48 minutes ago, EaglePhan1986 said:

Pederson wouldn’t be able to relinquish power. In theory that may work but DP couldn’t do it. Imo anyway 

 

8 minutes ago, 315Eagles said:

It's a fantastic idea and has been talked about on here for a long time.

Question is would Doug want to do this?  Very doubtful.  Given the ultimatum, he'd probably just leave.

 

8 minutes ago, DeathByEagle said:

The problem is Doug is to bull headed to let that happen. We all saw it worked in 2017 which its possible that was forced on him at the time. I just dont see Doug letting someone else take over the offense even if its the best thing for the team. Hes too proud and wants to prove his scheme works, which everyone other then him knows it does not. With that, sadly this will all come to a end of having a top 10 pick, last in the Div record next year and Doug getting the axe a year too late. 

And you're all likely right. I do think he may be too stubborn to do it. So we're boned. 

10 hours ago, Nightwish said:

I honestly think the only reason they haven't fired Press yet is because of Wentz. They gonna see if they can repair the relationship with Wentz first. The probably figured canning his buddy isn't  a good first step in this process.

Wentz and Ertz are buddies. Ertz is likely gone

Just now, Mike030270 said:

Wentz and Ertz are buddies. Ertz is likely gone

So was Matthews and Burton etc. FO dont care if a player/coach is friends with Wentz. They will move on. The only reason Press is not fired is more then likely Doug. He wants his say and I think they are giving it to him. When it all fails, its then all on Doug cause it was his decision. 

10 minutes ago, RLC said:

 

 

I can't believe the Jaguars, who are being gifted Trevor Lawrence, are going to ruin this.

Khan is a really bad owner. I underestimated him. He also is acting as GM. 

7 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

Khan is a really bad owner. I underestimated him. He also is acting as GM. 

I can see it now....

Jags lose week 1 of the 2021 season 34-17 and Meyer announces he's stepping away from coaching.

I'd be excited to see Urban Meyer in the NFL. Not a huge fan of him personally, but it'd be a cool "what if" to check off the list.

19 minutes ago, RLC said:

 

 

I can't believe the Jaguars, who are being gifted Trevor Lawrence, are going to ruin this.

Maybe they will screw it up and Draft Fields at number 1 and become the laughing stock of the NFL. Or should I say continue to be the laughing stock. I know doubtful they draft him, but would be both funny and shocking at the same time. 

2 minutes ago, Saltpeter said:

I'd be excited to see Urban Meyer in the NFL. Not a huge fan of him personally, but it'd be a cool "what if" to check off the list.

He's definitely a great college coach.  Not as great as Saban but probably right behind him.

If Texas really wanted to get back to the top they had a perfect chance to hire Meyer right now.  Give him a blank check and say whatever you want just make our program elite again.

57 minutes ago, austinfan said:

Sure it can be. For one thing, they really had awful luck with injuries, no, Brooks going down wasn't inevitable, Dillard, Seumalo, Driscoll (just think of the falloff from Driscoll to Pryor at RT). Lane was the only question mark and he had off season surgery on the ankle to address his issues. People grossly underestimate the importance of the OL.

It wasn't like Howie was predicting a 12 win season, with a really weak division 4-2 or 5-1 wasn't an outrageous expectation, which meant 8-8 could win the division. And it's not like any of his decisions were outrageous, Pederson had given up on Agholor (now we know Agholor could have been the deep threat, in which case Pederson probably wouldn't have been lobbying for Reagor over Jefferson, those stories about Howie deferring to his coaches over the scouts - that's what a GM should do - or get a new coach). Schwartz had given up on Darby, Jones and Douglas, the fact they started elsewhere says more about the DC than the GM. So he gets Slay at a reasonable cost, who played well. They let Jenkins and Peters walk, because it was time to start shedding veterans. Hargrave was costly, but that's the price of starting DTs in their prime years, and the result of Jerrigan/Malik not staying healthy (when they signed Malik, he had played 16 games for 6 seasons and was 29 years old, he was available b/c Jax had moved away from a one gap scheme).

I think the decision to go for it this season was Lurie's, Howie probably gave him the two alternatives, try to sneak into the playoffs or blow it up. I understand trying to sneak in, it's hard after you've made the playoffs three straight seasons to accept 2-3 years wandering in the desert with no guarantee that you'll reach the promised land.

They brought in Douglas/Weidl b/c Howie doesn't pretend to be a "football guy," they had the right credentials, not sure any other GM was a better bet.

The HC is probably the key hire, look at what AR did when he took over a 2-14 KC team.

traded a 2nd rd pick for Alex Smith

inherited Charles at RB, drafted Knile Davis #96, moved McCluster to the slot, Avery, Bowe, TE McGrath SFA, inherited an OL with 2 1st rd picks, 2 2nd rd picks and 2 3rd rd picks, signed Schwartz to 1 year deal.

On defense, inherited Jackson (#3), Poe (#11), signed Devito, Houston (#70), Hali (#20), D Johnson (#15), Flowers (#35), Berry (#5), Kendrick Lewis and signed Sean Smith as a FA.

Now that's your perennial bad team, loaded with talent, waiting for the right HC.

But surely KC is a great drafting team? Not exactly.

2013:  OT Fisher #8, TE Kelce #63, C Kush #170

2014:  DE Ford #23, G Fulton #193, OL Duverney-Tardif #200

2015:  CB Peters #18, G Morse #49, WR Conley #76, CB Nelson #98

2016:  DE C Jones #37, WR D Robinson #126, WR Tyreek Hill #165

2017:  QB Mahomes #10, RB Hunt #86

2018:  DT Nnadi #75

 

4-11-1 says otherwise.

1 hour ago, RLC said:

It should have been obvious after 2019 that the play was to get younger. Had they not signed Hargrave/traded for Slay and just went with the kids, I would have been fine with a bad 2020. Those were win-now moves.

Slay cost a 3rd and 5th, not exactly a back breaker, Hargrave just money.

Given Hargrave was 27, saving his money would let you sign a FA maybe a year younger? So that's a non-issue in terms of rebuilding. And moves Malik out of the building.

So these moves didn't have a big impact on rebuilding, and in the NFL, you rarely get much return from trading veterans, usually the big deals are for players in their prime who've outstayed their welcome (Beckham), not 30 year old starters. The Eagles will have 3 years of high draft picks going into the 2023 season and two years to audition young "castoffs" to find diamonds in the rough.

Ironically, one problem the Eagles have is they aren't a mismanaged young team like KC, full of talent that's just waiting for a competent HC to come along. Instead, they're a team that has aged out of contention that needs to bite the bullet and rebuild almost from ground zero.

Eagles haven't drafted as badly as advertised, while 2011 was a disaster, most years (2014-15 was Chip, he didn't have time to ruin the 2013 draft) were OK, a bigger problem is how many players were released/misused and went elsewhere and played better:  Kelly, Poyer, Rowe, Agholor, Jones. Hicks was injury luck, as was Logan. We traded for Darby and he struggled under Schwartz, then regained his mojo after leaving. On defense, a really ugly look.

2012:  DT Cox #12, LB Kendricks #46, DE Curry #59, QB Foles #88, T Kelly #159

2013:  T Lane #4, TE Ertz #35, DT Logan #67, S Poyer #218

2014:  DE Smith #26, WR Matthews #42

2015:  WR Agholor #20, S Rowe #47, LB Hicks #88

2016:  QB Wentz #2, OG Seumalo #79, T Vaitai #164, S Mills #233

2017:  DE Barnett #14, CB Jones #43, CB Douglas #99

2018:  TE Goedert #49, CB Maddox #125, DE Sweat #130, T Mailata #233

2019:  T Dillard #22, RB Sanders #53, WR JJAW #57

Basically, we need two drafts of the next three to be like 2012-2013, where you land a few top guys and a number of solid starters/reserves, giving you a core to build around.

2018 may turn out to be that kind of draft if Sweat and Mailata continue to develop.

PS: we lacked picks in 2018 and 2019 because of moves that got us a SB win. Anyone think we should have done things differently?

Just now, austinfan said:

Slay cost a 3rd and 5th, not exactly a back breaker, Hargrave just money.

Given Hargrave was 27, saving his money would let you sign a FA maybe a year younger? So that's a non-issue in terms of rebuilding. And moves Malik out of the building.

Slay cost a 3, 5 AND roughly 15M in cap allocation over a 3 year period. Hargrave/Jackson in back to back years is also bad. Had they not signed Malik Jackson, then signing Hargrave at that price would have been an excellent move. Had they traded Jackson, then signed Hargrave that would have worked better too.

Howie's inability to commit to a young roster is the #1 problem. 

1 hour ago, Desertbirds said:

We can argue whether Howie's plan was reasonable or not. What cannot be argued is that the execution of said plan was woeful.

His plan was to be completely inept at the CB and WR position... an amazing symmetry there somehow.

15 minutes ago, austinfan said:

Slay cost a 3rd and 5th, not exactly a back breaker, Hargrave just money.

Given Hargrave was 27, saving his money would let you sign a FA maybe a year younger? So that's a non-issue in terms of rebuilding. And moves Malik out of the building.

So these moves didn't have a big impact on rebuilding, and in the NFL, you rarely get much return from trading veterans, usually the big deals are for players in their prime who've outstayed their welcome (Beckham), not 30 year old starters. The Eagles will have 3 years of high draft picks going into the 2023 season and two years to audition young "castoffs" to find diamonds in the rough.

Ironically, one problem the Eagles have is they aren't a mismanaged young team like KC, full of talent that's just waiting for a competent HC to come along. Instead, they're a team that has aged out of contention that needs to bite the bullet and rebuild almost from ground zero.

Eagles haven't drafted as badly as advertised, while 2011 was a disaster, most years (2014-15 was Chip, he didn't have time to ruin the 2013 draft) were OK, a bigger problem is how many players were released/misused and went elsewhere and played better:  Kelly, Poyer, Rowe, Agholor, Jones. Hicks was injury luck, as was Logan. We traded for Darby and he struggled under Schwartz, then regained his mojo after leaving. On defense, a really ugly look.

2012:  DT Cox #12, LB Kendricks #46, DE Curry #59, QB Foles #88, T Kelly #159

2013:  T Lane #4, TE Ertz #35, DT Logan #67, S Poyer #218

2014:  DE Smith #26, WR Matthews #42

2015:  WR Agholor #20, S Rowe #47, LB Hicks #88

2016:  QB Wentz #2, OG Seumalo #79, T Vaitai #164, S Mills #233

2017:  DE Barnett #14, CB Jones #43, CB Douglas #99

2018:  TE Goedert #49, CB Maddox #125, DE Sweat #130, T Mailata #233

2019:  T Dillard #22, RB Sanders #53, WR JJAW #57

Basically, we need two drafts of the next three to be like 2012-2013, where you land a few top guys and a number of solid starters/reserves, giving you a core to build around.

2018 may turn out to be that kind of draft if Sweat and Mailata continue to develop.

PS: we lacked picks in 2018 and 2019 because of moves that got us a SB win. Anyone think we should have done things differently?

Yes.  Don't trade a 3rd for Golden Tate, dont trade a future 4th for Avery.  Dont extend an OG at 30 to the biggest contract in the NFL after tearing an Achilles.  Don't be completely inept at the WR position, relying on 30+ year olds as the only hope for success.  

Desean - mistake.  Money unnecessarily wasted.  6th round pick wasted.

Alshon restructure - beyond stupid.

Malik Jackson - stupid.

Hargrave after Jackson - stupider.

Slay costing picks and money.  Stupid.

JJAW - criminally stupid.

Building in intentional dead money years to over a dozen aging vets rather than negotiating to keep costs actually down, rather than artificially low.

 

So, yes... I disagree with a lot of the moves Howie made since the Super Bowl.  Having limited picks means being very smart about the ones you have left.  Howie didn't do that well at all.  He might have made 4 good moves total since the Super Bowl.  And please dont count rotational DEs as starters.  Josh Sweat is a nice player that gets taken advantage of a lot in his tendancy to crash down blindly all the time.  He's not a starter, he's a depth piece.  A nice depth piece, but that seems to be where Howie's strength is... finding those players rather than foundational pieces.  This foundation is crumbling and there's no real foundational pieces to stop the complete collapse.

12 minutes ago, RLC said:

Slay cost a 3, 5 AND roughly 15M in cap allocation over a 3 year period. Hargrave/Jackson in back to back years is also bad. Had they not signed Malik Jackson, then signing Hargrave at that price would have been an excellent move. Had they traded Jackson, then signed Hargrave that would have worked better too.

Howie's inability to commit to a young roster is the #1 problem. 

What was there to commit to? Let say they don't get Slay, who plays CB? He didn't exactly block anyone, Schwartz had already given up on Jones and Douglas.

Who did Hargrave block? McGill?

And if you save that cap room, all it does is make it a little easier to dump some veterans, and leave a little more cap room for 2022 to sign maybe one veteran FA. For what purpose?

Point is these weren't mortgage the future moves, at worst, a minor delay in the rebuild. Either way, they have to play out contracts and move money around, but after 2022 almost all the veterans and their contracts will be history.

4 minutes ago, austinfan said:

What was there to commit to? Let say they don't get Slay, who plays CB? He didn't exactly block anyone, Schwartz had already given up on Jones and Douglas.

Who did Hargrave block? McGill?

And if you save that cap room, all it does is make it a little easier to dump some veterans, and leave a little more cap room for 2022 to sign maybe one veteran FA. For what purpose?

Point is these weren't mortgage the future moves, at worst, a minor delay in the rebuild. Either way, they have to play out contracts and move money around, but after 2022 almost all the veterans and their contracts will be history.

You keep arguing the 2020 offseason moves like the aging team narrative wasnt obviously going to be a problem before that.

Defending Howie?

46 minutes ago, DeathByEagle said:

So was Matthews and Burton etc. FO dont care if a player/coach is friends with Wentz. They will move on. The only reason Press is not fired is more then likely Doug. He wants his say and I think they are giving it to him. When it all fails, its then all on Doug cause it was his decision. 

Exactly. They aren't babying Wentz

So Dallas fired their DC yesterday afternoon and already have interviews set up for tomorrow.

Meanwhile Eagles knew at least a week ago Schwartz wasn’t coming back and so far crickets. 
 

Great job 

3 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Yes.  Don't trade a 3rd for Golden Tate, dont trade a future 4th for Avery.  Dont extend an OG at 30 to the biggest contract in the NFL after tearing an Achilles.  Don't be completely inept at the WR position, relying on 30+ year olds as the only hope for success.  

Desean - mistake.  Money unnecessarily wasted.  6th round pick wasted.

Alshon restructure - beyond stupid.

Malik Jackson - stupid.

Hargrave after Jackson - stupider.

Slay costing picks and money.  Stupid.

JJAW - criminally stupid.

Building in intentional dead money years to over a dozen aging vets rather than negotiating to keep costs actually down, rather than artificially low.

 

So, yes... I disagree with a lot of the moves Howie made since the Super Bowl.  Having limited picks means being very smart about the ones you have left.  Howie didn't do that well at all.  He might have made 4 good moves total since the Super Bowl.  And please dont count rotational DEs as starters.  Josh Sweat is a nice player that gets taken advantage of a lot in his tendancy to crash down blindly all the time.  He's not a starter, he's a depth piece.  A nice depth piece, but that seems to be where Howie's strength is... finding those players rather than foundational pieces.  This foundation is crumbling and there's no real foundational pieces to stop the complete collapse.

The only bad move was the Jeffrey restructure.

DeSean cost money which would have been spent on another FA WR, one that might have worked out better or worse (hindsight is always 20/20). 6th rd picks are early starts on UDFAs.

4th for Avery was a whiff, but I doubt that was Howie, those kinds of deals are coaches begging for help. Same with Tate. I think a lot of the mistakes were due to coaches wanting the wrong players for their schemes, Howie is a consensus guy, I doubt he pushes players on coaches they don't want. If Eagle players are out of the league, that's on the drafting, if they go elsewhere and play better, that's on the coaches.

Malik wasn't stupid at the time, durable one gap pass rusher to pair with Cox after Jerrigan hurts his neck. Hargrave was 27 and due to Malik's foot injury.  Crap happens. But again, just cap money. And they were a playoff team (or thought they were) when these deals were made to keep the window open.

Slay or write off the season, we saw what our secondary looked like without Slay, scary movie. Ended up writing off the season anyway, but this isn't going to cripple us going forward. Though if you want to go 2-14, trade Slay and give up 30+ points every game!

JJAW. every team whiffs in the draft, look at KC, the top franchise in the NFL. They have had lots of whiffs since AR took over. The real bad drafts were the two years under Chip.

Shifting dead money forward is normal for teams at the end of a window, when you rebuild, you're going to have a lot of cheap players and can clear out the dead money, which is exactly what the Eagles will do the next two seasons. If you dump the veterans instead of shifting money, you just start the losing a year earlier. Either way, we aren't going to be competitive until 2023, but we won a SB.

I think every fan here would accept a 3 year rebuild as the price of a SB win.

 

45 minutes ago, austinfan said:

What was there to commit to? Let say they don't get Slay, who plays CB?

Slay, unquestionably, is a good #1 CB. We also had no #2 outside CB and no backup outside CB. Maddox is a slot CB.

Instead of trading for Slay, we could have signed
- Dre Kirkpatrick: 1Y/1M
- Desmond Trufant: 2Y/20M
- MacKenzie Alexander: 1Y/4M

The total cost is the same for all 3 from an AAV basis, but we don't give up any picks, are not on the hook for future years' salaries and are protected against injury. Doing so, also means we don't need NRC and give Maddox the slot.

 

32 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

So Dallas fired their DC yesterday afternoon and already have interviews set up for tomorrow.

Meanwhile Eagles knew at least a week ago Schwartz wasn’t coming back and so far crickets. 
 

Great job 

Absolutely right.  I made the comment yesterday the Eagles are already running behind.  If it’s their intention to promote Press Taylor to OC and Matt Burke to DC, those announcements could be made already.  The failure to do so creates the appearance of disorganization.  Meanwhile, DAL is already off and running in their coaching search.  Quite frustrating.

I am a bit surprised they elected to fire Tomsula, though.  They got much better performance out of both Randy Gregory and Aldon Smith than I expected.

 

47 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

So Dallas fired their DC yesterday afternoon and already have interviews set up for tomorrow.

Meanwhile Eagles knew at least a week ago Schwartz wasn’t coming back and so far crickets. 
 

Great job 

That could mean good or bad news. 1- They want someone from a coaching staff on a playoff team perhaps. 2- They are hiring internal. Either way, they are late to the party as usual. 

Forgot to add number 3- they have no clue who or what they want, they are clueless and scrambling right now. 

29 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

You keep arguing the 2020 offseason moves like the aging team narrative wasnt obviously going to be a problem before that.

The question is, when do you blow it up? After you just won a SB?

2018 the offense was in its prime years, Wentz (26), Smallwood (24), Jeffrey (28), Agholor (25), Matthews (26), Ertz (28), Goedert (23), Peters (36), Seumalo (25), Kelce (31), Brooks (29), Lane (28), Wisneiwski (29). Wallace (32) on a one year deal, 748 yards the previous season, gets hurt after missing 2 total games his first nine seasons.

Bennett (33), Ngata (34), brought in for depth along with Long (33) but Jerrigan (27) and Barnett (22) get hurt. Darby (24) can't stay healthy, McLeod only plays 3 games and Corey Graham has to start at SS.  Chandon Sullivan is UDFA, hardly used, claimed by GB next season and started for them this year. Another miss in the secondary.

2019, with a beat up team that almost beat NO in NO in the playoffs. Now do you blow it up? Draft Sanders for the RB hole, Dillard to replace Peters. Offense is still in peak years, but Jeffrey is breaking down at age 29, Agholor regresses, DeSean only lasts 3 games, JJAW is a whiff. The defense is patchwork, Bradham replaces Hicks at MLB, Jerrigan comes back for 9 games as Malik goes down after 1, Mills beats out Jones and Douglas at CB. The holes are showing on both sides of the ball and the injury jinx continues.

It's hard to make a case to blow this team up until this season, they certainly had a shot in 2018, and were a legitimate playoff team in 2019, though a tier down. And waiting until after this season doesn't have a huge impact on the rebuild, we're drafting high, we still would have needed until 2022 to dump all the salaries. Maybe we could have afforded to add one FA in 2022 if we started dumping players this year instead of limping through the season.

Football is funny, this is the only season Darby has played all 16 games. Meanwhile, Eagles bring in guys like Malik and Wallace, who never missed a game due to injuries, and as soon as they put on the green, they go out after a game or two. With normal injury luck they make it back to the SB in 2018, go deeper in the playoffs in 2019 and make the playoffs this year.

 

5 minutes ago, DeathByEagle said:

That could mean good or bad news. 1- They want someone from a coaching staff on a playoff team perhaps. 2- They are hiring internal. Either way, they are late to the party as usual. 

Given the last Dallas DC hire, they're not my paradigm for good decision making.

12 minutes ago, RLC said:

Slay, unquestionably, is a good #1 CB. We also had no #2 outside CB and no backup outside CB. Maddox is a slot CB.

Instead of trading for Slay, we could have signed
- Dre Kirkpatrick: 1Y/1M
- Desmond Trufant: 2Y/20M
- MacKenzie Alexander: 1Y/4M

The total cost is the same for all 3 from an AAV basis, but we don't give up any picks, are not on the hook for future years' salaries and are protected against injury. Doing so, also means we don't need NRC and give Maddox the slot.

 

Hindsight is 20/20, and these exercises always assume you could sign those guys at those deals at that time, as if 31 other teams aren't out there, players don't have their own preferences, and the timing is right (one reason some FAs are cheap is they hope to get a better deal and wait too long - but that means waiting with them and risking losing out).

PS: Plus we don't know how they would have played under Schwartz and of course, we do know they would have gotten injured.

2 minutes ago, austinfan said:

Hindsight is 20/20, and these exercises always assume you could sign those guys at those deals at that time, as if 31 other teams aren't out there, players don't have their own preferences, and the timing is right (one reason some FAs are cheap is they hope to get a better deal and wait too long - but that means waiting with them and risking losing out).

Given that I posted the amounts they signed for, we know what deals we could have signed them for. Those players choose Arizona, Detroit and Cincinnati. We were considered a good team to sign with.

Even if you want to replace those guys, the point is that cheaper, younger players were available. The Eagles decided to trade picks for an older cornerback. 

4 minutes ago, RLC said:

Given that I posted the amounts they signed for, we know what deals we could have signed them for. Those players choose Arizona, Detroit and Cincinnati. We were considered a good team to sign with.

Even if you want to replace those guys, the point is that cheaper, younger players were available. The Eagles decided to trade picks for an older cornerback. 

Yes, and those are the kind of guys we're gonna sign the next two years, watch most of them get torched, and hope a couple step up and show themselves worthy of a new contract to play for the team when it turns the corner. When you're rebuilding, you have the luxury of watching players stink out the joint as part of mass auditions. But go back and watch the Dallas, game, that's what happens when you audition young CBs against NFL QBs.

A better question is why Poyer, Ware, Jones, Douglas, and Sullivan finished the season starting for other teams.