EMB Blog: 2021 Offseason

[bpac55]

10 minutes ago, RLC said:

It's weird. There's no drive in his game, but he's not getting bull-rushed either. He's just...there.

In the plays that Thomas highlighted, there really weren't any plays were Herbig is being asked to fire out.  He's pulling,  reaching, pass protecting and on the move.  I don't think it's a Herbig thing as much as it is a play call thing. 

[Casey @ Bat]

23 minutes ago, Freshmilk said:

I'd love to have Rodgers.  He'd make Goedert and Smith stars and the DC's in the NFC East crap their beds. 

No crap. 

[Utebird]

12 minutes ago, greend said:

That said being a puss and shying away from contact would absolutely help keep you from getting injured.

Actually being a puss tends to lead to more In juries in theory,our coaches used to tell us they wanted us going full speed all time, they'd rather we make a mistake going full speed than not because it's when we're not going full speed that we get hurt.

As for avoiding contact I'll say this again, an offensive players job is to avoid contact, not getting tackled is a good thing no???

If one is expecting a 170 lb bean pole WR to truck defenders and run over defenses one needs to adjust ones expectations, if a coach  asks his 170 pound WR to run dudes over than that's a problem.

Smith at some point in his career will get hurt, hopefully it's not because his coach asked him to take on a LB in the hole☹️ and when smith does get hurt it won't be because he weighs 166 pounds it will be because he plays football.

Lots of WRs that outweigh  smith by 50 pounds get hurt, football is a rough game, less rough than when contact averse Pinkston was playing.

 

 

[Guest justrelax]

2 minutes ago, bpac55 said:

In the plays that Thomas highlighted, there really weren't any plays were Herbig is being asked to fire out.  He's pulling,  reaching, pass protecting and on the move.  I don't think it's a Herbig thing as much as it is a play call thing. 

He's doing what he's asked to do but it is telling in what he is asked to do.

[greend]

5 minutes ago, Utebird said:

Actually being a puss tends to lead to more In juries in theory,our coaches used to tell us they wanted us going full speed all time, they'd rather we make a mistake going full speed than not because it's when we're not going full speed that we get hurt.

As for avoiding contact I'll say this again, an offensive players job is to avoid contact, not getting tackled is a good thing no???

If one is expecting a 170 lb bean pole WR to truck defenders and run over defenses one needs to adjust ones expectations, if a coach  asks his 170 pound WR to run dudes over than that's a problem.

Smith at some point in his career will get hurt, hopefully it's not because his coach asked him to take on a LB in the hole☹️ and when smith does get hurt it won't be because he weighs 166 pounds it will be because he plays football.

Lots of WRs that outweigh  smith by 50 pounds get hurt, football is a rough game, less rough than when contact averse Pinkston was playing.

 

 

So if he was bigger there would be less chance of a linebacker hurting him? (because we all know wrs get jacked up). Here's a test for you you're running full speed down the field and you catch a pass you to run to run and bam you get hit. Would you rather get hit by a toddler or Dawk? Size matters bro.

Hopefully Smith never get's hurt but it is a legitimate concern.

[bpac55]

10 minutes ago, justrelax said:

He's doing what he's asked to do but it is telling in what he is asked to do.

Do you want your 2nd year guard firing out against Aaron Donald?  All Donald has to do is use his quickness and hands to swim over him.

Not sure what people were expecting Herbig to be but I'm also not sure how people can't be somewhat encouraged what he did after being thrown in to the starting lineup.

If you recall, we didn't know who was starting at RG until the offense lined up for the first time against Washington. 

[Guest justrelax]

11 minutes ago, bpac55 said:

Do you want your 2nd year guard firing out against Aaron Donald?  All Donald has to do is use his quickness and hands to swim over him.

Not sure what people were expecting Herbig to be but I'm also not sure how people can't be somewhat encouraged what he did after being thrown in to the starting lineup.

If you recall, we didn't know who was starting at RG until the offense lined up for the first time against Washington. 

Everything you say is valid and with the drop in weight he may improve. Based on what I see he’s serviceable but I don’t see more than that. I had similar qualms about Creed. It’s not what he does but what he doesn’t do. Maybe he can do those other things but until I see it I will continue to have my doubts.

[RememberTheKoy]

2 hours ago, greend said:

So if he was bigger there would be less chance of a linebacker hurting him? (because we all know wrs get jacked up). Here's a test for you you're running full speed down the field and you catch a pass you to run to run and bam you get hit. Would you rather get hit by a toddler or Dawk? Size matters bro.

Hopefully Smith never get's hurt but it is a legitimate concern.

 

It's not legitimate whatsoever.  A players size isn't going to improve or decrease a players chances of getting inured via contact. 

[bpac55]

2 minutes ago, justrelax said:

Everything you say is valid and with the drop in weight he may improve. Based on what I see he’s serviceable but I don’t see more than that. I had similar qualms about Creed. It’s not what he does but what he doesn’t do. Maybe he can do those other things but until I see it I will continue to have my doubts.

I agree.  Serviceable MIGHT be OK for the time being.  Until that next Brandon Brooks FA is available or a can't miss draft prospect.  We have to look at what we can salvage from this roster.  I just think Herbig has more to him than people are giving him credit for.

Remember, we can't have All-Pro players at every position as much as we would like to.  

[Casey @ Bat]

9 minutes ago, justrelax said:

Everything you say is valid and with the drop in weight he may improve. Based on what I see he’s serviceable but I don’t see more than that. I had similar qualms about Creed. It’s not what he does but what he doesn’t do. Maybe he can do those other things but until I see it I will continue to have my doubts.

Apollo? 
 

The Master of Disaster wasn’t afraid to take on punchers that’s for sure.

[Utebird]

40 minutes ago, greend said:

So if he was bigger there would be less chance of a linebacker hurting him? (because we all know wrs get jacked up). Here's a test for you you're running full speed down the field and you catch a pass you to run to run and bam you get hit. Would you rather get hit by a toddler or Dawk? Size matters bro.

Hopefully Smith never get's hurt but it is a legitimate concern.

Id rather not get hit by either as my job as an offensive player is do avoid contact no???

Size does matter and we're not talking about effectiveness due to weight were discussing propensity for Injury due to weight.smaller players are also more difficult to get a hold of and get a clean hit on. 

It's easier for me to run Into Christian Okoye than barry sanders because Okoye is a bigger more stationary target no? 

I played football at 135 lbs in highschool I never got i justed because if contact, I wasn't the fastest or quickest or most agile either I was pretty easy to tackle which is why I played defense where I was a little more than a speed bump, pain wise it hurt more to tackle a 200 pound dude more than it hurt getting tackled by a 200 pound dude. I got scraped up bruised and battered trying to tackle never hurt being tackled.

Most the time when offensive players are hurt from contact it's due to a head to head contact that causes a concussion, most of those hits have been legislated out of football, if a WR gets lit up over the middle by a safety he may get the wind knocked out if him and being 170 pounds as opposed to 220 one may be more prone to losing ones wind on those hits 

Maybe if a WR is stretching for a pass and his ribs are exposed he might be more prone to a rib Injury though I doubt there is much data to support that either as lots of bigger receivers break or bruise ribs in similar hits.

Smith took some big hits in college and just bounced right back up.

Where as I've seen bigger WRs take similar hits and miss 3 games, there's really no method to the madness.

Pinkston took some shots in his career, that one cant find a highlight reels worth of Pinkston getting lit up could just drive that Pinkston was as you say avoiding contact, which isn't a bad thing for a 170 pound receiver.

Marvin harrison was pretty slight, one won't find too many clips if him getting lit up or taking on tacklers head on because why would he, his coach and team need him to catch 100 passes not break a hundred tackles.

I think there is this thought that today's NFL us the same as the nfl if the 80s and 90s where safeties are patroling the middle if the field waiting to light up a wr, that league is long gone has been for a while.

It's why a guy like tutu atwell who weighs about 150 pounds gets drafted in the 3rd round while a guy like Grimes who weighs 220 goes undrafted.

Little guys that can operate in space are more valuable to offenses I a league that is closer to 7 on 7 flag football, the rules have made the leagues offenses more wide open and easier to operate.

If Pinkston at 170 in an era when defenses were actually allowed to hit receivers didn't get injured them Smith shouldn't be at risk if getting injured simply because he weighs 166 pounds.

Did Pinkston avoid contact? Yes, did him avoiding contact decrease his chance for injury? Most likely. Coincidentally he was injured non contact.Will Smith avoid contact as much as possible? I hope so it's his job. will eagles fans call him a puss for running out of bounds when he could have got an extra yard after already getting a first down, probably.Will Smith get hurt playing football? Most likely.

Will him getting hurt be because he weighs 166 pounds??? There is currently no data to suggest that as true.

As such anecdotal evidence was presented to make ones case In the form if 3 former eagles with similar frames 2 if which never suffered any injuries due to contact and Desean the 3rd who suffered a concussion on a helmet to helmet cheap shot which most likely was not a result of his weight and a broken leg when he took a cheap shot while on the ground and his ankle got awkwardly pinned under him, which again is highly improbable that had anything to do with him weighing 175 lbs.

When chase gets hurt which at some point he will, Will fans complain it's because he only weighs 200 pounds?

When smith gets hurt which he will it's just the nature of the game, ones conclusion without any kind of proof shouldn't be he got hurt because he weighs 165 pounds, those claims are unfounded.

 

 

 

 

[The Holy Vagabond]

9 minutes ago, Casey @ Bat said:

Apollo? 
 

The Master of Disaster wasn’t afraid to take on punchers that’s for sure.

Didn’t he die in the ring?

[Casey @ Bat]

2 minutes ago, The Holy Vagabond said:

Didn’t he die in the ring?

He did but he got back in there with Rock and took on the Russian Sledgehammer after being away for awhile. Guy had guts.

[Guest justrelax]

15 minutes ago, Casey @ Bat said:

Apollo? 
 

The Master of Disaster wasn’t afraid to take on punchers that’s for sure.

Humphrey.

 

[Utebird]

30 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

 

It's not legitimate whatsoever.  A players size is going to improve or decrease a players chances of getting inured via contact. 

 show me any data that shows WRs with lighter than average weight in say the last 10 years are at higher risk for contact Injury.

It's an unfounded claim.

If that were the case   smaller WRs would have a substantially higher amount of contact Injuries than their bigger counterparts

Now one could take usage Into consideration as well and say well smaller WRs don't catch as many passes except Smith caught over 100 balls, one could propose that bigger receivers are bigger targets so easier to contact than smaller WRs that are more difficult to contact.

I'm not sure anyone is keeping data on this, maybe some analytics guy  is and that's why Smith was drafted in the 1st and tutu atwell at 150 lbs in the 3rd because maybe the analytics show that In today's game a WR being lighter than ave doesn't increase chance for Injury and if there were an analysis that stated such I'd tend to agree as I think the anecdotal evidence suggest the same.

[Utebird]

6 minutes ago, Casey @ Bat said:

He did but he got back in there with Rock and took on the Russian Sledgehammer after being away for awhile. Guy had guts.

 

[Utebird]

25 minutes ago, 4for4EaglesNest said:

Data?  You're citing data when discussing if a 166 lb WR would be more injury prone in the NFL than a larger WR?  What has your "data" shown?

 

Is there data that shows a big man will most likely win in a collision with a small man?  No....I am sure there is no data for that.  It's just common sense.  Kind of reminds me of this.  

 

Skip to the 2:40 mark

 

 

If it's common sense then why aren't all the under the average weight for WRs constantly getting hurt and the above average weight WRs less frequently hurt.

Marvin harrison played 15 or more games 11 out of 13 seasons he weighed around 175 pounds which is well below the average of 200 lbs for WRs.

Where as brandon marshall only played 15 or more games at around 230 lbs 9 times out of 13

Both had multiple seasons with 100+ catches so it's not like one was being used more.

Common sense would suggest that marshall because if his above average weight would have a lower rate if I jury than harrison whom weighs 50 pounds less yet that's not what happened.

Issac bruce weighed about 185, below the average he played 15 games or more 10 out of 15 seasons. Most his games missed were due to hamstring issues.

 

 

Meanwhile jake reed who played during the same time and had about 30 pounds on bruce played 15 games only 7 out of 12 seasons. Bruce the smaller guy was Injured less and played 3 more seasons. Yet common sense would suggest the smaller WR would be Injured more and have a shorter career due to injury.

One could say these are out liers yet one can find plenty of cases where a smaller receiver was less injured than a larger one and vice versa which suggests to me that weight isn't as much a factor in determining propensity for Injury in WRs as common sense would suggest 

[bpac55]

One last thing about Herbig...one of these things is not like the other.  Interesting to say the least.

Jalen Hurts

Miles Sanders

Jalen Reagor

John Hightower 

Nate Herbig

 

[NCiggles]

On 5/3/2021 at 7:59 PM, ManuManu said:

From Breer’s MMQB...

DeVonta Smith’s case is going to be an interesting one. You’ve seen Smith’s weight from the medical combine in Indy: 166 pounds. You probably, one way or the other, have a take on it. You might also know that only two receivers in the 10 drafts between 2011 and ’20 who were under 6' 1" and 200 pounds went in the top 10, and those two selections (Tavon Austin and John Ross) fell well short of expectations. And you may have heard me point to Hall of Famer Isaac Bruce (173 pounds at the 1994 combine) as a comp for Smith. Now, we’ll give you two interesting pieces of information from his Alabama days that I think are important as to his future and what the Eagles are getting in the 10th pick.

1) Bama tried to put weight on Smith during his four years in Tuscaloosa, and by his second year on campus, it became clear to those there that Nick Saban had made peace with the fact that it wasn’t going to happen the same way it routinely would with other players. "He’s gonna be 165 pounds, no matter what,” Saban said in meetings going back to Smith’s sophomore year. The focus from there, for Saban and the strength staff, was in helping Smith get faster and stronger, not necessarily bigger.

2) At his size, it’s worth mentioning that toughness was never a concern for the Tide staff. And one piece of proof on that: Saban moved Smith over to defense for a short period of time in 2018. It was for only a few practices, but Bama caught the injury bug at corner and needed reinforcements. With a historically deep receiver corps (as the 2020 and ’21 drafts would show), the coaches felt comfortable looking for an athlete there to fill in. That led them to Smith, because of his long arms, and willingness, as displayed on special teams, to deliver and receive contact. I’m told, over that short period, Smith showed potential as a press corner and didn’t look even a little out of place.

On the first point, Smith is different. On the second point, Smith is different. And his production is different, too—otherwise, he wouldn’t have become the first Heisman-winning receiver in 29 years. That’s good. Because he’ll have to keep being different to make it. Yup, I like the Bruce comp. It’s also telling that you’ve got to reach back 27 years to find it. So we’ll see. What I can say is that there are a lot of people who believe he’ll make it happen. "We asked all the SEC guys who the best player they played against was over the last couple months,” said one NFC exec. "All of them, every one, said DeVonta. And the Bama guys all said, ‘He’s the best football player I’ve ever been around.’ ”

Clearly, he should be starting opposite Slay.  

[eagle45]

1 hour ago, RLC said:

It's weird. There's no drive in his game, but he's not getting bull-rushed either. He's just...there.

That’s pretty good for a backup, especially one who came at a udfa cost.  Some backups...feels like they aren’t there.

But discussing Herbig as a starter, IMO, is silly.

[vaeagle2]

7 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

Clearly, he should be starting opposite Slay.  

clearly he will a two way player with his toughness

 

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, 4for4EaglesNest said:

Kind of reminds me of this.  Skip to the 2:40 mark

 

 

The look on Bacon's face knowing he just got epically owned. 

[NCiggles]

1 hour ago, RememberTheKoy said:

 

It's not legitimate whatsoever.  A players size is going to improve or decrease a players chances of getting inured via contact. 

Actually the opposite appears to be true for the receiver position: https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-analysis/2018/weight-and-injuries 

I think there's an argument that there's not enough information for less than 170lbs receivers. The trend does seem upward below 170 but doesn't seem greater than it would be for Kyle Pitts if Pitts is playing WR primarily.  

[Utebird]

13 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

That’s pretty good for a backup, especially one who came at a udfa cost.  Some backups...feels like they aren’t there.

But discussing Herbig as a starter, IMO, is silly.

Why is it silly?

Jamal Jackson undrafted starter, bubba miller undrafted, starter, Artis Hicks undrafted starter traded to vikings for picks.

I realize those are the exceptions not the rule and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Herbig could develop into a serviceable starter.

[macgregor]

Why does having a valuable player they know may be worth a higher price to another team than their own have to mean that they want to get rid of him? They can AFFORD to trade Ertz. That doesn't mean they want to. And that certainly doesn't mean they want to release him. Restructure maybe. But I'm sick to my stomach how many people devalue our receivers and tight ends simply because our QB turned into JeMarcus Russel. Some of y'all better root for the Colts because if Wentz really sucks, that 1st rounder isn't the only thing in jeopardy. So is your entire assessment of 2020.

Wentz didn't turn into JeMarcus just because of the fat contract. It was that, and then bringing in a QB2 that can win games. Like with McNabb, that wasn't going to happen without him skating out his contract. Because while the team may be for competition, the QB wants sole power once he has that guaranteed money. He wants the power to slack off. Next time a star player insists on huge guaranteed money, I say trade him. It's not about trust; it's about who is the boss.