EMB Blog: 2022 Off-Season

[315Eagles]

2 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

I disagreed at the time.   Aiyuk was my ideal to pair with Jefferson being taken in Round 1.   Aiyuk was never a first rounder to me.  Then again, neither was Reagor.  

There was a report that Aiyuk was the guy SF wanted and that they would have took him at 13 if they were picking then.  I called BS and said they would have took Reagor over Aiyuk if both were available.  Boy was I wrong.

[RLC]

12 minutes ago, greend said:

name some

Sam Darnold just went for a 2, 4, 6.
Bridgewater went for a 3 before his contract kicked in
Wentz for a 1
Foles went for a 4 (if you want to argue they wanted Dalton to start, sure)
Flacco went for a 4 in the Ravens/Broncos trade, when Flacco was washed and expensive

They all started games. If we want to trade Hurts, we'll get something of value back.
 

[Connecticut Eagle]

1 minute ago, RLC said:

Sam Darnold just went for a 2, 4, 6.
Bridgewater went for a 3 before his contract kicked in
Wentz for a 1
Foles went for a 4 (if you want to argue they wanted Dalton to start, sure)
Flacco went for a 4 in the Ravens/Broncos trade, when Flacco was washed and expensive

They all started games. If we want to trade Hurts, we'll get something of value back.
 

[greend]

Just now, RLC said:

Sam Darnold just went for a 2, 4, 6.
Bridgewater went for a 3 before his contract kicked in
Wentz for a 1
Foles went for a 4 (if you want to argue they wanted Dalton to start, sure)
Flacco went for a 4 in the Ravens/Broncos trade, when Flacco was washed and expensive

They all started games. If we want to trade Hurts, we'll get something of value back.
 

You haven't named any teams that have a worse starter than Hurts. Your statement was he could start in the nfl because there are worse starters than him

[TorontoEagle]

4 minutes ago, 315Eagles said:

I did say "a little better".  Not much better.

I do think he would improve slightly if the QB throwing the ball was accurate and could get him some passes in stride.

Do you remember the opening game of 2020 with Wentz at QB? Reagor ran a terrible route if I remember correctly, where he was lazy, again, and it turned into an INT, and ultimately the beginning of the end. I want Reagor as far away from this team as humanly possible. 

[e-a-g-l-e-s eagles!]

1 minute ago, downundermike said:

The bolded is not a stretch

I don’t think so either. I said at the time i thought their reasoning was a little fishy and thought it was more of an insurance plan in case wentz wasn’t who they thought he was when they originally drafted him. And that i could see them thinking they could get out of wentz’s contract in 2 years if they didn’t like what they saw over those 2 years. Frankly i think the eagles looked at wentz’s 2019 season and thought is he long term going to be the QB from the first 11 games of the season or is he the last 5 games of the season where he carried the eagles but was against bad opponents. I think it unraveled and he made the decision easier by wanting out after his bad 2020 year. 

[Connecticut Eagle]

2 minutes ago, greend said:

You haven't named any teams that have a worse starter than Hurts. Your statement was he could start in the nfl because there are worse starters than him

The Steelers could be a plausible landing spot for him.

Rudolph isn't anything special.  They are picking #20, so not in a position to choose one of the better QBs.

 

[eagle45]

I don't have time to do it right now, but I would like to compare our 3-7th round draft picks against the rest of the league over Howie's tenure.  I bet we'd be pretty competitive.  And I bet rounds 1+2 would look abysmal.

I don't mean to defend Howie, but if you are competitively finding big, contributing talent in the later rounds, it means you might actually know what you are doing and how to identify talent.  The terrible track record early means there is a problem with the process.  I don't know if they are listening to all the noise, overthinking it, playing it safe because they are afraid to miss, constantly over-correcting away from the previous year's draft failure, or a combination of all of the above.  But I do think that burden is lifted from them in the later rounds and they have done a much better job of identifying talent when it's actually harder to do it.

Just look at all of the truly explosive home grown players on this team.  How many of them were high draft picks?

[eagle45]

6 minutes ago, RLC said:

Sam Darnold just went for a 2, 4, 6.
Bridgewater went for a 3 before his contract kicked in
Wentz for a 1
Foles went for a 4 (if you want to argue they wanted Dalton to start, sure)
Flacco went for a 4 in the Ravens/Broncos trade, when Flacco was washed and expensive

They all started games. If we want to trade Hurts, we'll get something of value back.
 

You are right about all of those trades, but the common thread is that every single one of those receiving teams has almost instantly regretted it.  At some point, GMs will learn that it's not worth it to trade draft capital for QB's who have proven to not be good enough.

[eagle45]

3 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

The Steelers could be a plausible landing spot for him.

Rudolph isn't anything special.  They are picking #20, so not in a position to choose one of the better QBs.

 

I hate to bang the Carson Strong drum too hard, but he is the best passer in the draft and he'll be in their range at 20.

Tomlin is a smart coach.  Despite their heritage, the Steelers have mostly been a very strong passing team with major playmaking WRs under his tenure.  I don't see him transitioning to a Ravens style offense with a QB who can't pass.

Saints, Steelers, and Lions are all teams in need of a QB who will have picks in that frame of the draft.

[Utebird]

9 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

I don't know that seems a bit steep...

[Alphagrand]

5 minutes ago, greend said:

You haven't named any teams that have a worse starter than Hurts. Your statement was he could start in the nfl because there are worse starters than him

I've ranked Hurts around the 22nd best starter in the NFL most of the season.  For me, I'd likely put Hurts ahead of:

Big Ben (PIT), Teddy (DEN), Heinicke (WFT), Darnold (CAR) .... I only came up with 4

I rated him higher than Zach Wilson during the season only because of experience.  Daniel Jones is close, but Jones outplayed Hurts head-to-head.  Fields is about the same but, again, a raw rookie like Zach Wilson.

[Iggles_Phan]

6 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

I don't have time to do it right now, but I would like to compare our 3-7th round draft picks against the rest of the league over Howie's tenure.  I bet we'd be pretty competitive.  And I bet rounds 1+2 would look abysmal.

I don't mean to defend Howie, but if you are competitively finding big, contributing talent in the later rounds, it means you might actually know what you are doing and how to identify talent.  The terrible track record early means there is a problem with the process.  I don't know if they are listening to all the noise, overthinking it, playing it safe because they are afraid to miss, constantly over-correcting away from the previous year's draft failure, or a combination of all of the above.  But I do think that burden is lifted from them in the later rounds and they have done a much better job of identifying talent when it's actually harder to do it.

Just look at all of the truly explosive home grown players on this team.  How many of them were high draft picks?

Or that in those situations you trust the board and don't go 'off the reservation' as much.  

[Outlaw]

46 minutes ago, Utebird said:

I think Howie gives him one more year in hopes he'll have an agholor rebirth.

I've been a pretty ardent supporter of reagor but I don't think he has what it takes mentally to be able to turn around.

He's a total head case, which is odd as he comes from an nfl background with his dad playing And usually those kids have their heads screwed on straight, it's not like reagor is a bad person or makes questionable off field decisions it's all on the field, every week he looks like it's his first day ever seeing a football, like some coach saw him in the gym and said this dude is jacked and can run and jump let's put him in pads, and he gets out there and has no clue what he's doing???

I'm not sure he ever puts it together which is sad because he has a lot of athletic ability but lots of athletes in the NFL never pan out because as athletic as they are they still need to know how to play football, reagor doesn't.

I think he'd be a much better RB than WR.

38 minutes ago, Godfather said:

Let me take a crack at this. Daniel Jones? 

No. Davis Mills...maybe.

[Iggles_Phan]

2 minutes ago, eagle45 said:

I hate to bang the Carson Strong drum too hard, but he is the best passer in the draft and he'll be in their range at 20.

Tomlin is a smart coach.  Despite their heritage, the Steelers have mostly been a very strong passing team with major playmaking WRs under his tenure.  I don't see him transitioning to a Ravens style offense with a QB who can't pass.

Saints, Steelers, and Lions are all teams in need of a QB who will have picks in that frame of the draft.

Not if we grab him at #19...    (Best to throw smoke off of that though.... Hurts is our guy!!!  RAH RAH!    SWAG!!!   dancing feet to avoid falling railings and fans!   )

[RLC]

8 minutes ago, greend said:

You haven't named any teams that have a worse starter than Hurts. Your statement was he could start in the nfl because there are worse starters than him

Denver, Pittsburgh, Houston, New York Jets, New York Giants, Carolina, New Orleans.
There are toss-ups in Detroit, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, Indy....

Reminder: Hurts was 19th in QBR, 14th in EPA, 23rd in passer rating. There are going to be teams with much worse options.

[DEagle7]

I think they stick with him this year but I wouldn't be totally surprised if Tua is available in the near future. Especially if Watson's drama gets sorted out soon and they make a push for him. Not that he's shown himself to be an elite QB or anything but another name to throw into the "what if" mix. 

[Outlaw]

47 minutes ago, Alphagrand said:

Sirianni and Steichen will be the determining voices.  Most of Sirianni's experience before coming to Philly was working with Philip Rivers, with the Colts and Chargers (2013-2016, 2020) -- not sure that necessarily means that type of QB is a prerequisite for the system he wants to run, though.

We do know that Sirianni came out of the gate trying to run a pass-heavy offense, and we do know the Eagles philosophy from Lurie is they want to be a pass-heavy offense.  We also know that Jalen Hurts cannot survive in that scheme.  If I'm the Eagles I'm not giving him any more time to find out; I have my answers already.

If Hurts is back as the starter for 2022 it will only be because of cap constraints and limited options.  I find it hard to believe Nick and Howie look at Hurts and think "this guy can be our future franchise QB"

For your list above, I mostly feel the same but I'd switch Garoppolo and Winston.  I couldn't be less interested in Winston, but I'm mildly intrigued what Garoppolo could do in the Sirianni offense.

Prior to this season I'd agree with you on Winston but he looked good this year. But, he also has Payton.

[austinfan]

Do you want to win another SB or just make the playoffs?

No QB can take this current team to the SB, Herbert couldn't even take a Chargers team with similar talent to the playoffs.

So if you trade 2+ 1st rd picks for a good but not great veteran QB, what's the point? And if you trade for Rodgers, he's missed the playoffs with mediocre GB teams, what makes you think you can build a good enough team in two years before he falls off the proverbial cliff? And if you put a young QB on an average team, how many years before you have a shot at a SB?

The kind of trades people are talking about are the ones you make 2-3 years from now after you've built a team that can go 11-6 with Hurts or Minshew or some other middle of the pack QB. We saw that in TB, they're loaded on both sides of the ball, and Brady looks great because he's not asked to do too much - same with Stafford on the Rams. Build a top 5 team and you can plug in a good but not great veteran QB (veteran is the key). Build an average team and you'd better both land a HOF caliber QB at his peak and get lucky. And if you build a team like that, you can get a QB in the middle of the 1st rd, groom him for a year and give him an environment where he can succeed.

We won a SB with Foles b/c that team was peaking and lucky in 2017. Once injuries started to hit, you could have added Brady and you weren't going deep into the playoffs.

[Godfather]

1 minute ago, Outlaw said:

I think he'd be a much better RB than WR.

No. Davis Mills...maybe.

That's why I put a question mark. I wasn't confident in my answer

[Outlaw]

Just now, DEagle7 said:

I think they stick with him this year but I wouldn't be totally surprised if Tua is available in the near future. Especially if Watson's drama gets sorted out soon and they make a push for him. Not that he's shown himself to be an elite QB or anything but another name to throw into the "what if" mix. 

Tua sucks just as much.

[Iggles_Phan]

19 minutes ago, Cliftoma said:

Our focus has been taken from the real problem with this team:  Howie "f'n" Roseman.  We need to refocus our hate to run that guy out of town on a rail. 

All of our draft resources and cap space mean nothing with that guy making the picks.  

You must be new here...

[eagle45]

If I were looking to deal Hurts, Seattle is the first place I'd call.  I think the comparison is crazy, but we all know he has been compared to Russell Wilson.  Pete Carroll is cocky and has some crazy ideas.  That's the exact combination you need in a potential buyer for Hurts so they think they could create something we could not.  This could potentially apply to the meathead in Detroit as well, who might love Jalen's swag.

I really don't think anyone else would bite, unless it's a much later pick for a backup role.

[Godfather]

14 minutes ago, Connecticut Eagle said:

Getting that back would be a steal

[austinfan]

22 minutes ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

If we believe the eagles at face value, they drafted hurts to be a backup that could start in spots if wentz got hurt. The reality is if we believe the eagles intentions for hurts when he was drafted  was he was a cheap backup QB then the eagles own scouts told fans they didn’t believe he was a high end starter in this league. Unless we are to believe the eagles are lying and drafted him cause they didn’t fully believe in wentz anymore and he was their insurance plan to wentz if they had to eventually move on at some point in time. 

In 3 seasons, Wentz threw 4 passes in the post-season, of course you needed a backup who could come in and win games off the bench.