August 28, 2023
Tommy Gilligan/USA TODAY Sports
Eagles executive vice president and general manager Howie Roseman.
As we prepare for the last week without real NFL football until February, Philadelphia is buzzing about the Eagles. As the team looks to make its way back to the Super Bowl and avenge this past winter's loss, here's a peek at what the national media is saying about the Birds...
Over at The Athletic, 23 NFL agents were surveyed about a variety of topics, from Jonathan Taylor to Aaron Rodgers and more. When it came to a poll of who's the league's best general manager, Howie Roseman garnered the most votes of anyone. 10 out of the 23 agents cast their ballot for Roseman.
Here are a few anonymous statements given from the agents about Roseman...
“Look, I hate to say it, but (Roseman) keeps putting together good rosters and wins games.”
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“Sometimes he’s cutthroat, but (Roseman) finds a way to get the right guys for the roster and their salary cap.”
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“(Roseman) gets ahead of extensions and gets guys to take less money. That’s a sign.” [The Athletic/$]
Look how far we've come from the disastrous 2020 season that had Philadelphia (justifiably, I'd add) calling for Roseman's job. Roseman ultimately reinvented himself once more, however, and has been crushing the Eagles' drafts, targeting players from premier programs and continuing his unparalleled cap management.
Former Eagles beat reporter Sheil Kapadia, now a national writer at The Ringer, unveiled his ranking of all 32 NFL offenses on Monday. The Birds came in at No. 2, trailing only Kansas City. Regarding Jalen Hurts and this high-flying unit, Kapadia writes:
Hurts, wide receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, and tight end Dallas Goedert are either in their primes or ascending players. The offensive line is one of the best in the NFL. And given how much Hurts has already improved, it’d be silly to put a cap on his ceiling. He’s 25 years old, and last season, he ranked sixth in Next Gen Stats’ completion percentage over expectation metric, which assesses accuracy based on the difficulty of each throw. He also had the fifth-lowest interception rate (1.3 percent) among starters.
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- Fantasy football: Expectations for Jalen Hurts, Eagles RBs, WRs and more
The beauty of the Eagles offense is that it’s not that complicated, yet it almost always has answers. Want to play two-high coverages? They’ll gash you in the run game. Want to be more aggressive? Brown, Smith, and Goedert can win one-on-one. [The Ringer]
I can't see this Eagles team being in line for 2018-like regression. Yes, injuries are a massive variable, especially with two elite, but aging, stars along the offensive line. Still, as Kapadia notes, the Eagles are a multi-faceted offense that can fall back on their running game or dialed up routes for their ever-reliable pass-catching trio whenever they get a bit jammed up.
Pro Football Focus has been posting a series of "bold" predictions for every NFL division this summer. As can be seen while clicking through their embedded Instagram post below, they gave three for the Eagles: Jalen Carter winning Defensive Rookie of the Year, the Birds having the league's best offensive line again and Nakobe Dean finishing as a top-five graded linebacker.
I'm not quite sure Carter is set to win that award. Perhaps he's just that damn good (as his teammates seem to think), but I imagine it'll be hard to put up big-time sack numbers as an interior rusher that will be needed to be named Defensive Rookie of the Year. He's in a deep rotation along a stacked defensive line. He could have a DROY-like impact that goes beyond his stats, certainly, but that doesn't catch the eye of voters like a high sack count will.
I'm in agreement on the offensive line take, but that Dean prediction feels pretty off-base. Linebacker is the clear-cut weakest link on this roster, Dean hasn't played a ton this summer (nor did he as a rookie in 2022) and that would be a hell of a breakout campaign for him. Maybe it comes one day in the future, but I just don't see it in 2023.
They also have the Cowboys finishing with the No. 1 seed in the NFC, so make of these predictions what you will!
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