It’s the time in early summer when you’re actually glad the news front is very quiet for the Eagles. No apocalypse pending, in other words—coaching staff set, quarterback sitch is stable, no malcontents to report among the personnel, everyone reasonably healthy and the roster seems immeasurably improved at most positions. Training camp is still about a month into the future.
Even Mike Mayock, the Philly-born football analyst for a number of major broadcast productions, has praised the newfound stability of the Eagles franchise. He says the stability starts with the quarterback, and it’s a good sign that the Eagles have made significant moves to enhance the stability of the quarterback with upgrades at receiver and running back.
“Carson Wentz is the real deal. Regardless of what college Wentz came out of, he was as easy to evaluate on film as Andrew Luck was,” Mayock said. “I think when you meet the kid and shake his hand and talk to him and get a feel for him, I feel the same way as when I’m going to sit with Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan, Drew Brees. He gives you the same vibe.”
“The whole key in the NFL is, do you have a franchise quarterback? And I think what Carson Wentz represents right now is hope. Hope that you can build around him. Hope you can be a playoff team in the near future. And, hopefully, you can bring a championship to a city that hasn’t had one since 1960,” Mayock said.
Following up on Mike Mayock’s comments, I found a number of print-worthy posts made by our very own fellow phans, posts which are also steeped in optimism—a feeling that the team is headed in the right direction.
STINE, for instance, loves the upgrades made by the Birds at the wide receiver position:
“Do we use these WR’s to set up the run, or pound the rock and burn defenses when they crowd the box? Doug can basically do what he wants, attack defenses where they are weak. I really don’t care what they do as long as they win….. Good thing about pounding the rock is to keep our defense off the field. Keep this defense fresh and they will hurt you…”
JOE MAS replied:
“Stine, exactly. When you can do everything on offense it keeps the D honest. Then you see how the D plays and you let your QB adjust to them and change the play to whatever the advantage is … run or pass. Without the WR threats, our run game has been awful due to the defense being able to play run. Now it changes things. The biggest difference will be how the WR’s open up the run game. We can run 40 times now, I don’t care… the personnel has helped the run game. The pass game doesn’t need the boost from the run game, it just needed to prove it was a threat, and I think on paper it is now with all the new WR’s. That said, I think we run the ball effectively to where it does slow down the pass rush, keep our D off the field and also us it as a weapon to put up points.”
SWOOPIN’ is extremely optimistic that we may have gotten the steal of the draft in the 4th round with wide receiver/ST Mack Hollins:
“I’m going to take this opportunity to start assembling a Mack Hollins train. I don’t know what it is but I am very high on this guy and think by the end of the season I’m going to have a lot of passengers. I picture him replacing Torrey Smith when we’re in the Red Zone. All aboard!”
EAGLES NJ69 replied:
“Agree 100 percent…I previously stated in another thread when the Eagles drafted Mack Hollins at #12 in the 4th round (our first of two in the 4th, Pumps being the other at 26th), there was a split screen shot of the Cowgirls war room. It might just be me but imo, it appeared they were shocked and dismayed by our Hollins pick and were scrambling around to find another player to draft. It looked like we also stole this other player they intended to pick at 27th when we moved in front of them to grab Pumps at #26 in a trade with the Chiefs. Could not imagine Elliott and Pumps in the Dullass backfield together. Thanks “Big Red”, a few cheeseburgers for you!!”
PHILLY ROD piled on:
“Opposing defenses are going to have issues, stack the box because of Blount, and get burnt deep, and vice versa. Jeffrey is an absolute monster, whom you can’t really cover, and Smith will stretch the field… I think this Mack Hollins has a chance to be similar to Jeffrey, aggressive at the point of reception, possibly the future no. 1 WR in Philly. Don’t pump the breaks on Pumphrey, yeah, he is classified as a RB, but will probably have a lot of receptions out of the backfield (the future Sproles).
“I couldn’t be much more excited about the future of this team, not just this year but for years to come.
Yeah, this is about the WR’s, but I can’t help but believe that having a solid run game will help those WR’s a ton. And having reliable receivers will help the running game… Carson is in for a really good season, imo. Can’t wait, GO EAGLES!!!
I tell ya, I’m not used to such optimism, especially at this time of the year. Oh, there will be things to complain about soon enough—September isn’t that far away. I can already hear the critics warming up in the wings, probably preparing to jump boots first on Doug Pederson’s first controversial play call of 2017.
But for the moment, I’m enjoying the love.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
