Eagles Blog

Cecil Lammey, who writes for ESPN Denver and Footballguys.com, has been posting some really good Matt Barkley stats on Twitter.  Here goes:

since start of 2011 season Matt Barkley threw 24TDs of 20 or more yards, with only 2INTs on throws of such distance

and

when Matt Barkley did miss on deep passes he was 4X more likely to overthrow his target than underthrow him 40.8% completion 20+ yds

and

by comparison, Andrew Luck  in L2Y of college had 43.1% comp on passes 20+ yds (13TD, 5INT), RG3  38.2% comp (33TD, 5INT)

and

Matt Barkley completed over 65% of his passes w/23TDs 3INTs when outside the pocket in his career, incl 16TDs on designed roll outs

and

For his career, Matt Barkley threw 44TDs and 6INTs when opponents blitzed, quick decisions key in Chip Kelly system

Those are some interesting numbers. Barkley really is an odd 4th round QB.  It is going to be interesting to see how he does/doesn’t pan out in the NFL.

h/t to https://twitter.com/shlynch

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Per Aaron Wilson:

“Source: Defensive end Trevor Scott visits Eagles”

Scott is a pass rusher, with 16.5 career sacks. He has the size the Eagles like at 6-5, 250. Scott would likely come to Philly to be a backup SAM to Connor Barwin. The Eagles didn’t add a LB in the draft last weekend so the move would make sense.

Scott had 3 sacks and a FF last year for the Patriots. Prior to that, he had spent his whole career in Oakland.

Former SF offensive lineman Jesse Sapolu just put an interesting note on Twitter/Facebook that he’s working with OL Nic Purcell to get him ready for a tryout with the Eagles. I’d never heard of Purcell so I did a bit of digging.  Turns out he is a really interesting player.

Purcell is 26-years old and from New Zealand. He tried to go to Oregon after playing junior college football, but was denied by the NCAA for a highly questionable reason. Here is the full story on things.

Purcell lists at 6-6, 300 and is reportedly a good athlete. He played LT in JC. Purcell is a feisty run blocker who likes to put guys on the ground. It is impossible to get a good reading on his pass protection skills due to the level of competition. It does appear he needs to get stronger, but that’s something that can be easily fixed.

I hate that the NCAA kept him from playing in college. It will be interesting to see if he has any type of actual NFL potential. Good luck to Nic.

PE.com has an interesting story. Jeremiah Trotter just finished making his first movie. Sadly, it isn’t the story of him saving mankind by knocking the crap out of Troy Aikman. The movie is called North Star.  Here’s a description:

“Based on a true story from the mid-1800s, the movie tells the adventures of two slaves, Big Ben and Moses Hopkins (played by Thomas C. Bartley, Jr.) who escape from a Virginia plantation with the instructions to follow the North Star. During their journey to hopefully reach freedom, the courageous men combat against hunger, the weather and the threat of being captured. They would eventually reach Buckingham, Pa., where they are assisted by townspeople associated with the Underground Railroad, and “Big Ben” would become aligned with a local abolitionist faction.”

I want to see Trot in a movie with Matthew McConaughey. That would be the ultimate buddy comedy.

Chip Kelly is a New Hampshire grad and he coached there as well. He’s now offering a shot to a couple of players from his alma mater. A pair of UNH players will tryout for the Eagles in the upcoming mini-camp.

Dontra Peters played CB for UNH as a Senior, after spending his first 3 years on offense. He has good size at 6-0, 201. Peters had 4 INTs this year and has plenty of KOR experience.

ILB Matt Evans (6-0, 227) was a tackling machine for UNH. He finished his career with 460 tackles. Evans won the Buck Buchanan Award in 2011 as the nation’s top I-AA defensive player. He had 3 INTs, 3 FFs, 92 solo tackles, and 7.5 TFLs. He also ran 2 of the INTs back for TDs.

The players do not count against the 90-man roster limit. Both are major longshots.

Russell Shepard signed with the Eagles as a UDFA. That didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. He didn’t have a great career at LSU and wasn’t likely to be drafted, but was worth bringing to camp to see if he could make it in the NFL.

Shepard opened a small can of worms with some comments he made in an interview.

“I actually took myself off the draft board during the draft,” Shepard told Moscona. “Teams started calling me probably in the middle of the 6^th round asking me ‘is it true that you’ve signed with a team already,’ and I actually got it out of the way before the draft was over.”

There are a couple of problems with this. First, players can’t “take themselves off the draft board”. Any team that has a pick can take any un-picked player they want. Players don’t have the right to say no. Players can refuse to sign or report to the new team, but the team then controls the player’s rights for the next year.

Second, players can’t sign with teams as UDFAs during the draft.

So what happened? Every year teams start calling prospects in the 6th and 7th rounds to talk to them about signing as UDFAs. I’m not sure of the specific rules as to how much negotiating is allowed. Teams know what to say and how aggressive they can be.

Chip Kelly got on the phone with Shepard to discuss the situation with him. As PFT said:

The host asked for clarification, and Shepard gave it.

“I signed with them before the draft was over,” Shepard said, explaining that after he fell through round five he decided to focus on the Eagles.  Shepard believes he’ll play receiver, running back, and Wildcat quarterback in Philly’s offense, and that he’ll return kicks and punts and play gunner on the punt team.

Shepard also said that Eagles coach Chip Kelly personally called Shepard at the beginning of the sixth round to explain that the Eagles couldn’t draft him because the team had lost some picks via the trade up to get quarterback Matt Barkley at the top of round four.

There is no way the Eagles got Shepard to sign a contract during the draft. That would just be ludicrous. Shepard has never gone through a process like this before. I don’t think he understands the power of the phrase “I signed with them”. I think he made a loose oral commitment, but that’s it.

As far as Shepard telling this to other NFL teams, they were calling him for the same reason…to talk about a UDFA deal. They may have mentioned drafting him, but again…this is something teams do every year. They tell kids “Look, we want to draft you, but if we can’t do that, we’d love to sign you as a UDFA.”  All the kid normally hears is that a team wants to draft him.

Any team that wanted Russell Shepard could have taken  him. Simple as that.

Of course, Florio always goes for the inflammatory angle.

If this is all true, Kelly and the Eagles could be losing some more draft picks.

Yeah, if the Eagles did sign Shepard, that would be a punishable offense. Getting the kid to agree to sign with you as a UDFA after the draft is a whole other story. That is completely common and wouldn’t be a big deal at all.

I cannot believe that a smart GM like Howie Roseman would fax/email a contract to a kid to get signed during the draft. Chip Kelly did talk to him on the phone, but Chip knows nothing about contracts. He didn’t send the kid anything. Chip’s job was simply to recruit Shepard to the Eagles. And it sounds like he did a heckuva job.

We’ll see what happens, but it sure doesn’t sound like the Eagles did anything wrong. If there is anything to be learned from this, I would say it is that Russell Shepard doesn’t have a bright future as a contract attorney.

UPDATE

From Russell himself

It was just a agreement calm down people didn’t become official till the next day actually .. Lol calm down

— Russell Shepard Jr.. (@LSUShep10) May 1, 2013

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ProFootballTalk reviews the Eagles draft. This wasn’t done by Mike Florio and it isn’t an edgy piece. Just straight-forward football analysis.

Here is one bit:

“Long-term prospects: This was a good foundation draft class for the Eagles, one very clearly marked by Kelly’s vision for his new team. Johnson has considerable upside and could be a long-time starter if he continues to develop. Now, let’s see who emerges at quarterback in Kelly’s system. Does Michael Vick recapture his best form, or will Barkley or Foles challenge for time right off the bat?”

For those Eagles fans who want to see/hear more from the greatest QB prospect of the last 500 years, here is an interview with him. You get 13:30 of Matt talking to a guy from Grantland about his future and the pre-draft process.

Matt certainly talks a good game. I’m really looking forward to seeing him on the field.

USA Today did a piece a few months back that took a look at Matt Barkley’s time at USC. They chose the 10 best moments of his career.

My favorite:

“1. Hello, college football (at Ohio State, Sept. 12, 2009). In his second career start, Barkley, a true freshman, led USC to an 18-15 win at No. 8 Ohio State. While not perfect, he led USC on a game-winning touchdown drive with only minutes left.”

I remember that game. We all thought USC might slip since Mark Sanchez had unexpectedly left early. Then this Freshman QB leads the Trojans on a game winning drive in his second game ever? At Ohio State? I’ve been impressed by Barkley ever since.

Chris Brown of SmartFootball.com wrote a good piece for Grantland on what the Eagles drafting of Matt Barkley could mean to Chip Kelly’s offensive vision.

“Kelly, who grew up in the northeast and coached at New Hampshire before Oregon, wore a shirt at his Sunday press conference that said “Massachusetts State Police.” His intellectual relationship with Bill Belichick has been well documented over the years, particularly as Belichick has embraced Kelly’s frenetic no-huddle philosophy. Indeed, if the moves Kelly has made over recent weeks are any indication, then I’m not so sure Chip Kelly is trying to bring Oregon to Philadelphia. Instead, he might be trying to bring New England.”

There is a lot of logic in his thinking. Chris is always must read material.