8 minutes ago, downundermike said:

There is plenty of evidence.

A QB who has not taken enough pre season game reps who is holding the ball to long in practice.

A QB who has not taken enough game reps that multiple defensive co ordinators shut down in the second half with no game tape.

An oft injured aging group of starters who will have to get up to game speed week 1 ( see Bruce Arians quote a couple pages ago )

A starting WR who had a bad rookie year, and in the limited game action he had, had several bad drops.

A team with an all new coaching staff implementing a new scheme that has not been used in a game situation.

I could go on, but that is plenty of evidence.

All of that, but the ultimate killer is ZERO depth.  We have been one of the most injured squads for years, yet somehow we need them all to stay healthy this year to maybe compete.  That's asking for alot.

It's OK to have low expectations for this team.

56 minutes ago, TorontoEagle said:

You're just being obtuse. 

You summed him up perfectly.  Now, please refrain from engaging. 

55 minutes ago, TorontoEagle said:

No obviously not and I'm not saying he is. I would guess if you asked him, he would want to be playing. My entire point is that the organization has decided that pre-season games aren't worth a hill of beans, and it flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But, they aren't the only organization in the league taking this mindset. I'm interested to see how the experiment unfolds, but I don't think it's as big a deal as some are making it out to be. 

I am curious to see the outcome... but my bigger concern is that they may not correct their course if the results don't warrant it.  I think they are gun shy about injuries after the last few years and will seek any and every excuse to refrain from full contact.   Sadly, injuries are a part of the game.  Learning how to minimize them is the key and you only learn the good habits of knowing how to take the punishment... if you are actually exposed to punishment.

29 minutes ago, Swoop said:

I don't want to see a single poster that doesn't care about the lack of reps for Hurts this preseason even utter the word "rusty" if he stinks it up week 1.

4 minutes ago, E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles said:

All of that, but the ultimate killer is ZERO depth.  We have been one of the most injured squads for years, yet somehow we need them all to stay healthy this year to maybe compete.  That's asking for alot.

It's OK to have low expectations for this team.

And that depth got physically dominated by the Patriots.  I don't care about scheme or any other nonsense, man on man, they dominated us.

12 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

Here's an example of what I mentioned last night about the incessant negativity displayed by fans of the local team. There's no evidence to support this at all -- one way or the other -- yet the default reaction is a negative one. 

Agreed. It's a completely new type of off-season with less preseason games and a longer season to prepare.  Siri chose to get most of his reps through joint practices and try to keep his starters as healthy as possible. Other coaches treated it like any other preseason and tried to give their guys as many game-like reps as possible. 

Overall the eagles starters are relatively healthy so mission accomplished I guess. Given the choice I would have preferred our starters and Hurts in particular to get more realistic reps the preseason, but I'm also willing to wait and see. Undoubtedly the season is becoming more of a marathon than a sprint so I at least see the logic. 

19 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

Here's an example of what I mentioned last night about the incessant negativity displayed by fans of the local team. There's no evidence to support this at all -- one way or the other -- yet the default reaction is a negative one. 

same as it ever was

32 minutes ago, 4for4EaglesNest said:

Them years are long gone.  But give enough beers.  I can.  

Dude... high score wins!  

2 minutes ago, NCTANK said:

same as it ever was

11 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

Not in the NFL. Sack yardage is not included in a team's rushing yardage. In college, I believe it is. But sack yardage is its own separate category in the NFL.

Shows how much college ball I watch.  I see numbers and yards are separate on NFL.com.  Are you sure they don’t count against rushing yards?  I mean if Hurts keeps the ball and is running it but gets tackled for a loss, is it only recorded with sack yards?  Makes for the stats being subjective or skewed. 

3 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

Shows how much college ball I watch.  I see numbers and yards are separate on NFL.com.  Are you sure they don’t count against rushing yards?  I mean if Hurts keeps the ball and is running it but gets tackled for a loss, is it only recorded with sack yards?  Makes for the stats being subjective or skewed. 

 

15 minutes ago, downundermike said:

I have to agree with franklin @BigEFly.  Here is the Eagles game when Wentz was sacked last year.  In the team stats, it counts against the team passing yards.

 

 

Carson passed for 270 yards, deduct the 62 sack yards and the team passing yard total is 208

 

30 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

Here's an example of what I mentioned last night about the incessant negativity displayed by fans of the local team. There's no evidence to support this at all -- one way or the other -- yet the default reaction is a negative one. 

Franklin he's basing off of the starters doing nothing in preseason. I expect them to come out flat as well and will be pleasantly surprised if they don't. That's not being negative, if anything it's being hopeful 

20 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

What a silly take. You actually want to SEE him play for the first time in nearly two years and base your judgment on his actual performance, rather than on random tweets over the course of two seasons which has somehow become defining gospel to Eagles fans all over the world?

I don't know what to expect from Dillard, but if he plays tonight I hope he plays great. But I'm convinced that there are many, many Eagles fans who want to see him suck just so that they can continue to complain about Howie's decisions. It makes them feel better inside to just be constantly negative.

Kinda like "I’ll just take a 5th or 6th rd pick for Ertz” camp. Screw that , why give away a good player? Last time I checked we could use a few of those.

29 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

What a silly take. You actually want to SEE him play for the first time in nearly two years and base your judgment on his actual performance, rather than on random tweets over the course of two seasons which has somehow become defining gospel to Eagles fans all over the world?

I don't know what to expect from Dillard, but if he plays tonight I hope he plays great. But I'm convinced that there are many, many Eagles fans who want to see him suck just so that they can continue to complain about Howie's decisions. It makes them feel better inside to just be constantly negative.

I don’t think it’s negative on my part because i said the same thing about dillard the day he was drafted and i really wasn’t as high on him as others were leading up to the draft.

Entering that draft he was going to be a older Prospect when the season started. He was going to be 24 as a rookie. to me I’m not taking a guy or trading up for a older prospects who was far from complete or plug and play. He should have been physically ready at 24. He wasn’t and it was going to be a problem because he needed to get that strength to be able to play consistently in the NFL. I think that’s part of the reason he has struggled and has had some injuries  

Then there were other issues that were overlooked or just ignored. Washington state almost never ran the ball so you really had limited info if he was a good run blocker. He might have been good, he might also have been bad. Washington State never showcased it. So had limited plays and a pro day to make the judgement of how far away he was. Another factor in why was he falling. He didn’t have a Randy moss or warren Sapp type of issue off the field to drop him like him. But after the fact you start getting all the stories coming out about how he might not really love football from his father and that he nearly quit and even at Washington state he had some of the issues that they started to say when he was in training camp the past two years. Those were things I’m betting teams higher up had researched and done and knew about which factored into their decision to select him or not 

From after he was drafted, the fact you start getting all the stories coming out about how he might not really love football from his father and that he nearly quit and even at Washington state he had some of the issues that they started to see when he was in training camp the past two years.

To be perfectly honest I think some people on the boards got obsessed about how analyst had projected him as a top 15 (potentially top 10) player in the draft meanwhile ignored red flags as the reason why he fell. And instead of looking at why did he fall to us or within range to where we could jump up to get him. As much as i love stoutland and he’s great, he can only take the horse to water. The horse has to do the rest. 

now I’m hoping dillard proves me wrong but it’s not as if there weren’t red flags or problems the eagles could see when he was drafted. Again there were reasons why he fell where he did and a lot of people chose to just ignore the red flags and focus on his great footwork and pass protection status at Wazzu. 

32 minutes ago, Swoop said:

Is it negative or realistic? 

There's basically three ways you can view the 1st few weeks:

1) I think insuring all are starters will be healthy will put us ahead of the curve

2) Not sure how the coach's handling of the preseason will pan out, so I guess we'll have to see where we are on the curve to judge

3) I expect us to come out behind the curve the first few weeks

None of them are unrealistic... 1 or 3 could happen, and 2 is looking back at the evidence...  so, how would you label them otherwise?

15 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

I am curious to see the outcome... but my bigger concern is that they may not correct their course if the results don't warrant it.  I think they are gun shy about injuries after the last few years and will seek any and every excuse to refrain from full contact.   Sadly, injuries are a part of the game.  Learning how to minimize them is the key and you only learn the good habits of knowing how to take the punishment... if you are actually exposed to punishment.

As I've said all along, you and others with this view may end up being totally right. I have no delusions of what might be. But I am willing to wait and see what effect this new way of doing things has on the team. I'm just as intrigued to see how it affects the Rams, as I think they have a more talented roster than we do. 

I think the biggest concern will be those little soft tissue injuries....hamstrings, calves tightening, things that make guys miss a series or quarter, but nothing that makes them miss extended time. It disrupts things obviously if guys are shuffling around because of it. I would hope if that ends up happening, they would correlate it to the lack of physicality in pre-season. I fear you may be right, that they may just ignore the connection. 

Let's be honest here. The season is not won/lost based on playing starters in pre-season. We'll go as far as Hurts can take us.

Changing course a little, can anyone really tell me how not playing in the preseason will stop a player from getting hurt in the regular season ??

33 minutes ago, downundermike said:

There is plenty of evidence.

A QB who has not taken enough pre season game reps who is holding the ball to long in practice.

A QB who has not taken enough game reps that multiple defensive co ordinators shut down in the second half with no game tape.

An oft injured aging group of starters who will have to get up to game speed week 1 ( see Bruce Arians quote a couple pages ago )

A starting WR who had a bad rookie year, and in the limited game action he had, had several bad drops.

A team with an all new coaching staff implementing a new scheme that has not been used in a game situation.

I could go on, but that is plenty of evidence.

That's evidence supporting your supposition...  it's not evidence of what will actually happen...  it hasn't happened yet...

There are too many variables to be sure...  most having to do with how your opponents handled the pre-season...

Just now, downundermike said:

Changing course a little, can anyone really tell me how not playing in the preseason will stop a player from getting hurt in the regular season ??

Except for extreme outliers, eventually everybody gets hurt. It's a numbers game as to when your ticket comes up. Some guys have their numbers come up a lot more often. The problem (especially in Philly lately) has been entire units wiped out by injuries. WRs one year, Oline the next. The Packers were ravaged by o-line injuries last year as well. When you don't have enough depth to cover up entire groups being wiped out, you're screwed. The Packers have Rodgers to cover up for a lot of warts, we don't. 

19 minutes ago, E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles said:

OK.  McPherson and James are awesome.  Give it a few weeks and you will be singing a different song, but enjoy it for now. 

Add:  This team stinks, so I guess it does not matter who they trot out this year.  

I did not say McPhearson and James are awesome.  I asked what Douglas offers that is better.  Guess you think nothing because you have offered nothing.

James is a mediocre CB but a stellar ST player, when he is healthy.  The availability is an issue.  I wouldn’t mind replacing him but Douglas isn’t the answer, IMHO.  If he makes the team, James shouldn’t bank on keeping the position.  He may make the 53 and be gone the next day.

I liked the McPhearson draft value. Yes, he struggled against Pats starters last week.  He needs the reps. Get used to NFL speed so he can play rather than think and react.  I think he can be a solid back up and has the potential to be either a starting slot or CB2 based on his play at TTU. I said potential.  Douglas is past potential at this point.

We know what Douglas is.  Not particularly good in zone and too slow for man.  Decent ball skills but a liability without S help.  And that’s assuming an above average FS, which the Eagles don’t have because that moron Howie keeps passing on Ss when it is the best player at our pick.  He’s given us what? Wallace, a too small  SS.  But I digress.  Without prime McLeod or better, Douglas is a bad fit IMHO.  See, I explained my reason on why I disagree about Douglas, but I would be happy to entertain your reasoning if you would be so kind as to share it.

2 minutes ago, downundermike said:

Changing course a little, can anyone really tell me how not playing in the preseason will stop a player from getting hurt in the regular season ??

I'm calling a big old fat STRAW MAN here...  no one, at any time, has suggested not playing in the preseason will STOP A PLAYER FROM GETTING HURT during the season...  what it did was insure they didn't get hurt BEFORE the season started...

2 minutes ago, Veejer said:

That's evidence supporting your supposition...  it's not evidence of what will actually happen...  it hasn't happened yet...

There are too many variables to be sure...  most having to do with how your opponents handled the pre-season...

He said there’s no evidence to support a negative reaction.
 

I think what I posted is definitely evidence to support people having a negative reaction.

7 minutes ago, TorontoEagle said:

As I've said all along, you and others with this view may end up being totally right. I have no delusions of what might be. But I am willing to wait and see what effect this new way of doing things has on the team. I'm just as intrigued to see how it affects the Rams, as I think they have a more talented roster than we do. 

I think the biggest concern will be those little soft tissue injuries....hamstrings, calves tightening, things that make guys miss a series or quarter, but nothing that makes them miss extended time. It disrupts things obviously if guys are shuffling around because of it. I would hope if that ends up happening, they would correlate it to the lack of physicality in pre-season. I fear you may be right, that they may just ignore the connection. 

We will see.  But on a discussion board, since we don't have starter reps to discuss, we have to discuss the legitimacy of not seeing them.  . 

3 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

I did not say McPhearson and James are awesome.  I asked what Douglas offers that is better.  Guess you think nothing because you have offered nothing.

James is a mediocre CB but a stellar ST player, when he is healthy.  The availability is an issue.  I wouldn’t mind replacing him but Douglas isn’t the answer, IMHO.  If he makes the team, James shouldn’t bank on keeping the position.  He may make the 53 and be gone the next day.

I liked the McPhearson draft value. Yes, he struggled against Pats starters last week.  He needs the reps. Get used to NFL speed so he can play rather than think and react.  I think he can be a solid back up and has the potential to be either a starting slot or CB2 based on his play at TTU. I said potential.  Douglas is past potential at this point.

We know what Douglas is.  Not particularly good in zone and too slow for man.  Decent ball skills but a liability without S help.  And that’s assuming an above average FS, which the Eagles don’t have because that moron Howie keeps passing on Ss when it is the best player at our pick.  He’s given us what? Wallace, a too small  SS.  But I digress.  Without prime McLeod or better, Douglas is a bad fit IMHO.  See, I explained my reason on why I disagree about Douglas, but I would be happy to entertain your reasoning if you would be so kind as to share it.

Is McPhearson playing tonight? I'd like to watch him (I haven't been able to see any of the games live yet)