Week 14 - Washington: Something Something Racial Slur

[MDS]

mcleod will be 28 and jenkins will be 30

they should both be as effective as they are now, though not sure if theyll be able to afford both

[QB Eagles]

they should both be as effective as they are now, though not sure if theyll be able to afford both

The cap hits escalate rapidly. Best case scenario, they will have expensive new contracts you have to account for while you're trying to piece together the rest of this team. More likely, at least one of them will be released.

[General_Failure]

Also another TE. Celek and Ertz might both be gone after 2017. Burton looks promising, but the Eagles have had a lot of TEs who've never gone from potential starter to potential all-pro.

[MDS]

the cap is going up 10 mil, and thats just this year

still i wont fight that...within 2-3 years theyll have to start gearing up for a monster wentz deal and a pretty big hicks deal. the veterans safeties wont be of the same priority.

[AshishPatel81]

I try to remind myself that going into the year the point of the season was to see whether Wentz could play and despite bumps and blemishes he's certainly provided hope going forward but it's still alarming to see how many holes this team has.

we were discussing at tailgate that it's three to five years to fill all those holes and that's if you hit on all your picks

it's scary what they need

an entire OL other than roid Johnson
both corners
RB
three WR

this year at one you take your WR and then you get a back somewhere else as this is an all time great rb draft then in 2018 you start to work on the line

You don't need to fill all your needs to compete for a Superbowl. The Cowboys are contenders lacking an entire defense, and Seattle is a contender with one of the worst offensive lines in football.

The Eagles biggest need is a coach. If they had a real coach, they could contend just adding a couple WRs and a couple CBs and leaving the rest of the roster exactly as it is.

[ice grillin you]

Eagles are close and one half step away from Seattle and Dallas!

[AshishPatel81]

In the NFL if you build right you are never far away from being a playoff team. There are no Chicago Cubs or Golden State Warriors in the NFL. If you are 3-5 years away in the NFL, then you have a front office that doesn't know what they are doing. And that's entirely possible with Howie, although I hope Joe Douglas helps. If he doesn't, then they will be 3+ years away, but if they have a good solid offseason and address WR and CB legitimately, they can compete with any team in the NFC.

[Rome]

Their defense is disgusting.  They scored 22 points today.  Jim Johnson used to say that if the defense holds the other team under 17, most days you'll win and he was right about that.  When was the last time the defense won them a game - Atlanta?  Since then they're giving up 28-30 a game.  They're pathetic.  Yes, the offense is pretty bad too but the defense is mostly healthy and is getting torched week after week.  That's the biggest disappointment by far and it's not going to get better now that Howie has dumped a truckload of cash on guys that simply aren't performing.

[ice grillin you]

what's alarming about the defense is the supposed best parts of it that we shouldn't worry about might not be good

[AshishPatel81]

I think Jim Schwartz was overrated as a coach. For a guy who was touted as an elite coordinator, he sure can't keep a job. He's had individual seasons where his defense have been up at the top in sack numbers, but he's also had seasons where his defenses just weren't all that special. Jim Johnson he is not.

CB is a major issue talent-wise, but if you can't get better defensive efforts when you have Cox, Logan, Graham, Hicks, McLeod, and Jenkins then something is seriously wrong. I remember last season everyone called Kiko Alonso an overrated stiff, as they did with DeMarco Murray. Turns out they just had clueless coaches who had no idea how to use either of them. Funny what a change of scenery can do. I'm wondering about Schwartz. If they add a couple quality corners in the offseason and the defense still struggles next season, then it might be time to put this Schwartz experiment to bed sooner than later.

[smeags]

who were the people who called murray a stiff ? pretty sure everyone that ever watched an nfl game before in their lives, knew it a was a bad fit.

[QB Eagles]

Alonso playing decently (although he's accumulating injuries) is way more surprising than Murray's season.

[AshishPatel81]

Social media and the airwaves were littered with fans and media alike trashing Murray and Alonso. If I had a dime for every time I saw a media person tweet out "Murray's touches need to be reduced, Ryan Mathews is the best RB on this roster" I'd be a rich man.

And before you tell me they are idiots, I'll already agree with you. They are. But these are the opinions that are out there forming these narratives and perceptions.

Zach Ertz is the new favorite to pile on because he's not "Philly tough" but cut him tomorrow and he goes to a team like New Orleans and is putting up 900 yard seasons with 8 TDs and the fans will bitch and whine that the Eagles let him go. It's just how it is. Fans are always overly critical of their own players and analyze in a vacuum.

[smeags]

meh - I hear what you are saying, but ultimately, who cares about Alonzo. I mean really, his trade along with Maxwell moved the eagles to the #8 spot which made it possible to eventually move up to #2.

murray, I still think the vast majority of fans knew it was an issue of running style not fitting the scheme. the media is another story.

[AshishPatel81]

I really don't care about Alonso myself. That trade allowed them to get that pick like you said, which ended with them getting one of the most talented young QBs in the NFL.

I'm just trying to back up my point that the talent on this team isn't as bad as people think it is. Every year fans are overly critical of their own players. When you micro-analyze for 16 games a season, those flaws become more apparent than watching other teams us fans aren't used to watching under a microscope every single week. On the offensive side of the ball, the talent sucks, but this defense has plenty of talent sans CB, and any legitimate defensive coordinator should be able to do better with it than the Eagles currently are. And if you disagree, that's fine, but I'm saying if people think this defense sucks and want to blow the whole thing up, I think you'll find when a lot of these players go elsewhere they will find success, and then it would be realized it wasn't the talent after all, it was the coaching. Like with Alonso and Murray.