Special Contributor // Adam Piepgrass
What a trip. Wednesday, it was Jason Babin. Pairing him along with Trent Cole, gives the Eagles a potentially league leading pass rush. Thursday, it was the Kevin Kolb trade, in which the Eagles acquired Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to help in the pass defense that finished middle of the pack last year. Friday, it was the Nnamdi Asomugha that surprised even Nostradamus. And just in case no one was watching, Saturday the Eagles announced a deal with defensive lineman Cullen Jenkins from the Packers.
A few thoughts entered my mind Saturday when I was reviewing the last half week in the NFL…
1) This takes me back to trading cards and comic books. Has the great hall of the Justice League relocated to Lincoln Financial Field?
2) Has any franchise had a greater 4 days of offseason activity than the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles?
3) Will they still have an issue when (not if) Vick gets hurt as they don’t have a capable back-up.
4) Where did the Eagles come from on Asomugha? Does math in the NFL look like: Jets + Raiders + 49ers + Cowboys+ ½ Bucs = Eagles
5) 2nd round pick and DRC? I would have given half my team away if I was Arizona. Imagine yourself as Cardinals Head Coach. Do you really want to risk your job again to have a repeat of last year? Kolb is your ticket to off the hot seat and keeping your best player happy. Still, Eagles made out like bandits.
6) Who would win in a fight, a kicker or a punter? One has the accuracy; the other has the leg strength. Neither have the arms really to do any damage so it may come down to that has the better shoes.
7) Oh crap, I forgot about the Eagles signing Vince Young.
Say what you want about Young, if your back up QB was 30-17 as a starter you’ll be fine if your number 1 goes down. How many teams would love to say their back-up quarterback has that win-loss record? Heck, I’m sure the Redskins would love to say that about one of their three wait-you’re-still-in-the-NFL? quarterbacks. (Actually I think John Beck is going to do well as the rumored starter there. Maybe that is my inner BYU fan speaking but hey, call it a hunch.)
Back to the new Justine League analogy. Seriously, this offseason spending spree by the Eagles tends to remind me of… myself as a Madden GM. My claim to Madden fame is that I assembled a team back on Madden 2002 on Nintendo 64. The team featured players rated above 90. Every single one. If you don’t believe it, the editor of this website can confirm it for he saw it with his own eyes. Yes, for whatever reason I saw it fit to have my backup quarterback, back up kicker, and even water boy had a rating of at least 90. That team was the only team I have seen in my Madden years that went 19-0 without me playing a single game.
The Eagles are starting to remind me of this team.
You know how Superman like Vick was last year? Okay, so he slowed down near the end of last year. Yes, he got banged up because of his style of play. Yes, defenses started to figure out how to play him.
Still, he had a ridiculous year. A passer rating of 100.2, 3,000+ passing yards, nearly 700 yards rushing, and a 21:6 touchdown/int ratio – he was pretty sick. You add to his skill set, the likes of DeSean Jackson, LeSean McCoy, Jeremy Maclin, and Brent Celek you’ve got a young and talented bunch that last year was second in the league in yards per game and third in points per game.
I mean, I don’t even think my “Practice squad can embarrass you” Madden 2002 team could have beat up on the Redskins like the Eagles did on Monday Night Football last year.
We all knew that this wasn’t the weak point of the Eagles last year. It was their defense – ranked 21 in the NFL. And really, at No. 18 in pass yards/game, they were looking for a way to improve. They ended up buying a watered down Ravens 2002 defense. The In other words, the Eagles went all in.
So is this Justice League all over again? Did the 2000 Rams offense have a child with 2000 Ravens defense? Yes, at least it has the potential to become such.
The Eagles have enormous potential – a lot like the 90s Chicago Bulls. With another Michael. The Eagles can be the Bulls reincarnated into a football team. They may have the offense and defense personnel to “ground and pound” with you or “air it out.” Whatever your game plan is, they will be better at it. The rest of the NFL is left to pray that Vick gets hurt and Young channels his strip club inner self instead of the Rose Bowl self.
Injuries may be the only answer to this team, so look out for a bunch of Tanya Harding/Jeff Gillooly hit squads on Vick, Jackson, and Asomugha this December. This may be the only kryptonite to this new Justice League. Mark it down, etch it in stone, put in the history books the fact that the will be Eagles in for the Super bowl. Whether they win it or not may be a better question for their basketball counterparts, the Miami Heat. We will have to wait and see.
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