Eagles Blog

Jon Runyan might have been Andy Reid’s most vocal critic. Big Jon wanted to run the ball. He wanted to pound on defenders. Reid’s love of throwing the ball drove him nuts.

Current Eagles OL are loving the new offense and emphasis on running. Jason Kelce offered his thoughts.

“Pass blocking is not fun,” Eagles center Jason Kelce said Sunday. “You have to sit there and wait for a big, 300-plus pound man to come at you. Whereas in a running game, you’re the aggressor, and you get to go at them.”

“Pass blocking is like Muhammad Ali,” Kelce continued. “You’re kind of ducking and dodging and waiting for the defensive guy to tire himself out, whereas run blocking is the Joe Frazier. You’re kind of just trying to come at him with a haymaker and knock him out.”

Todd Herremans also likes the change.

“I think we’re running a good balance right now,” guard Todd Herremans said. “A lot of times in the last couple of years our pocket would collapse because we would get into a situation where we would have to throw the ball. We were basically walking up to the line saying, ‘Hey, we’re throwing right here, try to get past us.’ “

I think we all know how Eagles fans feel.

Riley Cooper’s horrible comments aren’t forgotten, but they have moved out of the limelight for now. That will change the first time he catches a TD in the regular season, but for now…Cooper is being quiet and just playing football.

He’s had a good camp and projects to being a starter this year. Pat Shurmur is impressed.

“I think he’s had a very good camp and he’s made a lot of plays out here,” offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur said. “He’s a big-body guy, catches the ball in the crowd. He does find a way to wiggle free, and I think he’s an outstanding blocker. So he’s doing what we ask.”

And remember how opposing players were going to target Cooper? That might happen down the road, but hasn’t so far.

Cooper said his teammates have been “so supportive” and that it’s like “old times again.” There also have not been any issues from opposing players.

We’ll see if the issues flare up in the future, but life is quiet for now. And I’m sure that’s just what Cooper wants.

Brent from Eagles Rewind shared his thoughts on the Eagles game vs the Panthers.

– Both QBs look really good.  It looks like everyone is jumping on the Vick train, but I’m sticking with Foles.  Given the performance of both QBs, this is turning into a fairly simple decision.  If you want the highest upside for this season, Vick’s your guy (though he likely doesn’t offer as big an advantage as most seem to believe.

On the other hand, I don’t understand how anyone can watch Nick Foles and not get at least a little excited about his potential in the NFL.  Last night, Foles finally put a stake in the heart of the “too slow, not mobile” argument.  I’m not even talking about the TD run.  Watch him move in the pocket and avoid the rush.  He consistently helps his O-Line by sliding away from pressure while keeping his eyes downfield.  Most importantly, each of his throws was about as accurate as they could possibly be.

– I’ve mentioned it a few times (including yesterday), but last season the Eagles offense started their drives, on average, nearly 7 yards behind where the opposing team did.  It doesn’t sound like much, but its a huge disadvantage.  A big reason for that was terrible Special Teams.

Perhaps the biggest preseason development is how improved the STs look.  I’ve talked about how improvement was assured (by virtue of how bad the team was), but we might have to actually raise those expectations.  Punt return/coverage, the biggest weakness from last year, looks really good.  That should lead to a lot more points scored, regardless of whether the offense itself improves.

If Foles is the backup, he might be rated as one of the top backups in the entire league. That’s good. You need 2 QBs these days, unless you have a freak like Manning or Brady.

And Brent is dead on the money about STs. So great to see them as key contributors so far. That can make a huge difference to a team that isn’t good enough to just overwhelm opponents. For instance, those hidden yards are can be the difference between a punt and a long FG attempt. And think about how often a game comes down to a difference of 1, 2 or 3 points.

Here is some info from Ron Rivera.

Ron Rivera said after Eagles game that the speed of Philly's offense didn't distract as much as the mesh point in play action.

— SI_DougFarrar (@SI_DougFarrar) August 16, 2013

Rivera: "You can’t allow that play-action to stymie you doing your assignment and we started watching the mesh point a little bit too much."

— SI_DougFarrar (@SI_DougFarrar) August 16, 2013

Derek from Iggles Blog already has up a great post that takes a look at some plays and how they work. Great X’s and O’s work here.

We’re going to learn a lot about football while watching Chip Kelly’s offense.

Some links for your reading pleasure.

Here is my game preview.

Sheil Kapadia has 10 things to watch.

Tim McManus gives you the 5 players with the most to lose.

Les Bowen offers some thoughts on the game and Training Camp in general.

Zach Berman and Jeff McLane share some thoughts on the game.

Jeff McLane tells us what he’ll be watching.

That should entertain you from now til the kickoff.

Brent over at Eagles Rewind is quickly becoming the Eagles stats guru. He put together a study of the 2012 Eagles compared to league averages over the last 5 years. There is some good news.

…we can see a number of areas where the Eagles were more than 2 standard deviations worse than the long-term average.  More importantly, those areas are either predominantly luck-based, or show no year-to-year persistence.  Specifically:

– Fumble Recovery Rate

– Fumbles Lost

– Net Field Position

– T/O Differential

Eagles fans can expect significant improvement in each of these areas (obviously they’re all interrelated to a degree).

2012 was a very odd year, with things being almost historically bad in some areas. The 2013 team will be better if they can just reverse some of those trends.

Brent has some good charts for those of you who like that type of thing.

Tim McManus interviewed Marcus Vick and wrote a very interesting piece on him.

Marcus Vick does not sound like you might expect him to.

His public image is in such bad shape, you’re almost anticipating this snarly voice to snap at you when you answer the phone; some one-dimensional character that fits with our understanding of the man, which has been cobbled together from newspaper clippings and Wikipedia entries and of course, Twitter outbursts.

What we found in our recent hour-long conversation with Marcus was something completely different. He was measured and he was thoughtful and he was reflective. He didn’t give any impression that he lacks a moral compass — only the ability to stay consistently true to it.

(Speaking of the Twitter antics: Marcus told us, “This year I’m going to keep my mouth closed because I don’t want to make headlines.” That was a day before he went off about Riley Cooper.)

Tim’s piece is good, but it is hard for me to come away feeling all that positive. Marcus says the right things, at times, but his actions don’t always back those words up. He’s making money based on Mike’s name and businesses. And yet Marcus will take to Twitter and say ridiculously dumb things. Marcus is 29, but seems at times to be more like a 19-year old.

I’m sure being Mike Vick’s little brother isn’t easy, but Marcus has had a ton of chances and blown almost all of them. To me, he’s about as unsympathetic a person as I could imagine. Read the piece. It is very good. And maybe you’ll like Marcus more than me.

Marcus is good for one thing. Someone last summer created the character of Marcus Foles on Twitter. He’s not real active, but has been entertaining at times.

Paul Domowitch wrote an excellent piece on Clay Harbor making the move to WR. If you include his college background, that sentence change to making the move back to WR. So far, things are going okay.

During yesterday’s practice, Harbor worked strictly with the wide receivers, took all of his snaps at wide receiver.

“I’m strictly with the wideouts right now,” he said. “I’m meeting with the wideouts. I’m practicing with the wideouts.”

Harbor shouldn’t have too much trouble learning the position. He’s a smart guy, and, as Kelly pointed out, all of the tight ends already know how to play inside. So it’s just a matter of learning the outside spots.

“It’s just a matter of learning a few more of the route concepts,” he said. “You have to know where you are everywhere on the field. As a tight end, there are a [limited] number of routes where we know we can be outside on. But when you’re outside [as a wide receiver], you have to know all of them.

“I was good on those routes. I just had to go back and study a little more. Yesterday was really my first night getting into the playbook and being able to look at that, because it was the first night I knew that I was a receiver.

“I came out here today and had a much better day than I did yesterday. You’ve got to be a lot more technical on your routes [outside] than when you’re working inside.”

Harbor could offer depth at TE and WR. He’s also a willing STs player. Kelly loves versatile players and this could be the thing that secures Harbor a roster spot.

Peter King wrote about Andy Reid in the newest MMQB. King does a good job of talking about how things ended with the Eagles and how Reid was ready for change. He’s happy now in KC and left Philly on good terms. How often can a fired coach still love his old team?

One interesting nugget is that Reid confirmed a report (from a NYT article) that he tried to trade for QB Alex Smith while Reid was in Philly. This is news to me. Never heard that. I’m sure if Reid went after Smith, it was to be a backup. Smith was really struggling for a while and the Eagles always had big name starters.

Greg Gabriel, who was a personnel assistant with the Eagles last year and has been a successful scout for years, is now doing some writing for the National Football Post. Today he took a look at the Eagles from the NE game.

Here is part of his write-up on Matt Barkley.

Yes, he had some rookie jitters and a few poor throws but his overall play was very good. His accuracy was for the most part good as was his ball placement. He had some balls dropped and in some cases these dropped balls ended drives. Still, he showed a good feel for the game, made the right reads and gets the ball out of his hand very quickly. He does an excellent job going through a progression. What I didn’t like was he didn’t throw a consistent tight ball. That is going to have to improve. I have thought for a while that Barkley will be the Eagles starting quarterback by midseason if not before. While he doesn’t have the athleticism of Michael Vick I think he sees the field better and makes better decisions. Don’t be surprised to see Barkley as the Eagles quarterback for years to come.

Gabriel has good things to say about several rookies. I was disappointed that he didn’t share his thoughts on Damion Square.