SB Nation User Blog: foos05

Jamie Moyer and Brian Dawkins

foos05 — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:57:02 -0000

Jamie Moyer and Brian Dawkins

BGN takes a look back at these two aging players that found themselves in similar contract situations in their respective offseasons.

Interesting Read...

foos05 — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:55:14 -0000

Interesting Read...

I'm not really an ESPN fan, but this article is kind of an interesting read, if you discount all of the Rick generated false quotes...

Let's Take A Little Look Around

foos05 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:33:43 -0000

I know this was reported yesterday, but it's still worth mentioning. Jim Johnson seems to be doing well with his cancer treatment.

All of the NFL attendees at Playboy's golf outing got shiny new Tasers.

Hopefully for the Bills, Marshawn Lynch was in attendance so he can avoid any future three game suspensions.

It doesn't seem like Troy Aikman was every too thrilled about the T.O. experiment.

This is a few days old, but it's pretty funny. Plus, wide receivers and hot girls... sign me up.

Well geez, I guess these could double as a boat anchor in a quick pinch.

And, just for good measure, here's some Megan Fox from the new Transformers movie.

A Great Look at McNabb

foos05 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:35:49 -0000

Derek from IgglesBlog has stumbled upon a treasure trove of quarterback stats. It's an excellent read and I would suggest that everyone takes some time and checks it out. Some of the results will probably surprise you. They did me.

Bucs Extend Winslow 6 years/$36.1M

foos05 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:56:17 -0000

Bucs Extend Winslow 6 years/$36.1M

Not long ago, we were entertaining the idea of trading for ex-Browns TE Kellen Winslow Jr. The Tampa Bay Bucs beat us to the punch and have since extended WInslow with a 6 year contract that contains $20M in guarantees. The deal is worth a little over $36M and can be maxed over $42M. Winslow is now the highest paid TE in NFL history. I only mention this because it'll set the bar for future TE contracts.

NFL Europe 2: Electric Boogaloo?

foos05 — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:42:46 -0000

One issue that is currently under discussion at the NFL Owners Meetings in California is the topic of regular season expansion. For the fans, this would be fantastic. Who wouldn’t want an additional game to watch? I’m sure the players have to qualms with this topic, but that’s to be expected. For the owners, again, this is a winning situation; another game to reign in the profits. If this were to move forward, the preseason would be reduced. This would result in some of the younger players not seeing as much action (as they normally find the bulk of their playing time during preseason games). So what’s the solution? Why the resurrection of NFL Europe (or some sort of developmental league), of course.

Don’t get me wrong, I think a developmental league is a great idea as long as it’s run correctly. Let’s talk about NFL Europe for a second though. Some version of American football was in existence in Europe from 1991 until 2007. It went through a few different name changes, but at this point, everyone knows it as NFL Europe. The premise was to have a league where NFL teams could send players during the offseason to get an increased number of snaps and work on specific shortcomings in their game. Unfortunately, the league became a way for the NFL to try to expand its football monopoly to a relatively untapped market that, arguably, didn’t want it on a regular basis. The goal of the league became profit, with development as a hopefully fulfilled byproduct. NFL Europe folded in 2007, with the owners citing yearly losses in excess of $30 million.

As I said, some incarnation of a developmental league is something the NFL should have, but it needs to be done the right way. Presently, the NFL is the only major American sporting league (MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL) without some kind of formal developmental league. Players that have enormous amounts of potential fall through the cracks because they are not polished enough. The only way for these individuals to develop is to find some playing time. Currently, the practice squad is the place where this occurs. While the practice squad is all well and good, it probably isn’t enough. Re-establishing a league that functions during the offseason would be vital to the development of players. The goal of this league needs to remain development and not profit. It should be established in the US and any profit that is actually made should be seen as a blessing. It seems as if Roger Goodell shares this perspective as well.

“If it was a developmental league, it should be done for that purpose, for the purpose of developing players,” Goodell said. “So the commercial aspects, the international aspects, I think those would become secondary. That was my issue primarily with NFL Europe was that, what objective was it trying to meet? Was it trying to develop players? Was it trying to grow our game internationally, trying to be a commercial success?

An environment like this would be perfect for players like King Dunlap, Bryan Smith, and probably even Winston Justice to work on their game in a situation where they would see constant playing time for a few months. I, for one, would welcome some type of development league. I’m not sure most fans would care very much or the league would be profitable, but that shouldn’t be the goal.

What Can I Buy With $35M?

foos05 — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:11:08 -0000

Right now, the Eagles sit and wait for the draft. Could there be a huge deal in the works for a receiver that the fans covet? Sure, but it seems far more likely that the receiving corps that you presently see will pick up a rookie in the draft at some point and move forward. In all honesty, barring a late veteran signing for depth, if you add some rookies to the current roster, that’s probably what the 2009 team will look like. After handing out a pair of one year contracts to two safeties and a one year deal to Leonard Weaver, we currently sit around $35M under the salary cap. We look at our veritable cornucopia of draft picks (far too many to utilize), put two and two together and come to the conclusion that we must be trading for a marquee player. Add the fact that we recently shipped Greg Lewis to the Patriots and the conclusion is that we must be targeting Anquan Boldin or Braylon Edwards, right? If not, the only other reason to hold onto all of this cap space is that it just provides more padding for Jeffrey Lurie’s money mattress, right?

To be honest, I’m not too surprised where we sit and that we’re not using all of this cap room that we have; some of my reasoning has to do with the future, but some deals with the present as well. If we take a quick look, our current numbers are as follows:

	2009
Salary	$ 113.8
Salary Cap	$ 127.0

Sub Total	$ 13.2
LTBE	$ 20.0
Deion Credit	$ 1.4
Dead Money	$ 2.4

Cap Room	$ 32.2

Now, in reality, our current team salary is somewhere around $109M, but I’m going on the premise that we will use both of our first round picks and I’m using a modest estimate that we sign $4.5M worth of rookies this year (and that’s a fairly low figure if we end up signing the 21st and 28th picks). That gets me to the roughly $114M figure for 2009. After we go through all of the steps and collecting our credits and adding in our dead money, we end up with a full roster ready for the season and $32.2M remaining under the cap. I’m fairly confident that we’ll be somewhere in that range when all is said and done (plus or minus $2M).

So why aren’t we spending? Well one of the answers is actually starring you in the face in the 2009 data. When the Eagles have seen a player they truly wanted, they had no problem spending to get him (Kearse, Runyan, Samuel, attempt at Moss, etc). What has always given us that flexibility? The fact that we have engineered a steady stream of "Likely To Be Earned" credit is the main reason. Each year we’ve had a fairly decent amount of cap money to spend; not too much, not too little, but it has always been vastly increased by LTBE credit that is passed forward from the previous year. Look at 2009; almost $20M that we are able to spend. Well that all goes away for 2010. Additionally, we need to worry about resigning some key players and will probably look to address some of the 2010 class as well. Let’s take a look and do some estimation.

No one can predict what the 2010 cap number will be; especially since it hinges on whatever new CBA is put into place. Initial estimates for the Eagles’ 2010 salary right now are in the area of $114M to the players that are currently on the roster that will be in 2010. We should also estimate the 2010 earnings of the 2009 rookies (the ones that should make around $4.5M in 2009), and I think a fair estimate of that would be around $7M. Just by contract progression, the 2010 salary is already $7M higher than the 2009 salary. This doesn’t take into account the 13 free agents that will need to be dealt with after the 2009 season. That’s right… 13 spots on the roster will need to be filled, and we’re probably going to want to keep some of these guys.

Out of these 13 RFAs/UFAs, the ones I’m worried about retaining are Avant, Giles, Gocong, and Weaver. I don’t think it would be unreasonable for this group, who is going to collectively make about $5.5M in 2009, to make at least $9M collectively in 2010. We’re now collectively +$10.5M above the 2009 salary. There are also 4 players that will be FAs after the 2010 season that will probably be approached about extensions after the 2009 season; namely Mikell, Bradley, Celek, and Abiarmiri. For the 2009 season, this group will collectively earn about $4M. These guys aren’t making much at all. If we were to extend these four players, would it be all that surprising for their collective salary to jump to $14M in 2010? I don’t think so. After another year of across the board salary increases and free agent signings increasing market value, I could very easily see Celek making $2M, Abiarmiri making $3M, Mikell making $3.5M and Bradley $5M. We’re now +$20.5M above our 2009 salary.

If our 2009 salary is roughly $114M and we add the estimated $20.5M, we end up at $134.5M. The 2009 salary cap increased from $116M to $127M, so let’s make a rough estimate and say the 2010 cap will be $142M. So everything looks good right? We resigned the players we wanted and we extended our talented youth for the foreseeable future right? With $7.5M to spare! So why didn’t we spend more this offseason? Well, in our scenario, we still have 9 spaces on the roster to fill with that $7.5M.

Sports Hernia: What's the Deal?

foos05 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:05:37 -0000

I was reading part two of Spadaro's interview with Andy Reid on PE.com this morning. Just like part one, it was some pretty vanilla stuff covering issues that we already know existed. Of course, a question about the quality of our wide receivers popped up. Andy gave a very general answer, as always, and that's fine. The one aspect of his answer that stood out to me was the way he addressed Jason Avant. He seems to be very high on young Jason, and I can understand why. However, the part that stood out was the mention of Avant having sports hernia last year. This hit me a little bit, as I was unaware of it.

We should all know what sports hernia is at this point, but if you don't, it's a situation that occurs in the lower abdomen. The muscles or tendons in the lower wall weaken and allow a pouch to form. As we should all know by now, the treatement for this is surgery. Depending on the severity, surgery can be a simple snip and sew situation, or in McNabb's and Curtis' case, meshing is inserted to strengthen the area.

The recovery period from this type of injury is about six to eight weeks, but in all honesty, full recovery can take almost twice as long. To be honest, I don't think I ever heard of this type of injury until McNabb, and now it seems like we see atleast one player every year on the Eagles wtih it, but I don't see the same trend around the NFL. Since 2005, McNabb, LJ Smith, Curtis, and now Avant have had this surgery. Seems odd that there's such a large concentration here and not everywhere else.

Stallworth: From Bad to Worse

foos05 — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:42:16 -0000

By now, we're all aware of the tragic death of 59 year old Mario Reyes on Saturday
morning in Miami and the involvement of former Eagle Donte Stallworth. Up until now, the information that was released regarding the incident portrayed it as a horrible accident that claimed the life of an innocent civilian just after the start of a beautiful Miami morning. Stallworth was said to have been deeply saddened by the tragedy and was more than cooperative with law enforcement officials. Things may have taken a turn for the worse.

A report out of Cleveland is now stating that Stallworth had a blood alcohol content of .12, which is above the legal limit of .08 in Florida. When questioned regarding the report, officials responded by saying that at this time the report was not confirmed, but that information would be released when they make an arrest. That sounds like a tongue-in-cheek way of confirming it without actually doing so.

Miami Beach Detective Juan Sanchez said, "That has not been released or confirmed by us. They went with that story without confirming it with us.''

Sanchez added that although results of the toxicology report are due Friday, "we will not be releasing those results until we make an arrest.''

If convicted of DUI manslaughter, Stallworth would face a 15 year jail sentence under Florida law. It is terrible that an innocent civilian has lost his life; when will people learn?

Heyward-Bey Drawing Interest?

foos05 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:33:27 -0000

Is Darrius Heyward-Bey on the Eagles radar? Heyward-Bey is a 6'2" 210 pound wide receiver from the University of Maryland. Recently, he ran a 4.3/40 at the NFL Scouting Combine. Heyward-Bey is coming off a pair of strong seasons at UM where he accumulated over 1400 yards and 8 touchdowns; averaging 15.4 yards per catch.

It is no surprise that the Baltimore Ravens are working Heyward-Bey out as he is projected to be a late first round pick and Baltimore, who is in need of wide receiver help, holds the 26th overall pick. However, it seems that the Eagles are also a team that have Heyward-Bey scheduled to work out for them.

The Philadelphia Eagles have also arranged a workout in College Park, and three more teams - the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, St. Louis Rams and Vikings - have extended invitations to Heyward-Bey.

Heyward-Bey is a player that presents game breaking ability. He has great vertical speed and is excellent at creating seperation from press coverage. Also, he has the ability to make tough catches with a 40" vertical leap and good hands. Additionally, he has the ability to turn a short catch into a long gain.