Looking at the Offseason's First Month

As has been widely noted, the Eagles still have a ton of cap room (in excess of 20 million dollars). Many think this could be a prelude to a trade for Braylon Edwards and Anquan Boldin, especially given the Eagles have 12 draft picks this year. I’d love to see it and wouldn’t rule either out entirely, but probably both will stay put, and if Edwards moves, right now it’s looking like the G-men may be the main candidate for his services. Don’t assume the cap room means they’ll go overpay for someone. They have a lot of their core young players who will be free agents in the next few years. Expect them to try to get extension deals done with Bradley, Celek, and Mikell and possibly some of the following: Jason Avant, Max Jean-Gilles, Akeem Jordan, Chris Gocong, Broderick Bunkley, Nick Cole (again depending on the state of the CBA, see below), not to mention the possibility they still might want to extend McNabb.

After one month of the offseason, let’s take a look back at where the Eagles are.

Right out the gate, the Eagles signed Stacy Andrews providing the Eagles with a BIG BIG run-blocker to go alongside his brother Shawn (and help keep baby bro on an even keel hopefully). The questions with Stacy are whether he’s a quick enough pass blocker to play right tackle at a high level (he’s almost certainly not quick enough to play the left side) and whether his acl has sufficiently healed by labor day. If we can trust Bengals Head Coach Marvin Lewis (and I don’t think we have any reason not to), Stacy should be ready to go by training camp, maybe sooner. Lewis, as reported by the Inquirer, was actually pretty miffed to have lost his right tackle, who used the Bengals facilities and training staff to rehab until his contract in Cinci ended in February. Despite all these question marks, this man is a load, and, as a scholarship shotputter who began balling in college, he’s still learning the game—he’s got one heck of an upside. So the right side seems to be locked down probably with one of the Andrews brothers playing RT. At right guard the options are plentiful with Shawn Andrews, Stacy (if Shawn moves outside on the right), Nick Cole, and Max Jean-Gilles all viable starters.

The bigger question mark is on the left side, where the Eagles have let Tra Thomas walk. From everything I’m hearing, I’m really starting to think that your starting left tackle is already on this roster. I’m not sure whether it will be Herremans or Andrews, but I think it will be one of them. Expect Jean-Gilles and Cole to compete for the vacated guard spot. Also, there is an outside chance that the Eagles bring back Runyan and let Stacy play guard if Runyan’s microfracturized knee heels right, quick enough, an unlikely prospect. The more I look at it, the less I’m thinking the Eagles will draft an OT at 21—if Oher falls, his raw talent might be too much to pass up, but I don’t think he will. Look for the Eagles to also consider upgrading their interior line. Jamaal Jackson was definitely disappointing, though serviceable, the past two seasons after showing so much promise during the Garcia run in 2006. Look for Cole, and possibly 2008 draft pick Mike McGlynn to press Jackson for playing time. Also, forget the baloney about Jason Peters—that’s not going to happen. All the stories about him in the Inky are just about people triying to create stories during these slow moments in the NFL offseason. Peters will be too expensive and cost too much in trade value, and might not be all that much better, in Andy’s mind, then the guys they already have.

After the OL the next biggest issue for this team is in the backfield. Westbrook needs a complementary player. Leonard Weaver will help to fill that role. The guy is a load, with a forearm shiver that would make Hulk Hogan jealous. Check out some of his stiffarms on youtube. I have a feeling 3rd and 1 won’t be nearly as much of a problem this year. Weaver is a good, if not pro-bowl caliber, lead-blocker and a definite improvement over everyone we’ve had since pre-injury John Ritichie. He also knows the West Coast offense and is a threat to carry the ball (over 4 yards career average) as well as to catch the ball out of the backfield. More below on making sense about why the Eagles only did a one-year deal. Now the big concern remaining is a backup tailback, and I’d like it to be one who can complement Westbrook now, but also take over for him in a couple years, or if he gets hurt. Look for the Eagles to use a first-rounder or second-rounder (and I could definitely see them packaging some later picks to move up higher in the second round) on a running back like Knowshon Moreno (UGA), Donald Brown (UConn), or LeSean McCoy (Pitt). I suspect they won’t be interested in Ohio State’s Beanie Wells, who will likely be gone anyway by 21, because of his inexperience receiving. Receiving stats in college are actually one of the better ways to predict NFL success for running backs, and this is especially important if we’re drafting the future number one back in our west coast offense.

TE is another area of real interest that I think, at this point, will also be addressed in the draft, about which more to come in a future post. I bring this up mainly as a segue into our Don’t let the door hit you on the way out department. New Ravens TE L.J. Smith is already complaining that the Eagles didn’t use him well enough. It’s hard to even respond to the jaw-dropping suggestion that Andy Reid was responsible for Little John’s sucktastic season last year, in which he missed multiple key blocks on crucial short yardage situations, not to mention disappearing for most of the season in the passing game and still running with the ball like it’s a dirty diaper that should be held as far as possible from his body.
Eagellectual reader Mike the Lawyer has suggested this letter that Andy Reid might have sent to Smith in response:
Dear Little John,
I have been made aware of your comments about how I could havehandled thing differently last season. I too think you could havehandled things differently. Primarily, you could have remembered that NFL tight ends are supposed to block. The object behind blocking, you see, is to keep the defensive player in front of you. You are not supposed to let people you are blocking push you out of the way, and you are definitely not supposed to do this in the Red Zone, which seemed to be your favorite place for daydreaming. Also, although of somewhat less importance, you should put your arms and hands around the ball when it hits you in the chest. Do not wait until the ball hits the ground before trying to catch it. In the future please talk to me directly (you can always call me at the NovaCare Center cafeteria). I once had such hope for you—Remember I drafted you ahead of Jason Witten. You broke my heart Fredo.
Best,Big Red

Alright, joking aside, let’s look at the defense. Dawk had a great career here, and will probably go down as the best safety between Ronnie Lott and Ed Reed, but he has slowed down considerably. In what seems, if you read the Eagles message boards, to be the worst tragedy to befall Philadelphia since the Legionnaire’s disease outbreak, or at least since the Joe Carter game-winner in 1993, Brian Dawkins has left us. I say it’s time for us to move on. That’s football. I like Quintin Demps a lot and I think the Eagles do too. Quintin Mikell is an absolute stud, and recent signee Sean Jones has shown flashes of excellence, giving the Eagles a real nice three-man mix that I think should be very productive. I like the addition of Rashad Baker for depth, especially since he can replace Greg Lewis as the gunner (first man down the field whose job is to dictate the direction of the returner) on punt coverage.

The one year contracts for Baker, Jones, and Weaver raises an interesting question about what the Eagles have planned. It is important to understand these deals in the context of the current collective bargaining agreement. The best stuff on this has appeared on Mike Florio’s Profootballtalk,com, but basically the CBA is set to go to an uncapped year in 2010, the last year of the current deal. The NFLPA has insisted that once they go uncapped they’ll never go back. So if there is no deal done soon, the likely result is an uncapped year in 2010 followed by an owner’s lockout in 2011, and then who knows how they work that out. I think that there’s a good chance they’ll do a new deal, but no one knows what that will look like, so I think the Eagles may be assuming, probably correctly, that whatever deal gets done, they’ll have a better idea how to exploit that CBA sooner than the players’ agents will, so it’s better not to negotiate long-term deals when they might be able to get a better deal the following year. If the CBA does not get reworked, there are some other important details about 2010, in addition to there being no salary cap, there is also no salary floor, but more importantly, any players with less than six years of service, including every 2010 Eagles free agent except Klecko, including Weaver and Jones, would become restricted free agents, tenderable for a one year deal at a percentage increase of their 2009 salary, and giving the Eagles a right to match or receive draft pick compensation and draft pick compensation should they sign with another team. Additionally, there is the issue that Jones thinks he is a pro-bowler and the Eagles may really just be renting him as insurance against any disappointments by Demps, whereas with Weaver, he wants to be paid less like a fullback and more like a tailback. It would not be a huge surprise to see the Eagles draft a FB in the mid-roudns. If they get one that can make the roster over Eckel, he’ll have a chance to replace Weaver in a year, depending on Weaver’s 2010 salary demands, and of course, on who know what will happen with the CBA.

The other main issue with the defensive personnel is the pass rush. For now, it’s looking like the organization is confident that Abiamiri can give them more than he did last year and that maybe last year’s 3rd rounder Bryan Smith and/or Chris Clemons can contribute more. We shall see.

Perhaps the biggest concern with the defense is who’ll be calling the plays. Eagellectual reader, and physician, Dr. Cocoa has raised some real concerns about the prognosis for a diagnosis like Johnson’s, although the organization has been surprisingly positive about him, and has said that he has been at work regularly, so we’ll have to see. Obviously every Eagles fan hopes Johnson can have a speedy and complete recovery. If Johnson has to miss any time, I do think the Eagles feel very confident that Secondary Coach Sean McDermott can fill in for him.