Wheels of the CAP go ’round and ’round in Philly

agholor

Welcome back, EYE took a day off to see if the “Connectivity” issue with the Comments section has been resolved. It’s an annoying little glitch which requires you to “Retry” loading the Comments, which eventually happens after 3 or 4 tries. This better be fixed soon or we will have to resort to telegraph lines Civil War style. Did you know Abraham Lincoln was the first “wired” president? His daily routine during the war included hours spent in the federal telegraph office reading messages from the front.

Speaking of telegraphing, one of the subtle aspects of playing football at the highest level is learning to avoid tipping off plays to the opponent. Smart defenders study individual tape to discover individual mannerisms that result in “tells” on where a play is going.

One such “tell” I learned about this past weekend is when a tight end or a wide receiver changes his head position. If he lines up with helmet looking down sometimes, or looking straight ahead other times, he may be tipping off whether he is blocking on the play or running a route. The inconsistency of head position can be a common rookie mistake due to amateur habits which reflexively surface in the heat of competition. The correction is simple—make sure your helmet is facing forward in the same position and direction on every snap. But sometimes guys lapse on this in all the noise and excitement. Smart defenders look for such lapses.

As for the salary cap concerns facing the Eagles right now, there is no obvious “tell” as to where the money is going to end up.

Philadelphia has $2 million in cap space to play with, but needs to clear more space in order to sign free agents and add to the roster.

Spotrac and also Jeff Kerr at 247Sports break down the cap challenge into its most basic moving parts—

If the Eagles wish to trade Nick Foles, they will have to franchise tag him. That will require a salary of up to $25 million to tag Foles, which would count against the 2019 salary cap. If the Eagles tag Foles, they would go (at least temporarily) from $2 million under the cap to $23 million over the cap.

Frankly I don’t see that happening unless a willing trade partner and a cooperative Nick Foles are already in the bag prior to the franchise tag cap hit, which would then be absorbed by the team trading for Foles anyway.

The other big wheels of the CAP, according to Kerr, are:

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