1 hour ago, ManuManu said:

How many worse starting RBs are there in the NFL? Is he so good that he should out-touch Swift 18-2? That’s the reason for angst. 

He's solid and certainly not why the offense looked bad.

Was it just me or was the special teams the eagles best unit yesterday?

Siposs actually had a solid game, the punt coverage for a change was really good, covey was solid and Elliott good as always was the player of the game 

Having said that if the eagles keep having games where the special teams is the best unit it's going to be a long season 

On a side note was my TV busted or were the cowboys wearing baby blue pants???

What a bunch of knobs...

1 hour ago, bpac55 said:

Zack Cunningham was signed how many weeks ago? He let the front 7 with 70 snaps and we were told he's a 2 down LB. That's not ideal. The next highest was Sweat at 59. 

We know this about Cunningham. Inexplicable he played 88% of the snaps.

1 minute ago, Utebird said:

Was it just me or was the special teams the eagles best unit yesterday?

Siposs actually had a solid game, the **** coverage for a change was really good, covey was solid and Elliott good as always was the player of the game 

Having said that if the eagles keep having games where the special teams is the best unit it's going to be a long season 

On a side note was my TV busted or were the cowboys wearing baby blue pants???

What a bunch of knobs...

We had to burn 2 time outs on ST and gave up a long return along with a missed XP.  There were definitely some good punts and hits and Elliot made 4 FG.  But you're definitely grading on a curve there

6 minutes ago, Saltpeter said:

He's solid and certainly not why the offense looked bad.

Who is saying he’s the reason the game offense looked bad? This isn’t an either/or discussion. He’s simply not good enough to be a 16 touch player, and there’s no reason for Swift to only get two touches. 

3 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

Who is saying he’s the reason the game offense looked bad? This isn’t an either/or discussion. He’s simply not good enough to be a 16 touch player, and there’s no reason for Swift to only get two touches. 

There seemed to be an overly conservative approach to sticking with known players and safe plays on offense

1 minute ago, ManuManu said:

Who is saying he’s the reason the game offense looked bad? This isn’t an either/or discussion. He’s simply not good enough to be a 16 touch player, and there’s no reason for Swift to only get two touches. 

You say "no reason" but there are a few reasons. Eagles are the most cautious team in the league with injuries, Swift has had nagging lower body injuries, they play 2 games in 5 days, and it was raining the entire first half. Gainwell is also a more downhill runner.

I'm not saying those are particularly great reasons or what I would have done, but it's not this huge shock Gainwell got a lot of touches on Sunday.

25 minutes ago, FranklinFldEBUpper said:

Yes, but your comment read like you thought it was somehow a mistake on the Eagles part.

That was not the intent.  It was a statement regarding how I think Ferguson will do in the starting role.  That said, I also think it was a mistake adding Calcaterra, but the mistake there is primarily due to the concussions.  I don't see him having any kind of longevity in the league.    

 

 

47 minutes ago, austinfan said:

Some of that is scheme. I didn't see much from Desai that looked different from Gannon, a defense that can cause fits for bad QBs but get chewed up by good QBs.

Mac Jones is a pretty good, if limited QB, he's not Dan Jones.

Mac Jones is a dink and dunk machine.  And, I don't mean that as a negative.  That's good for him and he'll have a long career as such, maybe not as a starter for over a decade, but definitely as a backup.  He'll be able to bounce around the league until he's in his mid-late 30s if he chooses.  But, there's not much in the way of flash with him.  His passing style (meaning what he's good at in the passing game) reminds me a great deal of Jeff Garcia.   He's not going to ever overpower anyone and his deep passes need to be thrown early with a lot of air under them.  But, he's going to make pretty good reads, he's going to take what is given to him, limiting mistakes.  Teams adjusted to him last year, and he had a down year.  This year, he gets to make the adjustment to them, and he'll be back on the upswing.  Bill O'Brien is a really good hire for the Pats to work with him.  They will likely finish with 9 wins, maybe they can squeak out 10... but that division will be tough and so that's the likely difference for them not getting to double digits.  

1 minute ago, Iggles_Phan said:

Mac Jones is a dink and dunk machine.  And, I don't mean that as a negative.  That's good for him and he'll have a long career as such, maybe not as a starter for over a decade, but definitely as a backup.  He'll be able to bounce around the league until he's in his mid-late 30s if he chooses.  But, there's not much in the way of flash with him.  His passing style (meaning what he's good at in the passing game) reminds me a great deal of Jeff Garcia.   He's not going to ever overpower anyone and his deep passes need to be thrown early with a lot of air under them.  But, he's going to make pretty good reads, he's going to take what is given to him, limiting mistakes.  Teams adjusted to him last year, and he had a down year.  This year, he gets to make the adjustment to them, and he'll be back on the upswing.  Bill O'Brien is a really good hire for the Pats to work with him.  They will likely finish with 9 wins, maybe they can squeak out 10... but that division will be tough and so that's the likely difference for them not getting to double digits.  

That was the NE offense with Brady his first three seasons as a starter, lots of quick passes to shifty WRs and RBs - a ball control offense designed to keep them in games behind an elite defense.

Could be a galaxy-brain take, but I wonder if they wanted Gainwell on Sunday and Swift to be featured on Thursday. Asking backs to be super involved back to back weeks is a tough ask, even early on in the season.

The offense will figure it out. The Patriots were a top 5 unit last year...then spent all their top draft picks on defense. They had Belicheck preparing for Hurts all off-season.

The defense? TBD.

2 minutes ago, RLC said:

Could be a galaxy-brain take, but I wonder if they wanted Gainwell on Sunday and Swift to be featured on Thursday. Asking backs to be super involved back to back weeks is a tough ask, even early on in the season.

The offense will figure it out. The Patriots were a top 5 unit last year...then spent all their top draft picks on defense. They had Belicheck preparing for Hurts all off-season.

The defense? TBD.

I agree with this. I in no way thought this would be a blowout in either direction. Bad weather, on the road, no pre-season action for starters (more on that below), Bellichick with months of prep time, etc. Was an ugly win, but a win...just like last year in Detroit. I think we see Swift dominate fresh on Thursday.

Another thing I loved was Nick's PC comment about reevaluating his pre-season approach. Whether he actually changes anything or not is a different story, but his willingness to put that out there is a sign of a great leader.

31 minutes ago, pgcd3 said:

We had to burn 2 time outs on ST and gave up a long return along with a missed XP.  There were definitely some good punts and hits and Elliot made 4 FG.  But you're definitely grading on a curve there

I think the missed extra point was more due to the weather and yes definitely heading on a curve as the offense was horrid and the defense wasnt great.

Having said that I still think the special teams played far better than they did any game last year where other than Elliot they were horrible all year in all special teams phases 

5 minutes ago, RLC said:

Could be a galaxy-brain take, but I wonder if they wanted Gainwell on Sunday and Swift to be featured on Thursday. Asking backs to be super involved back to back weeks is a tough ask, even early on in the season.

The offense will figure it out. The Patriots were a top 5 unit last year...then spent all their top draft picks on defense. They had Belicheck preparing for Hurts all off-season.

The defense? TBD.

I mentioned the same thing about swift. The eagles have also done stuff similar with a guy coming back from injury. I can’t remember who the player was but a couple years ago they had a game Sunday then Thursday (it might have been alshon). They actually kept the player out on Sunday but played him on Thursday. It came out that the reason they did it was they didn’t want to play him two times in 4 days coming off the injury and he had been more prone to injuries. 

11 minutes ago, RLC said:

Could be a galaxy-brain take, but I wonder if they wanted Gainwell on Sunday and Swift to be featured on Thursday. Asking backs to be super involved back to back weeks is a tough ask, even early on in the season.

Very possible.   I got the feeling during the course of the game that they almost wanted to play the game with one hand tied behind their back offensively.  It's possible that this Thursday, Penny is activated and Gainwell is deactivated (unlikely).  But, it would make some sort of sense.   Almost as if they went into this 2 game stretch as a bit of a 'double header' (Phillies reference!) and didn't want to 'deplete the bullpen' too much in an out of conference matchup week 1.  

11 minutes ago, RLC said:

Could be a galaxy-brain take, but I wonder if they wanted Gainwell on Sunday and Swift to be featured on Thursday. Asking backs to be super involved back to back weeks is a tough ask, even early on in the season.

The offense will figure it out. The Patriots were a top 5 unit last year...then spent all their top draft picks on defense. They had Belicheck preparing for Hurts all off-season.

The defense? TBD.

 

I think that's part lf the though process of inactivating Penny.   Short week so I expect Penny to play and grt a lot of carries against the Vikings on Thursday.   Smae logic could be applied to Swift as you pointed out too.

36 minutes ago, Saltpeter said:

We know this about Cunningham. Inexplicable he played 88% of the snaps.

If this were the 80s I'd be ok with it but to have a Run stopping LB in a paso g league get 88% of the snaps is asking for trouble.

Maybe morrow he was better in coverage should get a shot 

7 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

Another thing I loved was Nick's PC comment about reevaluating his pre-season approach. Whether he actually changes anything or not is a different story, but his willingness to put that out there is a sign of a great leader.

I don't buy that for a second.  I think that was him buying time to come up with a better answer for the future.  With distance between this game and next preseason, he'll look back at the game, and realize that they won the game, and lost only marginal pieces to injury during the preseason (Bradley and McPhearson), but had the rest of the starters healthy for game 1.

 

34 minutes ago, Saltpeter said:

You say "no reason" but there are a few reasons. Eagles are the most cautious team in the league with injuries, Swift has had nagging lower body injuries, they play 2 games in 5 days, and it was raining the entire first half. Gainwell is also a more downhill runner.

I'm not saying those are particularly great reasons or what I would have done, but it's not this huge shock Gainwell got a lot of touches on Sunday.

Gainwell also out touched Swift in training camp so not sure why the shock

My frustration with not having Penny active is very simple. We don't have any backs other than Penny who are physical. When we need to get 3 yards on 3rd and 3, it's just easier with Penny than Gainwell/Scott. I'm not advocating for 10 Penny touches. 5-7 is fine.

As for Swift, he dropped an easy catch on 3rd down. If he catches it clean, he had a real chance to get the 1st down as he had leverage on the defender. It's not like he showed up.

Nothing I saw from the LBs other than rust at tackling was overly concerning.  But Evans!  That was a crap show.  Out of position all the time.  Okay Howie, we know you had an eye on Evans when you traded for CJGJ.  But you also drafted Brown.  Rather have Brown with some growing pains than a too high, late safety.  We already did that with Anthony Harris.    It was noticeable Mac Jones was apprehensive about Brown after that halo and hit tackle.  When he got hit and fumbled the catch out of bounds, did you see the look he gave.  Frankly, what I saw in Evans all preseason we saw yesterday.  Yes he is more experienced but experienced and playing off too far mean nothing.  Frankly, Evans should be the #4 S on a team with a LB (Edmunds) at S.  

1 minute ago, BigEFly said:

Nothing I saw from the LBs other than rust at tackling was overly concerning.  But Evans!  That was a crap show.  Out of position all the time.  Okay Howie, we know you had an eye on Evans when you traded for CJGJ.  But you also drafted Brown.  Rather have Brown with some growing pains than a too high, late safety.  We already did that with Anthony Harris.    It was noticeable Mac Jones was apprehensive about Brown after that halo and hit tackle.  When he got hit and fumbled the catch out of bounds, did you see the look he gave.  Frankly, what I saw in Evans all preseason we saw yesterday.  Yes he is more experienced but experienced and playing off too far mean nothing.  Frankly, Evans should be the #4 S on a team with a LB (Edmunds) at S.  

You didn't see anything concerning from the LBs in pass coverage, like nothing at all

 

42 minutes ago, jsb235 said:

I think he wanted out. And I am not worried about safety because Blankenship is really good and Sydney Brown has a lot of potential (which we will hopefully start to see this week.)

I don't think he wanted out at all.  I think he was expecting a big pay day from the Eagles.  When that didn't happen, he got bent out of shape.  Then the market was really weak for him and he got more bent out of shape.