Won't Be Outsiders Forever

Great Sports Illustrated profile by Albert Chen of some of the brightest stats minds (and good guys) in the NFL. Check it out:

In recent years NFL teams started to get smarter. M.B.A. graduates from elite universities began infiltrating football front offices as they had baseball's in the mid-2000s, but the brain power was devoted to salary-cap management and personnel decisions. There was one area in which teams remained stuck in flat-earth thinking: game strategy.Burke believed this would change—that in an information age in which advanced stats had the power to predict a presidential election to the decimal point, new math would be impossible for the Football Men to ignore. He believed the revolution would reach the field, that the game was "reaching a tipping point where one coach would buy into the analytics approach. And if that coach were successful, there would be an avalanche."

What Winning Team?

This whole Mike Patterson saga is a travesty. From Les Bowen:

"Winning teams don't do this to their classiest players," [Patterson's agent Peter] Schaffer said Wednesday... 

Schaffer said general manager Howie Roseman's reasoning was, "Well, what did we get out of him this year?" Schaffer said he asked Roseman what he got out of quarterback Michael Vick, scheduled to make $12.5 million this year, or recently released defensive end Jason Babin, who carried a $5 million base salary number.

Asked to respond, the Eagles issued the following statement: "Our number one priority is to get Mike Patterson well enough to get back on the football field. He has worked hard this year to get back and he has our full support as an organization."

Nick Foles' Pocket Presence

Jimmy Kempski had a great post earlier this week about Nick Foles' ability to move around the pocket and keep his eyes downfield, even though he's not exactly the fastest guy on the field. Great stills from the Bucs game really prove his point, and it's obviously one of Foles' biggest strengths. However, and I'm no quarterback technique expert, it does seem that he often ends up throwing off his back foot in a very Eli Manning-esque way. That's probably something he needs to fix if he wants to become a more consistent player.

Nick Foles Is Not Your Savior

On Monday, I showed you how Nick Foles' stats through 5 games compare to his rookie peers. There were some positive notes there, especially when you look over the last two games. If he can keep up that pace of NFL-caliber QB play over the final three weeks, then we can talk seriously about 2013. But I would caution everyone against thinking that the Eagles have solved their QB problem already.

In all likelihood, Foles is not the answer in 2013, let alone for the next decade. Could he be? Yes. But he needs to prove that he can be the guy, not have fans or front office personnel will him into the role. Our default evaluation stance should be skepticism. Here's why:

1. Foles may not be able to keep up his recent run of success. To my mind, even considering Foles the guy for 2013 is entirely contingent on him finishing the year strong. Some people are treating that as given, but it's not. Over the last two games, his best performances, Foles faced the 24th and 23rd-ranked pass defenses, according to Football Outsiders. He should look good against those teams. Furthermore, even in success Foles has been extremely lucky. Defenders have dropped multiple easy interceptions -- any one of which would have cost the Eagles the game on Sunday. 

2. There is no guarantee Foles will improve over time. Remember in 2010, when Michael Vick blew everyone away and was given a contract extension? His renaissance didn't last long. While Foles may improve, make better decisions, work on accuracy and footwork and reading defenses -- opponents will improve as well. Teams figured out Vick, and with a rookie like Foles, they are only now starting to have the film to evaluate him. Whether that happens at the end of this season or next, they are going to catch up.

3. Immediate results mean little when you're thinking long term. Remember Bobby Hoying? Remember AJ Feeley? More recently, on other teams, think about John Skelton, Mark Sanchez, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Matt Cassel. The list goes on and on. Just because a player (especially a rookie) holds their own initially doesn't mean they can be the franchise QB permanently. Whether it's regression to the mean or defenses realizing they can blitz the heck out of you, players who are anointed early often fail in the long term.

4. Remember Foles' pedigree. High draft picks are never guaranteed successes, but they have a much lower bust rate. Six quarterbacks were taken before Foles went with the 88th pick. Most teams passed him over three times. Historically, quarterbacks drafted near Foles have less than a 10 percent chance of making a single Pro Bowl. A couple of competent performances don't change those overall odds of success.

5. What is Foles' upside? On a related note, you have to consider his ceiling. Few people seriously thought that Foles, a mid-round pick, had NFL-starter potential. He was compared, pre-draft, to Skelton and Chad Henne. Jon Gruden compared him to Brad Johnson based on preseason performance. And there are hints of that limited upside in the film and the stats. Not super-accurate, not a great long ball, not a dangerous scrambler. Do you want to hitch your ride to a guy who may not ever be an "elite" quarterback?

6. The Andy Reid factor. Reid has always gotten the most out of limited and young quarterbacks, Feeley being a great example. Those carriages typically turn back into pumpkins on the way out of town. And with Reid gone next year, will the next coach be able to make the most of out a guy like Foles? Running the ball more would help, but it's no guarantee.

7. Seize the moment. This isn't specifically about Foles, but more about the Eagles' situation. Right now they are lined up for the fourth overall pick in the next draft. It's not often (hopefully) that you end up in a spot like that. Unfortunately, the QB selection looks barren, but if the team remains that high, they potentially will have the chance to get the top option like Geno Smith. You don't turn your back on that chance just because of a guy like Foles.

Photo from Getty.

Putting Nick Foles' Play in Context

Last week, Greg Cosell of NFL Films told Tim McManus that film study showed how Nick Foles was making progress week by week:

“I think there has been a little bit of progression,” said Cosell. “Early on, like a lot of young quarterbacks, he was a primary read guy. He was making predetermined throws, what I like to call, ‘I am going to throw that ball out of the huddle’ where the defense almost becomes irrelevant. I thought this week [against Dallas] Foles had much better pocket command and was much more decisive with his reads and throws and I think the game plan helped.”

With Foles' leading a come-from-behind victory Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, that trend seems to be continuing. While I may have been annoyed that the Eagles won the game, squandering a chance to get a better draft pick, Foles' play has been a bright spot. He hasn't looked perfect -- far from it. But he's looked like a quarterback that belongs in the NFL, an improvement from his first game or two. On Sunday he drove the Eagles down for a touchdown to win the game on the final play, a play he called. (More important: he proved that even as one of the slowest football players of all time, by my estimate, he can scramble for a TD.) That's a major boost.

Still, let's step back and put his season so far in context. Here's how he's doing against his peers:

Foles' first handful of games have been a mixed bag compared to his fellow rookies. He has completed about the same percentage of passes, but at a yard lower rate. He has thrown fewer interceptions, but also has fewer touchdown passes. Steady but not explosive jives with what we can see on the field. He hasn't looked like Luck or RGIII.

I did isolate just the performance over the last two weeks, though, to capture Foles' improvement. It's obviously a small sample size, but that line looks much more promising. His touchdown percentage is up, as is his yards per attempt -- without sacrificing completion percentage. The goose egg in the interception column is misleading; defenders have dropped at least two easy picks. Still, there's a clear uptick in performance that puts him in line with or slightly better than other rookies.

If Foles can keep this up for the remainder of the season, it will be a strong case for giving him a shot at the full job in 2013.

Photo from Getty.

Head Coach Search Diary: Bill O'Brien

Who will replace Andy Reid in 2013? With this season spiraling out of control, that's one of the few relevant questions left to ponder. As such, I hope you'll indulge me in an ongoing series discussing potential top candidates for the Eagles head coaching job.

Who Is Bill O'Brien?

Bill O'Brien, 43, just finished his first year as head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions. Growing up in Boston, his football lineage stretches back two generations. O'Brien's father played at Brown University, and his grandfather played for a professional team way back in the 1920s that used Fenway Park as home field. O'Brien and his two older brothers followed their father's footsteps to Brown, but while the others went on to law school and politics, Bill jumped straight from playing to coaching.

After graduating with a dual degree in political science and organizational behavior management, O'Brien bounced around college football. He was the tight ends coach at Brown in 1993, then became the team's inside linebackers coach the following year. In 1995 he joined George O'Leary's staff at Georgia Tech as a graduate assistant, then as the running backs coach from 1998 to 2000. He was promoted to offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, then assistant head coach in 2002, after which O'Brien moved on to Maryland as running backs coach for two years, then two more as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Duke. 

The biggest move came in 2007, when Bill Belichick offered O'Brien a job as a lowly offensive assistant. Long time friend and scout (and former Eagles executive) Jason Licht set them up, but he was surprised that O'Brien would rather be a film lackey with the Patriots than a coordinator in college. “Most people wouldn’t have taken that jump because it’s such a risk and a leap of faith,” said Licht to The New York Times. “But what surprised me the most is that it was such a quick decision for him. He had so much confidence that this was the best way for him to rise within the profession.”

O'Brien, often working from 3am to 11pm, became close friends with Josh McDaniels, and after moving from wide receivers coach to quarterbacks coach he replaced McDaniels as offensive coordinator in 2011. As the Patriots cruised to a 13-3 record and Super Bowl appearance, O'Brien directed an offense averaged more than 32 points per game. Wes Welker had 122 receptions for 1,569 yards, and two tight ends (Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez) combined for 169 receptions for 2,237 yards and 24 TDs. It was an eye-opening performance, even if O'Brien did benefit from Tom Brady, and it catapulted the young coach to the top of some coaching search lists.

The Jaguars got permission to interview O'Brien during the Patriots' playoff bye week, but reports conflict as to how close he was to that job. Jason La Canfora reported that he was a "top candidate" in Jacksonville, but that he pulled out of the process to take the Penn State job instead, replacing the legendary but embattled Joe Paterno. It's unclear why he took that job instead of waiting for a NFL position to open up. His agent, Joe Linta, told the Boston Herald at the time that "Everybody’s dream, like his, is to be an NFL coach." But just days later he signed with Penn State. O'Brien also apparently disregarded warnings of harsh NCAA sanctions. He told Rick Reilly: "I didn't know the NCAA was going to come in here and do what they did."

In any case, O'Brien has exceeded all expectations in his first season in Happy Valley. Despite losing key players to transfer and confronting huge off the field concerns, Penn State went 8-4 and he was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year (in the same season Urban Meyer went 12-0 at Ohio State). The way O'Brien has turned around the program, against all odds, has made him a much desired NFL head coaching candidate again.

Why Hire Bill O'Brien?

An O'Brien hire comes with many advantages. First of all, he has proven he can come into an organization and turn things around. There haven't been many worse hands dealt to a new head coach than what he's seen at Penn State in the last 12 months, and he's handled it perfectly. 

You're also getting a college coach who has experience running an NFL system. While Chip Kelly's offense will be a risky transition, we know O'Brien's can work with professional players. Moreover, he proved that he doesn't need Brady to make it work. Importing the Patriots offense to Penn State, he turned former walk-on Matt McGloin, a limited passer who makes poor decisions, into a legitimate threat. Before O'Brien, McGloin completed only 54% of his passes with 22 TDs and 14 INTs in two seasons. In 2012, he completed 60% for 24 TDs and only 5 INTs.

Why Not Hire Bill O'Brien?

There are honestly very few reasons not to hire O'Brien. He has the experience, the success, and the leadership to succeed in the NFL. There is the much-cited notion of his contract, which requires a buyout of $9.2 million. But these days top NFL head coaches are paid an annual salary of $5-8 million per year. Most owners won't balk at negotiating for him at that price.

The real questions start with whether he wants out of Penn State after a year, anyway. I'm not sold on the idea that O'Brien will want to leave. He already chose the Penn State job over the NFL once, and despite his protestations, he must have known what he was getting into. Certainly O'Brien can use NFL offers as leverage to get a raise if he so desires. More to the point, (and maybe this is my Penn State fandom coloring my opinion) if he does leave immediately, does that speak poorly about his oft-praised character? Instead of bravely accepting the long term fight to restore Penn State's winning tradition in the face of NCAA sanctions, O'Brien will just be the guy who teased fans with being the savior only to jump to greener pastures right away. Not hero to villain, perhaps, but certainly hero to opportunist.

Final Thoughts

When you read about O'Brien's personal journey, especially about having to deal with his son's scary and dangerous seizure condition, it's hard to dislike the guy. Even more so when you watch how he has turned around a moribund and scandal-ridden Nittany Lions squad. I would love to have him as the next Eagles head coach... if only he didn't have to leave Penn State to get there.

Photo from Getty.

On Jim Washburn and Selective Memories

It's funny how as soon as a guy like Jim Washburn is fired, everyone hurries to give him the hardest kick out the door. Clearly there were major reasons to fire Washburn, including his apparent unwillingness to play some youngsters and especially his insubordinate treatment of "Juanita" Castillo.

But there's a big difference between calling the firing justified and retroactively arguing that Washburn was a horrible coach from the start. A great example of this contradiction occurs in Reuben Frank's column this week about Washburn, in which he says "Hiring disruptive Washburn mistake from Day 1." On one hand, Roob makes some solid points:

The whole thing was built the wrong way. You can’t hire a defensive line coach and then a coordinator. It takes the traditional power structure of a coaching staff and makes a mockery of it. How could Castillo be expected to lead that defensive meeting room when one of his own coaches was conspiring against him?

Absolutely true. Giving Washburn his own fiefdom within the defense was dangerous, and it undermined Castillo's authority. That said, a firmer hand from Reid could have solved such issues. He never should have tolerated dissent from an assistant coach, even if that coach had reasons to look down on the coordinator. Would Reid of a decade ago let this thing fester? I doubt it very much.

But Roob quickly takes us onto more specious ground:

The current Eagles assistant coach said both Washburn and Mudd looked down on the other position coaches, held themselves in higher regard than the others and rarely interacted with their colleagues.

The evidence for this assertion, apparently, is that Mudd and Washburn always hung out together, instead of with the group. Doesn't this just seem like the logical extension of their friendship? We know that Mudd only came back to coach the Eagles because of the opportunity to work with his friend. And neither coach had any ties to Philadelphia, to Reid, or any of the other assistants. But, most importantly, this charge was never leveled while they were doing a good job.

Speaking of which, here's where Roob goes off the rails:

Washburn was actually a very good coach when it came to teaching young guys technique and getting them to play hard.

But his system was flawed. The Wide 9 doesn’t work.

Even last year, when the Eagles registered a league-best 50 sacks, the stats were hollow as the losses piled up week after week. And this year, we’ve seen the scheme continually put the Eagles’ safeties in difficult or impossible situations while the sack numbers dwindled.

Can you spot the glaring contradiction? The wide nine, Roob asserts, "doesn't work." Period, end of story. Other than the "league-best 50 sacks" and the fact that Washburn was "a very good coach" at teaching and motivating his players. If that's what a poor, ineffective coach looks like, I'd like to see a great one.

Once we get away from the bizarrely black-and-white statements, Roob tries to make a valid point about the wide nine putting the linebackers and safeties in too tough of a spot. That's true, on its face. Kurt Coleman certainly struggles combining run assignments with pass coverage duties. On the other hand, it's Kurt Coleman. He would probably struggle with those things anyway.

You can't blame Washburn for the personnel deficiencies of the back seven. Safety was a problem last year, and the Eagles did nothing to fix that spot. The run defense improved dramatically this season after the team sunk some NFL-quality resources into the linebacker corps. Plus, if anyone cared to take notice, the defense is actually ranked 8th against the run, according to Football Outsiders.

Pass defense has been the biggest liability, but I don't think Washburn deserves most of the blame there either. Over the last few weeks, we've seen so many receivers run free through the Eagles secondary. The coverage breakdowns have been astounding, and on no level can you pin that on the wide nine. There's still an issue of the decline in pass rush production. But are we really confident that people have "figured out the wide nine"? Everyone knew what it was last year, when the line racked up sacks galore. They knew what it was for years when Washburn was coaching in Tennessee.

Sure, being predictable is a negative, and Washburn has to take responsibility for his unit's decline. But are you confident pinning the blame on him when many of the players the team counted on to replicate their performance are aging vets? I'm not.

Did Washburn deserve to be fired? Yes. (That's answer you'll get for most Eagles coaches right now.) But it's absurd for Roob or anyone else to make such a simplistic argument after the fact, forgetting that not too long ago he was calling Washburn a "highly regarded veteran" and "legendary" coach.

Photo from Getty.

Won't You Ever Shut Up?

Jeff McLane, courtesy of the man in Cleveland:

Roseman had admired Washburn's success with the Titans and was initially sold on the idea by Washburn's agent, Tony Agnone, who had a strong working relationship with the GM, according to one source.

The proposal was initially met with skepticism. Reid, though, became convinced. The Eagles coach had become less familiar with assistants around the league and which ones were available and had come to rely on others for suggestions, one source said.

Reid, as he would with any decision after he consulted those around him, could either reject Roseman's proposal or adopt it. He chose the latter - an indication of how much Roseman's influence within the organization had grown after just one year as GM.

Hey, Joe Banner. Go away. I like inside information even more than the next guy, but why are you coming out of the woodwork to attack your former protege with something as weak as "Howie suggested that Jim Washburn might be a credible coaching hire"? As to McLane, why don't you go report something instead of serving as Banner's mouthpiece?

These guys are worse than the product on the field.