19 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Will Barkley, Brown, Dotson, and Baun be the only non-drafted starters next season?

 

No. I think S, CB, DE, LB, RG, TE are all possibilities. I’d say at least 1 of those will happen. 

Two for 20 is pretty reasonable for Becton but the Eagles did the right thing to let him walk at that cost. The winner of the Steen/Green camp battle might not be a downgrade at all, let alone the additional cap savings of 8 million. I just wish Becton would have went for more so we could have gotten a better comp pick.

1 hour ago, TEW said:

I agree with your general point, but to play Devil’s advocate, wouldn’t the consistent success indicate an edge we are exploiting? 

Absolutely... but where would you put the odds that Howie will hit the nail on the head on all of the picks in the first three rounds again?   I'd say that the odds are he'd regress back toward the mean more than maintain his position.   That's not to say that they necessarily have to come all the way back to the mean, but instead of hitting on all 3 picks, maybe they fall back to the 2020 draft... Reagor, Hurts, Taylor, Wallace, Driscoll, Hightower, Bradley, Watkins, Prince Tego... and Toohill.   With that we hit it with Hurts, got a decent backup OL in Driscoll, but the rest were busts - maybe one could argue that Watkins was merely disappointing or frustrating, but there's no defense for any of the others. 

 

My point is... he's been hitting at such a high rate, the odds are he won't be able to maintain that level forever.   Ted Williams was arguably the greatest hitter in the history of baseball... but even he had the occasional slump.  It happens to the best.  No one would say he didn't have a clear advantage... supposedly, his eyesight was ridiculous, and his pitch recognition nearly flawless in a fraction of the time others take to react... but even he had some 'down' years compared to others.   A career 0.344 hitter, he did have years that were nuts... he hit 0.406 once (had two very short injury plagued seasons where he hits 0.400 and 0.407 respectively in a combined 43 games...) but also had years where he hit "ONLY" 0.317 or 0.318 (very rarely).  Those were still great seasons by most measurements, but clearly were a regression toward the mean and were significantly below HIS mean. 

Howie is going to have seasons below HIS mean, and towards the league mean, even if he's still significantly higher than the competition.  This year might be one of those years, especially with fewer top talents in the pool to choose from... and fewer top QB prospects to push talent further into range of grabbing them.

59 minutes ago, DEagle7 said:

Great now all my old awful Eagles takes are searchable. Thanks a lot 👎

But we can now find 2024's early summer foot discussions

1 hour ago, VaBeach_Eagle said:

Totally off topic from football, the Archive forum (TATE Classics) hasn't been part of our searchable database. So old posts were difficult to find if you wanted to reference them. 

I've been working on that issue and it should be solved now (or soon, depending on how fast/slow the system processes things). So if you search for posts from old blogs or gameday threads to reference them, they should now show up in a search.

I've also re-structured the gameday threads into their own season sub-forums. So each season is separate from the others. They're all in TATE Classics. 

You are a prince among men, good sir!

52 minutes ago, NOTW said:

I posted it here too, but glad y'all are venturing outside the blog 😜

45 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Will Barkley, Brown, Dotson, and Baun be the only non-drafted starters next season?

 

They were all drafted (just elsewhere!)... only Reed was a UDFA!   

 

28 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Yes, technically.  And every year I qualify that Blankenship's acquisition was a result of our draft process.  He was identified by the teams' college scouts.  As opposed to Baun, who was identified by our pro scouts.  The team considers him "home grown".  So should we.

Sure.. but that's not how you characterized the players.  .  Why not just ask if those 4 were the only non-home grown starters?     

7 minutes ago, paco said:

But we can now find 2024's early summer foot discussions

Quote

The Atlanta Falcons plan on keeping Cousins, the veteran quarterback, on their roster past 4 p.m. ET Saturday, triggering the guarantee on a $10 million roster bonus due in 2026, sources told ESPN's Field Yates and Adam Schefter.

Help me out here.... If they are trying to trade him, then why would they trigger the roster bonus for next year to be guaranteed?  Unless that puts them on the hook for it next year despite the team he's on, I'm missing something.

7 minutes ago, paco said:

Help me out here.... If they are trying to trade him, then why would they trigger the roster bonus for next year to be guaranteed?  Unless that puts them on the hook for it next year despite the team he's on, I'm missing something.

They would have to cut him to avoid it, it was due by the 5th day of the new league year 

4 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

They would have to cut him to avoid it, it was due by the 5th day of the new league year 

Yeah, but it makes it seem like they are intentionally keeping him.  If they can't find a trade partner for him by now, they probably wont and would be better served to cut him.

 

Whatever.  Falcons dumb.

13 minutes ago, paco said:

Yeah, but it makes it seem like they are intentionally keeping him.  If they can't find a trade partner for him by now, they probably wont and would be better served to cut him.

Whatever.  Falcons dumb.

14 minutes ago, paco said:

Yeah, but it makes it seem like they are intentionally keeping him.  If they can't find a trade partner for him by now, they probably wont and would be better served to cut him.

 

Whatever.  Falcons dumb.

They already spend 90 million or whatever it is what’s another 10… they told him they weren’t letting him go… he has been a. Good teammate and even at 10 million to be a mentor is a good idea… maybe another qb gets injured and the get a solid offer to trade him.

15 minutes ago, paco said:

Yeah, but it makes it seem like they are intentionally keeping him.  If they can't find a trade partner for him by now, they probably wont and would be better served to cut him.

 

Whatever.  Falcons dumb.

It has offset language so it doesn’t really matter. Other teams may have been low balling trade offers thinking they just release him before the due date. They get some leverage now just keeping him past the date. 

I don’t think Casey Toohill was a bust. He’s played in the league for five years and would have been an Eagle for four of them if Howie hadn’t gotten too cute with trying to sneak him onto the practice squad. 

4 hours ago, Iggles_Phan said:

I think Reed is better than Epps.  

Agreed, I don’t think it changes the calculus.

5 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

I don’t think Casey Toohill was a bust. He’s played in the league for five years and would have been an Eagle for four of them if Howie hadn’t gotten too cute with trying to sneak him onto the practice squad. 

Fat lot of good he did us here.   Same with Jordan Poyer.  

2 hours ago, TEW said:

Yup— that was exactly my read of it.

People don’t want to hear this, but Becton was the most important run blocker we had. Everyone was good last season, of course, but Becton’s ability to erase players at the second level was quite literally game changing. Steen is not that guy and never will be. Our running attack was already unlikely to repeat its performance, but between losing Becton, natural regression to the mean, and Barkley likely missing games with injury, Hurts Brown and Smith are really going to need to step up in my view.

And yeah, Becton was at least a legitimate option to take over for LJ whenever that happens.

That is the glass half empty perspective.  Here is a glass half full perspective.  

I agree that Becton was a major force in second level blocking, but I’m not ready to give a final grade to Steen on that particular aspect of O-Line play.  He will begin OTAs as the RG taking all the first team reps.  Lane is very likely to take him under his wing, building chemistry.  Jurgens will be one season more experienced at Center and the frequency of assignment breakdowns/miscommunications that happened between Center and Guard last season should be significantly diminished.  Barring injuries, the O-Line should be just as effective this season as last.

That is an optimistic take.

something tells me no comp pick for that contract 

2 hours ago, Iggles_Phan said:

It is also far from a pure science.  If it were, 50% of all first rounders wouldn't flop.  The current hot streak Howie is on is much more likely to regress towards the mean than it will be to maintain its historic level of high.   Since the 2021, the only 'bad' pick in the top 3 rounds was Sydney Brown, and the jury is still out on that one.

2021 - D Smith, Dickerson, and M Williams... 2 studs and an above average guy that just rewrote the price for DTs in the NFL.
2022 - Davis, Jurgens and Dean.  1 stud and 2 guys that are above average role players.
2023 - Carter, N Smith, Steen, S Brown - 1 tide raiser, 1 rising star, 1 guy who would have been a starter for literally any other team in the NFL and 1 guy who might get a legit shot at starting this year.
2024 - Mitchell, DeJean, Hunt - after year 1, you can't ask for more from those guys.  2 look like future centerpieces and the other, at least a great rotational pass rusher... maybe more.

That level of drafting success is almost unprecedented.  And is extremely hard to replicate two years in a row, let alone 5.

Your perspective makes logical sense given the framing of the issue you have chosen. However, as @T-1000 bludgeoned me with not too long ago, some of those picks have taken a bit of time to develop. Devonta and Landon were both immediate impact, but Milton had a significant ramp up. Davis, Jurgens, and Dean all had their developmental on ramp, as have Nolan and Steen.  Ultimately Howie’s job is to find and acquire lumps of clay, and the coaches are tasked with molding that clay.  The stats regurgitated below are what they are because of three factors (1) drafting quality, (2) coaching effectiveness, and (3) injuries.

 

10 minutes ago, pgcd3 said:

something tells me no comp pick for that contract 

Agreed

One of the bigger UFAs last year. He should go back to Cinci and not Dallas.

20 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Fat lot of good he did us here.   Same with Jordan Poyer.  

Agreed, but in each case the draft pick was a success.