Philadelphia Eagles news and links for 2/28/24.
Let’s get to the Philadelphia Eagles links …
Five free agents who could fit in Eagles’ new offense – ESPN
Kellen Moore was the offensive coordinator when the Cowboys selected Tony Pollard in the fourth round of the 2019 draft. They were paired together for four seasons, with Pollard’s role increasing each consecutive year. Pollard is well versed in Moore’s scheme and would provide a dual-threat skill set (he had more than 3,600 rushing yards and more than 1,300 receiving yards over five seasons in Dallas) that the Eagles tend to gravitate toward. Money will be the key here. The Eagles are generally reluctant to invest heavily in the running back position, which is why it’s in question whether they’ll re-up Swift following a successful 2023 campaign. But running back salaries have been depressed of late, and with a number of household names, including Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, Austin Ekeler, Josh Jacobs and Swift, on the market, it’s possible Pollard doesn’t find what he’s looking for coming off a season (1,316 total yards, six touchdowns) that fell a bit below expectation as he took over the primary back role.
The Eagles’ 2023 issues may be impossible to overcome in 2024 – BGN
In life, it’s always easier to backslide than it is to scale the mountain. People who try to lose weight or get healthier often find it’s easier to return to old habits than it is to establish new ones. Grinding away at your job day after day requires more energy and effort than mailing it in. Sometimes, you wake up in the morning and you don’t really feel like being the most engaged parent in the world, taking your son or daughter to yet another music lesson/sports practice/dance recital. Some 180s are easier to accomplish than others. For a team like the Eagles, it appeared far easier for them to spiral into the depths of whatever the heck it is we’re in now than it was for them to build themselves up into a Super Bowl contender, which is worrisome as the team enters this critical off-season. After an article by Marcus Hayes in which two Eagles players told him the coaching staff played favorites last season, it’s hard to believe this was essentially the same team that almost beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl less than a year before.
At the Podium: Nick Sirianni and Howie Roseman at the 2024 NFL Combine – BGN Radio
Eagles Head coach Nick Sirianni and General Manager Howie Roseman spoke with the media at the 2024 NFL Combine.
Eagles’ Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni have mixed messaging on rookie playing time – PhillyVoice
Nick Sirianni? Not so much. “My philosophy has always been play the guys that are going to help you win the game every week,” Sirianni said. “Regardless of whether you talk about scheme, whether you talk about players, you’re trying to do whatever you can to win the game, because that’s the bottom line, is to win football games. “So, whoever gives us the best chance to win a football game, that’s what we’ll do. Young, old, middle, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to do what we need to do. I owe that to our team and our coaches and our players and our fans to play the best player that’s going to help us win that week. So, we don’t care who that is.” And that’s how snaps get wasted on guys like Justin Evans.
Eagles willing to wait for decisions from Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox – NBCSP
As for Cox, he might no longer be at his peak but the 33-year-old had another successful season. The 2012 first-round pick followed up a seven-sack season in 2022 with a 5-sack season in 2023 and was the Eagles’ most consistent defensive tackle despite a couple of first-round picks in the mix. After the season ended, one of his young teammates, Jordan Davis, made it seem like Cox would definitely not be returning. And a few feet away, Cox’s locker had been completely cleaned out. In 2023, Kelce returned on a one-year deal worth $14.25 million. Cox returned on a one-year deal worth $10 million. If Kelce and/or Cox return, they’re certainly not going to get paid any less after their performances on those one-year deals and because the league-wide salary cap got a huge bump. In the past, Roseman has warned against sentimentality. A team has to avoid the trap of paying players for what they have done instead of what they can still do. But with both Kelce and Cox, they still have ability if they want to keep playing.
As Haason Reddick trade talk heats up at the NFL combine, the Eagles continue to weigh his possible return – Inquirer
Reddick wasn’t the only defensive player to be affected when Sean Desai was demoted for Matt Patricia at coordinator. Defensive end Josh Sweat, his starting counterpart, didn’t record a sack in the final eight regular season games. He did have one in the postseason. Neither was as productive in setting the edge against the run as they were in 2022. That could have been more of a scheme issue than a personnel one. But, as two team sources suggested during the season, Reddick and Sweat appeared to be “chasing sacks” at the expense of the defense. Could the Eagles have avoided that possibility by reworking Reddick’s deal to be more in line with the annual average salaries of other top rushers? Perhaps. Roseman has tinkered with contracts before, but he doesn’t want to set a significant precedent.
Nick Sirianni: ‘It’s a reboot and a reprove for me and this football team’ – PE.com
He has a new coaching staff around him, a new season in front of him, and, soon, a new locker room to address. For Eagles Head Coach Nick Sirianni entering his fourth season, it’s a reset. Time to rise to the occasion. “You’re always trying to reprove, recreate, all of those things,” Sirianni said on Tuesday after he met the media at the NFL Scouting Combine. “We’ve won a lot of football games, but we didn’t win the last month of last season, so it’s a reboot and a reprove for me and for this football team. I know what we can do. I know we need to improve on things. I know I need to improve on things. So, that’s the task we have, the challenge I have, and this is a business of meeting the challenge and I’m up to that challenge. I’m looking forward to it. None of us did our jobs well enough at the end of the year last season. We have to be better. If you aren’t moving forward in this league, you’re moving backward.”
Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel on parting with DC Vic Fangio: ‘I’d be lying if I said I was expecting that’ – NFL.com
Some things aren’t meant to last. When the Dolphins scored Vic Fangio as their new defensive coordinator ahead of the 2023 season, the belief was that the longtime coach would deliver a defense on par with Miami’s high-octane offense. A unit beset by injuries instead finished 22nd in points allowed, after which Fangio and the Fins mutually agreed to a separation neither party initially saw coming. “In regard to the defensive coordinator transition this offseason, I’d be lying if I said I was expecting that during the season at all,” head coach Mike McDaniel said Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine, per the team transcript. “I think Vic would feel similarly. What happened was basically, I think it’s important when the season ends for you to remove emotion and evaluate and have very, very good conversations with all people that you’re depending on. With Vic and I, we had extensive conversations that were very healthy.
Chiefs place franchise tag on cornerback L’Jarius Sneed – Arrowhead Pride
According to a report from Bleacher Report’s Jordan Schultz, the Kansas City Chiefs have placed the franchise tag on their pending free-agent cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, committing $19.8 million of its 2024 cap space to the four-year veteran. [BLG Note: So much for Sneed being recruited to Philly.]
Stephen Jones sidestepped any confirmation of Jerry Jones’ ‘all-in’ declaration – Blogging The Boys
It is perhaps too early to fully call the fight, but we are around Round 7 or so and the pessimists are looking like they are going to retain their title belt. The Cowboys have a right to handle their team how they want to, but that it took less than a month for them to start throwing cold water on the “all-in” approach is why pessimism is all the rage right now. To be clear and properly fair to the Cowboys, given the way that last season ended it is extraordinarily difficult to imagine what kind of offseason could unfold that would pull everyone back. Playoff losses hurt, an unbelievable drought is embarrassing, and until those things are properly rectified everything else feels hollow. NFL free agency officially begins in two weeks with the legal tampering starting in even less than that. The Cowboys and their true approach to this offseason will have no room to hide once the green light turns on there, perhaps Stephen Jones was laying the groundwork for another soft free agency period.
Daniel Jones ‘on track’, but Giants’ GM Joe Schoen not ruling out drafting a QB – Big Blue View
Of course, you would not expect Scheon to throw his quarterback under the bus and say something like, oh, we’re stuck with him for another year because I stupidly gave him a bunch of money, but Schoen was adamant on Tuesday that he still has faith in the quarterback. “I have faith in Daniel. I have faith in Daniel as our starting quarterback,” Schoen said. Five years of mixed results have soured many in the fan base on the idea that Jones can ever justify having been the No. 6 overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. Two years of working with him, though, and Schoen still at least says he believes he can build a Super Bowl-winning team around Jones. “Yeah. That’s the ultimate goal for everybody is to win a Super Bowl. So we want to win a Super Bowl,” Schoen said. “It’s not one position. You’ve got to build a good team, you’ve got to have surrounding parts. There’s a lot of good quarterbacks that haven’t won Super Bowls, so you’ve got to have a good team. “So it’s not just the quarterback position. You’ve got to continue to build the team around the quarterback, and it’s an important position. I think you have to build the pieces around him.” Schoen said that Jones was “fighting an uphill battle” because of some of the things that happened to the Giants early in the 2023 season.
Report: FedEx opts out of stadium naming rights deal with Washington Commanders – Hogs Haven
FedEx Field, or FedUp Field as it was called over the years, will no longer go by that name after FedEx has opted out of the final two years of its stadium naming rights deal with the Washington Commanders. The two businesses entered into a $205 million deal in 1999 under former owner Dan Snyder. Four years later, FedEx chairman Fred Smith became a minority owner of the team. The deal was set to run for two more seasons, but now Washington will be missing out on $15 million per year in revenue unless they get another sponsor for the stadium. The Commanders are currently exploring options for a new stadium, but their lease with the county runs through 2027, and managing partner has indicated to potential investors that it might not be ready until 2030 or later. They still need to find and secure a location with the options being remain in Maryland, build in Virginia, or return to Washington, D.C.’s RFK stadium site.
Caleb Williams sure sounds like he wants to play for Bears in new interview – SB Nation
There’s been a pervasive narrative which has existed for months that Caleb Williams doesn’t want to play for the Chicago Bears if they draft him, following in the footsteps of John Elway and Eli Manning, who said no to the Colts and Chargers respectively. It’s helped label Williams as a “prima donna,” a “diva,” prompting some fans to take this idea and run with it to the point where it’s a character concern that should pull him off the board. However, the rumors never actually cited anything from Williams himself, and in a ranging interview with ESPN the quarterback clarified his excitement about playing in the NFL no matter where he goes, specifically highlighting the Bears and Commanders — presumably the two teams who will actually land him in April’s draft.
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