Franklin60

Which Eagles board are you talking about?

For a guy who supposedly forces balls into coverage downfield a lot, Wentz sure didn’t throw a lot of interceptions last year. Sans 2020 when the Eagles had to use backups all over the offensive line and WR/TE, he’s never been a high INT guy. Quite the contrary, in fact. His INT rate is usually pretty good (meaning low).

Nah, he was an undrafted free agent. He couldn’t have been any good.

I kinda hate weighing on this because I’ve tried to avoid discussions about Carson Wentz. As a lifelong Eagles fan, I invested a lot of emotion into the guy. I loved him as an Eagle, and was gut-punched when they traded him away. I was further disgusted that the Colts traded him away after what was actually a pretty decent year. And it annoys me that he went to a division rival. I still think he’s going to be a good player for y’all. I will say this about him. His accuracy is never going to be elite. He’s not Drew Brees. He’s just not going to be that guy. But overall I think his accuracy is going to be fine. What you will see, however, is that when his passes are off, they’ll be off high. I think it has to do with the way he sets his legs when he throws, and how he balances himself in his delivery. Perhaps it’s gotten worse since the knee injury. Maybe. One other “heads up” I’ll give you is that he tends to have a lot of passes batted down at the line. He just does, I think it’s because of his longer release. This was something that was even observed in college, and it proved true throughout his time with the Eagles. Can’t say for sure about the Colts. In fact, it was one reason why I always worried when Pederson went for it on fourth down. Because even if the play design worked perfectly, and the receiver was open and the ball was going to be on target, there was always that increased chance it would get knocked down. And speaking of fourth down, Wentz is great at quarterback sneaks. It might seem like a silly thing to comment on. But I assure you it’s legit. I think I only ever saw him get stopped one time.

The Eagles play the Vikings in week two, not the Jags. Jacksonville comes to town week four.

I bet they included Tony Romo. Amirite?

FYI, Tony Franklin was not good. He had a big leg — by the standards of the era, not today’s — but he was wildly inconsistent. He wasn’t even the team’s best barefoot kicker. Paul McFadden was better. I would gag if Franklin were ever listed among the team’s greats. My impression of Lohmiller was that he was an average NFL kicker and a bit of disappointment as a second round pick. Kinda like Mike Nugent. Okay but not memorable. (For the record, I consider them both to be better than Franklin.)

So Chip Lohmiller is actually considered a franchise great? Am I out of line in thinking that that is absurd?

As a non-fan of the team, I have to say I'm shocked he's not in the HOF yet. It's not something I ever paid attention to but always kind of assumed he was. Yeah, he was a star. Of course he's deserving.

I would think you might get an occasional quip, in a friendly joking kind of way. But if you’re more worried about an aggressive confrontation from someone with an axe to grind, I seriously doubt it. Wear what you want.

He really didn’t play last year either. I saw him in uniform about eighteen times though.

I absolutely enjoy watching an extra game every week on a Thursday night. It gives you something to look forward to and it kinda jumpstarts the football weekend for you. It kinda sucks when it’s your own team but it’s only a once a year thing and almost every team has to deal with it at some point.

It’s not just this century either. They haven’t won anything this millennium.

Peyton Manning threw 28 interceptions and had a lower passer rating as a rookie than Lawrence did last year.

That old Giants Stadium was way better than that monstrosity they built to replace it. I loved going to games there back then. Great sight lines. In their new stadium, it feels like you’re miles away from the field. FedEx could have been good if they hadn’t made the seats too narrow and put in more rows than the space demanded.

55,000 seats is simply ridiculous and seems almost an admission that you don’t expect to ever be good. Because if you ever truly become successful, you’ll be rueing the day you chose to build a stadium that small. And you’ll then start redesign plans to increase the capacity. Just build it right the first time. Something north of 62,000 and less than 70,000. About 65,000 is probably the sweet spot.

He's also been injured less frequently than imagined.

I don’t think that’s accurate. He also played well down the stretch in 2018 when Wentz had his back issue, and led the team to the playoffs. In the finale against the Redskins he tied an NFL record with something like 23 consecutive completions. He led the comeback in the playoffs against the Bears. [Forget the double doink for a moment and recall his clutch go ahead drive with the clutch fourth down touchdown pass to Golden Tate.] Beyond that, well, maybe you’re right. I guess he flamed out in Jacksonville, and the Bears didn’t seem to want him to ever start, although I do recall him leading them to a last second victory last year.

Wentz only had one "bad" year in his career, and it happened to be the season which featured the following: * Team drafted three speedy receivers who made the active roster as rookies and didn't know what they were doing (one of whom has turned out to be one of the biggest busts in league history)...and DeSean Jackson was injured week two and pretty much missed the rest of the year...and Alshon Jeffery was out until about December. In midseason, they're featuring a guy who was cut by both the Lions and Packers and was activated off the practice squad, and a year later isn't even good enough to make a 53-man roster for any team in the entire league. That's how brutal the receivers were. * Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert missed significant time in the first half of the year, forcing the Eagles to use third, fourth, and fifth tight ends much of the time. * The offensive line suffered an unprecedented streak of injuries, so much so that at one point, they only had ONE (Kelce) of their top EIGHT (y'know...the guys you mentally pencil in on your 53-man projection during training camp) linemen available. They played about three quarters of the year with about three or more backups in the starting five. The offense was such a revolving door that it's hard to imagine anyone playing well. I'm not saying Wentz isn't to blame. He didn't play well. But I think it's understandable as to why it happened. Not to mention the issue that the team drafted a quarterback in the second round and he apparently felt threatened. I guess that factored in. But the fact remains that Wentz has been a productive, "plus" starter at quarterback throughout his career otherwise. The narrative that he's an interception machine is laughable, as the stats don't bear that out at all. Heck, even last year his INT% was among the best in the league...in a season where he supposedly stunk! It's absurd.

Jordan Mailata was a 7th round pick in the same draft as Sweat, and he’s clearly the better player.

I’ve noticed a pattern that the league seems to follow most of the time. It isn’t ironclad, but it’s true more often than not. And that is that divisional head to head matchups are usually scheduled in the opposite sequence from the year before. Last year Washington’s first game with the Eagles was in Philadelphia, with the rematch in Washington. This year it’s the opposite. I think if you go back through recent history, I think you’ll see that being pretty common. So I think it could have been a plausible conjecture that their first encounter would be at Fed Ex. At any rate, it could be an interesting exercise to verify the historical frequency of this rotation in the schedule.

Cleveland played the Ravens consecutively last year with a bye in between.

I remember a couple of years ago watching a video on the Rams website that showed their front office receiving the phone call from the league the day of the official release. It was as a really well done video, with live reactions from the team. This was filmed probably around noon or so on that day. It was noted at the time that all 32 teams receive calls like that that day. It gives them enough time for their internet people to create a fancy release that they can unveil at 8PM. So yeah, I agree that the teams don’t know for sure yet. That being said, it’s possible that the actual schedule has already been finalized meaning that someone could be in a position to leak it.

I remember about four years ago or so, someone went around making up schedule leaks which looked authentic, but were actually just a means to draw attention to his account. I wonder if that’s what is going on here. That being said, if y’all do play the Lions on Thanksgiving, there’s a decent chance you’d be playing the Cowboys the following Thursday night. The league generally has the Cowboys play a road Thursday night game the next week against a team that also played on Thanksgiving.

Yeah, about 1800. Above average but nothing special.