It’s too early to get worked up over the Eagles’ 2017 season, but at least we know who their opponents will be. The Birds will play NFC East division rivals twice, and once each against all the NFC West and AFC West teams—plus one game each against the same-place finishers from the NFC South and NFC North.
A lot of west coast travel is in the cards. I don’t like that.
Looking for a good read from an Eagles perspective on the North-South Senior Bowl practice week? PE.com just released a page out of Joe Douglas’ diary as he scouts the proceedings. Douglas as you may know is the new V.P. of Player Personnel for the Eagles. You can link to his “Day In The Life” article here.
One new thing I learned from Joe Douglas is how much he values the “weigh-in” day for the players, perhaps just as important to Joe as the actual practice sessions:
“The weigh-ins start and it’s great because for a lot of scouts that’s the initial impression you get of some players that weren’t in your area. It may be the first chance you’ve seen some of them in person.”
I’ll be watching the Senior Bowl with a lot more interest than I have in the Pro Bowl—and I won’t beat a dead horse about that. Still, it looks good on a player’s resume at the end of his career to have a Pro Bowl or two on his lifetime stats sheet. So there’s at least that reason for these Eagles to feel good about showing up in Orlando this weekend:
Two more Eagles will be joining Jason Peters
and Fletcher Cox at the Pro Bowl in Orlando this weekend, as Jason Kelce and Darren Sproles have been added to the NFC roster.
Both Kelce and Sproles are replacing Atlanta Falcons players. With the Falcons headed to Houston for Super Bowl LI, center Alex Mack and running back Devonta Freeman will not be attending the Pro Bowl. For Kelce, the Pro Bowl nod is his second as a pro, with his first appearance coming after his 2014 season. Kelce started all 16 games for the Eagles for the second-consecutive season.
Meanwhile, Sproles’ selection is his third-straight, with all three of his career appearances coming since joining the Eagles in 2014. Sproles rushed for 438 yards this season, his highest mark since joining the Eagles. He also caught 52 passes for 438 yards and moved into eighth place all time in NFL history in terms of career all-purpose yardage with 19,011 total yards.
So, good for them—and while it’s not really about the money, the money ain’t that bad if you show up for the Pro Bowl. Last year players on the winning team received a bonus of $58,000. Players on the losing team got $29,000.
What makes those numbers more interesting is you get paid more for winning a Pro Bowl than you get paid for losing a Super Bowl…
When the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos squared off in the Super Bowl last Feb. 7, players on the winning team received a bonus of $102,000. Players on the losing team got $51,000.
But the “less is more” rule applies to a Super Bowl share in the end, because for every playoff game appearance your team made just to get to the Super Bowl, your guys got paid a share of the revenues. For example, players on a winning team in a wild-card game receive $25,000 apiece if their team was a division winner and $23,000 apiece if it qualified for the playoffs as a wild card.
In the second round of the playoffs, the players on a winning team also receive $25,000 apiece.
Each player on the winning teams in the conference-championship games receives $46,000.
So if you add up all the playoff shares with the Super Bowl share, you are going to bank about $200,000 in total bonus if your team goes all the way to win the Lombardi.
Nice work if you can find it.
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