Lurie speaks

[ice grillin you]

failure in that he isnt on the team

if you cant keep your picks then how good a pick were they in the first place

or does he get credit for drafting an injury prone player and credit for not signing him cause he was injury prone

does he get a pass for mcdougle as well?

[phattymatty]

in seven years of drafting reid has 2002 and mcnabb as his successes

so now Burgess is a failure eh? 

considering he's not on the team, and didn't do much for us when he was, yes i would consider that a failure

[rjs246]

This thread makes me want to chopstick my eyes out.

[MURP]

failure in that he isnt on the team

if you cant keep your picks then how good a pick were they in the first place

So no coach gets any credit for drafting a player who goes to another team in FA.  ha. 

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

A.J. Feeley isn't on the team anymore either, so despite being a 5th round pick traded for a 2nd... FAILURE.

John Welbourn was a solid starter despite being a 4th rounder, but he's gone now... so FAILURE.

L.J. not mentioned by IGY... hence, FAILURE.

And we all know that the 2005 draft looks like absolute crap right now.

[Wingspan]

in seven years of drafting reid has 2002 and mcnabb as his successes

Mike Patterson
Reggie Brown
Trent Cole
J.R. Reed
Shawn Andrews
L.J. Smith
Lito Sheppard
Michael Lewis
Sheldon Brown   
Brian Westbrook
Raheem Brock
Derrick Burgess
Tony Stewart
Corey Simon
Todd Pinkston
Donovan McNabb
Doug Brzezinski
John Welbourn

are all solid to major contributors on the eagles or elsewhere. and considering where some of them were picked, it's not as bad as you'd like to convince yourself it is.

[Wingspan]

This thread makes me want to chopstick my eyes out.

pretentious nerd.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

I can't understand why IGY considers McNabb a success, when he clearly believes Culpepper is better.

[Wingspan]

if all the eagles live on is 2002...i have to wonder, what nfl team does draft well?

[PhillyPhreak54]

SQUAWK IS CHEAP

By PAUL DOMOWITCH
pdomo@aol.com

ORLANDO, Fla. - Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and so too, apparently, are NFL offseason remodeling projects.
Two-and-a-half weeks into the free-agency signing period, the Eagles feel pretty good about what they've accomplished so far.

They added a proven pass-rushing end (Darren Howard) to help turn up the heat on opposing quarterbacks. They upgraded themselves at weakside linebacker (Shawn Barber). They added a pretty good wide receiver (Jabar Gaffney) who managed to catch 55 passes last year playing for the Houston Texans, a team that gave up 68 sacks and finished 30th in the league in passing. They added another pass-catching option at tight end (Matt Schobel), and re-signed right tackle Jon Runyan. And they went out and bought a much better quarterback insurance policy (Jeff Garcia) than they had last year with Who's On First (Mike McMahon) and What's On Second (Koy Detmer).

But that's not the tune that is being played by some of the local sports-talk gabbers. And that's not the tune that is being played by many angry e-mail-writing fans, who are convinced that this organization cares much more about maximizing profits than winning Super Bowls.

The Eagles don't want to give Eric Moulds a $5 million-a-year contract, so they must be cheap. They don't want to open their vault to LaVar Arrington, so they must be cheap. They let Pro Bowl center LeCharles Bentley slip away from them and sign with Cleveland, so they must be cheap. They are $10 trillion under the salary cap, so they definitely must be cheap.

Owner Jeff Lurie and club president Joe Banner have been hearing this cheapskate talk for a long time. Even when the team was winning four straight division titles and earning four straight trips to the NFC Championship Game, people were accusing them of being penny pinchers. Now that they're coming off a 6-10 season, it's much easier to pile on.
But Banner says there's one tiny, little problem with the criticism: It's not really true.

He points out that, in the 7 years since Andy Reid was hired as head coach, the Eagles are second in the NFL in cash spent on players. The only team that's spent more during that period, according to Banner, is the Washington taterskins.

He also points out that, while you may not be crazy about the free agents they've signed this month, the Eagles are "among the highest spenders of [salary] cap dollars in the NFL this year.

"People can say whatever they want or make it whatever they want," Banner said. "But the reality is we've been in the market for players that we felt were in a position to improve our team. And we'll continue to be in that position.
"We've added a significant number of players [this offseason]. Good players who have the ability to fit in, contribute to what we do and help us win.

"You can't be cheap if you're spending the second-largest amount of money in the league. The Phillies aren't doing that. The Flyers aren't doing that. Nobody in Philadelphia is doing that. Because we've come up with some good ideas on how to manage our cap, we're [being called] cheap. That's ludicrous."

The sky-is-falling perception is that the rest of the NFC East is running away from the Eagles. The Cowboys signed wide receiver Terrell Owens, kicker Mike Vanderjagt and offensive tackle Jason Fabini. The Giants have reconstructed their secondary, bringing in cornerbacks Sam Madison and R.W. McQuarters and safety Will Demps. taterskins owner Dan Snyder has just completed his annual dump-and-sign spending spree, making millionaires of wide receivers Antwaan Randle El and Brandon Lloyd, safety Adam Archuleta and defensive end Andre Carter.

"Some of the things you hear people say just defy reality," Banner said. "I spoke to someone recently and they were raving about all of the Cowboys' moves. Well, they lost two starting linebackers [Scott Fujita and Dat Nguyen], a starting defensive tackle [La'Roi Glover], a starting left guard [Larry Allen], and a starting wide receiver [Keyshawn Johnson] and they added T.O. We'll see how the season goes. But as far as comparing offseasons [between the Eagles and Cowboys], it's not even close.

"The Cowboys have had some good drafts and have some young, emerging players and it's reasonable to expect they're going to be very good. But if you just rated their additions and subtractions in free agency, you'd conclude that they lost a lot of guys.''

Lurie tore a page out of George Bush's playbook and blamed the media for the perception that his team is cheap.

"It's up to the media to educate the fans clearly and precisely on the economics of the NFL," Lurie said during a lunch break at the league meetings at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress resort. "The facts are that, in the end, every team spends [about the same amount of money each year]. It's just a matter of whether you spend it in March [on free agents] or spend it in November [on signing players to extensions]. Are you going to distribute that $90 million or $100 million or $110 million to three or four free agents in March or are you going to [distribute] it throughout your roster and by re-signing your young players?''

The Eagles have repeatedly made it clear that they prefer to build through the draft, rather than hanging out at the free-agency trough like Snyder. It hasn't earned them nearly as many March headlines as the taterskins, but it has allowed them to stay in yearly playoff contention and out of salary-cap hell, and re-sign more of their players to second and third contracts than any other team in the league.

"Free agency is a tool, and you've got to utilize every single tool to succeed in this game," Lurie said. "But by far, the best tool is the draft.

"If there's an opportunity to get a player who becomes available, an excellent player who could have an impact, we have the ammunition to [sign him]. Will that happen? I don't know.

"If you look at the free agency list for this year or last year, there's a reason a lot of those players are out there. You have to make the best decision for your organization. Arizona acquired a very good running back [Edgerrin James]. It may or may not work out. Everybody has to make those calculations. That's why the better you draft, the better you will do.''

[ice grillin you]

Mike Patterson - too soon to tell
Reggie Brown - to soon to tell
Trent Cole - to soon to tell
J.R. Reed - not a succes
Shawn Andrews - to soon to tell - so far a failure- weight was a huge concern with him and as of now its come to bite them
L.J. Smith - talented but certainly not a success right now- solid pick
Lito Sheppard - 2002
Michael Lewis - 2002
Sheldon Brown - 2002 
Brian Westbrook -2002 was a GREAT draft
Raheem Brock - utter failure
Derrick Burgess - failure
Tony Stewart - hahaha
Corey Simon - forgot about him - success
Todd Pinkston - lol
Donovan McNabb - already mentioned
Doug Brzezinski - bleh
John Welbourn - solid


other than the secondary westbrook and of course mcnabb where are the big time players they have drafted

DE?
LB?
WR?
OL?
DL?

im not saying they are the worst in the league but drafting is 100% absolutely NOT a strong point of this FO...and lurie should not be talking up draft as a way they have or will build their team

[hunt]

now lets argue each individual player at length until our eyeballs shoot through the back of our skulls.

[SunMo]

ok...first up, Tony Stewart

[ice grillin you]

im just really really happy that burgess turned out to be a great pick

[Wingspan]

stewart was a late pick who has been a good blocking TE.