Saturday, May 16, 2015

Potato Chip Kelly, pieces from the bottom of the bag.

So I was completely wrong in my draft thoughts.  oh well, while Mariota going anywhere else is disapointing, watching Chip and Marynowitz put together a logical smart draft was comforting in a lot of ways, and speaks volumes about the long term outlook of the Eagles.

Today I want to cover a lot of odds and ends, little thoughts here and there.  The scraps at the bottom of the bag if you will.

Scrap 1 - Deflategate, or Ballghazi if you will.

Look, I am so fricking tired of hearing about this shit.  And I hate the patriots.   That said, I don't see how you as a logical person don't read those text messages between the two equipment guys and not come to the same conclusion, they did it, they have been doing it for a while, and Brady knew about it and wanted them to.

Seriously think about how you text with your buddies, and how you text with your buddies about your boss, and how you text with your buddies about your favorite athletes.  Now, apply those concepts to the texts.  See you can't not think they were doing it at Brady's behest.  Occam's razor baby.

One thing I have learned from all of this is my hatred of Patriots fans is well founded, god they are the whiniest babies on the face of the earth.  Your guys cheated, several times.  Every time you are a dick, or cocky, or trash talk that gets thrown in your face.  Deal with it.  And for god's sake let's move on.  we only have small windows of time to talk about actual football in between somebody associated with the NFL committing some Heinous act, let's not waste it on this anymore.

Scrap 2 - No Mariota No Cry?

So like the Majority of Philadelphia Eagles fans, I was sadly disapointed by the non drafting of Marcus Mariota, I am at least a little.

But think of the cost, just pick any random trade proposal that had been reported, multiple firsts, fletcher cox, Mychal Kendricks, Brandon Boykin, Sam Bradford (Or if you prefer Nick Foles and a Second).  It would have narrowed the margin for error in team building significantly.  How excited would you be for our recievers without Algholor?  How excited would you be for our defensive backfield without the additions of Rowe, Shephard, and Evans to give us substantial depth?  the reality is Mariota isn't a sure thing, so the price would have been out of line with the likelyhood of return on investment.

Now we have a ton of Defensive Backfield Depth, a Ton of Inside linebacker Depth, good depth on the Outside linebackers (I'm not as low on Marcus Smith as some) and Great Defensive Line Depth.  On offense our recievers are high quality even if we don't yet have a bright shining star (any of Ertz, Matthews, Algholor or Huff could become that)  and our running backs are excellent.

Think about how frustrated we all are that our offensive line is old, and we haven't drafted a lineman in two years, how would that look if we traded a ton of picks?  And Quarterback is in flux, but the best way to hit the homer you need to be consistently successful in the NFL is to take as many swings as possible, not load everything into one swing. Think about what we have done since Chip has been here:  Keep Vick, Keep Foles, Draft Barkley, sign Sanchez (twice), trade for Bradford.  Swing, see if it lasts, swing, see if it lasts, swing see if it lasts.  Bradford is a good swing, lets' give it a shot maybe just maybe we won't have to take another swing.  But at least this way, each swing is still surrounded with a great team.

Scrap 3 - I like and agree with Michael Irvin?

Recently Michael Irvin stated he thinks the Eagles are the Team to beat in the NFC East because Demarco Murray makes them better then Lesean McCoy.

Read his comments, digest what he said.  Now at first I was thinking to myself, that's great but this is just another guy pissed that his team didn't pay out for the star that is his buddy.  Which is a natural reaction for a former player, but not an entirely logical one from the standpoint of effective football.  But then I started thinking about what he actually said, and he may have an incredibly logical hypothesis that bares real reflection.

Modern football is predicated upon the pass.  Rules on receivers, tackling, and hitting the quarterback make it quite challenging for a defense to consistently prevent success through the air.  Passing is more efficient, and most importantly allows you to pick up yards in chunks and potentially score quicker.  That is why overall the league has trended heavily toward passing, and scoring and away from running and defense.  When you run the ball you "control the clock"  in theory preventing the other team from having as much time with the ball, but if they pass, and have the potential to score quickly, the amount of time isn't as crucial as the amount of possessions.  Also, running the ball results in far fewer big plays overall, which means you score more slowly, making it hard for you to jump out to a big lead, and hard for you to catch up quickly.

As an adjustment to this trend, teams tend to play in "nickel" defense a lot more.  having only two linebackers and 5 defensive backs on the field.  In theory this makes running the ball a better option, but you still suffer from the time issue, and the slow scoring issue.  Unless you are Chip Kelly.  Irvin said "Everyone else will be playing Chess, but the Eagles will be playing Checkers"  that is exactly Kelly's goal.

Kelly Likes to run from the spread, 3 recievers, 1 TE, 1 RB, 1 QB, 5 lineman.  This Keeps the defense spread farther apart, and prevents them from closing quickly on runs up the middle, allowing each run to gain slightly extra yards.  To adjust, eventually the defense should bring an extra player closer to the line of scrimmage, which leaves someone open, and that is when chip wants the ball thrown fast for screens, or deep for explosive plays. At it's heart that is the simplest form of his offense, he adds the aspect of running plays as fast as possible for two reasons, first this allows him
 to focus on running the ball, but still being able to score quickly and have as many possessions as possible, second it allows him to prevent the defense from subbing and exhausts them for the end of the game.

There is more to it then that, and lots of little details that make it work, but the basics are laid out above.  So if you imagine you have a defense on the field in nickel, to deal with your spread offense, the defense has a of smaller, agile, fast guys.  Running against them with a running back whose game is dependant on agility, jukes and shiftiness is actually going to be less effective because it plays to the strengths of the defensive change.  But running against it with a back who wants to make 1 cut, follow the blocks and run over a guy plays to the defensive weaknesses since their speed and agility isn't as valuable.  This creates a situation where the defense will always have a weakness that Kelly asks the quarterback to spot after the snap instead of before, something we hope Bradford will do better then Foles.

Irvin makes a good point with a lot of subtle truth within the Ideas of Kelly's offense.