mikemack8 said:

 

Whoever ok'ed this trade for the Browns needs to be drawn and quartered 

 

Also,

 

Kenny Pickett for a 2nd. Thank you Browns!