1 minute ago, TorontoEagle said:

We were coming off another playoff trip in 2019, and CB was a massive weakness. Yes we overpaid, that's what happens when you can't draft well. Detroit didn't outsmart anybody. It was a good trade for both teams, honestly. 

I disagree it being a good trade, was a good trade for Detroit, they got a huge contract off their books for an aging underperforming player Howie made the trade and said hold my beer and extended that over paid underperforming player, for what so they could go 4-12 or give up 40+ back to back so slay could get 1 Int in 19 games?

He's been average since he's been here and he's paid to be a difference maker, he's not made enough of a difference for me to consider the trade " good"

 

We traded for and paid Slay to be in a predominant cover-1 man scheme. It’s fair to question his value in a zone scheme because zone corners outside of a superstar like Ramsey probably shouldn’t be that highly paid. 

The Eagles not playing a man defense is neither Howie nor Slay’s fault. (Please spare me the Howie ran Doug out so Schwartz left butterfly effect). 

The bottom line is Slay is playing well. Better than "ok.” Teams really aren’t even testing him all that much. 

8 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

I think people have to get away from the "he is the X highest paid player at his position. Is he playing like the X best player?” 

That’s just not how it works. It’s always about the timing of a deal. Contracts go up. 

At the time Howie traded for him I didn't think he was worth his contract, Detroit apparently felt the same 

In retrospect I still don't think he's worth his contract.

What's he done since being an eagle?

Just now, Utebird said:

At the time Howie traded for him I didn't think he was worth his contract, Detroit apparently felt the same 

In retrospect I still don't think he's worth his contract.

What's he done since being an eagle?

Played well outside of a stretch when he was injured. 

1 minute ago, Utebird said:

I disagree it being a good trade, was a good trade for Detroit, they got a huge contract off their books for an aging underperforming player Howie made the trade and said hold my beer and extended that over paid underperforming player, for what so they could go 4-12 or give up 40+ back to back so slay could get 1 Int in 19 games?

He's been average since he's been here and he's paid to be a difference maker, he's not made enough of a difference for me to consider the trade " good"

 

We got a top 10 player at a premium position for a 3rd and a 5th round pick. There’s no reason why Slay can’t continue to play at a high level for another 3-4 more years. 
 

How many of the top 10 CBs in the league are 3rd, 4th, or 5th round picks? 
 

Howie got great value for that trade. If Detroit didn’t blow, they would never trade a premium player like that for a 3rd and 5th. 

2 minutes ago, wtfcares said:

We got a top 10 player at a premium position for a 3rd and a 5th round pick. There’s no reason why Slay can’t continue to play at a high level for another 3-4 more years. 
 

How many of the top 10 CBs in the league are 3rd, 4th, or 5th round picks? 
 

Howie got great value for that trade. If Detroit didn’t blow, they would never trade a premium player like that for a 3rd and 5th. 

That’s a major stretch. If we get another two years of good play that’d be great. 

5 minutes ago, Utebird said:

At the time Howie traded for him I didn't think he was worth his contract, Detroit apparently felt the same 

In retrospect I still don't think he's worth his contract.

What's he done since being an eagle?

Do you forget how bad our corners were pre Slay? 

3 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

Played well outside of a stretch when he was injured. 

I wouldn't call giving up 70% completion and over 100 passer rating when targeted with 1 Int playing " well"

He's looked better this year and so far has stayed healthy but still he's not playing like a top 5 CB which is what he's paid to be 

1 minute ago, ManuManu said:

That’s a major stretch. If we get another two years of good play that’d be great. 

He’s 30. I don’t think it’s out of question for a CB to continue to play well at 33-34. 

1 minute ago, TorontoEagle said:

Do you forget how bad our corners were pre Slay? 

I remember which is why Howie was forced to over pay for a decent corner 

I'm not saying slay sucks, I'm saying he's not worth his contract and hasn't been a difference maker 

He and Cox are the highest paid players on the D both have essentially been role players this year.

Cox highest paid player on the team, 4 tackles in 4 games 

People will argue yeah but he draws double teams blah blah blah.

You seriously want your highest paid player on your team to be just a space eater?

Those are NTs they can be had in the 5th round of the draft, no reason to have ones NT be the highest paid player on the team unless he's super disruptive which Cox hasn't been.

Considering the lack of a pass rush, Gannon doesn’t blitz, Slay hasn’t been bad. You can only cover a WR for so long, you have to hope for a holding penalty on the O Line.  Not to mention Gannon has him in soft zone coverage where everything between 5-10 yard is going to be caught. 
 
Bills also play a ton of zone, they have 7 ints and four recovered fumbles thru 4 games The Eagles have 1 and 1 and are in the bottom 1/3 of the league…, again.  The prevent defense the Eagles use isn’t designed to do anything but stop big plays.  They don’t want to be on Sports Center for giving up a 50 yard pass, that’s the Eagles scheme this year.  
 The Bills have an aggressive, physical defense, something McDermott picked up from Jim Johnson. 
 

2 minutes ago, Utebird said:

I wouldn't call giving up 70% completion and over 100 passer rating when targeted with 1 Int playing " well"

He's looked better this year and so far has stayed healthy but still he's not playing like a top 5 CB which is what he's paid to be 

He shadowed No. 1s in a predominantly man defense and got skewered by Adams and Metcalf while playing through injuries.

He basically had one of the toughest jobs in football without the benefit of quality play around him in the secondary. 

Just now, ManuManu said:

He shadowed No. 1s in a predominantly man defense and got skewered by Adams and Metcalf while playing through injuries.

He basically had one of the toughest jobs in football without the benefit of quality play around him in the secondary. 

Not disagreeing, and I'm not Interested in excuses just results and the results say so far he hasn't lived up to the expectations and his contract, blame the scheme his injuries the players around him either way he hadn't measured up 

I feel bad for him, he's a pretty good player and his talent is being wasted on a really bad team after being on some really bad teams in Detroit, and it's on Howie for thinking slay was the missing link to a team he thought was still competing for the playoffs.

Bad evaluation by Howie on an aging player in decline bringing him to a team with zero help.

 

 

Under Schwartz this team stopped the run and was able to pressure the QB with the front 4, the Eagles didn’t necessarily need a shut down corner.  Now they can’t stop the run, and purposely let short passes get caught, which is the opposite of how a defense should play when they don’t blitz or pressure the QB.   

3 minutes ago, Utebird said:

I remember which is why Howie was forced to over pay for a decent corner 

I'm not saying slay sucks, I'm saying he's not worth his contract and hasn't been a difference maker 

He and Cox are the highest paid players on the D both have essentially been role players this year.

Cox highest paid player on the team, 4 tackles in 4 games 

People will argue yeah but he draws double teams blah blah blah.

You seriously want your highest paid player on your team to be just a space eater?

Those are NTs they can be had in the 5th round of the draft, no reason to have ones NT be the highest paid player on the team unless he's super disruptive which Cox hasn't been.

Slay is overpaid relative to his value league wide but I am not sure he deserves any criticism for that issue.  It's not like he's given up and not playing.  He has shown up to play and is doing better this season. He didn't take the contract and then just not bother to perform.  

Remember that Cox's contract was signed in 2016.  It was a good deal at the time.  The Eagles would have been in a position to walk away from it after this season but for the other bad deals they signed.  

2 minutes ago, Utebird said:

Not disagreeing, and I'm not Interested in excuses just results and the results say so far he hasn't lived up to the expectations and his contract, blame the scheme his injuries the players around him either way he hadn't measured up 

I feel bad for him, he's a pretty good player and his talent is being wasted on a really bad team after being on some really bad teams in Detroit, and it's on Howie for thinking slay was the missing link to a team he thought was still competing for the playoffs.

Bad evaluation by Howie on an aging player in decline bringing him to a team with zero help.

 

 

Didn’t they do the same thing with Nnamdi?  Take a guy who can play man coverage and force him to play zone?  

Although it's a worthy debate, reminding folks of why Slay is not high on the list of contract issues.

Just now, Connecticut Eagle said:

Although it's not a worthy debate, reminding folks of why Slay is not high on the list of issues.

Do next year’s now 😅

16 hours ago, Diehardfan said:

I think Carson Strong will be that guy this year. 

Strong reminds me a lot of Daniel Jones, there's a lot to work with but needs the right coaching.

1 minute ago, NCiggles said:

Slay is overpaid relative to his value league wide but I am not sure he deserves any criticism for that issue.  It's not like he's given up and not playing.  He has shown up to play and is doing better this season. He didn't take the contract and then just not bother to perform.  

Remember that Cox's contract was signed in 2016.  It was a good deal at the time.  The Eagles would have been in a position to walk away from it after this season but for the other bad deals they signed.  

Yup, I blame Howie for slay, not slay.

As for cox even though the contract was signed in 2016 Howie keeps pushing money to the future for a declining player.

Should have just traded him.

Banner while a total D was pretty good at letting players go at the right time, Howie  since 2017 has been clueless in his player evaluation in trades, draft, FA and own FA, it's just mis step after misstep and I think slay was one of those missteps.

 

40 minutes ago, TorontoEagle said:

He's on the Chip Kelly speed run back to college 

1 hour ago, ManuManu said:

 

A bit too absolutist for my tastes. "Zone-based" does not mean exclusively zone. There are times and places for cover-0 / cover-1 calls and having the right personnel to dial those up is critical. To further reduce McLane's point, if a team trots out 5 WRs, a LB should not be anywhere on the field. There's just no benefit to be had there.

5 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Although it's a worthy debate, reminding folks of why Slay is not high on the list of contract issues.

Yup, I think it's well established that Howie is an idiot.

17 minutes ago, The Blackfish said:

Didn’t they do the same thing with Nnamdi?  Take a guy who can play man coverage and force him to play zone?  

Slay was misused under Schwartz as he had slay playing trail man all year.

Slay said hes' better when he can see the QB and read and react, this year under Gannon slay plays off in zone and reads and reacts and while he's been better than last year he's still yet to make any big plays.

He's got 1 PD against the falcons and zero INTs.

He's not giving up big plays or tons of completions but he's also not making any plays.

Being the 4th highest paid CB one would expect he'd make some plays have more of an impact 

Having said that with the way the rules favor passing and scoring and protect qbs and WRs it's increasingly more difficult for a corners to impact a game, which is why in 2017 the eagles allocated the least amount of money to CB and one of the highest amounts to safety 

Safeties have a higher chance if impacting a game more than a corner whose out on an island all game .

Since winning in 2017 Howie has ignored safety and put more resources into corner  and it obviously hasn't resulted in winning.

We should be at the quarter point of the NFL season but this stupid 17 game season has that all messed up but it's still a good time to take a look at the Eagles roster and how it's being used.  The Dime conversation got me thinking about what players are contributing vs. who isn't.

-Chachere, McPhearson, Epps and Bradley are the core ST guys.  They play 75% of ST snaps (everything but FG), so you can say they are important pieces to the team,  consider them starters.

-JJAW, Stoll, Singleton, Ridgeway, Edwards, Avery, J. Scott, Eliiott are your other starting ST players playing 50% of the ST snaps.  Interesting to see Singleton, the only starter besides OL, playing ST and Josiah Scott, who was just activated playing that much.  Singleton should be just a ST guy if we're being honest.

-Boston Scott, Brett Toth, Sua Opeta, Greg Ward, Davion Taylor and Patrick Johnson all hovering in that 25% of ST snaps per game range. 

-You go in to a game with extra OL with the hope none of them have to play a down so Opeta and Toth are expected to play little to no snaps other than ST. 

-In the past, RB3 would be making some sort of contribution other than ST.  Boston Scott is giving this team nothing right now.  Is this an offensive scheme thing?  He's playing 7 snaps a game on ST and has 4 garbage time offensive snaps all year.  Why is he on the team?  Can we upgrade here?

-Same goes with Greg Ward.  He's not a core ST player as he only plays 25% of the snaps and he's playing about 20% of the offensive snaps.  Yes, he has 2 TD on 2 catches but let's be real. The Bears added Jakeem Grant from the Dolphins today in exchange for a 2023 6th round pick.  In 5 years, he averages 10 yards per PR with 3 TDs while averaging 25 yards per KOR with 2 TDs.  He's also averaged 16, 13, 9 and 10 YPC on offense.  This is the kind of guy you bring in to replace Greg Ward.  He brings a punch on ST and can bring a big play on offense.  I would have made that trade in a heartbeat.  

-Of the 6 CB they dress, only 3 play on defense.  The others are ST players.

-Then you look at LB.  The worst position on the team has 7 players active on Sundays.  Makes no sense to me.  Just have no idea what they're doing.