12 minutes ago, justrelax said:

Your question was: "So, y’all are trying to talk yourselves in to being ok with average QB play?"

Yes or no answers are equally unsatisfactory. That's all I was saying. If the question was: "Are you satisfied with average QB play," my answer would be No.

Average QB play likely wont win you SB Championships. The track record is that the majority of SB's are won by TOP TEIR QB's. There are outliers, I am not interested in the Eagles relying on an outlier. 

 

1 minute ago, Ipiggles said:

Average QB play likely wont win you SB Championships. The track record is that the majority of SB's are won by TOP TEIR QB's. There are outliers, I am not interested in the Eagles relying on an outlier. 

 

No argument there.

14 minutes ago, NCiggles said:

I think possibly it would but if you look at other sports 40 teams doesn't seem unreasonable.  I think the problem is putting bad teams in places without a good fanbase.  

Leave my grandma out of it.  

Sounds like this calls for a couple of rounds of the Dozens.

21 hours ago, Alphagrand said:

Sirianni probably got tired of getting blasted in the media, went to Howie and suggested that he'd adjust his scheme because it was apparent Hurts throwing 35+ times per game was never going to become a winning formula.  Full marks to him for adjusting.  It should be noted Doug showed no ability to do that last season.

Or maybe the OL had not gelled early on because when they did run the ball, Boobie and Gainwell weren’t seeing holes.  I suspect it was a combination of seeing what the WRs offered too.  Plus the last few teams we played struggled a bit more with run defense. Further, we started the year with Boobie and Gainwell.  Lots of us have commented on how Sanders was struggling to see the hole.  Now we have Scott and Howard.  Different type of runners.  They also have Dickerson, Driscoll and Herbig playing G.  Brooks was obviously Rusty the little he played at first. The current Gs have shaken the rust off and are better at run blocking than pass blocking.  Play action may have as much to do with line schemes as Hurts. 

I suspect there was little "mother may I” and probably more analytics in the discussions with Lurie and Howie and his staff.  Hopefully some of those analytics addressed playing the Ss more than 20 yards deep.

One thing I'm surprised that no one has commented on. In the first half last Sunday the Broncos were playing almost entirely man. In the second half they went zone. Hurts was just fine against man, not so much against zone. Expect a lot of zone this week against the Saints. Hurts has to prove he can beat it.

One way to see how different zone and man can be, look at Hurts' long run. AT one point it looks like he's chasing a Bronco. The guys has his back to Hurts and doesn't see him take off. You won't see that kind of thing against a zone.

20 hours ago, NCiggles said:

I don't think the media had anything to do with the decision.  I don't think he went to Howie.  I think he probably took advice from veteran players and probably to some extent Stoutland.  My sense is that Sirianni is concerned with losing the locker room.  Making repeated mistakes is a sure way to lose the players even if the problem is a lack of talent at QB.  

I have doubts about a fear of losing the locker room where the vets won’t be here long and are few, many players on one year contracts staring the question of their future in the eye and the remained fighting to earn and keep jobs.  The Eagles will turn over between a quarter and a third of the team starting in about seven weeks.  

20 hours ago, austinfan said:

"They?" They hired the OC from a ball control offense, the Eagles under Reich weren't a pass happy team, nor were the Colts under Reich/Sirianni. In fact, AR in his later days in Philly was much more big play passing game than Reich, who harks back to "early" AR and the ball control passing game using RBs and TEs.

2016:  392 rushes, 46 QB runs, 604 passes, 109 to RBs, 185 to TEs, 312 to WRs

2017:  398 rushes, 75 QB runs, 555 passes, 75 to RBs, 165 to TEs, 315 to WRs [Sproles only played 3 games]

I doubt "They" would have chosen a RPO heavy offense as the basis for a passing game. "They" would have preferred "Air Reid."

A more likely explanation is that Siri had implemented a lot of these concepts in TC, where they seemed to work, but facing NFL defenses, with inexperienced WRs, an OL struggling to pass block and an inexperienced QB learning a new scheme - what worked in practice didn't work in games. So he went back to his Indy roots.

I don't think Siri intended to run as much as he has the last few games - but it was so successful he kept calling running plays - when you're gaining 5+ yards a carry on run downs (which is totally different than breaking off runs on passing downs - you can't assume those plays will work against a run defense formation), you'd be crazy not to run the ball. Mix in enough pases to keep the defense honest and pound them into submission.

Plus, he flipped the ToP. That wears the other team’s defense and keeps the Eagles D fresh.  Key component in the results from exploiting the run game.

2 hours ago, TorontoEagle said:

There was a story here (Toronto) last week that they're looking to expand to 36 teams, and looking at Toronto/London and a few other places as the targets. My guess is before Goodell leaves, he'll expand it as his 'legacy'. I agree, there isn't enough talent now to dilute to another 4 teams. 

If St. Louis gets a team as part of a settlement for the Suit they've filed against the league, they can't very well add just one team. Unless they move one?  I can see an expansion team or two in Canada - though I doubt the CFL would be thrilled with that - but beyond North American it seems like the logistics would be daunting.

 

 

18 minutes ago, justrelax said:

One thing I'm surprised that no one has commented on. In the first half last Sunday the Broncos were playing almost entirely man. In the second half they went zone. Hurts was just fine against man, not so much against zone. Expect a lot of zone this week against the Saints. Hurts has to prove he can beat it.

One way to see how different zone and man can be, look at Hurts' long run. AT one point it looks like he's chasing a Bronco. The guys has his back to Hurts and doesn't see him take off. You won't see that kind of thing against a zone.

***Raises hand*** I mentioned it! It's insane to me that any DC would play man against Hurts

1 minute ago, TorontoEagle said:

***Raises hand*** I mentioned it! It's insane to me that any DC would play man against Hurts

We see a lot of man coverage for some reason. That goes against conventional wisdom. 

20 hours ago, vikas83 said:

So we're at the point now where idiots are trying to claim Hurts is better than McNabb. That seems right on schedule.

The absolute hatred some people have for McNabb really baffles me. 

Realism about McNabb isn’t hate.  He had horrible touch on the ball.   Westbrook with his fingertip catches and Lewis, the hero to worms everywhere, helped McNabb with his stats tremendously and when both missed time at the end of the seasons, the Eagles lost in the post season.   McNabb is not the greatest Eagles QB of all times.  Van Brocklin was impressive for his time here.  Jaws was a better QB and I liked Cunningham more than McNabb.   McNabb was up there as a top team QB and we all enjoyed his play while having some frustration with his flaws. That incredible scramble against the cowpads is only exceeded by how the OL supported it with no penalties as a thing of beauty.    

10 minutes ago, eglz1 said:

If St. Louis gets a team as part of a settlement for the Suit they've filed against the league, they can't very well add just one team. Unless they move one?  I can see an expansion team or two in Canada - though I doubt the CFL would be thrilled with that - but beyond North American it seems like the logistics would be daunting.

It's hard for me to discuss the CFL. Here in Toronto, nobody cares about it at all. There's the older generation that does, but they are quickly dying out. I know in places like Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Hamilton, etc, where they have nothing else to do/watch, they are die hard CFL people. And there's even younger people in their 20s/30s that are die hards in those places. But if the entire league folded up tomorrow, I wouldn't lose a second of sleep about it.

As far as expansion cities for NFL, Toronto is viable. Montreal is not, they wouldn't support an NFL franchise IMO. Vancouver is really the only other option, but I don't know if they care enough about football either. I really think only Toronto could support an NFL team. 

42 minutes ago, justrelax said:

One thing I'm surprised that no one has commented on. In the first half last Sunday the Broncos were playing almost entirely man. In the second half they went zone. Hurts was just fine against man, not so much against zone. Expect a lot of zone this week against the Saints. Hurts has to prove he can beat it.

One way to see how different zone and man can be, look at Hurts' long run. AT one point it looks like he's chasing a Bronco. The guys has his back to Hurts and doesn't see him take off. You won't see that kind of thing against a zone.

Oh I pointed it out, but in the 2nd half, they hardly passed the ball.

Zone is better against scrambling QBs, but on runs, Hurts ran outside b/c Howard and Scott aren't threats to bounce it outside - so Hurts, even though he didn't get a lot of yard, froze the DE, who stayed home instead of crashing down the LOS to make tackles behind the OL. This is where Sanders could help if he ran better, his speed makes him a threat to bounce it for a big gain, so the defense has to play the run straight up.

One problem Hurts will have against zone is young WRs don't have a good feel for soft spots and timing their routes. Goedert is probably the only reliable zone buster, and we'll see if he plays this week. Chad Lewis and Celek excelled at this, you could count on them finding a soft spot and using their big bodies to provide an easy target, even though they ran 5.0 40s. Avant was also good at this.

20 hours ago, vikas83 said:

Now compare passing stats league wide in 2000 and 2021. And wake me up when we win 11 games and make the playoffs in 2021.

This defense isn’t a playoff defense.   That is driving the team performance more than the offense is at this point.  

 

3 minutes ago, TorontoEagle said:

It's hard for me to discuss the CFL. Here in Toronto, nobody cares about it at all. There's the older generation that does, but they are quickly dying out. I know in places like Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Hamilton, etc, where they have nothing else to do/watch, they are die hard CFL people. And there's even younger people in their 20s/30s that are die hards in those places. But if the entire league folded up tomorrow, I wouldn't lose a second of sleep about it.

As far as expansion cities for NFL, Toronto is viable. Montreal is not, they wouldn't support an NFL franchise IMO. Vancouver is really the only other option, but I don't know if they care enough about football either. I really think only Toronto could support an NFL team. 

Toronto is not viable.  The attendance for the NFL series games dropped during its 5-year span from 52,000 in 2008 to less than 39,000 in 2013.

It's hard to think of a less deserving city for an NFL franchise.

27 minutes ago, justrelax said:

One thing I'm surprised that no one has commented on. In the first half last Sunday the Broncos were playing almost entirely man. In the second half they went zone. Hurts was just fine against man, not so much against zone. Expect a lot of zone this week against the Saints. Hurts has to prove he can beat it.

One way to see how different zone and man can be, look at Hurts' long run. AT one point it looks like he's chasing a Bronco. The guys has his back to Hurts and doesn't see him take off. You won't see that kind of thing against a zone.

Sample size.  He attempted three passes in the second half.

1 hour ago, dawkdaballhawk said:

In order to expand, the NFL should force integrate women into the teams. Step 1 will be protecting the QB from most hits.

 

DeShaun Watson supports this idea for a couple reasons.

10 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

We see a lot of man coverage for some reason. That goes against conventional wisdom. 

Some DCs just want to do their thing.  Fangio is a high pressure, M2M guy.

18 minutes ago, TorontoEagle said:

***Raises hand*** I mentioned it! It's insane to me that any DC would play man against Hurts

My apologies for missing your post.

18 minutes ago, TorontoEagle said:

As far as expansion cities for NFL, Toronto is viable. Montreal is not, they wouldn't support an NFL franchise IMO. Vancouver is really the only other option, but I don't know if they care enough about football either. I really think only Toronto could support an NFL team. 

I don't think Toronto will be high on the NFL's list.

The obvious choices here are probably Mexico City and San Antonio.  San Antonio was trying hard to get a team when the Rams / Chargers / Raiders moved, I think they'd be high on the list if the NFL were to offer an expansion team.  

The NFL has been drooling over Mexico City for years, although I don't know how much they care about the NFL.  It's a big city and huge market, which means big potential revenues.

 

13 hours ago, austinfan said:

Wilson;

ranking QBR, ANY/A

2012:  3/8

2013:  9/7

2014:  6/10

2015:  4/3

2016:  15/12

2017:  11/12

2018:  11/7

2019:  5/8

2020:  8/16

Wilson's QB rating is inflated b/c he holds the ball to make big plays, which results in higher yards per attempt but also more sacks, the YPA improves his rating, the sacks aren't counted.

His first five seasons he played behind a dominant defense, the two SB years they were #1 in both points and yards allowed.

Wilson is elite in his scrambling ability and his ability to throw on the scramble.  Only he and Rodgers have such a beautiful placement of deep balls.  He does carry teams.  It is criminal how he went with very little receiver talent in the middle of his career and how bad Carroll has let the OL get.   Of course the defense helped but Wilson got the offense to enough points to win.   

3 minutes ago, EricAllenPick6 said:

I don't think Toronto will be high on the NFL's list.

The obvious choices here are probably Mexico City and San Antonio.  San Antonio was trying hard to get a team when the Rams / Chargers / Raiders moved, I think they'd be high on the list if the NFL were to offer an expansion team.  

The NFL has been drooling over Mexico City for years, although I don't know how much they care about the NFL.  It's a big city and huge market, which means big potential revenues.

 

I don't think a team could work in Mexico.  They have major issues with Cartels kidnapping people and holding them for ransom.  I don't believe wealthy professional American football players would want to subject their families to that danger. 

51 minutes ago, justrelax said:

One thing I'm surprised that no one has commented on. In the first half last Sunday the Broncos were playing almost entirely man. In the second half they went zone. Hurts was just fine against man, not so much against zone. Expect a lot of zone this week against the Saints. Hurts has to prove he can beat it.

One way to see how different zone and man can be, look at Hurts' long run. AT one point it looks like he's chasing a Bronco. The guys has his back to Hurts and doesn't see him take off. You won't see that kind of thing against a zone.

How was he not good against zone?  He threw the ball 3 times right?  IDK that the sample size is big enough there, at least in that game.