Just a couple quick notes from this afternoon.
- The Eagles traded WR Greg Lewis and a 2010 7th round pick to the Patriots for their 2009 5th round pick. This gives the Birds 12 picks in the draft. Hopefully they can use a couple of their 4 5th rounders to trade up into the 3rd round or something. They have the potential to do a lot of wheeling and dealing and lack a couple impact players.
- Tomorrow, S Sean Jones will be visiting. He’s a strong safety who has started for the Browns the last several years. I believe he’s 3rd among safeties over the last 3 years in interceptions (14). That’s an impressive number for a Safety (Dawkins, by comparison, had 6). He must have some shortcomings since the Browns are letting him go and he hasn’t signed with anyone yet, but if he’s got some playmaking ability and is young enough he can still improve, I’m on board. If we signed him, it might signify a Quintin Mikell move to free safety.
- Torry Holt wants out of St. Louis, by trade or release, and I’d like to see the Eagles pick him up. He’s not the player he once was, but he still had 800 yards and 3 TD last season without a decent QB. He’s no long term solution, but might a low-cost, high-reward pick-up who might be fired up to play for a contender again.
- Another situation to watch is the LaDanian Tomlinson contract situation. There appears to be some problems there and the Chargers just franchised Darren Sproles. It’s possible he could be released. Like Hoyt, he’s not what he used to be, but could still be a big contributor.
- Lost in the Brian Dawkins situation is Tra Thomas departure. The Eagles seemed to have no interest in Thomas, one of the best OL in team history. I get that they want to rebuild the OL with younger players, but it seems like they could have at least called Tra and said “thanks for everything, but we are moving in another direction.” Sounds like there was no communication at all.
- No thanks on Jason Taylor or Roy Williams. Taylor doesn’t care enough and Williams makes too many mistakes.
- Make sure to post your off-season plan for the Birds or send it in. We all know you don’t really do anything at work.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
Good riddance to Greg Lewis. That guy has stunk it up here for years. And I don’t want to hear anything about his “special teams ability”. I could run downfield and never make a tackle too.
Pete, if it came down to it, taking out all monetary and contract variables, who would you rather have, purely on talent at this point in their career, Torry Holt or Marvin Harrison?
Can anybody explain why Sean Jones has remained under the radar and lasted on the FA market for so long? He seems pretty decoorated. Sure, he has an injury history, but who doesn’t?? He is only 27, I would have thought that with all of the $$ being thrown around, he would have been signed already.
“Speaking of the Patriots, they also acquired the Eagles receiver whom their coach, Bill Belichick, had been fascinated with for so long. ”
What the hell is Belichick thinking???
Shawn Springs signed with the Pats as well.
If Jabar Gaffney can succeed on the Patriots, then Greg Lewis will as well. He’s pretty much just taking Gaffney’s spot.
I would take Holt right now as well. The guy still has great hands and can go up for the ball. I think that while his year last year didn’t look great on paper, it wasn’t as bad as people think. His team had no o-line, injuries to the QB and stud RB, etc. I’d much rather have him than Marvin Harrison.
stu-
i agree. sean jones seems….like…..pretty damn good. sports illustrated picked him as an all-pro in 2006. He’s only 27, and I imagine JJ can get more out of him that the Browns did.
JDubbz-
Torry Holt. by a lot. Harrison is nothing more than a #3 WR at this point. Holt is still a playmaker.
Dan-
I agree. I fully expect Lewis to play well for the Pats, just like Gaffney did. They tend to be correct on WRs. Can’t believe we got a 5th for him though, that’s awesome. I would guessed a 7th, as he is essentially worthless to us.
Speaking of JJ, do you guys think he’ll be around next year? Not to bring up a depressing subject, but the guy is pretty much dying. If he’s not, how big of a hit will that be to our defense?
As I wrote on my blog last night, this is a fair trade for both sides. Lewis is a serviceable #5 wideout. He’s not a game changer but he can succeed if he is put in the right spots. Bill B. has always spoken highly of G. Lew so it comes as no surprise that the Pats went out and locked him in.
As for Sean Jones, he is a hugely talented player with significant upside. The reason he is still on the market probably has something to do with his checkered injury history and the fact that he had a down year last year. But don’t be fooled, the kid can play. If the Eagles sign him, Q will move to FS. I’d be surprised if the Birds let Jones out of Philly today without an offer in his hands.
Dan-
I haven’t read anywhere that the cancer is terminal, but i haven’t really been looking. Have you read it somewhere or are you assuming because it sounds so bad? If it is, I certainly hope he doesn’t coach and goes and spends time with his fam.
Chris-
I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t sign Jones.
Pete – It doesn’t look good. Spinal cancer isn’ t a battle most win. Odds are pretty high that it spreads, and if it jumps to his spinal fluid or brain than that is probably it. There was an article in the Daily News about a month ago on it. I’m hoping it doesn’t spread and the radiation takes care of it. He always has seemed like a pretty great person, besides being a great coach.
The signing of Sean Jones, especially if done for a moderate contract, would signal that the Eagles do, in fact, have a plan. It seems like this happens every year…flurry of activity, limited moves by the Eagles, fan arupt, eagles start making calculated moves as the market corrects and softens, fans rejoice and realize that the eagles actually had a plan.
The only time I remember the Eagles immediately jumping into FA with a huge offer was when they annointed Jevon Kearse their savior on the line and, well, you see how that turned out.
I don’t like to defend management however I think there are a lot of knuckleheads in Philly and in the media that are quick to blast Banner and Co. It is barely March, the Eagles have 12 draft picks this year and undoubtedly will leverage those into better players and more picks next year as they always do. We should get some quality in the draft and I think the plan started yesterday with the trade of an essentially cuttable Greg Lewis and will hopefully continue today with the signing of Sean Jones.
Who knows, maybe the Eagles just brought in Shawn Springs for the heck of it, numerous reports said they were in no hurry to sign him. They were probably never really interested but wanted to feign it. Hopefully Jones has been their target all along, and the Eagles have a good track record with signing guys they really want (the only one I can think of that they didn’t get is LeCharles Bentley, and he hasn’t played a down for the Browns since they signed him away from us)
They brought in Shawn Springs as a favor to his agent.
I’m just afraid they’re going to do what they do every year, and turn their extra picks into BS. I don’t want to see them trade their picks for future picks again. Use them to move up. Don’t even hesitate. Look at what happens when we don’t use our first round picks. That has caught up to us. We would be in a better position if we had taken Greg Olsen and Jeff Otah the past two years.
Everything I’ve read about Otah is that he is a great run-blocker but has Winston Justice-esque pass blocking ability.
Let’s just say we don’t have quite the run-pass ratio that the Panthers have so I wouldn’t agree with that. I would, however, would have loved Chris Johnson or Felix Jones with that pick…
Don’t know too much about Olsen, but he is hardly a pro bowler.
I am hoping the Greg Lewis trade turns out like this:
3/30/04 – Traded WR James Thrash to Washington for a 5th round
draft pick in 2005 (LB/DE Trent Cole).