Wellness

[yellowrose]

JJ Watt and Clowney together - Can't wait to see that.

I was holding my breath when the Cowboys turn came up and then.....just as the moment came, my Dish reception went out due to a storm. So my relief was delayed until I found out they did get Manziel.

[gardenman]

Clowney was just too good to pass up. Watkins is a good wide receiver, but the Bills gave up a lot to get him. I'm not sure I would have sacrificed that much. Highly drafted wide receivers have a bad habit of going bust. Only something like 30% of receivers picked in the first round are successful, so picking a receiver high can be a bit risky.

From here on out it's nearly impossible to make predictions. Houston's likely to grab a QB, but other than that what happens will be largely a matter who who's available and how a team feels he fits their schemes.

The vocal majority in the Philly region are sure the Eagles reached for Smith and there were better players available. The thing is they may not be better players for what Philly wants to do. The Eagles are expecting to see lots of man coverage this season, so receivers who have a hard time handling man coverage are less valuable even if other teams/scouts love them. Marqise Lee is the guy everyone seems upset that we didn't get, but he had a down year last year (with some justification considering his health and the QB situation at USC.) If the Eagles feel he can't routinely beat man coverage and they know they'll face lots of man coverage, then drafting him would be largely a wasted pick despite his high rating. It might make the fans happy for now, but if he can't perform those same fans would be very angry down the road. If Marcus Smith plays well and improves each year in another year or two he could be a dominant outside linebacker that every team playing the Eagles has to account for.

[gardenman]

On 5/9/2014 yellowrose said:

JJ Watt and Clowney together - Can't wait to see that.

I was holding my breath when the Cowboys turn came up and then.....just as the moment came, my Dish reception went out due to a storm. So my relief was delayed until I found out they did get Manziel.

Manziel in Dallas would have been interesting, but alas, it's not to be. Zack Martin was a nice safe, reliable pick for the Cowboys. JJ Watt and Clowney will give offensive line coaches nightmares. Teams will pretty much have to double-team both of them and that will mean limiting the down the field options. I wouldn't be shocked to see the Texans back in the playoff hunt this year.

[gardenman]

Linemen are going fast in the second round of the draft. Dallas traded their third round pick to swap second round picks with the Redskins. That's a good deal for the Redskins in my opinion. I'm kind of surprised the Cowboys did that. They need bodies on defense and giving up a third round pick is a pretty big price to pay.

[gardenman]

And round two bites the dust! The Eagles picked up Jordan Matthews the wide receiver from Vanderbilt. The local press is pretty happy with this pick, so there's that. He's a big kid 6'-3" with big hands and pretty fast at a 4.4 forty. The Patriots drafted quarterback Jimmy Garappolo which could make Ryan Mallett available for the right price. I'm not sure if Houston still wants him or if they're looking at an AJ McCarron instead.

[gardenman]

And day two of the draft ends with no huge surprises, other than the Texans still not having a quarterback. The Eagles picked up wide receiver Josh Huff from Oregon, a Chip Kelly guy, in the third round to finish out the third round. We traded our first pick in the third round to the Texans and got their fourth and fifth round picks in exchange, so the Eagles should be first up this afternoon when round four kicks off.

There are some pretty big "name" quarterbacks still out there. AJ McCarron and Tom Savage are still available and are healthy. Zach Mettenberger and Aaron Murray are both also still available and are recovering from torn ACL's. I still think we could see Aaron Murray end up with the Eagles. Scouts typically compare Aaron Murray to Matt Barkley and we know Chip Kelly loves Matt Barkley. Chip traded up to the top of the fourth round last year to get Barkley. Does he use a fourth or fifth round pick on Murray? Mark Sanchez signed just a one year deal with the Eagles, so they'll be looking for another quarterback next year to replace him and if you can get a guy with first round talent in the fourth or fifth round this year and put him on PUP, or the IR for the year while he recovers from the torn ACL, it's not a bad move. We'll have to see what happens there.

I expect to see the Eagles go pretty heavy on defense the rest of the way through the draft.

[gardenman]

In a somewhat complicated and confusing trade, the Eagles traded Bryce Brown (our third string running back) to the Bills for the pick that the Bills got for Stevie Johnson and swapping final round picks. What pick we get (a third or fourth) and when we get it (2015 or 2016) will be determined by how Stevie Johnson does in San Francisco. So, the Eagles need Stevie Johnson to have a great year in San Francisco to get a better pick. A third or fourth round pick isn't bad for a running back who probably wasn't going to make the team, who got traded to a team that's already pretty deep in running backs, and especially when you consider we couldn't get anything for DeSean Jackson in a trade. This is a strange league sometimes. Bryce Brown's a very good running back when you can keep him going north and south, but he's far too prone to going east and west instead.

[gardenman]

And the draft is over for the Eagles!!! We ended up with five defensive players and two wide receivers. Now there's a brief period of craziness as teams frantically call around the country signing kids who weren't drafted. Some kids will promise to sign with a team then get a call from another team they'd prefer and change their mind. The next few days will be pretty crazy.

[yellowrose]

So many different opinions on how the Cowboys drafted - it all makes my head spin. I stopped watching after the first round since I don't know any of the names anyway. Just had to watch and be sure JJ didn't take Johnny.

Gardenman, will you be getting the NFL channel back once football starts? I cancel my NFL after the last Thurs. night game, then call before they start up again and tell Dish I want a good deal since I'm a long time customer. Haven't gotten a freebie yet, I'll be pushing for that this year, which I'm sure I won't get.

[gardenman]

Yellowrose. No one truly knows how any team did in the draft and won't know for months. Chip Kelly said as much when an Eagle reporter asked him how he thought the team had done. He replied "I honestly have no idea." It'll take three to six months before teams/coaches start to know how they did and a couple of years to truly know. You just never know how a kid will transition from college to the pros. First round picks are about a fifty-fifty proposition so even then you don't absolutely know what you're getting. For every Andrew Luck, there's a Ryan Leaf. Right now all anyone knows is the number of players they got and their names, but reality will start to rear its ugly head as the mini-camps and training camps roll around.

As to the NFL Network, I just can't justify the cost. It's almost $13 a month for the "sports package" from Comcast and the only channel in that package I'd really watch is the NFL Network. That's just too much money for me to spend on one stupid channel. Comcast holds local customers in the Philly area at gunpoint. They have their Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia channel that shows all of the local sports (Phillies, Sixers, Flyers games) and about the only way you can get that channel is directly from Comcast. Technically they make it available to DirectTV and Dish, but Comcast charges so much for it that those outlets won't carry it. Verizon offers it on their FIOS network, but despite the FIOS cable going right past my front door, Verizon won't let let anyone who's not in a major metropolitan area, or a county seat subscribe to FIOS. I'm about a mile and a half outside the county seat and Verizon won't connect us. Dish and DirectTV often have deals where you get the NFL Network included with a package, but losing SportsNet Philadelphia is too high a price to pay to switch providers. What we need is a la carte pricing where you can buy just the channels you want to see. I'm currently getting multiple Spanish language channels (I believe we get around 10 of them) and many channels of children programming, neither of which I watch, but I still have to pay for, but they won't give me the NFL Network without paying an additional $13 a month.