Wednesday, April 27, 2016

There's a Shit Storm in Philly...

...and umbrellas are in short supply.

Having had time to reassess the Eagles quarterback/draft scenario, I've come to the conclusion that this is a much bigger fucking mess than I first realized.  

Here are the 3 reasons I'm most bothered:

1) The Draft.

I don't hate the idea of trading up to get yourself a quarterback, as you can read about in my previous post.  I get it.  You need a good quarterback to win, and there just aren't many good ones coming out of college in the near term.  Next year's draft is worse.  So yes, I get it.

BUT...it bothers me the Eagles are picking 2nd and not 1st.  

Why?  Because Carson Wentz is not Jared Goff, and vice versa.  

One of them will surely be better than the other, and the Eagles won't even get to choose the one they believe will be the best of the two.  Now they can pretend they know what the Rams are doing (they don't), and they can pretend they "got their guy" regardless of who they get (they will), but the truth is they don't make the call.  Someone else does.  And that's fucking annoying! 

The Eagles sat idly by hoping no other team would shake up the draft board, but of course, that didn't happen.  Then they were forced to move into the #2 slot, which caused more problems.  Typical.  

I'll explain more about this in a moment.


2) The Quarterbacks.

I am pretty positive Wentz won't be great, but that Goff will be very good.  

That means the Eagles may be in a hole for years, unless Chase Daniel is somehow 5 times better than he was at Missouri.  As it stands he's not as good as Alex Smith, who is merely average.

Folks in the media have been saying, "We don't know what Wentz will be like...we've hardly seen him...the competition he faced wasn't great..."  All this is true, but you should still be able to tell if he's good.   

When I saw Joe Flacco at Delaware I knew pretty quickly he had the goods. 

Not Wentz.  I watched the entire FCS Title game, and while his team won and he made some plays, a lot of the big plays happened because of his teammates.  If you watch the game it's hard not to see this.  

Under-thrown balls, circus catches, bad shoulder fades, all that and more.  He did do some nice things, but any NFL quarterback would look good on that stage.  There's not a single NFL QB who couldn't have done what Carson Wentz did at North Dakota State.  Matt McGloin included.  

I'm not saying Wentz will be a complete bust, but I am saying he's a lot further away from a sure thing than Jared Goff, a player I have watched live many times. 

I do not believe he will ever be one of the top QBs in the NFL.  I hope I'm wrong. 


3) The Lying.  

I'm willing to bet Roseman and Lurie believed one of the two quarterbacks would slide down in the draft to #6, which meant #8 was a good position to be in.

Only a month ago the mock drafts had Tunsil going #1, and both quarterbacks somewhere in the Top 10.  In this scenario, the likelihood is the Eagles would have made a deal with the Ravens, jumped over Chip Kelly's 49ers, and snagged a QB they could live with at #6.  In the process they would have probably dealt a non-drama-laden Sam Bradford to another team.  

Had this happened things wouldn't have seemed all that bad, but of course, it did not.

Good results don't often come about for people who suck at their jobs.  

I call this part "the lying" because on draft night there is a 100% chance Roseman and Lurie will be lying to their fans when they say, "we got the player we wanted."  

We can't possibly know if this is true, and if both players are in fact coveted, then in essence there is no singular "guy."  If there is no singular "guy", then you are in fact lying. 

On a number of levels they're also lying to everyone on the roster (and the fans) due to their treatment of Bradford. They just signed the guy, and yet they plan on getting rid of him?  That wreaks of dishonesty.  When you sign a player in the NFL usually the plan is to keep him, at least for a moment.

 Not the Eagles.  

As it stands, there cannot be a single player on the Eagles, who when speaking to management about anything can ever assume they're being told the truth.  Why would they?  Look how they've handled this situation.  

There is officially an air of dishonesty surrounding management.  

--

There are those in the media saying the Eagles are in a "great spot right now...they hold the cards..."  etc.  

Don't listen to a word of it.  They're not in a great spot.  They hold no cards (and few picks).

Despite Sam Bradford proving himself to be a whiny asshole, and his agent an idiot, these facts don't mean management is winning.  They're all wrong in how they've handled things.

Being less wrong doesn't make you right.

The more I think about this, the more I don't see it working out. 

Having 3 QBs next year, trying to get your guy, I'm fine with all that.  If Wentz plays great, that's wonderful.

Just not fine with how management has handled any of it.  And it's because of how things are handled that I see failure.  


2 comments:

  1. Sorry, I don't see how management was dishonest when signing Bradford since the deal was only for two years, and there is no reason to doubt their statements that they want him to be the starter this year. They obviously wanted him to be their starter this year by overpaying him so that he wouldn't go to free agency, and drafting a QB does not change that. At worst, management was trying to have its cake and eat it too by signing Bradford to keep them competitive and still draft a long term QB option, but not dishonest.
    Thanks for the write-up.

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    1. I think your point is certainly valid but my gut tells me that when you signed Daniel you had no desire to keep Bradford.

      They've sent mixed messages to everyone on this team.

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