Eagles News: PFF says Philadelphia has two of the NFL’s best 31 wide receivers

[time2rock]

Eagles News: PFF says Philadelphia has two of the NFL’s best 31 wide receivers

 

Philadelphia Eagles news and links for 5/25/22.

By Brandon Lee Gowton@BrandonGowton  May 25, 2022, 10:03am EDT  

Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Treash: 2022 NFL wide receiver rankings and tiers - PFF
10. A.J. BROWN, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES. The 2022 NFL offseason featured several blockbuster moves, including the trade of wide receiver A.J. Brown from the Tennessee Titans to the Philadelphia Eagles. The birds now have one of the most productive wide receivers in the NFL. Throughout his three-year professional career, Brown ranks top-five in both receiving grade and yards per route run. He is an excellent complementary piece to 2021 first-round pick DeVonta Smith. [...] 31. DEVONTA SMITH, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES. Like his former Alabama teammate Jaylen Waddle, DeVonta Smith kept getting better as his rookie campaign progressed. From Week 9 on in 2021, he ranked 11th in receiving grade (81.9) while not dropping a single one of his 56 targets. He finished the year as the 18th-most valuable wide receiver in the NFL, according to PFF WAR. Smith was heavily utilized downfield over that span, generating the fifth-highest average depth of target, and he held up his end of the bargain. Many in the NFL community were concerned about how the 6-foot-1, 175-pound wide receiver would handle physicality in NFL with his thin frame, but it wasn’t an issue in Year 1. Smith is capable of taking a leap into one of the top tiers of talents at the position in the coming seasons.

Eagles All-22 Film Review: Nakobe Dean could prove to be a huge steal - BGN
I went into watching Nakobe Dean thinking he may have been overrated by many fans considering where he was drafted. I changed my mind really quickly. The film is not just excellent but it’s perfect for the modern NFL. I expected to see outstanding blitzing as I had already watched Georgia when watching Jordan Davis, but the versatility in coverage and the ability to play man will be vital at the next level. The coverage element of his game caught me a little by surprise. I have absolutely no doubt there are legitimate injury concerns that caused him to fall. I think there are concerns over his size, tackling and ability to cover tight ends down the seam considering his size and this may have caused him to fall out the 1st round but there’s no way he falls out the second round without injury concerns. I just don’t see it.

Special: EAGLES #JerseyNumberAnalytics PODCAST 2022! - BGN Radio
Everyone’s favorite annual activity is back for another year! Brandon Lee Gowton and special guest Benjamin Solak run through the Eagles’ ENTIRE roster and evaluate every jersey number. The guys determine which players are poised for big years and which guys are in trouble in this highly scientific and very accurate exercise. Don’t forget to get in on the conversation with #JerseyNumberAnalytics! Follow and tweet at the show hosts: @BrandonGowton and @BenjaminSolak.

Why retiring media legend Ray Didinger means so much to Philadelphia sports fans - The Athletic
When Ray Didinger announced earlier this month that he’d be retiring, the first thing I did was text my dad. "I heard it on WIP,” he responded. "Sorry to hear that but happy for him.” Didinger’s voice has been a constant in my dad’s ears for roughly 35 years. For others, the relationship goes back even further. Didinger’s first year on the Eagles beat was 1970. He’s been educating and entertaining us ever since — 53 years in all. If it were up to Didinger, he would’ve announced his retirement on one of his final shows this weekend. But his radio partner and close friend, Glen Macnow, convinced him that people needed the opportunity to say goodbye. "It’s been overwhelming,” said Didinger, who has been staying up until 3 a.m. many nights responding to emails. "That’s really the only way to describe it. It’s been very emotional the whole time and painful in some ways, knowing you’re walking away from something you’ve done for 50 years and really loved.”

James Bradberry: ‘The goal is to be great together’ - PE.com
They are in the early stages here, feeling out what the players can do and staying open-minded with the X’s and O’s of the defense, so neither new Eagles cornerback James Bradberry nor Defensive Coordinator Jonathan Gannon is making any predictions or looking ahead. Just believe that Bradberry is glad to be in Philadelphia and that Gannon is "excited” that Bradberry is here and the daily work is in progress. An offseason of progress is measured in part by a slew of additions made to the defense – including linebackers Haason Reddick, Kyzir White, Nakobe Dean, and Kyron Johnson, defensive tackle Jordan Davis, and now Bradberry. A Pro Bowl cornerback with the Giants in 2020 and a starter since the moment Carolina selected him in the second round of the 2016 NFL Draft, Bradberry has had two days under his belt learning Gannon’s scheme and, well, let’s just say the early results are promising.

Steelers reportedly preparing to name Omar Khan their next General Manager - Behind The Steel Curtain
There will be a contingent of the fan base who is likely wondering how the team could settle on a man who is more of the front office type, a salary cap guru, than someone with a scouting acumen. Well, it is also being reported by Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette there was a contingency plan for naming Khan as the next GM. That plan was former Philadelphia Eagles Vice President of player personnel, Andy Weidle, would be named the Assistant GM in Pittsburgh.

PFF ranks Dallas Cowboys WR CeeDee Lamb just outside of top 10 and ‘elite’ category - Blogging The Boys
This certainly speaks highly of Lamb and indicates that he could find himself in an ‘elite’ category after this season. It feels like the overall consensus really is that he has all of the tools and for the first time in his career the opportunity is going to line up with that. Obviously part of the reason for Lamb’s soon-to-be increased volume is the departure of Amari Cooper. Many believe that the Cowboys gave up on a top-flight wide receiver, but PFF doesn’t seem to be one of them. They have Cooper at number 22, right behind free agents Julio Jones and Odell Beckham Jr..

Report: Daron Payne has decided to sit out the on-field portion of OTAs due to his lack of a contract extension - Hogs Haven
It has been widely reported that wide receiver Terry McLaurin, who is in the final year of his rookie deal, is skipping OTAs, and earlier had skipped the on-field portion of minicamp, while he waits for a new contract. Fans seem to be very accepting or supportive of McLaurin’s situation. Payne, who is currently under contract on his 5th-year option, has been the subject of reports that suggest the team does not plan to offer him an extension and that they quietly offered him in trade earlier in the offseason. Unlike the general attitude of fans toward McLaurin’s situation, where the prevailing attitude seems to be to "pay da man”, there seems to be a general acceptance that Daron Payne would be traded or allowed to play out his contract and leave in free agency at the end of the season. Apparently, that’s not what Daron Payne wants to do, and he is using the venue of voluntary OTAs to make his feelings known.

Former GM puts Daniel Jones in the bottom tier of QBs - Big Blue View
The New York Giants have plenty of questions heading into 2022. What kind of offense will the collaboration between Brian Daboll and Mike Kafka produce? Do the Giants have the personnel to run Don Martindale’s hyper-aggressive defense? But hanging over all of those questions is the question regarding Daniel Jones. Can he be a true "Franchise” quarterback? Writing for the 33rd Team, former NFL GM Mike Tannenbaum ranked the league’s various starting quarterbacks. Giants fans will need to scroll down a while to get to Daniel Jones’ ranking, as Tannenbaum put him in his bottom tier of quarterbacks. Tannenbaum ranks Jones among the likes of Zach Wilson, Marcus Mariota, Mitchell Trubisky, and Drew Lock in the seventh tier of starting quarterbacks.

The Pro Bowl sucks. Let’s fix it - SB Nation
The Pro Bowl sucks. I know it, you know it, the players know it, and the NFL knows it. Without question the Pro Bowl is the worst all-star game in professional sports, and it’s time to make a change. After years of tepid, boring football, the NFL is finally looking to try something different with the annualized pointless affair — though it’s unclear at this time whether they’ll actually find any changes that can be compelling.

NFL Daily Kickoff, Wednesday - Welcome to Walk-It-Back szn, NFL spring meeting updates - The SB Nation NFL Show
On today’s episode, Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill walks back his comments from a few weeks ago, Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill says he loves Tua’s arm, a roundup of NFL spring meeting updates and Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has not yet been at Green Bay’s OTAs. We finish with speed updates in Buffalo, Cleveland, San Francisco, Carolina, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Arizona and Pittsburgh.

What we know about the Uvalde elementary school shooting - Vox
An 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and at least two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday morning, just 10 days after another mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that claimed the lives of 10 people. It’s the deadliest US school shooting in years: In 2018, 17 were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; in 2012, a shooter at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut killed 26 people. The death toll in the Uvalde shooting, reported earlier on Tuesday to include 14 students and one teacher, rose throughout the evening. It marks the 27th school shooting this year alone; in addition to the deaths reported in Uvalde, 25 people have been killed in school shootings since January. In a national address on Tuesday night, President Joe Biden called for lawmakers to pass "common sense gun laws.” As vice president, he tried and failed to pass universal background checks, a new assault weapons ban, and a prohibition on high-capacity gun clips.

https://www.bleedinggreennation.com/2022/5/25/23141135/eagles-news-pff-philadelphia-nfl-best-31-wide-receivers-aj-brown-devonta-smith-wrs-football-rankings

[UK_EaglesFan89]

Not only do we have 2 of the top 31 WRs in the league (which is just so much fun to think about). But we have Smith who you'd think is going to grow and develop going in to year two. 

[time2rock]

10 hours ago, UK_EaglesFan89 said:

Not only do we have 2 of the top 31 WRs in the league (which is just so much fun to think about). But we have Smith who you'd think is going to grow and develop going in to year two. 

Smith is one of the 2 top 31 WRs listed.  

[brkmsn]

2 hours ago, time2rock said:

Smith is one of the 2 top 31 WRs listed.  

I think he's saying that Smith should keep moving up the list.

[time2rock]

10 hours ago, brkmsn said:

I think he's saying that Smith should keep moving up the list.

Perhaps ... if so it was worded strangely.  "...We have 2 of the top 31 WRs" ... "But we have Smith ... ".  

[UK_EaglesFan89]

17 hours ago, time2rock said:

Smith is one of the 2 top 31 WRs listed.  

Yeah sorry to be clear... I'm saying Smith is ranked 31 but in year 2 I have hopes he can jump in to the top 20.