Philadelphia Eagles Position by Position

[R1balla]

Well, this season hasnt gone as planned, but it was to be expected. I will go through each position as well as scheme and coaching and give you guys a better explanation as to why they have under achieved. I wont post all tonight, cause it would take me an hour, but i will get to each part eventually.

COACHING - so far, it looks like promoting Juan to defense was a mistake, although it isnt all his fault. They players have under performed and the lack of an offseason killed their chance of gelling in a totally new scheme for every defensive player. Juan does not believe in blitzing. He relies on the front four to get pressure and everybody else in coverage, hence getting Nnamdi and DRC. he believes with good coverage, the D line will have time to get to the QB. There is one problem with this....Nnamdi has played man coverage in Oakland and Asante is a pure Zone coverage corner....you cant run both man and zone on the same play.... he is using DRC in the slot, a position in which he has never played before. Answer me this mr. castillo.....why would you play DRC in slot when you have a top 3 slot corner in the NFL in Joselio Hanson? DRC played in place of Asante vs the Jets this past sunday (for the 2nd half when asante was injured) and played very well. He has been playing slot and is getting comfortable and played well there as well....Andy Reid should stay as the head coach...the verdict is still out on Juan Castillo...the past two games, the defense has been lights out. If it continues vs Dallas and Washington, he may actually stay. if he is gone, i fully expect Howie Roseman (GM) to go after Steve Spags. He is a great D Coordinator. (go look up the stats when he is ONLY the D coordinator, and not a Head Coach). If you want andy gone, fine. but who will replace him? who in the NFL other than B.B with the patriots and Mike Tomlin that is AVAILABLE next season that has a better history than Reid? i say give the man one more year to prove himself with a real D coordinator like Spags. Also, the players love Reid.

OFFENSE - hard to comment much because Vick has been injured so much. Hard to tell when he is playing, if he is FULLY healthy. he has much more responsibility this year....this year is his FIRST year he has been allowed to audible and call out the coverages at the line (thanks for Howard Mudd). Ill get to the O line later. HUGEEEE improvement from last season. One of the best in the NFL. and sure vick gets sacked too much, but thats not all on the O line...vick holds the ball to long. part is game planning, part is him wanting to hit jackson for a bomb and waiting. but when the offense is clicking, its the best in the NFL. the problem is that it is so inconsistent.

Vick - not the same player as last season, but still a top ten qb. he hasnt had much help either. so many dropped passes that have been picked off. thats not his fault. btw, i love when he runs, but dude needs to hire a baseball coach to teach him how to freakin slide when he needs to.

Shady - best running back in the NFL. only running back that has more RUSHING yards is steven jackson. McCoy is the best all around running back in the game today. so many players and announcers compare him to barry sanders. go watch clips of barry. you can totally see why. btw, he holds the record for most touchdowns by an eagles running back in a single

 

[R1balla]

OFFENSE

This will be short and sweet

LT Jason Peters - best LT in the game. stud
LG Evan Mathis - top 4 LG in the game. Profootballfocus has him second.
C Jason Kelce - rookie mistakes, but fits mudds kind of scheme. will be solid. not bad this year
RG Danny Watkins - great run blocking, below average pass blocking. off season will help
RT Todd Herremans - dude is a beast. one of the best in the game. did make mistakes this year, but who doesnt other than jason peters?

Desean - dont even want to talk much about him. he hasnt produced, but it doesnt help teams play 2 deep safties over him to prevent the bombs. i expect him to get tagged his offseason

maclin - very solid. dropped a few key passes which seems to be a theme this year with the eagles.

Avant - one of the best slot receivers in the game in means of route running and catching the ball.

Celek - stud. the past year and 1/2 of this year, he has been asked to block ALOT cause the O line has sucked. now that its a strength, feed the man the ball.

McCoy - stud. Improvement of O line has helped.

 

[R1balla]

Update 1/3/12 - Eagles announce Andy Reid will coach in 2012. the rest of the staff is all up to reid. Eagles signed Trevard Lindley. he was a 4th round draft pick 2 drafts ago.

Defense

I will update this frequently as it would take forever to post all at once. lets start with the line

Great for pass rush, bad against the run if you dont have the linebackers to support you, which we dont. 50 sacks this season. Tied with the Vikings for most in NFL. we had i think 38 last year.

Trent Cole - 11 sacks, didnt play in 2 games. best pass rusher + run defender combo in the NFL for a 4-3 DE. gets pressure consistently.

Jason Babin - 18 sacks. Dude is a beast in the wide 9 scheme.

Cullen Jenkins - 5.5 sacks. pretty solid for a DT. he is consistently getting pressure. good run stuffer.

Mike Patterson - 2.5 sacks. great vs the run. eats up blockers. Same for Landry, also he has pass rushing ability as well

 

[R1balla]

waiting to hear from andy reid on who will be the DC. i hope its spags and juan stays as an assistant. oh, our director of player personel is interviewing for GM jobs with indy and st louis. once i hear from andy, i will update about the defense. i dont want to talk about a scheme that may not be in place next season.

andy reid is taking a while to make his decision which leads me to believe a change is coming, but who? spags? who knows. i would think if juan castillo was coming back as DC, he would have had a PC already and told everybody.

 

[R1balla]

did not see tebow beating an injured Pitt team....good for him

 

[R1balla]

looks like castillo will be the DC next year......

 

[R1balla]

well, our OC Marty M. didnt get the HC job for oakland or indy so looks like he is staying here. i forgot to tell you guys (those of you who are reading this...lol), my favorite eagles site to get info is igglesblitz dot com. has LOTS of great info, breaks down alot of stuff. love that site. they are talking about the senior bowl, draft, and DC right now.

 

[R1balla]

Juan Castillo was spotted in Alabama scouting at the Senior Bowl. Now this does not mean he is going to be our DC in 2012, but it sure does look like it. Because he is scouting for the draft, it leads me to believe he will be on the defense in some capacity. just not sure about DC. ill give it a 75/25 shot that he stays at DC. That being said, dont bash your heads up against a wall just yet. Let me give you some hope first.

Correct me if I am wrong, but our defense (at the end of the season) was ranked number 8 overall in the NFL . that is 4 spots better than last season. That stat alone gives me hope for next season. Does our D have problems? sure. mainly, its LB. Ill get to the whole LB situation probably tonight. I think we will add a vet safety, but nobody like landry jones. just some healthy competition for nate allen and jurt coleman/J Jarrett.

IMO, our offense is the problem with the team, not the defense. we had sooooo many turnovers that gave the defense terrible field position. we couldnt score consistently in the redzone and left with 3 points instead of 7.

my prediction is asante will be gone this off season. this is great IMO. he is a pure zone coverage corner. sure he is a ball hawk, but when you have nnamdi and DRC, you want to use there size to your advantage and press the crap out of the receivers. make them work for every yard. you cant play man on one side and zone on the other. doesnt work like that (unless im missing something?). that was a problem this year. nnamdi wasnt used right and thats because of asante. that will be fixed.

also, we will be getting a healthy brandon graham back. we will have a SICK DE rotation with Cole, Babin, Graham, Tapp, Hunt. i have a feeling that Tapp will be traded though.

Draft/Free Agency

ill go more on about this later as free agency approaches, but here are my thoughts

I think we go for a MLB in free agency and draft a WLB in the draft in the 2nd or 3rd round. if desean stays around, i dont think we go for a WR the first round. I think we will go for a DE or DT unless somebody really highly rated falls to us or we have the opportunity to trade up a few slots and grab somebody

we own the 15th overall pick. we also have two 2nd rounders, 1 third and 2 fourth rounders, 1 5th rounder and i think 3 six rounders. ALOT of quality picks. i expect philly to be active draft day and get who they want. lets just hope its the right guy

 

[Southland]

my prediction is asante will be gone this off season. this is great IMO. he is a pure zone coverage corner. sure he is a ball hawk, but when you have nnamdi and DRC, you want to use there size to your advantage and press the crap out of the receivers. make them work for every yard. you cant play man on one side and zone on the other. doesnt work like that (unless im missing something?). that was a problem this year. nnamdi wasnt used right and thats because of asante. that will be fixed.

Asante is definitely gone this offseason. They saw the sample size of DRC and Nnamdi on the outside with Joselio Hanson in the nickel the last few games. They tried DRC in the nickel this past year and it was a HUGE mistake (one of many). Combine that with the fact that Asante's contract jumps up to around $8.4 mil this coming year and around $10 mil in 2013...he is gone. I would think we can get a 3rd rounder for him. At least this upcoming draft is really deep for defensive talent but the Eagles have been HORRIBLE in drafting defensive talent in the early rounds during the Reid era.

 

[R1balla]

Asante is definitely gone this offseason. They saw the sample size of DRC and Nnamdi on the outside with Joselio Hanson in the nickel the last few games. They tried DRC in the nickel this past year and it was a HUGE mistake (one of many). Combine that with the fact that Asante's contract jumps up to around $8.4 mil this coming year and around $10 mil in 2013...he is gone. I would think we can get a 3rd rounder for him. At least this upcoming draft is really deep for defensive talent but the Eagles have been HORRIBLE in drafting defensive talent in the early rounds during the Reid era.

for sure. i hope we can get another 2nd rounder but will probably be a third...just hope it happens before draft day so we can be LOADED with high picks and get who we want. i think the lions or texans may make a move for him possibly. would love to see texans get him, but i think they play mostly man. idk what lions run other than the D line runs a wide 9 like philly does. i love the wide 9 btw.

as far as DRC in the slot, the last few games that he played in the slot, he actually played really well. i still prefer him on the outside and hanson in slot, but i think eagles wanted to use his talent somewhere on the field. i think we draft a slot corner as well. bradon hughes is young and may be the future there, but i still think we draft a pure slot corner. hard to take a plain ol corner and make him a slot one. DRC has all the talent in the world and took him a half of a season to get used to it

 

[R1balla]

came across this mock draft on bleacher report. this would make me very very happy

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1040939-2012-nfl-mock-draft-full-7-round-philadelphia-eagles-mock-draft

 

[Southland]

came across this mock draft on bleacher report. this would make me very very happy

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1040939-2012-nfl-mock-draft-full-7-round-philadelphia-eagles-mock-draft

WOW...that would be an epic draft. I'd like to see the Eagles start to using the 2 TE sets a bit more. I think they started to use it more towards the end of the year if I am not mistaken. The rules changing the way they have, protecting the receivers, makes it easier for teams to exploit the middle of the field. Clay Harbor and Celek aren't Gronkowski/Hernandez but if you combine them with the speed on the outside they currently have I think it would be a more explosive offense.

 

[R1balla]

We used two tight end sets Alot during the end of the season. Wouldn't surprise me if we drafted an athletic tight end as well. I think we will get our mlb via free agency and take best available person in first round

 

[Southland]

We used two tight end sets Alot during the end of the season. Wouldn't surprise me if we drafted an athletic tight end as well. I think we will get our mlb via free agency and take best available person in first round

Yeah, I think we would be better served getting a MLB in free agency because they are already so young as a unit. One thing is for sure about the Eagles on draft day...take whatever you think they are going to do and throw it out the window LOL. They are so unpredictable.

 

[R1balla]

Eagles hired Todd Bowles to coach the secondary. Great move

 

[R1balla]

Yeah, I think we would be better served getting a MLB in free agency because they are already so young as a unit. One thing is for sure about the Eagles on draft day...take whatever you think they are going to do and throw it out the window LOL. They are so unpredictable.

That's for sure!

 

[Southland]

Eagles hired Todd Bowles to coach the secondary. Great move

I like the hire but they also announced that Castillo is staying :/ I get the whole continuity of keeping him but I was hoping for a change. He just got out coached waaaayyyy too many times. I was kind of hoping that they would bring in a big name D coordinator and reduce Castillo's role.

 

[R1balla]

I like the hire but they also announced that Castillo is staying :/ I get the whole continuity of keeping him but I was hoping for a change. He just got out coached waaaayyyy too many times. I was kind of hoping that they would bring in a big name D coordinator and reduce Castillo's role.

i agree and disagree. let me explain

juan didnt get to pick his coaches. they hired wash to install the wide 9 before they chose juan. he had to adjust to that

no offseason to install with very young LBs, young safeties, and so many new players on defense playing new positions

the final 11 games, the defense improved. you may say, the final 4 games are a fluke. and i agree but look at it like this.......

- the defense played against poor qb's throughout the year and got beat. the final 4 games, we played against poor qb's and we demolished them. we also killed dallas the first meeting and they were red hot and with a healthy team. that tells you something right there.

now, the defense is going into the offseason knowing what positions to play and the scheme that will be installed. they can watch game film all off season and know what they are supposed to do because its the same scheme.

we will get upgrades at LB, i can promise you. we will get more talen through the draft. we hired the dude from the saints who will help in the draft.

with asante gone, we should be playing more man to man coverages. our youth will also develop.



last point to make on the defense:

how can you expect the D to be amazing when the offense turns the ball over around 3x per game? thats insane. so many RZ turnovers. we had the 8th overall defense. not bad considering all of the points i made above.

 

[R1balla]

i havent decided on who i want in the first two rounds of the draft....honestly, we wont know who will be available but we all can dream/create our wish list.

who we draft will largely be determined by who we sign in free agency. here are some players to look out for and players i like

S Mark Barron
WR Michael Floyd
WR Joe Adams
LB Luke Keuchly
DE Vinny Curry
QB Cousins

we will have a better idea of what positions we will go after by if we re sign desean and who we sign in free agency

 

[R1balla]

if philly gets a MLB in free agency, this will basically be what my mock draft will look like

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1051200-2012-nfl-mock-draft-full-7-round-philadelphia-eagles-predictions

 

[R1balla]

DeMeco Ryans is an eagle!!! we resigned desean, todd herremans, trent cole

 

[Southland]

DeMeco Ryans is an eagle!!! we resigned desean, todd herremans, trent cole

Getting Evan Mathis back was big for continuity on the O-Line. LOVED the DeMeco Ryans move!