This is not a rebuild!

[Portyansky]

Honestly Howie did a great job. Draft and signing key players. Yes there are some bandaids. But so was SB year. Possibly 3 first round picks next year, we will be in even better shape with the cap.
Steven Nelson
Ryan Kerrigan
Anthony Harris
Eric Wilson
Devonta Smith 
Landon Dickerson 
Kerryon Johnson

that's not a list of a team in rebuild (I missed a few)

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Portyansky said:

Honestly Howie did a great job. Draft and signing key players. Yes there are some bandaids. But so was SB year. Possibly 3 first round picks next year, we will be in even better shape with the cap.
Steven Nelson
Ryan Kerrigan
Anthony Harris
Eric Wilson
Devonta Smith 
Landon Dickerson 
Kerryon Johnson

that's not a list of a team in rebuild (I missed a few)

No he didn’t.  Devastated the 2022 cap with restructures, and 6 FA’s he signed have a cap hit in 2022 and will not be on the roster.

[PoconoDon]

33 minutes ago, Portyansky said:

Honestly Howie did a great job. Draft and signing key players. Yes there are some bandaids. But so was SB year. Possibly 3 first round picks next year, we will be in even better shape with the cap.
Steven Nelson
Ryan Kerrigan
Anthony Harris
Eric Wilson
Devonta Smith 
Landon Dickerson 
Kerryon Johnson

that's not a list of a team in rebuild (I missed a few)

I am leaning in the other direction. It looks exactly like a rebuild to me.

Steven Nelson    -  1 year deal. looks like a prove it scenario which means, he may not be good enough - Band aid.  
Ryan Kerrigan      -   Old and at the ends of his career. Band aid.
Anthony Harris   -   Solid FS pickup from the Vikings. 29 years old but should have a few years left.
Eric Wilson        -     Good young LB'er from the Vikings. 
Devonta Smith    -   unproven stick man who may be great or may break into 1000 pieces. Time will tell.
Landon Dickerson   -  5 year college player who spent 4 of them on IR needing surgery. Long shot.
Kerryon Johnson  -    Very good signing. Team needed a young power back desperately and they seem to have one now. 

Overall, 2 Band aids, 2 unproven with concerns, 1 pretty good, 1 good. and 1 very good.  

Oh, and let's not even think about if the unproven QB fails. 

 

[jmac+djaxallday]

49 minutes ago, PoconoDon said:

I am leaning in the other direction. It looks exactly like a rebuild to me.

Steven Nelson    -  1 year deal. looks like a prove it scenario which means, he may not be good enough - Band aid.  
Ryan Kerrigan      -   Old and at the ends of his career. Band aid.
Anthony Harris   -   Solid FS pickup from the Vikings. 29 years old but should have a few years left.
Eric Wilson        -     Good young LB'er from the Vikings. 
Devonta Smith    -   unproven stick man who may be great or may break into 1000 pieces. Time will tell.
Landon Dickerson   -  5 year college player who spent 4 of them on IR needing surgery. Long shot.
Kerryon Johnson  -    Very good signing. Team needed a young power back desperately and they seem to have one now. 

Overall, 2 Band aids, 2 unproven with concerns, 1 pretty good, 1 good. and 1 very good.  

Oh, and let's not even think about if the unproven QB fails. 

 

The roster is still way too old to call it a rebuild.  This is more just a hodge-podge of too young and too old, with a few tier-B free agents mixed in.  Not very appealing on paper and way more desperation than design, but it's not unheard of in this league to catch lightning in a bottle and I think that's why this season still feels like a legit crack at something bigger.  Next year will be when the real rebuild starts, assuming we haven't stumbled into anything with Hurts.

[Texas Eagle]

1 hour ago, downundermike said:

No he didn’t.  Devastated the 2022 cap with restructures, and 6 FA’s he signed have a cap hit in 2022 and will not be on the roster.

Surely he will keep kicking that can down the road to 2023 

[wyote]

As far as I can tell, we're not even done finished tearing down the old building. 

[brkmsn]

48 minutes ago, jmac+djaxallday said:

  This is more just a hodge-podge of too young and too old 

People around here crack me up with all the "age" nonsense. It doesn't matter how young or old a team is. It only matters how productive it is.

 

At the beginning of the season last year the youngest team's average age was: 24.9 (JAX), the Eagles were 19th at 26.0, the falcons were last at 26.9, the 2 SB teams were (KC)25.9 and (TB)26.3. Interestingly a team associated with being young, Cardinals were 26.1.

 

Last year one of our oldest players, JP, had clearly declined to the point of liability. The so-called "old" guys we have this year are some of our best players (Brooks, Johnson, Kelce, Graham, Cox, Slay. 

[Guest]

How many games have Brooks and Johnson missed to injury recently ?? 

[UK_EaglesFan89]

This is a rebuild but Howie is doing it in his own way. The roster has seen a fairly big turnover. Rebuild doesn't necessarily mean going really young it just means a big change in terms of the players. And next year with potentially 3 first round picks we can look at adding top young talent.

[Infam]

3 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

This is a rebuild but Howie is doing it in his own way. The roster has seen a fairly big turnover. Rebuild doesn't necessarily mean going really young it just means a big change in terms of the players. And next year with potentially 3 first round picks we can look at adding top young talent.

Rebuilding by creating a roster with ONLY young players is bound to fail anyways. Filling the holes on the roster with veteran prove it deals is just smart.

[UK_EaglesFan89]

37 minutes ago, Infam said:

Rebuilding by creating a roster with ONLY young players is bound to fail anyways. Filling the holes on the roster with veteran prove it deals is just smart.

Agreed. This team needs blue chip young talent no doubt but a roster stacked with young players is not going to get it done. 

[ManchesterEagle]

9 hours ago, Portyansky said:

Honestly Howie did a great job. Draft and signing key players. Yes there are some bandaids. But so was SB year. Possibly 3 first round picks next year, we will be in even better shape with the cap.
Steven Nelson
Ryan Kerrigan
Anthony Harris
Eric Wilson
Devonta Smith 
Landon Dickerson 
Kerryon Johnson

that's not a list of a team in rebuild (I missed a few)

 

6 hours ago, brkmsn said:

People around here crack me up with all the "age" nonsense. It doesn't matter how young or old a team is. It only matters how productive it is.

 

At the beginning of the season last year the youngest team's average age was: 24.9 (JAX), the Eagles were 19th at 26.0, the falcons were last at 26.9, the 2 SB teams were (KC)25.9 and (TB)26.3. Interestingly a team associated with being young, Cardinals were 26.1.

 

Last year one of our oldest players, JP, had clearly declined to the point of liability. The so-called "old" guys we have this year are some of our best players (Brooks, Johnson, Kelce, Graham, Cox, Slay. 

 

1 hour ago, Infam said:

Rebuilding by creating a roster with ONLY young players is bound to fail anyways. Filling the holes on the roster with veteran prove it deals is just smart.

I agree this is not a rebuild. They have kept almost all of their older good players. Currently it is just a retool and a change of direction at QB. 

One of Howie's biggest failings, which often gets overlooked, is ignoring the D in the draft to the point that we have pretty much no young talent on D. The D actually looks pretty good this year, but it is filled with either players over 30 who we can expect to decline/continue to decline (Cox, Graham, Slay, McLeod, Kerrigan etc) and veteran players on one year deals (Wilson, Nelson, Harris) that we probably can't afford to extend at this stage. Our two fairly promising young players, Barnett and Sweat, are both free agents after this year and we can probably only afford to keep one. 

Now if Hurts works out, then we have a great opportunity to focus on the D in the next draft given our number of high picks and add some much needed young talent. If he doesn't and we have to focus our draft capital on drafting or trading for a QB, then this D could be in a real mess over the next couple of years.

I would expect if the Eagles/Hurts are doing badly that we start seeing guys like Cox, Slay, Brooks, Johnson etc on the trade block to try and get more capital and picks to rebuild.  

[E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles]

It's a rebuild until he stacks multiple quality drafts on top of each other to get our young talent up.  Howie did what he needed to do, but the roster is far from perfect to really compete.  Rewarding him for fixing his own mess doesn't seem right.  

[NOTW]

13 hours ago, Portyansky said:

Honestly Howie did a great job. Draft and signing key players. Yes there are some bandaids. But so was SB year. Possibly 3 first round picks next year, we will be in even better shape with the cap.
Steven Nelson
Ryan Kerrigan
Anthony Harris
Eric Wilson
Devonta Smith 
Landon Dickerson 
Kerryon Johnson

that's not a list of a team in rebuild (I missed a few)

Why would you list 2 rookies in this argument?

Having said that, there are no true "rebuilds" in the NFL where you dump all your players and have no veteran players and just collect draft picks.  There are too many roster spots and with contract and cap issues every team ends up with veterans on the roster until they phase them out.  But teams in the NFL do get to a point where they realize they need to move on that the core isn't winning and time to "rebuild" the roster.  Teams end up using the term "retool."  Of course, every year teams are retooling because there are so many roster spots, so many rounds in the draft and in free agency teams make at least some minor moves every year.  

The case to call it a NFL version of a rebuild?

1. They traded their franchise QB away for draft picks and are starting a 2nd year player.
2. They fired their coach and have a new coaching staff.
3. Lurie said Doug wanted to win now as part of the reason to fire him.
4. They've recognized they held onto older players from the SB team and need to get a lot younger.
5. The free agents they are signing are short term band aids to put someone on the field while they continue to retool.

The NFL isn't like other sports where you strip your talent away and try to tank to get draft picks.  You're not 1 magical draft pick away from being a championship team, it takes a balanced roster.  It's beneficial to have young guys learning from veterans and to win games to build on.  NFL teams can turn it around quickly.  The new regime with Doug and his coaching staff won a championship in their 2nd year.  It's always a mix of players from the previous coach plus guys you brought in.  There are simply too many roster spots to not have some decent players, every team has veterans and some really good players on their team even while they're trying to retool through a lot of draft picks.

[Miami]

It's only a rebuild if Hurts doesn't play well this year.  Then we have to find another QB.  Otherwise, Eagles have a bunch of good players who may play better than people expect with the ghosts of Doug and Carson now gone.  There were definitely times last year where it felt like the team was beating itself for no good reason.

 

[RememberTheKoy]

14 hours ago, downundermike said:

No he didn’t.  Devastated the 2022 cap with restructures, and 6 FA’s he signed have a cap hit in 2022 and will not be on the roster.

 

10 hours ago, downundermike said:

How many games have Brooks and Johnson missed to injury recently ?? 

 

 

You make posts like this acknowledging the uphill climb this team has to rebuild over the next several years yet also are one of the biggest pushers of spending major cap space and draft capital to bring in Watson which will all but guarantee this team to have a desolate roster for much longer than it needs to with a QB that has already shown he has no patience to be in such a situation. 

[Mike030270]

I don't think Howie is treating it like a rebuild but I do think we should have one

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

You make posts like this acknowledging the uphill climb this team has to rebuild over the next several years yet also are one of the biggest pushers of spending major cap space and draft capital to bring in Watson which will all but guarantee this team to have a desolate roster for much longer than it needs to with a QB that has already shown he has no patience to be in such a situation. 

As someone already posted, when a player is traded he no longer has any guaranteed money in his contract.  Would be quite easy to restructure, lowering cap hits in 2022 and 2023, and the big money kicks in 2024.  By then, Graham, Kelce, Cox, Johnson and Brooks are probably all gone, so 2023 and beyond cap should ( unless Howie does more dumb stuff ) be fine.  The real issue is making good draft picks going forward to fill the void of those players leaving.

[RememberTheKoy]

5 minutes ago, downundermike said:

As someone already posted, when a player is traded he no longer has any guaranteed money in his contract.  Would be quite easy to restructure, lowering cap hits in 2022 and 2023, and the big money kicks in 2024.  By then, Graham, Kelce, Cox, Johnson and Brooks are probably all gone, so 2023 and beyond cap should ( unless Howie does more dumb stuff ) be fine.  The real issue is making good draft picks going forward to fill the void of those players leaving.

Restructuring that massive Watson contract is only going to limit the cap down the road.  The Howie special.  All those core players that will need to be replaced, too bad the Eagles won't have the top draft assets in the coming years to use to replenish nor the cap space to do so. 

 

But hey at least we get a terrible character and diva of a QB that can't elevate a bad roster. 

[Portyansky]

1 hour ago, NOTW said:

Why would you list 2 rookies in this argument?

 

Mainly bc there is so much hype around Smith, honestly when was the last time we had any draft pick we were so excited about? Dickerson, well I think if he can stay healthy (🙏🤞), we stole a future HOF player.

[NOTW]

4 minutes ago, Portyansky said:

Mainly bc there is so much hype around Smith, honestly when was the last time we had any draft pick we were so excited about? Dickerson, well I think if he can stay healthy (🙏🤞), we stole a future HOF player.

That's great, but not evidence that it's not a rebuild.  

[Talonblood]

• A rebuild is about going young and adding some vets in there to keeps things stable. You know you are going to lose a lot of games for a few seasons before you get better.
   
• A reshuffle is getting rid of unwanted players and getting slightly younger, while trying to remain competitive as you slowly go young.
   
• This is a reshuffle. Howie NEVER does a true rebuild.
   

[Infam]

14 minutes ago, 4for4EaglesNest said:

See notes.  That's a list of a team that needed bodies to fill holes and mostly did just that.  Not a team that is ready to compete.  

Looking at our starters, we are ready to compete right now.

Now if half the team gets injured again that's a different story as our depth (except for the lines) is weak.

[Hawkeye]

14 hours ago, eaglesflyers#1 said:

Surely he will keep kicking that can down the road to 2023 

That's the point of the way the cap is structured by the league.  GMs always spread money around from year to year. The big difference is in 2022 the cap goes up to $208 million from the $182 million it was cut to this season.

[Outlaw]

5 hours ago, 4for4EaglesNest said:

Our starters?  Ok, sure.

QB- Hurts.  Running QB with limited field awareness in the passing game.  Not a long term solution.  Pretty amazing that you’ve defined him already after 4 games.

LT- Not sure Mailata and Dillard, May the best man win. Hopefully it’s Dillard and Mailata is your swing OT, jumbo package guy who is your RT of the future.

LG- Seamaulo. Average. Agreed. Dickerson may take this job soon.

C- Kelce. Good but old Legend.

RG- Brookes.  Good but getting old and coming off another injury Agreed

RT- Johnson.  Good but getting old and coming off another injury Agreed

RB- Sanders.  Nice player Agreed. Huge Gainwell fan here and think he makes an impact.

TE- Goedert.  Nice player Potential to be more than nice.

WR1- Smith.  Great college player....166 lb rookie Great college player on the greatest college team of all time. I want Marvin Harrison’s career from him, and I think he will get there.

WR2- I'm assuming it's Reagor.  Over-drafted and underwhelming Who wouldn’t be underwhelming with that head case throwing to him last year behind that makeshift line?

WR3- WHO?  Fulgham?  Uhh...ok? Big slot could be fun. But I think there will be a lot of interchanging positions this year. 

 

DE- Barnett or Sweat- Not great by any means, although I like Sweats upside. Agreed.

DT- Cox is getting up there and not as great as he once was. Agreed.

DT- Hargrave.  I am excited to see what he brings this year. Me too.

DE- BG is old and certainly not explosive. Agreed but there is a lot of youth here too in the depth.

WLB- Alex Singleton.  Nice season, we'll see if he can keep it up. HUGE surprise and I agree, I want to see consistency.

MLB- Eric WIlson.  Decent addition which equals a major upgrade over the garbage we had there last year. I think he plays SLB as he’s pretty damn good in coverage but not a thumper.

SLB- Bradley.  6th rounder from Temple.....soooo.  Uhh, we'll see I guess. HIGHLY doubt he’s the starter.

CB- Slay.  Good player.  Overrated. Sadly, agreed.

CB- Nelson.  Nice upgrade but not avg player who sat jobless for months. A really good #2 CB. 13th ranked CB by PFF last year.

SS- McLeod.  Hurt....will he start the season? I think Wallace will start here until Rodney is healthy. PUP probably.

FS- Harris.  Nice addition.  Not a superstar.  But an upgrade.  No, not a superstar but I like him more coming in then I did Jenkins and Malcolm worked out well.

 

 

This team is ready to compete for what, might I ask?  

The NFC Least.