The 2007 Offseason Thread

[ice grillin you]

+BETHEL JOHNSON
+CHRIS GOCONG

-DONTE' STALLWORTH
-RODERICK HOOD
-JEFF GARCIA
-MICHAEL LEWIS

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

+BETHEL JOHNSON
+CHRIS GOCONG

-DONTE' STALLWORTH
-RODERICK HOOD
-JEFF GARCIA
-MICHAEL LEWIS

Good point.  That being the case, you forgot other young players that either sat on IR all year, simply didn't play, or played like shtein.

+RYAN MOATS
+JEREMY BLOOM
+BRODRICK BUNKLEY
+MAX JEAN-GILLES
+WINSTON JUSTICE

[PhillyPhreak54]

+ Chris Gocong = - Dhani Jones

Rip on Gocong all day, but I'll take a farging corpse at SLB before that banjo strumming jitbag loser.

[ice grillin you]

im certainly no dhani defender but how can you say youd take gocong over anyone...could he be better than dhani sure...but will he?...unlikely

i mean is that the eagles goal...replacing zesty players with less zesty players...isnt the offseason the time to upgrade positions??...dont we deserve more than that

[PhillyPhreak54]

I just want someone else in there. Dude is a ghost on the field. He should have been cut 5 weeks ago

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

I just want someone else in there. Dude is a ghost on the field. He should have been cut 5 weeks ago aborted

I'm not in a very giving mood.

[SunMo]

i mean is that the eagles goal...replacing zesty players with less zesty players..

replacing zesty players with cheaper zesty players

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Domowitch:  What needs to happen for the Eagles to win the Super Bowl

Funney.

[Seabiscuit36]

Rich Hofmann | A lot riding on Brod shoulders




SITTING HERE, wondering how Brodrick Bunkley became the most important Eagles player in 2007...

Tom Heckert was talking

recently about how the Eagles measure themselves against the rest of the NFL, personnelwise. The Eagles' general manager said there are all kinds of ways to do it, and all kinds of ways to manipulate the results if that is what you're looking to do.

Take draft choices. He said, "People talk about if a guy starts as a rookie. That's fine, but what if it's a [bad] team?"

The point is that these evaluations are more art than science. Which brings us to Bunkley, who didn't start, didn't finish, didn't contribute to the Eagles in any way last season, his rookie season as a first-round defensive tackle out of Florida State. But more on that later.

As the Eagles continue along during the free-agent period,

putting everyone to sleep with their inactivity, the main local preoccupation is trying to figure out what the hell they're doing, or not doing. The market for players has shifted in a very big way, with many available dollars chasing fewer good prospects. But that is the market, and that is how markets work, and you choose either to partake or not.

So far, eight teams - including both Super Bowl teams,

Indianapolis and Chicago - have been silent in free agency, except to sign their own players. The Eagles have been almost silent. I mean, if a Bethel Johnson falls in the woods and nobody hears, did he really fall?

We fixate on offense because that is what we do - even though every last one of us knows the Eagles need to fix their run defense first and need to pay more attention to their

defense overall. We have seen the first tangible signs that the Eagles believe this, too, with their tortured and ultimately failed pursuit of Cowboys linebacker Ryan Fowler.

Philosophically, though, the

Eagles' orientation here is clear. That is what Heckert was saying the other day.

"We look at the top teams every year," he said. "We do it from a salary standpoint [and a draft standpoint]. We usually do the top eight teams, the playoff teams, and we say, these teams are spending first-day picks and money on these positions. It goes all over the place.

"Obviously, Indianapolis is a perfect example. They're spending money on offense. They're all offensive money - and it worked out for them this year. [But] you would have to question it before this year. They never made it...

"There's different ways of doing it. We think you have to be good on both sides of the ball. If you can be in the top 10 on both sides of the ball, I think you're good enough. I think we've spent resources on offense, from draft picks and money.

"I think we probably do need to spend some on defense at different positions," Heckert said.

Which is where this thing is headed, except for one thing: the notion that there is an a-ha kind of defensive Mr. Fixit out there challenges the beliefs of most people who pay attention to this kind of stuff. So, yes, the Eagles figure to spend some high draft picks on defense - maybe drafting Brian Dawkins' ultimate replacement at safety, maybe drafting another cornerback, maybe, finally, spending a No. 1 pick on a linebacker. (All right, I'm kidding about that last one.)

But a veteran body who will make a significant impact? A new face in that defensive front seven who will turn this into an adequate run-stopping defense? The Eagles have never been very interested in just trading bodies for bodies, just for the sake of looking busy, and it doesn't appear they'll do a lot of that this year, either.

So it looks like it will have to be Bunkley, or nobody.

You play these what-if games in your head, and try to do these months-off analyses, and you keep coming back to Bunkley. They can't get better if he doesn't get better. The return of Jevon Kearse from his horrific knee injury is not going to make the Eagles a noticeably better run-stopping team. Having middle linebacker Jeremiah Trotter slim down a bit isn't going to make him a better run stopper - because Trotter's problem was usually a guard in his lap, a guard who had just blown through one of the tackles.

You can replace Dhani Jones, with the next Fowler or Chris Gocong or whomever, and that will be fine. But the rest of the fellas are going to be the same fellas who got run over last season so spectacularly - except for Bunkley, who held out of training camp and saw his playing time shrink from tiny to minuscule as the season progressed.

When training camp starts, everybody is going to be watching quarterback Donovan McNabb return from his knee surgery. You really should watch Bunkley instead as he returns from exile. Because with each quietly passing day, it appears he might be the Eagles' biggest move this

offseason.

[Feva]

Well, at least they're putting the fate of the defense into a sure thing.

[ice grillin you]

ha

[The BIGSTUD]

It's a joke that Dhani is going to be on this team next year.

[dis12]

It's a joke that Dhani is going to be on this team next year.

this almost guarantees we are stuck with banjo-man...

Texans | S. Barber will visit team Thursday
Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:05:56 -0700

Megan Manfull, of the Houston Chronicle, reports the Houston Texans will visit with free-agent LB Shawn Barber (Eagles) Thursday, March 15. Barber would likely be signed to provide depth at the outside linebacker position.

[The BIGSTUD]

You know things are bad when even Spadaro said Dhani has been a disappointment. I wonder how he'll try to spin this one.

[BigEd76]

McNabb to SportsNet New York:  It'd be nice to have a WR that "stayed more than two years."

FIGHT