EMB Blog: 2021 Offseason

[HazletonEagle]

10 minutes ago, Khani1 said:

From the 2014 draft through the 2017 draft, how many of those draft pics are currently still on the Eagles?  The answer is 2.  Barnett from '17 and Seumalo in '18.  None from 2014 or 2015.  So 2 picks currently on the team from a 4 year span.  Howie is not good at drafting.

youre using drafts where other guys were in charge of the draft as your evidence. You need to use these last 2 drafts. Beginning after this season it will start to become clear how good, or bad he did with his selections.

1 minute ago, greend said:

You forgot Hurts . If he doesn't produce even if the others do that's not a good look for Howie.

I did forget Hurts. 

I try not to think about him. 

I dont think Hurts not producing as a started reflects poorly. Below are reasons why.

We know 1. Hurts was drafted more for cap reasons because they love a great backup and couldnt afford to pay similar to what theyve paid for them in the past.    2. Hurts was drafted to be the backup because Wentz hadnt demanded a trade at that point. So, Hurts was never meant to be our starter.         3. Howie still isnt set on Hurts as the starter because they were trying to trade up for Wilson in the draft. They also reportedly have been monitoring the Watson situation closely.        4. Howie already has assets stockpiled to potentially make a move for a QB as soon as next year Hes not about to have the team suffer horrible QB play. Hes loaded to make the move if he has to.

 

It would look bad on Howie if he really drafted Hurts to be our starter, and for no other reason than that he really thought he was a franchise QB. And if we have no contingency plan. Luckily, we are ready and able to pivot from him asap if need be.

[SNOORDA]

15 hours ago, Alphagrand said:

What player on the current roster would they NOT trade for a first?

If I had to say right now the only player on the roster that you couldn’t trade for a 1st is hurts

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

There will be more restructures - False, there is no one left to restructure without doing significant damage to the 2023 cap like has already been done to the 2022 cap.

more extensions - False, there is no player you can give an extension to that saves money in 2022 without damaging the 2023 cap.

more trades - who are we going to trade ?? because of the restructures Howie did, the cap savings are not there for trades.  He added bonuses and dummy years.

and the cap will likely go up - you act like these numbers are based on the current year salary cap number, all of these numbers are based on the projected 202 million 2022 cap and 225 million 2023 cap.

Its gonna change. Especially the list 2 years from now that you talked about. That one is almost pointless to even think about at this point for us fans - no its not.  Some of us saw this coming last year, and have discussed it at length.  Some of  you though there was going to be some magic that would just make the 2021 over the cap situation go away, and that we would be all good in 2022 with our 73 million in cap room.  Guess what, it didn't magically go away, and now that 73 million in 2022 cap room is now 9.1 million.

Adding to this, there is other issues with all of these restructures.  Kelce is not going to play forever.  What if he retires after this season ??  Because Howie did the restructure, adding the dummy void years, when a player retires, all future signing bonus money accelerates to the current year just like if you are cut or traded.  Kelce's cap number goes from 5.9 million to 13.5 million if he retires.  That is why all of those restructures are dangerous.  We are in the same situation with Johnson, Brooks and Graham because of these restructures.  If they retire after this season or next, it actually increases their cap hits.

[Guest justrelax]

54 minutes ago, downundermike said:

Dude, we only have 22 million in cap space next year, and if all the draft picks make the team, I believe it will be less than 15 million with the rookie contracts.  On March 10th we had 73 million in 2022 cap room, but due to Howie's roster mismanagement and bad contracts, he had to sacrifice 2022 and 2023 cap space trying to clean up his mess.

The bad contract was Alshon's. The one that blew up was Wentz's, although compared to other top QBs his deal is not onerous - 10th highest in the league. The problem was, he turned out not to be a top QB. Well, at least not here.

[HazletonEagle]

1 minute ago, downundermike said:

Adding to this, there is other issues with all of these restructures.  Kelce is not going to play forever.  What if he retires after this season ??  Because Howie did the restructure, adding the dummy void years, when a player retires, all future signing bonus money accelerates to the current year just like if you are cut or traded.  Kelce's cap number goes from 5.9 million to 13.5 million if he retires.  That is why all of those restructures are dangerous.  We are in the same situation with Johnson, Brooks and Graham because of these restructures.  If they retire after this season or next, it actually increases their cap hits.

Not concerned about the cap with Howie back in rebuild mode. If he was in superbowl window extending mode than he might continue to get reckless and hurt future years. I am confident we will have cap room. And plenty of it. And use it wisely.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

Not concerned about the cap with Howie back in rebuild mode. If he was in superbowl window extending mode than he might continue to get reckless and hurt future years. I am confident we will have cap room. And plenty of it. And use it wisely.

You should be, some of us have previewed this situation for years, and that has been the response.  I have given you all the evidence, you just choose to ignore it.

[HazletonEagle]

5 minutes ago, downundermike said:

You should be, some of us have previewed this situation for years, and that has been the response.  I have given you all the evidence, you just choose to ignore it.

Actually, a lot of you thought we were going to be in bad shape years before we were. Like, the year after Chip Kelly left we were supposedly in cap hell according to our EMB cap experts. And it was supposed to be even worse the year after that. So you got that wrong, and then wrong again. I wont be surprised if he also gets out of it quicker than you think he can too.

I ignore the evidence because the capologists just cant ever truly get it right. I appreciate that you guys are able to have ballpark figures on individual contracts. But when it comes to cap space, and how it is manipulated you usually cant even get close. You have the EMB numbers, the philly reporter numbers, the OTC and sportrac numbers... and none of them matter. Howie does whatever the hell he wants.

Right now we probably cant even sign this year's rookies according to you guys. But, I bet we will.

[greend]

12 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

youre using drafts where other guys were in charge of the draft as your evidence. You need to use these last 2 drafts. Beginning after this season it will start to become clear how good, or bad he did with his selections.

I did forget Hurts. 

I try not to think about him. 

I dont think Hurts not producing as a started reflects poorly. Below are reasons why.

We know 1. Hurts was drafted more for cap reasons because they love a great backup and couldnt afford to pay similar to what theyve paid for them in the past.    2. Hurts was drafted to be the backup because Wentz hadnt demanded a trade at that point. So, Hurts was never meant to be our starter.         3. Howie still isnt set on Hurts as the starter because they were trying to trade up for Wilson in the draft. They also reportedly have been monitoring the Watson situation closely.        4. Howie already has assets stockpiled to potentially make a move for a QB as soon as next year Hes not about to have the team suffer horrible QB play. Hes loaded to make the move if he has to.

 

It would look bad on Howie if he really drafted Hurts to be our starter, and for no other reason than that he really thought he was a franchise QB. And if we have no contingency plan. Luckily, we are ready and able to pivot from him asap if need be.

see, I think it does reflect on Howie because it started the whole crap storm with Wentz and according to somewhere I heard or read Howie talked to Wentz before he drafted him and "the conversation didn't go well". The whole cheap back-up thing is crap because we are in even worse shape cap wise this year and low and behold we went after a vet.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, justrelax said:

The bad contract was Alshon's. The one that blew up was Wentz's, although compared to other top QBs his deal is not onerous - 10th highest in the league. The problem was, he turned out not to be a top QB. Well, at least not here.

Alshon's contract did not cause this situation.  He had a cap hit of 14.9 in 2020 and we did not have cap issues.  His cap hits are 7.5 in 2021 and 5.4 million in 2022..  That 5.4 million is not the reason our 2022 cap went from 73 million to 2022 million doing restructures.  By the way, who signed him to that contract ??

Carson Wentz cap hit was going to be 34 million, on the roster or not.  Even if he was playing at a top 5 QB level and was still here, Howie would have to have done the exact same thing to get under the cap and crippled the 2022 cap situation.  By the way, who signed him to that contract ??

 

[HazletonEagle]

6 minutes ago, greend said:

see, I think it does reflect on Howie because it started the whole crap storm with Wentz and according to somewhere I heard or read Howie talked to Wentz before he drafted him and "the conversation didn't go well". The whole cheap back-up thing is crap because we are in even worse shape cap wise this year and low and behold we went after a vet.

Flacco isnt really a good, nor high paid vet. We could have went this sucky backup route last year, but thats never been this team's MO.

Regardless, I care a lot more how the intended franchise QB looks whenever that guy is on the roster. I dont care much how a backup who is starting by default looks. I am sure the team intends to find the right guy if/when Hurts doesnt work out. Theyve accumulated the resources to do so already. And it seems pretty clear they arent even expecting him to work out since theyve already looked in to various other options.

 

Heck, I think theyd look bad if Hurts DOES play great. Cause you can tell theyd have no idea thats coming. 

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

Actually, a lot of you thought we were going to be in bad shape years before we were. Like, the year after Chip Kelly left we were supposedly in cap hell according to our EMB cap experts. And it was supposed to be even worse the year after that. So you got that wrong, and then wrong again. I wont be surprised if he also gets out of it quicker than you think he can too.

I ignore the evidence because the capologists just cant ever truly get it right. I appreciate that you guys are able to have ballpark figures on individual contracts. But when it comes to cap space, and how it is manipulated you usually cant even get close.

I was not one of those people.  You can look into the future and see what is happening.  In 2016 we had 29 million in cap room when the cap was set, and we did not have any contracts that had gone through major restructures.  Maxwell had an 8.5 million cap hit when traded, Eagles saved 5 million against the cap in the trade.  Murray, 9 million cap hit, they saved 4 million trading him.  Kiko Alonso had not dead cap hit by trading him.  The only bad one that off season was Sam Bradford 12.5 million dead cap hit.  

2017 they did not have a lot of room when the cap was announced, but they had players they could cut with more than 5 million in savings and not a lot of dead money.  It was easy to see.

The problem now, is you have 30+ year old players, who have done multiple restructures, and dummy years added after the contract expires.  When those players retire, all that dummy money accelerates to the current year.  I already show you how that works with Kelce.

Also, in 2016 and 2017 we had cap space from the previous year to roll over, we do not have that.

Another thing, we currently have $4,828,123 in cap room, our rookie pool has a cap hit of $ 10,547,006.  Eagles still need to create 5.8 million in cap space to sign their rookies.

[HazletonEagle]

2 minutes ago, downundermike said:

I was not one of those people.  You can look into the future and see what is happening.  In 2016 we had 29 million in cap room when the cap was set, and we did not have any contracts that had gone through major restructures.  Maxwell had an 8.5 million cap hit when traded, Eagles saved 5 million against the cap in the trade.  Murray, 9 million cap hit, they saved 4 million trading him.  Kiko Alonso had not dead cap hit by trading him.  The only bad one that off season was Sam Bradford 12.5 million dead cap hit.  

2017 they did not have a lot of room when the cap was announced, but they had players they could cut with more than 5 million in savings and not a lot of dead money.  It was easy to see.

The problem now, is you have 30+ year old players, who have done multiple restructures, and dummy years added after the contract expires.  When those players retire, all that dummy money accelerates to the current year.  I already show you how that works with Kelce.

Also, in 2016 and 2017 we had cap space from the previous year to roll over, we do not have that.

Another thing, we currently have $4,828,123 in cap room, our rookie pool has a cap hit of $ 10,547,006.  Eagles still need to create 5.8 million in cap space to sign their rookies.

And where is that cap space going to come from to sign this year's rookies?

And where is there space coming from to sign vets when we need to during the season during injuries?

Guarantee they have more room any anyone here realizes. Not saying we have enough to go make a splash, but I bet we arent negative relative to need for draft class and in season signings.

[Guest justrelax]

30 minutes ago, greend said:

You forgot Hurts . If he doesn't produce even if the others do that's not a good look for Howie.

OTOH, if he does, a lot of people on this board will look like fools and Howie will look like a genius. That will be a bitter pill for some to swallow.

[Connecticut Eagle]

Any thought to the possibility that Hurts can be a version of Cam Newtown - not great at traditional quarterbacking, but adds other skills to make his team SB worthy?

[bpac55]

4 hours ago, WentzFan11 said:

I know the blog likes shirtless pics

 

His ankle is fine. 

Not sure if people saw this mentioned but the ankle injuries that Dickerson had at Bama were the same Lane is currently recovering from.

[Guest justrelax]

1 minute ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Any thought to the possibility that Hurts can be a version of Cam Newtown - not great at traditional quarterbacking, but adds other skills to make his team SB worthy?

Definitely. 

[bpac55]

3 hours ago, Saltpeter said:

Insane shape for a 300+ lb man. If that ankle holds up, he's still the best RT in the game. Lots of slander around here.

And he isn't THAT old.  If JP's fat ass held up until 36-37, Lane should be good for another 5 years.  It's nice to talk about youth and I said I would trade Lane if someone offered a 3rd...he's the only one of the vets I probably wouldn't.  Assuming he holds up.

[hukdonfoniks]

2 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Any thought to the possibility that Hurts can be a version of Cam Newtown - not great at traditional quarterbacking, but adds other skills to make his team SB worthy?

Please God no.

Cam Newton was (is) entirely overrated.  His awesome scrambling ability made up for the fact that he was (is) a mediocre quarterback. 

[austinfan]

Actually, if Hurts turns out to be a top 20 QB or better, that becomes a brilliant move, get your starting QB with #53, trade an equivalent QB for 3rd and 1st rd pick.

Hurts at say the 15th  ranked passer is as valuable as Wentz at #10 or so, b/c of Hurts running ability.

We'll see. That's why they play the games.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

And where is that cap space going to come from to sign this year's rookies?

And where is there space coming from to sign vets when we need to during the season during injuries?

Guarantee they have more room any anyone here realizes. 

The options are release or trade Ertz, 5 million in savings, or post June 1 release or trade him, 8.5 million in savings.  

Next option is sign Barnett to an extension and lower his cap number from 10 million to around 5 million.  But guess what, then he has an 8-9 million cap hit in 2022, and that puts you almost at zero for 2022 cap space.

The only other option is restructure someone else, not sure who, there is no one left to restructure that gets you the savings.

[austinfan]

51 minutes ago, Khani1 said:

From the 2014 draft through the 2017 draft, how many of those draft pics are currently still on the Eagles?  The answer is 2.  Barnett from '17 and Seumalo in '18.  None from 2014 or 2015.  So 2 picks currently on the team from a 4 year span.  Howie is not good at drafting.

2014 was a battle between Chip and Howie, 2015 was controlled by Chip.

And we got a 3rd and hopefully a first for Wentz, plus 3 PO appearances.

[Guest justrelax]

Just now, hukdonfoniks said:

Please God no.

Cam Newton was (is) entirely overrated.  His awesome scrambling ability made up for the fact that he was (is) a mediocre quarterback. 

Newton is a bonehead. Wentz is a wuss. Hurts wants it, like Russell Wilson wanted it. Grit counts for a lot and he has enough talent.

[hukdonfoniks]

1 minute ago, justrelax said:

Newton is a bonehead. Wentz is a wuss. Hurts wants it, like Russell Wilson wanted it. Grit counts for a lot and he has enough talent.

I sincerely hope Hurts becomes more like Wilson than he does Newton. 

If Newton ever, ever had become a consistent passer....damn he would have been LETHAL.  He wouldn't even have had to become a top passing threat, just a steady one.  Instead he became Brandon Jacobs with an arm. 

[austinfan]

2 minutes ago, justrelax said:

Newton is a bonehead. Wentz is a wuss. Hurts wants it, like Russell Wilson wanted it. Grit counts for a lot and he has enough talent.

The only question with Hurts is his ability to learn how to be a pocket QB at the NHL level, which you don't know until he does it for a couple years - look at all the sure things that went #1 and #2 in the draft the last decade - you think Lawrence, Wilson and Lance will all succeed? He has enough arm strength to make all the "real" NFL throws (see Brees, Ryan, Brady, Rivers), question is whether he can master the mental part of reading defenses and anticipating his WRs coming open, and the discipline to check down and not force plays.

However, when it comes to the intangibles that a QB needs to be a winner, Hurts is off the chart, handle pressure, check, work ethic, check, competitiveness, check, team first, check.

[RememberTheKoy]

2 minutes ago, austinfan said:

The only question with Hurts is his ability to learn how to be a pocket QB at the NHL level, which you don't know until he does it for a couple years - look at all the sure things that went #1 and #2 in the draft the last decade - you think Lawrence, Wilson and Lance will all succeed? He has enough arm strength to make all the "real" NFL throws (see Brees, Ryan, Brady, Rivers), question is whether he can master the mental part of reading defenses and anticipating his WRs coming open, and the discipline to check down and not force plays.

However, when it comes to the intangibles that a QB needs to be a winner, Hurts is off the chart, handle pressure, check, work ethic, check, competitiveness, check, team first, check.

 

I don't know if we will ever truly know if he can be a QB at the NHL level. Do we even know if he can skate? Can't say I've seen any evidence of it.