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

The issue with that is they go off analytics for almost everything. The reason why cave is playing today is because of analytics. The lineups they come out with routinely are based off what the analytics tell them too. Their philosophy as a organization is huge analytics. Thomson can say he’s appeasing players but there’s been other times where he should’ve done this along the way and hasn’t due to analytics. 

The Giants series is massive to the Phillies in terms of top WC. And you don’t have your best pitcher which you could’ve had for at least one of those games. While knowing Wheeler has been bad against the nationals.

Pitchers are weird creatures of habit though... so they are competing analytics.  Pitching on rest vs. pitching against the Nats.

1 minute ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Pitchers are weird creatures of habit though... so they are competing analytics.  Pitching on rest vs. pitching against the Nats.

if wheeler hadn’t been dog crap against the nats in 3 previous starts go for it. He’s given up 31% of his ERs this season to the nationals. when his ERs matches his IP then you have to tell him it’s better that you don’t face this team as they have your number especially with a bigger series lined up vs. the giants starting Monday. Now you are forced to go nola, Walker and lorenzen. 

The other thing is, they should be giving him extra days off when they can. The reason why he looked as good down the stretch last year and into the postseason was because they put them on the IL for three weeks for his elbow at the end of august/beginning of September but kept him on there longer so that he wouldn’t overextended himself.

that said won’t matter as it looks like the Phillies offense blew their load yesterday and forgotten how to hit a guy with a 5+ era and is a junk ball pitcher. 

31 minutes ago, Alphagrand said:

You can also draft guys with huge college pedigree and high intangibles but come with risk, such as Landon Dickerson and DeVonta Smith.  Dickerson came with a pronounced injury history and Smith is very thin.

Where most NFL teams are defaulting to currently is toward the "love/live football” dynamic.  Teams are taking chances on guys based on their prioritization of the game, above all else in their lives 

Well it looks like they found that in hurts, that dude eats ,drinks, breathes, lives football, having the rest of the team keep up or get left behind.

Also helps that he does have some pretty good traits as well.

I mean if it was just about who loves football the most i reckon most the board would be in the NFL by now ...😉

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

that said won’t matter as it looks like the Phillies offense blew their load yesterday and forgotten how to hit a guy with a 5+ era and is a junk ball pitcher. 

Seems to be their MO.  Feast or famine.

20 minutes ago, SkippyX said:

He was the same last year before he was hurt. He looks good right now.

No LB on this team has been special since about Trotter.

He also had great numbers in 2020 but the D was bad so its hard to know what high tackle totals mean on a bad D  (same with Morrow last year)

He had 93 tackles in 14 games in 2021 which was not 4 years ago.

I'm not sold on Cunningham, even when he was healthy and he seems to be now, his calling card was that he was really good against the run and a liability against the pass.

Dean's scouting report same thing, in college he had something like 4 of 60simething passes incomplete against him. Whatever the ratio is that not going to get better in the pros, he's not known as great in pass D.

Having two LBs on the field at the same time who  aren't known for being especially good at pass D in a passing league sounds like a problem.

I'd rather a guy that is at least a little good in coverage like Ellis or morrow be paired with Dean rather than a guy who isn't 

3 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Seems to be their MO.  Feast or famine.

It’s what’s likely going to doom them in the playoffs. I think the pitching is more than capable of keeping them in games. But the offense has not found much consistency all year. They had 2 weeks in June and the first 10 days of august. Otherwise they’ve been like you said feast or famine. During their run last year they really got pretty consistent hitting from the 9th inning of that cardinals game up to game 4 of the World Series. They’d have a bad offensive game but then out 3-4 solid to really good games. This team just can’t do it. Really feels like hoskins out effects the lineup. The 2 hole is his spot and the 2 hole has been a black hole for most of the season. 

10 minutes ago, Utebird said:

I'm not sold on Cunningham, even when he was healthy and he seems to be now, his calling card was that he was really good against the run and a liability against the pass.

Dean's scouting report same thing, in college he had something like 4 of 60simething passes incomplete against him. Whatever the ratio is that not going to get better in the pros, he's not known as great in pass D.

Having two LBs on the field at the same time who  aren't known for being especially good at pass D in a passing league sounds like a problem.

I'd rather a guy that is at least a little good in coverage like Ellis or morrow be paired with Dean rather than a guy who isn't 

They’ll use the 3rd safety in that role. Not a huge difference between safety and LBs in terms of size anymore anyway 

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

It’s what’s likely going to doom them in the playoffs. I think the pitching is more than capable of keeping them in games. But the offense has not found much consistency all year. They had 2 weeks in June and the first 10 days of august. Otherwise they’ve been like you said feast or famine. During their run last year they really got pretty consistent hitting from the 9th inning of that cardinals game up to game 4 of the World Series. They’d have a bad offensive game but then out 3-4 solid to really good games. This team just can’t do it. Really feels like hoskins out effects the lineup. The 2 hole is his spot and the 2 hole has been a black hole for most of the season. 

Apart from the first 5 at bats... Wheeler is doing ok.  Can we get a Mulligan? .  

Just now, Iggles_Phan said:

Apart from the first 5 at bats... Wheeler is doing ok.  Can we get a Mulligan? .  

The Phillies seem to always have trouble with at least one bad NL east team every year. Usually it’s the marlins. If they don’t rally to come back they are about to finish the season series with the nationals going 7-6 and losing 2 of the last 3 series against them. 

 

 

@Utebird I have no idea how good he will be in this system at his age but the comment I was offering a counterpoint to was:

"He could not start on the Texans"

He started 66 of 72 games in Houston, 53 of 56 after his rookie year.

Everyone has opinions but reality does not adjust to fit those opinions.

 

BTW, here is the story on him being cut:

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32821873/source-houston-texans-cut-lb-zach-cunningham-week-13-benching

He was late due to a Covid test or for a Covid Test and he was late earlier in the year.

Justin Reid of the SB Champ Chiefs was also suspended for discipline that year under the Chaplain-in-Chief Easterby.

Could Reid still play?

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

The Phillies seem to always have trouble with at least one bad NL east team every year. Usually it’s the marlins. If they don’t rally to come back they are about to finish the season series with the nationals going 7-6 and losing 2 of the last 3 series against them. 

I don't think that's unique for the Phils.  Most teams have at least one team that they just don't match up well against, which defies logic.  That's baseball.  

2 minutes ago, RememberTheKoy said:

 

 

The anonymous nfc scouts indeed worked for the giants (Morgan freeman voice) 

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

The anonymous nfc scouts indeed worked for the giants (Morgan freeman voice) 

Read more of his page. He's a hot take shot-gunning NY and NY Giants fan.

The Giants draft class may be one of the best of all time. 

Josh Allen sucks because he was not OROY or MVP yet. 🤣

He also can't spell Jordon as in Jordon Riley (its his team)

 

40 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

I don't think that's unique for the Phils.  Most teams have at least one team that they just don't match up well against, which defies logic.  That's baseball.  

Usually the really good teams destroy the bad teams. Braves absolutely won series vs the nats this year (have 7 more games against them). Dodgers obliterated the Rockies. Rangers and Astros this year are obliterating A’s. Brewers have destroyed the pirates. Phillies struggling against teams like the nats and pirates. They are a combined 8-8. Also have lost 3 of their last 4 series against the nationals and pirates. Tbh this issue with inconsistency against bad teams started around when they faced the guardians. Since that series they’ve had 16 games against teams under .500, they are about to be 8-8. That’s really why this race is still close. 

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

Usually the really good teams destroy the bad teams. Braves absolutely obliterated the nats this year. Dodgers obliterated the Rockies. Rangers and Astros this year are obliterating A’s. Brewers have destroyed the pirates. Phillies struggling against teams like the nats and pirates. They are a combined 8-8. Also have lost 3 of their last 4 series against the nationals and pirates. Tbh this issue with inconsistency against bad teams started around when they faced the guardians. Since that series they’ve had 16 games against teams under .500, they are about to be 8-8. That’s really why this race is still close. 

And yet Braves were 1-2 against both the A's and White Sox.  It happens.

The Nats were awful for the first 10 weeks or so of the season but they have just been kind of meh since then.

28-47 in late June and 28-21 since then. (Only reason I know about the Nats is Kornheiser podcast local DC sports updates)

They are definitely worse than the Phillies but they are not the terrible 100+ loss team everyone thought they were in April and even in June.

It still sucks to drop 2 of 3 to them.

4 hours ago, Diehardfan said:

So you are good with a 2nd year unproven guy and someone on the street nobody else wanted. Smart plan if you want to fail.

I was good with Dean wearing the green dot and playing every snap when that was announced as the plan and I'm feeling even better about it with the forced fumble.

I'm good with the overall process where a bunch of LBs are brought in, and the Eagles determine what they want.  I don't have any particular opinion whether Cunningham, Morrow, Jack start, stay or go.  It seems like people like Cunningham.

But if the Eagles say "what were we thinking,  look how fast Nolan Smith is,  look how he doesn't have snaps at OLB  because Reddick is great and he plays maybe 75% of the time, and Patrick Johnson also gets snaps."

Why don't we just make Nolan Smith the Will? Make him the starter?

Or just give him a lot of snaps.  If Sydney Brown is not busy at Safety,  he could be in a platoon with Cunningham, with the 211 pound Brown as the coverage Linebacker.

And I like VanSumeren, who, one would expect, would be core  special teamer.  In theory he could get lots of snaps on defense, but you'd also think that maybe Elliss would get some of those snaps.

There's a lot of talent there.  Dean, Smith, VanSumeren are the primest ones I see, not for starting week 1 in all cases but when they're all ready   I think they could get Smith in there as much as possible because there aren't other easy ways to get snaps.  Starting Safety?  TE2?

4 hours ago, RLC said:

We don't punt nearly enough to get close to that level of WAR.

Unless Hurts is injured, in which case we are suddenly playing a run heavy game plan and trying to win the old fashioned way.

For me, that’s the key. It’s a relatively high probability Hurts misses time because of how much he runs. So if he misses 2-6 games, a punter might be the difference between a wild card and winning the division or HFA.

21 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

And yet Braves were 1-2 against both the A's and White Sox.  It happens.

It happens far more with the Phillies. It’s why they are in the position they are instead of running away with the WC. Braves can afford occasional letdowns when you handle everyone else and have a 13 game lead in the division. the phillies august schedule was one of the easiest in baseball. They are about to be 10-7 but really after their matchup against the orioles it was the easiest part of their entire schedule for this year (their next 22 games). About to be 12-10. Losing 5 of last 7. And going into a series vs. giants where you’ve lost 7 consecutive games to them and haven’t won a series against them in 4 years. So unless they figure things out it could get worse for them  

let’s not sugarcoat it if the Phillies had the lead the Braves did and they lost a series or two to bad teams wouldn’t be an issue. Except they don’t and they have had an issue not showing up consistently against bad baseball teams. 

4 minutes ago, TEW said:

Unless Hurts is injured, in which case we are suddenly playing a run heavy game plan and trying to win the old fashioned way.

For me, that’s the key. It’s a relatively high probability Hurts misses time because of how much he runs. So if he misses 2-6 games, a punter might be the difference between a wild card and winning the division or HFA.

Okay …… that’s officially reaching.

3 hours ago, Iggles_Phan said:

And who is this all-pro punter we are going to bring in off the street?  You aren't suggesting that it would be Araiza?   And... again, that is looking at it under the absolute BEST CASE scenario.  They said, AT MOST, and you are running with this hypothetical as if it were gospel truth.  The mathematics might suggest that, but as we all know, sports don't follow the hard and fast rules of math.  

In your scenario, I'd much rather go with a different fictitious QB as the backup as to this fictitious punter.   Also, I think the odds would be more in favor of getting a punter that is a better holder to being the difference in that one game.  

When did I say anything about gospel truth? What on earth are you talking about? This is statistics. Nothing is guaranteed. It’s about probability. And probability absolutely applies to sports. The entire betting market is built on it.

The point is that a good punter maximizes our chances at winning the Super Bowl, annd would be especially important in what is an high likelihood situation where Hurts misses time with an injury. And the opportunity cost in the case of Araiza is some bad media attention. That’s a no brainer trade off.

2 hours ago, LeanMeanGM said:

I’m thinking he likely downgrades. Siposs probably keeps 10 and the only one I see opening up from 1 through 19 is Ian Books 19

How do PS numbers work? Let’s say Book gets released, then goes to PS. Does McKee snag his number in the pending few hours and then Book needs yet another number?

1 minute ago, Alphagrand said:

Okay …… that’s officially reaching.

You don’t think a one game swing in your regular season record can have that impact? Seriously?

2 Super Bowls

Steve Weatherford killed the Patriots by pinning them inside the 10 and 5 a bunch.

Eleven years later SiPoSs gave the Chiefs the ball at the Eagles 5 yard line.

It matters.