Saturday, July 24, 2004
A Missed Opportunity...
I'm not that thrilled to hear that Eddie George is a Cowboy: 1 year, 2.2 mil? The Eagles couldn't have swung that? What I'm really upset by is the team's utter lack of interest in George despite the fact that our biggest division rival (actually our biggest rival, period) was interested in him. Now we have to face a big, bruising back twice a year who has an axe to grind. And are we really that confident that Westbrook and Buckhalter can carry the load all season long?
I confess skepticism.
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I confess skepticism.
Thursday, July 22, 2004
Buy George!
According to Bob Brookover the Eagles aren't interested in acquiring new free agent Eddie George now that he's on the market. A few thoughts:
-George is from the Philly area, so you'd figure that the Eagles would have the inside track in signing him. I'd hate to see him in Dallas with an axe to grind against the Eagles and to bolster Parcells ground attack.
-George has a phenomenal work ethic and is a real leader. This guy is hard as nails and comes to win. Eddie George was born to be an Eagle. This sort of attitude towards the game would be welcome in a locker room sorely missing Duce Staley.
-True, George's production has declined of late, but he is still a terrific back who can handle the load. How much confidence do we have in Westbrook and Buckhalter to be healthy all season and to carry the load all by themselves if the other goes down? Having three backs isn't a problem.
Sign him to a one-year deal with a little cap money. What could it hurt?
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-George is from the Philly area, so you'd figure that the Eagles would have the inside track in signing him. I'd hate to see him in Dallas with an axe to grind against the Eagles and to bolster Parcells ground attack.
-George has a phenomenal work ethic and is a real leader. This guy is hard as nails and comes to win. Eddie George was born to be an Eagle. This sort of attitude towards the game would be welcome in a locker room sorely missing Duce Staley.
-True, George's production has declined of late, but he is still a terrific back who can handle the load. How much confidence do we have in Westbrook and Buckhalter to be healthy all season and to carry the load all by themselves if the other goes down? Having three backs isn't a problem.
Sign him to a one-year deal with a little cap money. What could it hurt?
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
Training Camp...
Eagles 2004 training camp starts Tuesday, July 27th at Lehigh in Bethlehem (the 30th for veterans). For me it will be the real beginning of the 2004 season: the first time teams start to come together and plan and prepare for the season. I’m looking forward to it and you can count on a real upswing on activity here at the Bird Blog because I’ll be done with the bar exam on the 28th.
What do I think about Eagles camp being at Lehigh? I’m sure it is a terrific campus (a friend of my fiancée and I went there for college and loved it), but I miss the fact that the Birds don’t train in West Chester (my mother’s alma mater) anymore. I know the area well: the West Chester football field was about ten minutes from my parents home in Downingtown, which is where I grew up. It is a nice field, very green and surrounded by trees and mostly quiet. (I imagine that the burst of development in Chester County over the last decade probably spurred the team’s movement north.) My father took me to see the Eagles practices a few times. I remember it all really well because it was exciting stuff for a twelve year-old kid: I remember walking around with my father and then seeing Randall Cunningham come walking out from the locker room to start practice. I gaped in stunned amazement: Randall Cunningham in the flesh! It was so different, seeing these guys on TV and then actually meeting them in person. As I recall, I was too stunned to move, too nervous to shake hands with him. As a boy you idolize athletes when you grow up, so to actually see your heroes up front in person is a startling thing.
It was an amazing experience and one that I recommend to any dads (or moms) out there reading to do for your kids: take them to see their heroes just once in the flesh.
If there are any Steelers readers or people who will be in Latrobe, PA in August, I recommend checking out the Stillers camp at St. Vincent College. In addition to being my fiancée’s alma mater, it is a really terrific college nestled into the rolling hills of Westmoreland County. Peter King wrote that it was his favorite NFL training camp because it is so picturesque. I can vouch for the fact that it is a very nice and pleasant campus.
(I almost did a double-take last year when King then proceeded to write in his column on CNNSI.com about his lunch visit to Joio’s Pizza in Latrobe. Joio’s is my fiancée’s favorite place in the world to get pizza. Every time we go to the greater Greensburg area we stop there. I do highly recommend it: it is the most interesting and distinctive pizza I have ever had.)
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What do I think about Eagles camp being at Lehigh? I’m sure it is a terrific campus (a friend of my fiancée and I went there for college and loved it), but I miss the fact that the Birds don’t train in West Chester (my mother’s alma mater) anymore. I know the area well: the West Chester football field was about ten minutes from my parents home in Downingtown, which is where I grew up. It is a nice field, very green and surrounded by trees and mostly quiet. (I imagine that the burst of development in Chester County over the last decade probably spurred the team’s movement north.) My father took me to see the Eagles practices a few times. I remember it all really well because it was exciting stuff for a twelve year-old kid: I remember walking around with my father and then seeing Randall Cunningham come walking out from the locker room to start practice. I gaped in stunned amazement: Randall Cunningham in the flesh! It was so different, seeing these guys on TV and then actually meeting them in person. As I recall, I was too stunned to move, too nervous to shake hands with him. As a boy you idolize athletes when you grow up, so to actually see your heroes up front in person is a startling thing.
It was an amazing experience and one that I recommend to any dads (or moms) out there reading to do for your kids: take them to see their heroes just once in the flesh.
If there are any Steelers readers or people who will be in Latrobe, PA in August, I recommend checking out the Stillers camp at St. Vincent College. In addition to being my fiancée’s alma mater, it is a really terrific college nestled into the rolling hills of Westmoreland County. Peter King wrote that it was his favorite NFL training camp because it is so picturesque. I can vouch for the fact that it is a very nice and pleasant campus.
(I almost did a double-take last year when King then proceeded to write in his column on CNNSI.com about his lunch visit to Joio’s Pizza in Latrobe. Joio’s is my fiancée’s favorite place in the world to get pizza. Every time we go to the greater Greensburg area we stop there. I do highly recommend it: it is the most interesting and distinctive pizza I have ever had.)
Monday, July 19, 2004
Joe Gibbs: Not Evil
I’ve been watching some of the coverage of the start of the 2004 season and I’m reminded of why the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys are the personification of evil (at least evil in the NFL): all of the media attention both teams generate (far in excess of their talent), the irritatingly arrogant players (MeShawn in big D, Shlockey in the Big Apple), etc. (For being such big, wealthy franchises, you’d think that the Giants and Cowboys could afford decent stadiums.) I already dislike John Coughlin, and the poor guy has done nothing to offend me … yet. I’m not a big fan of the Redskins either, but I don’t dislike Joe Gibbs. I should, because now that the Redskins have a competent coach they are a real threat to the Birds. So I should dislike him, and yet I cannot. And here is why:
When I was 12 I bought an NFL Draft preview magazine and I spent the better part of three weeks that summer dissecting it, reading all of the information, etc. When I was done I sat down and I mailed out a letter to several NFL teams in which I ranked whom I felt were the top three NFL quarterback prospects in the 1990 draft. I got two responses.
One was from Buddy Ryan, who very politely speculated that I could be a scout for the Eagles one day. (Sitting through law school some days I wonder why I didn’t do that.)
The other was from Joe Gibbs, who very politely told me that he read my letter with great interest and noted that they had high hopes for a new quarterback on their team named Cary Conklin. (Who, at the time, was laboring in the depth chart behind Mark Rypien and Stan Humphries.)
I was really touched by the letter. I’m not so much of a fool to think that Gibbs actually labored over it much. (I worked as an intern on Capitol Hill years ago. You think that those letters you get from your elected representative are actually signed by them?) But it was the fact that the organization took me so seriously and was so polite about it that really convinced me that Gibbs was a class act all the way.
So I don’t like the Redskins. Daniel Snyder is a micro-manager who will always be meddling in things he doesn’t quite grasp, but Joe Gibbs is a stand-up guy, and there are too few in the NFL today ...
Oh, and who were the three QBs I liked? The first guy I thought was going to be really great was San Diego State QB Dan McGwire, Mark McGwire's brother: he had a great arm, real presence in the pocket, etc. (He was taken by the Seahawks and proved to be too vulnerable to a pass-rush because he wasn't mobile in the pocket.) The second was Louisville QB Browning Nagle. (He went to the Jets and washed out after a while due to injuries.)
The third? This guy from Southern Mississippi. By the name of Brett Favre.
Maybe I should be an NFL scout!
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When I was 12 I bought an NFL Draft preview magazine and I spent the better part of three weeks that summer dissecting it, reading all of the information, etc. When I was done I sat down and I mailed out a letter to several NFL teams in which I ranked whom I felt were the top three NFL quarterback prospects in the 1990 draft. I got two responses.
One was from Buddy Ryan, who very politely speculated that I could be a scout for the Eagles one day. (Sitting through law school some days I wonder why I didn’t do that.)
The other was from Joe Gibbs, who very politely told me that he read my letter with great interest and noted that they had high hopes for a new quarterback on their team named Cary Conklin. (Who, at the time, was laboring in the depth chart behind Mark Rypien and Stan Humphries.)
I was really touched by the letter. I’m not so much of a fool to think that Gibbs actually labored over it much. (I worked as an intern on Capitol Hill years ago. You think that those letters you get from your elected representative are actually signed by them?) But it was the fact that the organization took me so seriously and was so polite about it that really convinced me that Gibbs was a class act all the way.
So I don’t like the Redskins. Daniel Snyder is a micro-manager who will always be meddling in things he doesn’t quite grasp, but Joe Gibbs is a stand-up guy, and there are too few in the NFL today ...
Oh, and who were the three QBs I liked? The first guy I thought was going to be really great was San Diego State QB Dan McGwire, Mark McGwire's brother: he had a great arm, real presence in the pocket, etc. (He was taken by the Seahawks and proved to be too vulnerable to a pass-rush because he wasn't mobile in the pocket.) The second was Louisville QB Browning Nagle. (He went to the Jets and washed out after a while due to injuries.)
The third? This guy from Southern Mississippi. By the name of Brett Favre.
Maybe I should be an NFL scout!
Sunday, July 18, 2004
A dissent from conventional wisdom...
I was watching Sportscenter the other night and I saw Freddie Mitchell do Fact / Fiction with Sean Salisbury. (Side note: what’s with all of this gimmicky stuff that they are doing now? The Budweiser Hot Seat, Fact or Fiction, etc. Can’t they go back to just informing us with having to resort to Fox Sports type gimmicks? I watch Sportscenter because they are more entertaining and more informative.)
Anyway, the two agreed on a lot (that T.O. is actually a team player, Jevon Kearse will have a big year, etc.) but they disagreed on whether the Eagles would miss Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor. Mitchell defended Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown, while Salisbury stated that Vincent and Taylor were vastly superior cover men. (Certainly the footage ESPN showed of Shepard and Brown flailing around the field against the Pats didn’t help Mitchell's case.) I wondered, in retrospect, if Mitchell might be more right than Salisbury:
I don't mean to suggest that Sheppard and Brown are terrific cover guys. They aren't. But what if Taylor and Vincent have awful seasons in Seattle and Buffalo, respectively? What if their skills deteriorate to the point where Sheppard and Brown outplay them?
How many times have Eagles fans sweated and stressed over the defection of a seemingly key free agent? Jeremiah Trotter in ’02? Brian Mitchell / Hugh Douglas in ’03? Vincent and Taylor in ’04? With Trotter, Mitchell and Douglas the Eagles management came up looking like geniuses each time as each player fell flat on their face with their new team, vindicating the Eagles management’s stance that they would have invest substantial sums of money into veteran players who might be losing, or have already lost, those skills that make them such great players.
In the case of Vincent and Taylor you have two players who have played for an extended period of time: twelve seasons in the case of Vincent and nine in Taylor’s. Vincent is 33, and Taylor is going to be 31 in December. In the world of NFL cover men, this is pretty grim news: once you've lost a step, you are pretty much finished. With all of the wear and tear these two have gone through dealing with Michael Irvin, the Rams wideout corps, Shlockey and the rest over the years, you have to wonder if their time isn't fast approaching.
Which is why teams love younger corners and the virtue of the Eagles new cover team is that they are young:
Sheppard? 23.
Brown? 25.
And, it is important to remember, both Sheppard and Brown got lots of playing time when Vincent and Taylor went down last season and they were fine. Maybe getting rid of Vincent and Taylor won't come back to bite us after all...
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Anyway, the two agreed on a lot (that T.O. is actually a team player, Jevon Kearse will have a big year, etc.) but they disagreed on whether the Eagles would miss Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor. Mitchell defended Lito Sheppard and Sheldon Brown, while Salisbury stated that Vincent and Taylor were vastly superior cover men. (Certainly the footage ESPN showed of Shepard and Brown flailing around the field against the Pats didn’t help Mitchell's case.) I wondered, in retrospect, if Mitchell might be more right than Salisbury:
I don't mean to suggest that Sheppard and Brown are terrific cover guys. They aren't. But what if Taylor and Vincent have awful seasons in Seattle and Buffalo, respectively? What if their skills deteriorate to the point where Sheppard and Brown outplay them?
How many times have Eagles fans sweated and stressed over the defection of a seemingly key free agent? Jeremiah Trotter in ’02? Brian Mitchell / Hugh Douglas in ’03? Vincent and Taylor in ’04? With Trotter, Mitchell and Douglas the Eagles management came up looking like geniuses each time as each player fell flat on their face with their new team, vindicating the Eagles management’s stance that they would have invest substantial sums of money into veteran players who might be losing, or have already lost, those skills that make them such great players.
In the case of Vincent and Taylor you have two players who have played for an extended period of time: twelve seasons in the case of Vincent and nine in Taylor’s. Vincent is 33, and Taylor is going to be 31 in December. In the world of NFL cover men, this is pretty grim news: once you've lost a step, you are pretty much finished. With all of the wear and tear these two have gone through dealing with Michael Irvin, the Rams wideout corps, Shlockey and the rest over the years, you have to wonder if their time isn't fast approaching.
Which is why teams love younger corners and the virtue of the Eagles new cover team is that they are young:
Sheppard? 23.
Brown? 25.
And, it is important to remember, both Sheppard and Brown got lots of playing time when Vincent and Taylor went down last season and they were fine. Maybe getting rid of Vincent and Taylor won't come back to bite us after all...
Friday, July 16, 2004
Welcome back Trotter!
Trotter is an Eagle again? I’m shocked.
Certainly I think that it is a smart move by the Eagles: 1 year, $1 million is cheap to get a terrific middle linebacker and it makes sense to add some depth to the linebacking corps, especially after the team got so run-down in ’03 after Emmons got injured. Now the Eagles have some flexibility and some depth, as well as some fire in the locker room. And if Trotter doesn’t work out, it was just a one year deal.
It probably makes sense to Trotter too: to impress teams by rehabilitating his career after the Washington debacle and show them that his injuries aren’t severe. After he and Reid had such a public falling out, it would probably help to show teams that he’s a team-oriented kind of guy.
This is a terrific move by the Birds.
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Certainly I think that it is a smart move by the Eagles: 1 year, $1 million is cheap to get a terrific middle linebacker and it makes sense to add some depth to the linebacking corps, especially after the team got so run-down in ’03 after Emmons got injured. Now the Eagles have some flexibility and some depth, as well as some fire in the locker room. And if Trotter doesn’t work out, it was just a one year deal.
It probably makes sense to Trotter too: to impress teams by rehabilitating his career after the Washington debacle and show them that his injuries aren’t severe. After he and Reid had such a public falling out, it would probably help to show teams that he’s a team-oriented kind of guy.
This is a terrific move by the Birds.
Saturday, July 03, 2004
ESPN's Pre-Season Look...
ESPN recently did their 2004 pre-season look at the Eagles, and I had neglected to post my thoughts:
The article (click here for it) by Kieran Darcy was pretty predictable: T.O. and Kearse are the big additions, the secondary is a big if with Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor gone, etc. I disagree with Darcy's belief that the Eagles won't miss Duce. I think he might be the defection of the off-season, but I guess we'll see.
Meanwhile, Len Pasqurelli sees 2004 as being a big year for NFC East QB's to air it out, which has me nervous. This is the one facet of the game that the Eagles appear to be most vulnerable at, although hopefully Kearse will fix that.
On ESPN's Fact of Fiction Mark Schlereth sees the Eagles winning the division again, but Merril Huge likes the Redskins. The Redskins? I don't think so. (Check out ESPN's "Five Questions" too.) (The Eagles are No. 2 on ESPN's Power Rankings, by the way.)
My preliminary thoughts on the Eagles are this:
-This team could be very good and pick up where they left off in the second-half of 2003 when they went 10-1 after losing to the Cowboys in Week 6. Kearse could break the NFL record for sacks, Lito Shepard and Sheldon Brown could turn into a dynamic duo on the corners, T.O. could make the Eagles offense more explosive than the Rams "Max Q", and Brian Westbrook could rush for 1,000 yards. The Eagles could go 12-4 again, make the NFC title game and finally win it.
-Or, the Eagles could implode: their 2003 inability to stop the run could be combined in 2004 with a newfound vulnerability to the pass and make the Eagles bend-but-don't-break defense too porous to stop even the Giants. T.O. could get fed up if Donovan gets off to a slow start, the Eagles could miss Duce's leadership and pass-catching skills, and Kearse, Westbrook, Jones and Donovan could all injure themselves. (The spectre of Jeff Blake hangs over us always.) This team could go 6-10 and finish dead last. You never know. I'm betting on the former, but there is no sure thing in the NFL anymore: back in the early 1990's there were really just two superpower teams, the 49ers and the Cowboys, and twenty-eight pertenders of varying skill levels. You could bank on the fact that the 49ers and the Cowboys would play each other in the NFC title game and the winner would win the Super Bowl. So much so that the 49ers basically admitted that they made free agent decisions in 1994 plotting matchups for the inevitable showdown in the January '95 NFC title game, which they did win against the Cowboys, 38-21.
Today, with the salary cap and free agency, there are no more superpower teams. The Panthers went from 1-15 to 7-9 to the Super Bowl. The Raiders went from the Super Bowl to the gutter even more swiftly. Mark my words, this is the season that a team like the Arizona Cardinals wins the Super Bowl simply because nobody sees them coming.
We'll know more when the preseason starts.
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The article (click here for it) by Kieran Darcy was pretty predictable: T.O. and Kearse are the big additions, the secondary is a big if with Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor gone, etc. I disagree with Darcy's belief that the Eagles won't miss Duce. I think he might be the defection of the off-season, but I guess we'll see.
Meanwhile, Len Pasqurelli sees 2004 as being a big year for NFC East QB's to air it out, which has me nervous. This is the one facet of the game that the Eagles appear to be most vulnerable at, although hopefully Kearse will fix that.
On ESPN's Fact of Fiction Mark Schlereth sees the Eagles winning the division again, but Merril Huge likes the Redskins. The Redskins? I don't think so. (Check out ESPN's "Five Questions" too.) (The Eagles are No. 2 on ESPN's Power Rankings, by the way.)
My preliminary thoughts on the Eagles are this:
-This team could be very good and pick up where they left off in the second-half of 2003 when they went 10-1 after losing to the Cowboys in Week 6. Kearse could break the NFL record for sacks, Lito Shepard and Sheldon Brown could turn into a dynamic duo on the corners, T.O. could make the Eagles offense more explosive than the Rams "Max Q", and Brian Westbrook could rush for 1,000 yards. The Eagles could go 12-4 again, make the NFC title game and finally win it.
-Or, the Eagles could implode: their 2003 inability to stop the run could be combined in 2004 with a newfound vulnerability to the pass and make the Eagles bend-but-don't-break defense too porous to stop even the Giants. T.O. could get fed up if Donovan gets off to a slow start, the Eagles could miss Duce's leadership and pass-catching skills, and Kearse, Westbrook, Jones and Donovan could all injure themselves. (The spectre of Jeff Blake hangs over us always.) This team could go 6-10 and finish dead last. You never know. I'm betting on the former, but there is no sure thing in the NFL anymore: back in the early 1990's there were really just two superpower teams, the 49ers and the Cowboys, and twenty-eight pertenders of varying skill levels. You could bank on the fact that the 49ers and the Cowboys would play each other in the NFC title game and the winner would win the Super Bowl. So much so that the 49ers basically admitted that they made free agent decisions in 1994 plotting matchups for the inevitable showdown in the January '95 NFC title game, which they did win against the Cowboys, 38-21.
Today, with the salary cap and free agency, there are no more superpower teams. The Panthers went from 1-15 to 7-9 to the Super Bowl. The Raiders went from the Super Bowl to the gutter even more swiftly. Mark my words, this is the season that a team like the Arizona Cardinals wins the Super Bowl simply because nobody sees them coming.
We'll know more when the preseason starts.
Friday, July 02, 2004
Interview...
Nice article on NFL.com about the NFC East. I guess Rich Eisen interviewed Lavar Arrington and Brian Dawkins this week for the NFL Network.
I'm busy drafting my 2004 NFL Predictions. Look back in August for them.
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I'm busy drafting my 2004 NFL Predictions. Look back in August for them.
