How did they do?

[deerpathdave]

1. LeSean McCoy. Was: $23.6M over 3 years. Is: $27M over 3 years.

2. Jeremy Maclin. Was. $5.25M expired. Is: $15M is year one.

3. Nate Allen. Was $3M expired. Is: $8M.

4. James Casey. Was. $4M. Is: unemployed

5. Bradley Fletcher. Was. $3.6M expired. Is: $2.5M

6. Todd Herremans. Was. $4M and $5M. Is: $2.5M

7. Trent Cole. Was. $10M x3 years. Is: $14M over 2 years.

8. Carey Williams. Was. 1 year $6.5M. Is. $3 year $18M, $7M in year one.

McCoy, Maclin, Allen and Williams all made more.

Casey, Fletcher, Herremans and Cole all made less.

 

[deerpathdave]

1. Overall, you got to be pleased with the McCoy trade. They got Alonso at a cheap salary and ended up with essentially the same quality of back at about the same price, and weakened the Cowboys at the same time.

2. Disappointed in losing Maclin, and thinking that they may have been able to swing a deal for less than he took from KC is they were more aggressive mid season. Still, its a huge contract. I find it interesting that they paid less for Murray than Maclin got paid. A lot less. Its really out of wack that receivers are making that kind of money.

3. Nate Allen IMO was under appreciated in this town. And while overpaid by Oakland, I really doubt the next Safety will be better. It sucks to be average sometimes.

4. I thought at the time and the numbers confirm that it was a bad call to cut Carey. At $6.5M for one year he was fair value. Would love to have him starting for one year next to Maxwell, while a rookie learns the ropes.

5. Casey, Fletcher, Herremans and Cole were all getting overpaid to the tune of $8-9M per year total.

6. I felt the Graham/Cole thing was well played and worked out well. Both got to taste Free Agency and the Eagles ultimately got the younger player at a fair contract.

 

[Deano]

Allen is a bum who will never learn his position. We are easily better just giving his job to a young kid and letting the kid learn and get better.

The Maclin contract should have been done last year before other teams got involved. Can't blame him for chasing that money even if he will statistically disappear this year in KC

Can't blame Chip for cutting the veterans but now we badly need a vet OL.

 

[deerpathdave]

Its really hard to rate Safeties, so finding an objective opinion can be hard. Pro Football Focus us probably as good a source as any. Some of their comments...

http://www.complex.com/sports/2013/09/worst-quarterback-nfl-history/

PFF All-NFC East team features 11 Eagles, including Nate Allen - Bleeding Green Nation

Evaluating the Eagles: Part 10, Safeties - Philadelphia Eagles - NFL News - Pro Football Spot - Forums


Raiders announce signing of S Nate Allen Inside the Oakland Raiders

69 starts as an Eagle. Generally he seems over the years to basically be average for a starter. Again, I understand there are better players out there, and Oakland overpaid, but I am hard pressed to believe the Eagles are better without him.

 

[Northern Eagle]

If you get sucked into the numbers, then you might determine that Nate Allen was a decent player. He's not. I'm glad we are finally rid of him and move on to try someone else.

 

[Los Eagles]

Nate Allen was the biggest, softest puss on defense. Numbers won't tell you that. Next in line was Williams. When you have to tell everyone how tough you are you usually aren't.

 

[deerpathdave]

The game has changed. Teams routinely go 4 and 5 wide receivers and the Safeties aren't allowed to hit like they once did. So the Safety position is more about coverage than hitting, emphasizing speed over power. That is what Allen is. In some ways he is emblematic of the way the game has changed which many people hate. Are you sure your really hating on Allen or the way the game has changed?

 

[Taz]

Nate "I bite on the double move" Allen. He cost us single handily the Arizona game last year. That to me is enough to say bye bye. Overall he is a below average safety in a league that is struggling to find safeties.

 

[deerpathdave]

Nate "I bite on the double move" Allen. He cost us single handily the Arizona game last year. That to me is enough to say bye bye. Overall he is a below average safety in a league that is struggling to find safeties.

In the same game he had a huge strip fumble recovery..

Philadelphia Eagles safety Nate Allen forces fumble - NFL Videos

Huge INT against the Giants to seal the deal the last week of the season.

As well as the week before against Washington.

If you fired every Safety that ever had a bad play, you would never have any Safeties.

 

[eaglesnut]

Nat Allen was not good in coverage. Whatever else you want to say about him, he will still be a liability in coverage. He's one of those safeties that makes the whole secondary look worse.

 

[Birds4life81]

A case being made for Nate Allen….. And Tebow still has a chance to be a good QB right!

 

[deerpathdave]

Well right now the Eagles options at Safety are a bunch of guys that Allen beat out for the job. Just sayin I don't think the Eagles are better off with him walking. People are also overlooking that the #2 Corner job looks really weak. A bunch of journeyman looking to make or resurrect a career there.

 

[Rey]

You have to keep in mind that Safeties usually become Safeties because they weren't good enough to play Corner at some point during their collegiate career. Sure you will find gems like a Brian Dawkins, Earl Thomas and Troy Polamalu ... but through history some of the best Safeties have been players who switched over from CB while at the pro level ... Ronnie Lott, Rod Woodson, Charles Woodson and so on. I think true Safeties are a dying breed as more and more I see Corners being converted "after" they hit the pros (i.e. Devin McCourtey).

 

[PhillyJoker]

Honestly I'm down with everything they did outside of the Bradford, Foles swap.

Breaking it down very simply, Foles has better positives, less negatives, and a lower floor of potential negatives than Bradford. I think the ceiling for both of them was nearly the same, with Bradford having bigger IFS and larger potential overall. Basically I don't think we got good enough value, not when you consider how much MORE injury prone Bradford is, and how much more money we're paying him.

Other than that, even not overpaying for Maclin, I'm totally ok with.

 

[deerpathdave]

Two things on the Bradford Foles trade.

1. I suspect (although we will never know) that Chip was grading Foles lower than Sanchez. So if that is true, the Eagles.may have bee been trading away their backup quarterback.
2. Rookies in the last year of their deal that start normally get the extension with the huge bonus. If the Eagles did that with Foles he was going to cost probably close if not more than Bradford.

If they kept Foles as a backup you ruin his trade value and piss off and he leaves next year. Not a good deal for anyone. So the trade is a much better situation than that for everyone. Worst case you lose a second round pick to test drive Bradford for a year.

 

[WIZ]

Bradford is a Brown if Mariota falls to 12. This is a gamble Chip is taking and if he gets some solid evidence that Mariota goes sooner he'll move up further. I don't think there's any way he likes Bradford much more than Foles (although his 1st year potential was way higher).

 

[Rey]

Nobody knows Foles better than Chip ... to me it's obvious that Chip fully believes that Foles successful first season as a starter was more due to Chip's play calling than anything special Foles did. Chip wants to win ... if he thought Foles would win for him in the future, he wouldn't have thought about trading him. I also agree with deerpark up above that Chip had Foles ranked behind Sanchez. Bradford's problem is injury, but talent wise I think he has Foles beat by a good margin ... a top pick as opposed to Foles who was a 3rd rounder. Foles got a good break in that he played in a QB friendly system with a good OL while Bradford has been stuck behind a bad OL with an unimaginative offense and bad receivers. Chip considers Bradford a better bet despite two big injuries than a healthy Foles making pennies for another season.

 

[Taz]

The one thing everyone keeps talking about with Bradford is his ceiling is higher than Foles. Sure if you are talking about the Bradford before back to back ACL injuries on the same leg I could buy he has a higher ceiling than Foles. However to many people are just glossing over this. Back to Back to ACL injuries. The guy is not even healthy today March 22nd. 2015. You don't know the player you will have if he is ever healthy. The thing one ACL injury usually the player is ready to play about 9 months after he has surgery. However aside from a few like Adrian Peterson and even Maclin they are not the same players they were before the injury for at least 18 months if ever. That is one injury. Not back to back. Plus add in he is only on a one year contract. The entire thing will never make sense to me. The risk is way greater with Bradford and I am not so sure the reward is that much higher.

Other things to consider, we let Maclin go because we didn't want to pay him 11 million a year. However, we could have kept Maclin and Foles for less money than we are paying Bradford for a year that we are not even sure he is going to play.

The talk that Bradford will be better with a better offensive line and recievers. Our receivers right now and probably for this year are not going to be any better than what he had in St. Louis. Our offensive line once again is it any better than St. Louis, probably not, we don't even have a right guard. We can talk about the draft all you want, but this is a one year deal with Bradford. Rookies are rookies some are ok most are Marcus Smith in year one. Sure our running backs are really good, but Bradford did have Steven Jackson in his prime running for him to.

 

[WIZ]

The Bradford ACL thing is overblown imo. It was clearly a bad fix the first time. I'm pretty sure Andrews tied it up nicely this time. And a qb doesn't put near the stress on it as a rb/wr would.
That said I'm not sold Bradford is ever going to be our qb.

 

[PhillyJoker]

I understand that there are differing opinions on Bradford vs Foles, but I think as a general consensus the trade was better for the Rams. Even if everything works out for us (which it probably won't) I think we should have got better value. That was really my point. For example, if we had swapped 1st round picks, or even 2nd round picks, i'd feel it was more of a fair deal.