11 hours ago, NOTW said:

 

"Why doesn't anyone watch the NBA anymore?"

 

"because these guys are 'elite' athletes."      I'll be honest, that was some pathetic booing from the crowd about that too.   If those folks PAID to attend, then they all deserve a refund, because that was a fraudulent 'event'.  

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

I like Dotson in his draft class. With that said at the end of the 2023 season we knew we needed an upgrade at the 3rd wide receiver position when AJ Brown missed the Tampa Bay playoff game. (Heck we knew this after the 2022 Super Bowl run where quez was not great after the commanders game where he fumbled that year). they had Devonta Smith, Julio jones and  Quez Watkins as the main wide receivers. The eagles solution prior to the Dotson trade was signing Campbell (has had some durability issues over his career) and drafting two late round WRs. Nearing the end of the preseason and training camp i think most of felt they needed a WR they could trust more to step up if an injury to aj or smith happened and they wanted one with upside. Imo they paid what they did cause he was young, former first round pick that they liked his upside when the scouted him in the draft and he was still relatively cheap for 2 more years.

To add to your 2024 point, if aj brown and smith don’t miss the games they did and week 18 being meaningless that gap could be even more.   

I forgot they had Julio Jones 

7 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Its pathetic.   It's his homage to "Orion".   It's cultural.   

Pretty sure Michael Penix does the same celebration.  At least he did in college.

10 hours ago, TEW said:

How anyone can criticize Howie at this point is laughable.

He’s the greatest GM of history generation, and I don’t think it’s particularly close.

3 SB appearances in 7 years with 2 different head coaches;, 2 different QBs, and 3 different sets of coordinators.

It’s completely unprecedented in the salary cap era. The NFL better thank their lucky stars the salary cap exists, because with an owner like Laurie Howie would be building multi-generational dynasties.

He's owned the team for 30 years.  We've gone to 4 Super Bowls with him owning it and winning it twice.   I think we are past the time of calling him "Laurie".   

Laurie:

 

LURIE:

4 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

He's owned the team for 30 years.  We've gone to 4 Super Bowls with him owning it and winning it twice.   I think we are past the time of calling him "Laurie".   

Laurie:

 

LURIE:

How are we still not getting Geoffrey Lurie’s name right??

16 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

I meant the bradburry extension. And picket was not rational at all. I can cese that Dotson was.

baun and burks are dumb luck lottery tix that showed how good fangio is. Not howie. Becton is Stoutland.

i get we are throwing flowers to everyone. BUt thats when we get irrational and revise history.

 

Howie hired Fangio.  Howie kept Stoutland after Chip was canned.  Baun and Burks definitely not dumb luck.  Burks was already an established back up LB, and he filled that role perfectly.  Good signing for the money. Baun was given the opportunity to try another position and excelled.  What makes Howie good is that the DC he hired saw something different in Baun and Howie/Sirianni didn't try to force Fangio down a different path because they didn't see it.

Focusing on the misses (Bradberry's 2nd contract, Huff, Devin White, Davis over McDuffie/Hamilton) is missing the forest from the trees.

32 minutes ago, ToastJenkins said:

I meant the bradburry extension. And picket was not rational at all. I can cese that Dotson was.

baun and burks are dumb luck lottery tix that showed how good fangio is. Not howie. Becton is Stoutland.

i get we are throwing flowers to everyone. BUt thats when we get irrational and revise history.

 

How many GMs would you take over Howie?

5 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

How many GMs would you take over Howie?

Easy…

ZERO

1 hour ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

I guess I expected there to still be Hurts doubters… I just didn’t think many would be our own fans.

Yeah, he's been dying on hills like this one for 20yrs now so no surprises there.

People can discuss what they want but I’m going to revel in the BTA Super Bowl Championship and then look to upcoming moves.   

38 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

"because these guys are 'elite' athletes."      I'll be honest, that was some pathetic booing from the crowd about that too.   If those folks PAID to attend, then they all deserve a refund, because that was a fraudulent 'event'.  

I used to enjoy watching the nba, id rarely miss a jazz game on tv, I cant even watch the highlights anymore, its just such a bad product 👎

40 minutes ago, 315Eagles said:

I forgot they had Julio Jones 

 

Yup. the 3rd wr position was an issue in 2023 cause Julio was done at that point and he was competing with Quez, zaccheaus and covey.

1 hour ago, bpac55 said:

Trading a 3rd round pick for a position that doesn't get used seems like a waste of valuable resources. They are either going to be a run heavy team or a feed AJ/DeVonta/TE team. Nothing wrong with that. It works. But don't use high picks on positions we know aren't going to be used.

The thinking a lot of folks had was that he was insurance against a long term injury to either Brown or Smith, as none of the other WRs on the roster had a history as an outside WR.   It also freed up Smith to work more from the slot.  And, they have Dotson under control for another 2 years (if they want to use the 5th year option).  

 

Now, that might carry more weight if he was used more when they were out, but frankly, I think it was a good trade.  We got more from him for that 3rd round pick than we did for Golden Tate.  #Progress.    And now that Hurts got a little more familiarity with him, we might see more from him this coming year.   We definitely are going to need to go to a bit more of a passing offense next year and lighten up the work load on Barkley.  They could lighten it up by going with more runs to RB2, or they could pass more, or use more jet sweeps with Dotson.  Or just pass more.  We'll see.  

 

But, personally, I am not going to kill Howie for any moves this offseason, including the glaringly horrible one in Bryce Huff.  It all worked out as well as we could ever hope.   And while an individual move might not have been perfect... the offseason as a whole was an overwhelming success.   Would we be upset with Bryce Harper for a night where he goes 4 for 5, with 2 HRs, a double and an RBI Single because he lead off the 3rd inning with a strikeout, but ended the game with a grand slam to win it?   Perfection is unattainable.   You aim for perfection in the hopes of achieving excellence.  Howie achieved excellence.  

31 minutes ago, RLC said:

Focusing on the misses (Bradberry's 2nd contract, Huff, Devin White, Davis over McDuffie/Hamilton) is missing the forest from the trees.

They won SB LII 10 months after drafting Darnell Pumphrey.

Mistakes are made.  Just make less than the other guys. 

7 hours ago, pgcd3 said:

Maybe Kenny Pickett was a great addition to the QB room. Maybe Dotson will build off this year and workout with Jalen in offseason. Maybe neither is true.  We won the Super Bowl a week ago. Did Howie’s goodwill already expire?

This is going to be a hard offseason for Howie. There is going to be turnover on this roster.  I think the question for him is what lessons can he take from the 2018 offseason into this year.  I think they looked at their offseason needs anticipating contributions from a 2nd round pick in Jones that had not played, relying on Ajayi to stay healthy, Agholor and Clement to continue to contribute and development from Barnett. Think about, too, how important the 2018 draft was to this team.  They added Goedert, Sweat and Mailata.  They also added Maddox.  The defense was much worse in 2018 than 2017 because of the pass defense.  Arguably the biggest problem was the LB play and lack of depth in the secondary after injuries.  They let Patrick Robinson walk in the offseason and probably should have kept him.  

2 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

They won SB LII 10 months after drafting Darnell Pumphrey.

Mistakes are made.  Just make less than the other guys. 

And I'll stick with my Butterfly Effect.  If you don't draft Pumphrey maybe you don't sign Blount or trade for Ajayi and maybe you don't win.  People are greedy and want to change one move in isolation when the path led to a Championship.  It doesn't work that way

1 hour ago, Diehardfan said:

We knew Pickett sucked

Pickett did very well as a backup QB this year.   The game that they lost they did not lose because of him.  He took care of the ball, he came in cold off the bench and got them a TD early.  There were a number of drops late that really made the difference.  Brown dropped one.  Barkley dropped one.   Smith had the big drop.  And despite that... it still took a nearly perfect last second drive, and last second TD to lose that game.  What do we really expect from a backup QB?  Do we expect a Foles level performance from SB LII every time a backup enters a game?   Foles didn't even perform at that level every game he played in 2017.   He was 'good enough' to lead them to a FG against the Rams so that they could hold on to win that game.  He had an ok game against a bad Giants team.  He was down right bad against the Raiders in the clincher for the bye, but they managed to win that one.   And then he wasn't good against the Falcons either in the Wild Card round.  The magic didn't start until the NFC CG and Super Bowl.  For the majority of that run, he was an average level backup QB.   He hit the accelerator and became that amazingly streaky good QB that we all remember.   But, Foles also always had some stretches where he was down right bad too.  But, always seemed to make the play at the critical moment late in a game to win it.  

I'm curious looking across the league at ALL the backup QBs... who would anyone rather have?  Pickett is young, cheap, and has starting experience.  (I know we are going to see McKee's name tossed around.  Sure.  But, at the time they made the trade, McKee had taken a grand total of ZERO NFL snaps.  Preseason snaps don't count for much, especially for a team with Super Bowl aspirations.  So for all the bluster about what people say they 'knew' about McKee, that was projection, not knowledge.  And even now, we aren't sure what he is, because what he did as a 'starter' was against a brutally bad Giants team that was looking at tee times and against a Dallas team looking for a soft place to lay down after getting embarrassed by Pickett for 30 minutes of football in a season they'd rather forget.)

1 hour ago, ToastJenkins said:

I meant the bradburry extension. And picket was not rational at all. I can cese that Dotson was.

baun and burks are dumb luck lottery tix that showed how good fangio is. Not howie. Becton is Stoutland.

i get we are throwing flowers to everyone. BUt thats when we get irrational and revise history.

 

Yeah... why would they look to bring in a QB who had starting experience for minimal cost as a backup QB on a team with Super Bowl aspirations, knowing that the style of play of their starting QB always leads to him missing a game or two?    

2 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

This is going to be a hard offseason for Howie. There is going to be turnover on this roster.  I think the question for him is what lessons can he take from the 2018 offseason into this year.  I think they looked at their offseason needs anticipating contributions from a 2nd round pick in Jones that had not played, relying on Ajayi to stay healthy, Agholor and Clement to continue to contribute and development from Barnett. Think about, too, how important the 2018 draft was to this team.  They added Goedert, Sweat and Mailata.  They also added Maddox.  The defense was much worse in 2018 than 2017 because of the pass defense.  Arguably the biggest problem was the LB play and lack of depth in the secondary after injuries.  They let Patrick Robinson walk in the offseason and probably should have kept him.  

I think they had a plan but some guys played so well on D that re-signing them became unlikely.  But I suspect they'll stick with the plan.  The O is largely set.

49 minutes ago, EagleJoe8 said:

How are we still not getting Geoffrey Lurie’s name right??

https://youtu.be/5cVy2ztnmhY?si=8ShBXxs3u35aX92e

2 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

And even now, we aren't sure what he is, because what he did as a 'starter' was against a brutally bad Giants team that was looking at tee times and against a Dallas team looking for a soft place to lay down after getting embarrassed by Pickett for 30 minutes of football in a season they'd rather forget.

Very true though we will never know until he gets a shot.  I have no problem with Pickett as the backup but it seems like a chance to get some draft capital and still feel good about McKee as the backup.  I think Howie should be able to find another vet out there for no more money than Kenny who can be the #3 and insurance policy if necessary.

6 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Yeah... why would they look to bring in a QB who had starting experience for minimal cost as a backup QB on a team with Super Bowl aspirations, knowing that the style of play of their starting QB always leads to him missing a game or two?    

Not only that it only cost them 22 slots form 98 to 120. The 2 7ths were nothing as it was a weaker draft in terms of value at the end of the draft and they knew they could sign guys they liked as UDFAs. I’m guessing the Eagles probably had a bunch of players from that area 90-130 graded similarly, were willing to take one at 120 and knew one would be there.  then they got a great offer of a future third round pick from Miami for 120.

i’ve said this before I don’t particularly like Kenny Pickett as a starting Qb but he’s fine as a serviceable backup. But I can understand the Eagles rationale of having a veteran quarterback with actual playing experience for the 2024 season. They probably also thought with a better offensive line, better running back and better wide receivers that there was the potential that if he did have to play, he’d look better than Pittsburgh and they could potentially flip him if he did. 

I think it's too early to dismiss Huff

The mistake was thinking he could be a 3-4 OLB, it's obvious like Reddick and Sweat that he's a one trick pony.

So use him in that role, designated pass rusher for 20-30 snaps a game. I think in that role you'll get your money's worth.

Then draft/sign a couple athletic tweeners that most teams don't like in today's NFL and train them for the 3-4 OLB/edge rusher role.

1 minute ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Yeah... why would they look to bring in a QB who had starting experience for minimal cost as a backup QB on a team with Super Bowl aspirations, knowing that the style of play of their starting QB always leads to him missing a game or two?    

Meh, I don’t see trading for Pickett as any worse than paying QBs like Mariota $5M+/yr. Perhaps Kenny P will make the numbers work for Baun, etc. Now I liked what I saw from McKee previously, but competition is good. 

8 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

This is going to be a hard offseason for Howie. There is going to be turnover on this roster.  I think the question for him is what lessons can he take from the 2018 offseason into this year.  I think they looked at their offseason needs anticipating contributions from a 2nd round pick in Jones that had not played, relying on Ajayi to stay healthy, Agholor and Clement to continue to contribute and development from Barnett. Think about, too, how important the 2018 draft was to this team.  They added Goedert, Sweat and Mailata.  They also added Maddox.  The defense was much worse in 2018 than 2017 because of the pass defense.  Arguably the biggest problem was the LB play and lack of depth in the secondary after injuries.  They let Patrick Robinson walk in the offseason and probably should have kept him.  

Howie's offseason started about 2 months ago.  The plan for the free agents is likely already set and they have determined where they can spend to retain free agents and where they have to let the market dictate the cost and walk away.  And I don't think the post-season play of any of the pending free agents change that plan.  The injury to Dean might have altered the plan with Burks in the last 2 months, but that's the only piece that I see as being different from what he likely was planning since the end of November.  

And... he's going to get a ton of criticism for which ever free agent leaves and goes on to have a great season elsewhere, regardless of the cost of that free agent.  BUT, this is where he earns his pay.  Building is easier than maintaining a top notch roster in the salary cap age.   

 

Going back to 2018... Robinson priced himself out.  They had a bunch of 'young' CBs... Darby, Jones, Douglas and added a slot CB in Maddox to fill the void of Robinson.  They didn't work out the way it was planned, but even Robinson is a question mark had they brought him back.   He tore his ACL and started only 1 game for the Saints that year.  We can't know that that injury happens if he's still here, but we can't know it wouldn't have.  

 

It will be interesting to see what Howie prioritizes this year... and while I may disagree with his plan, I won't criticize it this year.  He's earned my approval this year, even if his decisions aren't the ones I would make.