Including the wild card game againt Dallas, Brent Celek ended last season with 79 receptions for 1027 yards and 8 touchdowns. Celek lead the team in receptions, and was second in touchdowns, yards, and targets. It was, in every way, an exceptional season for the third year pro…
Young Receivers Show Bright Future for Eagles Offense
On Monday we looked at the changing nature of the Eagles’ passing game over the last six years, determining that — both because the backs are worse and the receivers are better — fewer passes are going to running backs.
But of the passes intended for wide receivers, where are they going? That is the focus of today’s post.
Maclin's Knee Injury Raises Questions About Wide Receivers
At the end of practice today, Jeremy Maclin suffered a left knee injury and had to be carted off the field into the locker room. At the moment, word out of Lehigh is that Maclin’s knee is only hyper-extended, not anything more serious like a ligament tear.
The Plight of Moise Fokou
Competition is good. But handing a young player a job based on his potential, lauding him constantly, and then yanking the job away before he’s had adequate time to learn or show his best is folly. Especially now when the team is throwing him into a completely different situation as a “joker” (the linebacker-defensive end hybrid position).
The Decline of the Running Back in the Eagles' Passing Game
My first post here takes us back to the four-year height of Brian Westbrook’s career, 2004-2007. During that span Westbrook was a prolific rusher, but he was perhaps even more valuable catching passes out of the backfield. Westbrook caught 301 passes over those four years. At an average of 75 catches per season, that put Brian on par with the best wide receivers. In fact, only 13 players, all wideouts, had more receptions than Westbrook over that span.
Big News: We're Moving to NBC Philadelphia
I started this blog with a simple goal in mind, to chronicle the franchise-defining offseason, before it had really begun in earnest. Back in January there was little doubt in my mind that the time had finally come for the Eagles to make a definitive choice about the future of the team: McNabb or Kolb.
But over time I grew to enjoy the blogging itself. The posts kept coming, long after a few readers implored me (some jokingly and some not so) to change the name. I tried to look at events and trends and past performance from a different angle, and I hope that whatever small insight may have been achieved over here was worth a few minutes of your Eagles-blog-surfing lifestyle.
This background is not for a goodbye, but for a rebirth. Today I joined the esteemed company of Drew Magary (Deadspin columnist and KSK founder), Vai Sikahema (Former Eagle and NBC 10 Sports Director), Howard Eskin (WIP afternoon radio host), John Clark (NBC 10 Sports Anchor), and others at a new Eagles blog on NBCPhiladelphia.com.
The new blog, Birds Nest, will soon be overflowing with new Eagles content. As for my own contribution, I will be bringing the same inclination toward statistical analysis and refreshing opinion over to NBC, perhaps with more frequent posts than I could accomplish here. You can see my new content starting today, with the first in a series of posts on the Eagles’ passing attack.
I have a number of people to thank, starting with the guys at Iggles Blog: Derek, Gabe, Sam, and now Tommy. They provided me not only with a fabulous model to look toward (multiple times a day), but also also advice, help, and camaraderie. Along with Jason at Bleeding Green Nation and Les Bowen at the Daily News’s Eagletarian, they also graciously furnished links from their popular sites to to this tiny corner of the net. I should also acknowledge John Ness at NBC who spotted this blog and offered me the opportunity to take it before a larger audience.
Thanks finally to you readers. As we get going, I hope many of you will check us out at Bird’s Nest and/or subscribe to our RSS feed. And while it may not be as intimate a location, I hope we can still engage in in discussion in the Birds Nest comments and, as always, by my Twitter and email.
Your humble blogger,
Brian Solomon
Friday Figures: Blitzing Tony Romo (or Not)
Just a quick stats post here for people to ruminate on over the weekend, before I hit you with some big news on Monday…
Today over at Iggles Blog, Derek has an insightful breakdown of the situational blitzing differences between the late Jim Johnson and rookie defensive coordinator Sean McDermott. His analysis led me to look back over the two sample game charts Football Outsiders released: the first halves of the two 2009 regular season Eagles-Cowboys games.
First of all, let me just throw up the numbers for all of last year’s blitzing on the right. Overall, McDermott seems to have brought a few more blitzers on third down than JJ, but other than that the defensive playcalling was fairly consistent from 2008.
But were the game plans for the Cowboys games very different? Absolutely. In fact, the two were completely opposite. Here they are.
On top you can see the differences in percentage from the season average for the first game. In this one the Eagles blitzed constantly, sending five, six, and seven guys after the quarterback way more than average. In fact, only on first down did McDermott blitz less than half the time.
Then a complete reversal for week seventeen. In every area where the defense had blitzed more than average in the first game, they did the opposite for the second meeting. Compared to 16 blitzes in the first half of week nine, come January the Eagles only blitzed four times! Perhaps the Eagles coaching staff thought that they had failed with the blitz in the first matchup, or they believed a coverage-based approach would surprise Dallas. Either way, the about-face is startling.
Of course, we know that this change didn’t work too well. Which leads us to the final charts of the evening (at right), which shows the effectiveness of the two game plans. I’m not sure that this can be extrapolated out for more than this particular case, but here the results suggest one thing.
Blitzing when the Cowboys didn’t expect it, i.e. on first and second down, was fairly successful. Outside of one long second down pass, the Eagles stifled Tony Romo with the blitz. But on third down, the roles were reversed. At least in these two halves, dropping players back into coverage was slightly more effective than blitzing.
Where's Donovan McNabb's Contract Extension?
When the Redskins traded for longtime Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, we assumed that a contract extension was just around the corner. Washington Owner Dan Snyder has never been shy about giving big money to veterans. Plus, ever since the trade the Redskins’ front office praised Donovan McNabb as the new face of the franchise.
The team has gone out and said that contract extension is coming:
“Donovan is so excited about this new opportunity — the team has embraced him, our fans clearly have embraced him. We’ll have plenty of time to get something done with him. We see him as part of our future. We would not have made the trade unless we see it that way, and he knows it.”
So what happened? Where’s the extension?
I highly doubt that McNabb is to blame here. He wanted an extension with the Eagles, and knows that Snyder’s past suggests that he will be than generous. There’s little benefit to Donovan in putting off discussions.
If he performs well the Redskins can designate him their franchise player and keep Donovan indefinitely. Furthermore, McNabb has to know that it is likely his numbers could suffer this year, playing behind a haphazard offensive line and with few playmakers. Or he could get hurt. A year from now Donovan could find himself wandering the NFL free agent market for a one-year starting gig contract.
Signing a new extension should thus be at the top of McNabb’s to do list. He has all the leverage from being anointed by the Redskins’ brass as the quarterback of the present and future. He’s coming off a great season which will be difficult to replicate in Washington. Plus, with this team Donovan gets to visit Philadelphia every year.
So if it’s in McNabb’s interest to sign a long-term deal, why hasn’t it been accomplished? Despite their rhetoric, the hesitation has to be on the Redskins.
The team’s rationale reflects all the same reasons McNabb wants a new deal: the Redskins have less leverage to negotiate right now. However, if Bruce Allen and Mike Shanahan can wait into the season, they can see if Donovan is the guy they want to hitch their wagons to over the next 3-5 years.
Washington paid a high price to get McNabb, but there’s no reason to double down quite yet. If McNabb can’t lift an otherwise mediocre team to a winning season, or if he gets hurt, the team might be better off finally gutting the team and rebuilding from scratch — something they resisted doing this offseason.
If everything works out, the team runs the risk of alienating McNabb, their fans, and having to pay Donovan more. But considering McNabb’s track record and public image, he is unlikely to bring his concerns to the media. The potential downside to not striking a quick deal is outweighed by the Redskins’ desire to make sure they don’t make a long-term mistake.