EMB Blog: 2022 OTAs thru Pre-Season

[BigEFly]

2 hours ago, DeathByEagle said:

It that is true then shame on Hurts. If he reads his progressions it shouldt matter who he throws to. Pick the guy who will be open. It does not matter whos name is on the back of the jersey. 

The plays are called by Shane, not Jalen.  They probably talked before the game of what they wanted to evaluate and Brown didn’t need evaluation.  Sure looked like they wanted to see Hurts use the whole field and he did throw left and over the middle.  Liked the throw when he moved right out of the pocket because looking to throw when he moves hasn’t been a strength. 

[Iggles_Phan]

2 minutes ago, Texas Eagle said:

Agreed. I will say however, he dropped back for like 3+ seconds and no one was open. It would’ve peeved me even more seeing a wide open Watkins down the seam.

. Running backwards and dropping back are very different things.  He spent about 1.5 - 2.0 seconds 'dropping back' in the pocket.  The rest of the time was giving ground running with the ball.  Were his eyes back downfield as he was running?  I don't know.   All I know is that we saw this exact same set of circumstances happen a lot last year.  And he got away with it against the bad teams.   Not so much against the good ones.

[austinfan]

What I Saw
QB: Hurts got a little happy on a couple plays, but also showed good zip on his throws. Minshew showed why he's a backup, smart, buys time but has a Detmer class arm. Great play fake on a RPO. Sinnett was thrown to the wolves behind a makeshift OL that gave him little time

RB:  Huntley tried to run inside, but he lacks vision, explosion and power, and while he has speed, what works in college doesn't in the NFL where everyone can run. Brooks is a better runner but a strictly between the tackles guy. Howie will be watching the waiver wire and a late rd pick for someone's 3rd RB is a possibility later this month

WR:  Pascal was the best one out there since Brown was a decoy. Reagor caught the ball, didn't do much after the catch but that was more the play, no room to make a move. Watkins got open, missed a tough catch he should have had. The others, meh.

TE:  Goedert is a stud, no one else really stood out, though they didn't use this game to give Stoll a chance to be an offensive focal point, maybe next game. The others, meh.

OL:  Opeta got beat in pass protection early, but looked good as a run blocker, especially on a screen and a pull right. He's taken a step up, just has to keep working on footwork in pass protection. Jurgens is Kelce lite, and in another year you can probably take off the "lite." Anderson whiffed on a screen - but they tried a number of screens, that could be a bigger part of the offense this year. Hurts did a nice job of selling his screen play. Once you got down to the 3rd team OL, the dropoff was precipitous. Bunch of guys who at best need a year on the PS.

DL:  Davis is a beast, but didn't see much in the way of moves, a work in progress. Mr T got pushed back by a double team, if you're a run stopping DT, better be able to anchor better. Thought Wren looked stronger than Wilson in that regard. DEs didn't stand out, but Jets mostly did a lot of 3 step, short passes.

LB:  White was as advertised, Edwards is just a smart MLB, which is Dean's problem, the guy ahead of him is slightly slower, slightly bigger, just as smart with 3 more years of experience. Rich people problems. Bradley does enough on the field to solidify a roster spot based on his ST play, b/c he won't be a liability if you have to play him.

CB:  The starters are fine, McPhersean got beat once but was pretty solid overall, Jobe wasn't. Among the 2nd half guys, Chachere showed well as did Blankenship.

[RLC]

A play like this is exactly when you want the QB leaving the pocket, ie a free rusher in his face.

[bpac55]

18 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Thank you for posting this video.   This is exactly what I was talking about.  He very much appeared to have made up his mind pre-snap that he was going to run for the first down on this play... just as he made up his mind pre-game to ignore Brown.   It makes zero sense.  But, then again, it makes perfect sense.  It would appear that he's just not really reading the field at all.  He's deciding before the snap what he's going to do on the play.

Watch this play very carefully... he hits the top of his drop... does a tiny little hop, and then immediately drops his eyes to find an escape route.  There's NO reason to leave the pocket.  He didn't even give the play a chance to develop or his receivers to work open for him.  This is horrible QB play, and sadly, it's just more of the same of what we saw last year.  This exactly play demonstrates almost zero growth from last year regarding playing from the pocket.  And this was his greatest problem last year.  I want him to improve.  I'm just very wary that he can, when this is what he does against the Jets in a preseason game, rather than actually working on his craft.  And that he declares before the game that he's going to ignore his top WR.  Wouldn't 3rd and 5 deep in opposition territory be a great spot to work with your top WR to get into a rhythm for the season?  Especially since you've never actually played in a live situation with him before?  Especially since this might be the one and only chance you get to before the regular season starts?   Or... was Hurts reading the press about how he was targeting Brown so much, and so he decided to prove everyone wrong by pointedly ignoring him during the game.  

Makes no sense.

Also, will be interesting to see the All-22.  Why does the line even bother giving him a perfect pocket.  All he had to do was step up.  Does he not trust a pocket?  Can he see over them?  There was absolutely no reason to scramble to the right.  Like you said, as soon as he hits the top of his drop he was gone.  He didn't even give .5 seconds to make a read.  Drop and bail.

This play is being hailed as a great play by Hurts too because of the outcome.  He got drilled out of bounds but kept his composure.  That's all any of the reporters are talking about.  How great Jalen handled a cheap shot.  One more notch in the calm/cool QB belt.  Only thing is, if Hurts played QB as he was supposed to, he could have delivered a pass from the pocket and avoided an unnecessary hit.

Now, the TD run that got called was a run by the QB that I support.  The lane was huge and he took it.

[BigEFly]

1 hour ago, bpac55 said:

How much can you even practice special teams when practice is under an hour?  I doubt there are that many ST periods where they can get rep after rep of running full speed, staying in lanes and such. 

It is Preseason Special Teams where players that haven’t really played STs are getting tryouts there. Heck, in PS many teams struggle to get the right number of players on the field for ST snaps because of the substitutions.  They have a number of practices after they settle towards the final roster to get alignment. That said, because players want to shine, the lane discipline was awful on coverage last night. 

[Iggles_Phan]

1 minute ago, bpac55 said:

Also, will be interesting to see the All-22.  Why does the line even bother giving him a perfect pocket.  All he had to do was step up.  Does he not trust a pocket?  Can he see over them?  There was absolutely no reason to scramble to the right.  Like you said, as soon as he hits the top of his drop he was gone.  He didn't even give .5 seconds to make a read.  Drop and bail.

This play is being hailed as a great play by Hurts too because of the outcome.  He got drilled out of bounds but kept his composure.  That's all any of the reporters are talking about.  How great Jalen handled a cheap shot.  One more notch in the calm/cool QB belt.  Only thing is, if Hurts played QB as he was supposed to, he could have delivered a pass from the pocket and avoided an unnecessary hit.

Now, the TD run that got called was a run by the QB that I support.  The lane was huge and he took it.

Getting drilled is what kept the drive alive.  I think he knew that.  Smart enough to know that the free 15 made up for his boneheaded decision to try to run for it.

The TD run was also a situation where he was moving up in the pocket, not trying to escape out the back door.

[Texas Eagle]

6 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

. Running backwards and dropping back are very different things.  He spent about 1.5 - 2.0 seconds 'dropping back' in the pocket.  The rest of the time was giving ground running with the ball.  Were his eyes back downfield as he was running?  I don't know.   All I know is that we saw this exact same set of circumstances happen a lot last year.  And he got away with it against the bad teams.   Not so much against the good ones.

2.5 seconds, correction. Then he took off. Probably was planning to either way, my point was I’m just glad there wasn’t a blatantly open receiver.

[Iggles_Phan]

9 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

It is Preseason Special Teams where players that haven’t really played STs are getting tryouts there. Heck, in PS many teams struggle to get the right number of players on the field for ST snaps because of the substitutions.  They have a number of practices after they settle towards the final roster to get alignment. That said, because players want to shine, the lane discipline was awful on coverage last night. 

It's almost like having those extra minutes of practice that the team decides it doesn't require could be used for something.   Or that playing the regulars in the PS to enable the regular ST players to get used to that role in game situations might have value.  

 

I agree on the lane discipline issue though.  This is their first chance on ST to really 'make a name' for themselves and actually hit someone for real.  The Jets seemed to be fairly disciplined with it though, outside of one return.

[jsb235]

2 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Let's say what you are saying is accurate... then its still a problem, because the right move is almost always to climb the pocket, because the OTs are going to run their ends around the outside, so escaping out the back of the pocket is the long way to go.  Step up...strafe the LOS and look for someone to break free.   Before he takes a step to escape the pocket, he's already looking at the LDE... and still chooses to run BACKWARDS.  He's done that since he was knee high to a grasshopper, and he used to be a better athlete than everyone else on the field and could get away with that.  That's not the case anymore.  He needs to learn to do things the NFL way... and he's not.

I am not disagreeing that he made a bad play. I am disagreeing that he decided to run right away.

Watch the video. At the snap he looks left. Then he looks right at Reagor. Then he looks right at Sanders. Then he runs. 

He should have stepped up and waited for Sanders to get open. But when he looks left, he sees Opeta getting beat. So his decision to take off isn't horrible, but he should have trusted Lane and Seumalo/Jurgens to win and moved to his right instead of bailing. 

A bad play by Hurts, but far from what you described. 

[Doc S.]

3 hours ago, justrelax said:

I look forward to comments from @FranklinFldEBUpper, but to my mind the special teams were terrible, apart from Siposs's punting, which was first-rate.

His comments appeared on Pg 788.

[Guest justrelax]

28 minutes ago, austinfan said:

Unless it's a designed QB draw.

Which it wasn’t. Nobody on the OL released.

[Iggles_Phan]

8 minutes ago, RLC said:

A play like this is exactly when you want the QB leaving the pocket, ie a free rusher in his face.

Yes.

[Guest justrelax]

1 minute ago, Doc S. said:

His comments appeared on Pg 788.

Thanks

[Iggles_Phan]

10 hours ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

K/P -- Jake Elliott made all his PATs. The Eagles intentionally kicked off high and short in the early going but still couldn't manage to pin the Jets as hoped. Then with less than a minute to go after the Eagles took the lead, Elliott kicked the ball five yards deep with what I believe was very good hangtime...and the Eagles barely kept the return man from getting to midfield. Arryn Siposs had one very good deep punt and a decent (mostly good) game overall. I was a bit disappointed when he had the chance to punt from around midfield and pin the ball deep. Instead he landed the ball at around the fifteen. You gotta do better than that, dude.

I like the idea of kicking short is PS.  Let the fringe guys have a chance to show something.  But, I hope in the regular season that they just have Elliot try to put the ball through the goal posts on each KO.

[Guest justrelax]

BTW, Dean’s helmet had the green dot.

[Mike030270]

Thinking back on it I'm surprised that dirty hit didn't start a fight. Mailata got in his face but something like that usually starts an actual fight

I'm glad he didn't get a concussion though

[Ace Nova]

12 hours ago, BigEFly said:

I am not a huge fan of Reagor but the reports from TC is that he has had his most consistent camp.  Tonight he looked better than Covey by far.  I would say that as a WR, I thought Covey did not show much at all.  Thing is, Smith is currently injured and Brown loses time every year.   Reagor trade has a $3.6 million cap hit.  

I have mixed feelings when it comes to Reagor.  The guy seems to have a great attitude this year but maybe a change of scenery would do him best.  If he stays, he likely be buried in the depth chart.  If he goes somewhere else he’ll likely be a #3 or #4 (at worst).  

[BigEFly]

I need to go back and watch the DBs using the condensed game but it won’t show much in coverages.  The play that stuck out for me was Gowan on a five yard throw.  The announcers were jawing about contact. Hell yeah. Legal contact for the five yards but he was hands off when the ball was in the air.  Eagles don’t press much so it was nice to see some press done well.  I thought Gowan and McPhearson did a good job of positioning and that was where Jobe struggled.  Now Gowan may contact with his hands too much but that is something you see with young corners.  

[BigEFly]

4 minutes ago, justrelax said:

BTW, Dean’s helmet had the green dot.

JR, anything in line play stand out for you?  

[BigEFly]

4 minutes ago, Mike030270 said:

Thinking back on it I'm surprised that dirty hit didn't start a fight. Mailata got in his face but something like that usually starts an actual fight

I'm glad he didn't get a concussion though

What kind of LB is going to be dumb enough to react to Mailata’s getting in his face by throwing a punch?  That would be suicide.  

[Mike030270]

Just now, BigEFly said:

What kind of LB is going to be dumb enough to react to Mailata’s getting in his face by throwing a punch?  That would be suicide.  

Not specifically the LB

[Guest justrelax]

Just now, BigEFly said:

JR, anything in line play stand out for you?  

Jurgens, of course. Nobody can block Davis one on one. Opeta still gets over his skis at times; when he doesn’t, he’s tough. Mailata’s getting that Peters/Runyan attitude, which I love. I’ll take another look and get back.

[RememberTheKoy]

So it's the day after and I see the blog is trying to nitpick and criticize Hurts for his performance last night.  Yep, everything is going as usual here.  

[Texas Eagle]

2 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

So it's the day after and I see the blog is trying to nitpick and criticize Hurts for his performance last night.  Yep, everything is going as usual here.  

You have a concerning obsession with Hurts. Might want to seek some help.