The 700 Level - Home of the Ginger Jesus.

[nick87]

CJGJ is back!

 

[Valheru]

And the Brazil fixture is Packers

Strange decision IMO but seems the NFL chose and not the eagles

 

[Valheru]

Really happy with that pick and complete stunned Mitchell was still available.

 

[Valheru]

Howie doing Howie things

The two best CBs in the draft are ours and all we had to do was essentially swap a 2nd rounder for a 3rd.

I expect OL depth to be addressed next pick

 

[nick87]

I was overseas during the draft so wasnt able to follow it as closely as id liked
I was stunned to steal some wifi around the time i expected us to be on the clock and found our pick of CBs there

Could go wrong, i think Terrion Arnold is a very good player and it might turn out that he's better than Mitchell, but Mitchell was my #1 CB in this class and i think he was most peoples #1. So that's a slam dunk
And to get the guy i actually thought they'd take at 22 (anticipating those 2 corners being gone) down at 40 and doubling down on the secondary is fantastic

Really love that. DeJean can play all over the place. With him, CJGJ, Isiah Rodgers and Blankenship i feel really good about the secondary. It's got a couple of good outside corners in Slay and Mitchell (Bradbury too if bounces back but i doubt that!), they can use Blankenship, CJGJ and DeJean as versatile safeties and then they can almost bump one of those guys down into the slot nickle position with Avonte Maddox and Isiah Rodgers also on the roster

Eli Ricks and Relee Ringo should round out the room... expect guys like McPhearson and Jobe will end up cut and i'd be surprised if Bradbury is on the roster, maybe they'll trade him for pennies just to clear the cap?

 

[Valheru]

2024 Schedule has dropped. Non Sunday afternoon games noted in brackets

vs Packers (Friday night - Brazil)
vs Falcons (MNF)
@ Saints
@ Bucs
BYE
vs Browns
@ Giants
@ Bengals
vs Jags (SNF)
@ Cowboys
vs Commanders (TNF)
@ Rams (SNF)
@ Ravens
vs Panthers
vs Steelers
@ Commanders
vs Cowboys
vs Giants

Overall I'm happy and this is more user friendly than 2023.

The biggest negative IMO is the week 5 bye. In an 18 week schedule I don't think any teams should be having a bye prior to week 7 but it is what it is and we have had some luck with bye timings the last few years. They will have to manage the roster over 13 straight regular season games though.

There is no gauntlet of games to the extent of ;last year which destroyed us but the toughest stretch appears to be weeks 8-13 with games away games against CIN, DAL, LAR and BAL with home games against JAX and WAS wedged in.

The last 5 weeks looks a much better end to the season than last year with 4 home games and the only away game not requiring a plane.

My early record prediction....

We split the AFC North (probably win both at home and lose both away).
We beat JAX
I'm going to say we go 3-1 against the NFC South losing to either NO or TB
I think we split packers and rams
We go 5-1 in the division

Final record of 12-5 finishing with the 2 or 3 seed.

 

[nick87]

I've also got us going 12-5
With loses to Packers, Bengals, Cowboys, Rams and Ravens

think the early bye is a bit of a hassle but we’re also on the road a lot early so I think it’s probably OK
but the late run of home games is pretty nice. It’s certainly a better schedule than last year and as you say, no gauntlet like last year

things break our way injury wise, we could snatch a game or two more and push for the 1 seed
Things don’t go our way and it could be a 9-10 season, miss the play offs and clear house

real boom or bust potential with this squad

 

[Haffa]

Fairest schedule we’ve had in years.

Week 5 bye not my favorite but it sets up a 12 week sprint. Try to lock up #1 seed by week 17. Rest everyone week 18.

 

[Valheru]

In somewhat humorous news, apparently there is an informal ban on the colour green for any and all fans and players at Corinthians arena due to the local soccer team's main rival who wears green.

This is obviously problematic due to both Philly and GB wearing green. No word on if they will enforce this but it might be a case of us in all black and them in all white.

I do find it hard to believe though that they will ban Americans travelling for the game from wearing Eagles or Packers green jerseys

 

[Valheru]

Season has snuck up on us gents and starts (for the eagles) Saturday morning in Brazil.

Anything we did/didn't like from the pre-season.

I'm expecting a little bit of a slow start as the units get used to the new co-ordinators and game plans etc.

Think packers will do us first up

 

[Valheru]

Nice win to start the season against a team I think wil win their division.

Nice to see some of that long, clock killing, play extending drives on offence come back, especially the last drive even if we got a lucky penalty.

I expected he defence to start slow, particularly against a good QB so I think they will only get better.

I didn't see the full game to comment much more.

 

[nick87]

Hurts was doing my f**king head in this game. So many mistakes and awful plays but then there was so much good in it too.

It was a very uneven game but 3 awful turn overs in our own 20 and then one in the red zone... cant be doing that.
Defence was quite good in parts but gave up some really bad big plays

Outside of turnovers, the eagles offence did what they wanted. 34 points with 3 turn overs... could have easily been 40+ and an easy win.

AJ, Smithy and Saquon is going to be a real problem to solve, they're all elite and you cant load up to stop them all. Hurts looked good when he was on time in in schedule of the play, any time he held the ball it scared the f**k out of me... the ints were both horrendous decisions/

Still it's week 1, it's in brazil, the field was **** terrible, dudes slipping and sliding everywhere.
And i cant stress this enough, the field was a total disgrace

Week 1, in Brazil... lots of f**ky things going on so just good to get out of there 1-0 over a team with heaps to clean up,and i think that Packers team is one of the best in the NFL (if Love isnt hurt long term) so this win could look much better as the season goes on.

 

[Valheru]

I forgot to mention last week's debacle but moving on to this week...

That was a much better effort defensively after they embarrassed themselves in the last drive last week. They were tenacious all day and kept making stop after stop and won us the game in the end

The 5 man upfront system seemed to work a lot better and Carter and Davis found their holes, stopped the run game and dominated the pass rush. The defensive backs kept turning up culminating in a well deserved intercept by Blankenship whom I'm a big fan of. Vic Fangio deserves all the credit in the world for taking responsibility for last week, working on areas of concern and having the defence dialled in this week.

The other side of the ball was... Up and down. I thought we moved the ball well but some poor coaching (more on that later) left points on the field. Moore worked out a way to unlock goeddart which was great and all credit to the offense for operating with their 3rd and 4th choice receivers when required and scoring a TD. Barkley continues to be a revelation and that 65 yard TD was just reward. Yeah he made a bad mistake last week but he has been a stud in our two wins. Jalen continues to make elite plays but this turnover stuff is becoming habitual. He is a good player with a bad problem and it needs to be fixed.

Now the elephant in the room - this stacked roster is being limited by an appalling head coach. The bloke has no idea and seems to make every wrong decision. He inexplicably left 6 points on the field today with shit decisions to go for it on 4th down and he continues to put Hurts in garbage positions. He arguably cost us the game last week too. I'm not sure what value he is adding as Fangio is calling the defence and Moore is calling the offense. Moore has been ok so far and I'm willing to give him more time. I'm sure he'd appreciate it his head coach stopped leaving points on the field after his offense moves the ball 60 yards.

This needs to be addressed because we are at high risk of not taking advantage of this SB window due to a dud coach.

 

[Haffa]

Hurts is a bit shit

 

[Valheru]

Lots of issues, that was awful

It's not just on Hurts, although he needs ot be a lot better. Missing both WRs and our best Tackle, you would think they could come up with something to move the ball. Pocket collapsed all day so how about some quick passes and see what happens.

Other side of the ball was bad too. They conceded 3 TDs in a row and we didn't get a first down on offense in that time (lol). WTF are the coaches doing? In a game where we were missing two studs at receiver where it was obvious we had to get production from our RB and TE, Saquon averaged 8.4 yards on only 10 carries. He barely got a touch on those first 3 drives. He should have had 30 runs, make the opposition stop our best weapon so far in 2024 before you lean on the passing game.

The genius that is Sirriani blamed the turnovers for the loss in the press conference. The bloke has NFI. nospam46 have bene an issue this season but in this particular game it had no bearing. We only committed one on offence (the other on special teams) and to be fair we forced a fumble from them too but they recovered. This loss is due to both sides of the ball stinking it up in the first half with uninspiring or outright stupid play calling on offence.

It is fixable with the talent we have but I don't have faith that Sirriani can fix it. Part of me wants to miss the playoffs so we get rid of him and get someone else that can give us a chance whilst the window is open in what is a stacked roster.

We will be in the division race all season though. NYG stink and Dallas are awful on defence. Washington are playing well but are young and will have their ups and downs. This looks like one of those 10-7 NFC East division winner seasons.

Bye week now with the obvious priority of getting healthy and developing a better f**king game plan that gives the offence a chance to excel, especially early in games. Fangio at least seems to be making progress and I'm happy to go with the ups and downs on that process.

 

[nick87]

I know Watson has been bad, but really following that game play to play really accentuated how bad he is.
I think the Browns might have won the game with Winston

I follow eagles games in much the same way i do Raiders games, with existential dread that they will blow these games in horrific fashion and i'll be left mad, angry and frustrated

And to my credit both those teams do that regularly enough to justify it... this was a one score game all game long and i never got beyond 5/10 on the panic metre because i just could not talk myself into Watson sustaining drives enough to beat them and the Eagles werent good today, but Watson was DREADFUL. I dont know how Stefanski can keep playing him, if the management and owner are forcing that call, he needs to come out and say so to protect his own reputation. They're going to sack him all the same, might as well go out on his sheild.

Re Eagles:
the offence looks largely the same as last year with a few minor wrinkles, Jordan Mailata and Dallas went down with what looks like a serious injuries, Nick Sirianni is jawing with players and fans alike and showing up to press conferences saying he overuled play callers both on offence and alarmingly, defence, in key spots, and calls that did not work and it's real "Nick, what would you say you do here?" sort of deal

I think there is some bright spots. Jalen Carter really has some moments where you watch him and think he could be the best defensive player in the league.
Both rookie DB's look like fantastic picks.
AJ Brown, Smithy are stunningly good and Hurts finally kept a clean sheet with turnovers and after a slow start (0-5 passing) finished with 16/20 for 2tds and a few nice runs on the ground too.

But this is a middling team, 9-8... maybe 10-11 wins if things break right, by 7-9 isnt out of the question either if things break poorly and even if they get to 11 and win the division, they're not winning play off game let alone the SB.
I've already reached the "well at least Dallas got blown out and they're clearly not winning a SB this year either" part of the season which says it all.

 

[Valheru]

It's hard to get excited about that win because the Browns are dreadful on offence.

We have a coaching issue, that is plain as day to see and this team will be going nowhere until they get rid of Sirriani. Him arguing with the fans at the end of the game really should be the final nail in his coffin, that is not a battle anyone should want to take up.

This is now 7 (yes seven!) games in a row where we haven't posted a point in the first quarter. This team is a) never ready to go and b) never has a gameplan for the opposition at hand, even coming off a bye week which absolutely comes down to coaching. They are also bad at the same things every week so there is no adjustments being made.

Add to that, during the game the caching is as bad if not worse. I point your attention to the end of the first half with 36 seconds to go, the score at 10-3 and the eagles with a 2nd and 1 at the Browns 31 yard line with 3 timeouts in the pocket. Keep in mind we are 4 for 4 with the tush push thus far in the game. Instead of handing th eball to Saquon, Nick dials up a shotgun pass to Saquon who gets tackled for no gain and timeout 1 is taken with 32 to go. Ok, I guess that kind of happens, we are going tush push next right....?? which will net a fresh set of downs with 1 timeout in the bank.... Any one of us in this thread could dial that up... But oh no lets put Hurts in the shotgun and allow Clevelend to bring the house for a loss of 8 yards. That makes the field goal a 57 yard try, Miles Garrett blocks it for the TD return and what should have been either a 13 or 17-3 lead going in to the half is now a 10-10 tie. It all comes down to the atrocious coaching.

Vic Fangio I think has done a positive job so far with a defence that was awful last year and has some new pieces in place. The two DB draft picks are looking very good at this stage. Kellen Moore to be fair to him I don't think we really know how good or bad he is because he is being hamstrung by his boss.

This team will not bottom out because it has so much damn talent that they will find ways to get their fair share of wins despite the coaching. Our WRs are absolute studs and Jalen still has it in him to be a very good player. At the end of the day we have a 4-13 coach and a 13-4 roster which will equate to somewhere between 7-10 wins which may or may not be enough to win the division or make the playoffs.

As you say, at least the cowboys suck.