Trying to understand the Dallas Goedert situation, an insane stat about Eagles quarterbacks and the Super Bowl and some thoughts about Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders.
As we roll along toward the draft, schedule release day and OTAs – and opening day in just 151 days – here’s a fresh batch of Roob’s Random Eagles Offseason Observations!
1A. Listening to Howie Roseman and Nick Sirianni at the owners meetings, it sure sounds like Dallas Goedert is already gone. When coaches and GMs start using the past tense to talk about a player, it’s never a good sign. I get it. Goedert is 30, he can’t get through a season healthy and he’s due $15 ½ million in 2025. That won’t work. What I don’t get is why the Eagles and Goedert can’t figure out a deal that makes sense for both sides. Goedert has to know his value on the open market isn’t going to be very high, so why not agree to a pay cut and have a chance to stay in Philly and play for a perennial Super Bowl contender? And the Eagles have to know they’re a better team with Goedert on the field than gone. Since 2020, Goedert has averaged 50.7 yards per game – 5th-most in the league among tight ends who’ve played at least 50 games. And look at his postseason production – 17-for-215 with a TD this year in the playoffs, 52-for-562 with four TDs in his career in the playoffs. On top of all that, the Eagles just don’t have a successor. Grant Calcaterra is OK but he’s not a TE1. They signed a couple guys, but they’re just guys. They could draft a tight end, but who knows what you’re going to get? It makes sense for everybody for Goedert to be here on a sensible deal, and it’s surprising that so far they haven’t figured out a way to make that happen.
1B. Goedert also had 16 catches in the 2022 postseason, and he’s one of only five tight ends in NFL history with multiple postseasons with 16 or more catches. The six others are Travis Kelce, Rob Gronkowski, Zach Ertz and Dallas Clark. Damn good company.
2. I’m not being critical of Josh Sweat and there’s no question he was huge in the Super Bowl with 2 ½ sacks. Sweat was a good player here, but he wasn’t a great player. He played hard all the time, he was tough and physical against the run and he almost never missed a game or a snap. And good for him for getting $76.4 million over four years from the Patriots with $38 million guaranteed. But I wouldn’t have paid him that much. Looking at the big picture, Sweat is a middle-of-the-pack edge rusher. Since he became a full-time player in 2019, he has 43 sacks, which is 26th-most in the league during that six-year span. He’s never had more than 11 sacks in a season. He went eight straight games to finish 2022 without a sack and then the first three games of 2023. As effective as he was in the Super Bowl, he had one sack in eight games leading up to New Orleans. Sweat averaged 0.41 sacks per game as an Eagle. Mike Mamula averaged 0.41 sacks per game as an Eagle. Nolan Smith is going to be a star. Jalyx Hunt has a world of potential. And the draft is full of impact edge rushers. The Eagles will miss Sweat. He’s a fine player, and you’d love to have him back if it made financial sense. But losing him isn’t the end of the world.
3A. How about Bill Bradley’s first two years as a starting safety? In 1971, he led the NFL with 11 interceptions and in 1972 he led the NFL with nine interceptions. Six other NFL players have had nine or more INTs in consecutive seasons, but Bradley is the last to do it and the only player to do it in the last 60 years. Those 11 INTs are still a franchise record and his nine a year later are still tied for second. That’s 20 interceptions in his first 28 starts (he was the Eagles’ punter in 1969). He finished with 34 INTs as an Eagle, tied with Eric Allen and Brian Dawkins for the franchise record. Bradley, a 3rd-round pick out of Texas in 1969, was a three-time Pro Bowler and two-time 1st-team all-pro for the Eagles. Bradley also punted 213 times without ever having a punt blocked. Only 16 punters in NFL history have punted more than Bradley without a block. Chris Gardocki has the record with 1,177 punts without a block. Bradley went into the Eagles Hall of Fame back in 1993. Now you know everything about Bill Bradley.
3B. For those of you who are dying to know, the six other players in NFL history with consecutive seasons with at least nine interceptions are Frank Reagan of the Giants (10 in 1947, nine in 1948), Tom Keane of the Dallas Texas and Colts (10 in 1952 with the Texans, 11 in 1952 with the Colts), Tommy Morrow of the Raiders (10 in 1962, 9 in 1963, then only played one more season), Bobby Boyd of the Colts (9 in both 1964 and 1965), Don Doll of the Lions (11 as a rookie in 1949, 12 in 1950) and Hall of Famer Jack Butler of the Steelers (10 in 1957, 9 in 1958).
3C. For those of you curious about Frank Reagan, he was actually a Philly native and played football at Northeast Catholic and Penn and finished his career with the Eagles and played on the 1949 NFL Championship team. He had 15 interceptions in three seasons with the Eagles.
4. This is insane, but the Eagles are one of only five teams in NFL history to draft two different quarterbacks who’ve won a Super Bowl, and Howie Roseman is one of only two general managers to draft two quarterbacks who’ve won Super Bowls for the team that drafted them. There are 13 teams who’ve won Super Bowls with more than one quarterback: The Ravens (Trent Dilfer, Joe Flacco), Cowboys (Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman), Packers (Bart Starr, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers), Chiefs (Len Dawson, Patrick Mahomes), Giants (Phil Simms, Jeff Hostetler, Eli Manning), Raiders (Jim Plunkett, Ken Stabler), Eagles (Nick Foles, Jalen Hurts), Steelers (Terry Bradshaw, Ben Roethlisberger), 49ers (Joe Montana, Steve Young), Buccaneers (Brad Johnson, Tom Brady) and Washington (Joe Theismann, Doug Williams, Mark Rypien). Dilfer was drafted by Tampa, Peyton Manning was drafted by the Colts, Dawson was drafted by the Steelers, Plunkett by the Patriots, Young by the Buccaneers, Theismann by the Dolphins and Williams by the Bucs. That leaves the Cowboys, Packers, Giants, Steelers and Eagles as the only teams to draft two QBs who won Super Bowls for the team that drafted them. For Dallas, Staubach was drafted in 1964 by Tex Schramm and Aikman in 1989 by Jerry Jones. Starr was drafted in 1956 and Rodgers in 2006 – 14 GMs apart. Bradshaw was drafted in 1970, some 30 years before Kevin Colbert became Steelers GM and drafted Big Ben in 2004. That leaves Howie Roseman, who drafted Nick Foles in the third round in 2012 and Jalen Hurts in the second round in 2020, and George Young, who drafted Simms in the first round in 1979 and Jeff Hostetler in the third round in 1984, as the only GMs in history to draft more than one Super Bowl-winning quarterback. #Howieball.
5. Only 11 quarterbacks in NFL history drafted in the sixth round or later have ever won a game where they’ve completed 66 percent of their passes and thrown for 265 yards and two touchdowns without an interception. Tanner McKee did that in his first career start.
6. JALEN HURTS STAT OF THE WEEK: Jalen Hurts this year became the only quarterback in NFL history to have a passer rating of at least 103 during the regular season and win the Super Bowl and not make the Pro Bowl. The only QBs in history who had a higher passer rating and went on to win the Super Bowl: Steve Young, Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Kurt Warner and Patrick Mahomes. All were Pro Bowlers the year they won it.
7. I’m glad the NFL is adopting the postseason overtime rule for the regular season. It’s the only fair way to have overtime that isn’t sudden death. The new rule guarantees that both teams have a chance to get the football, which was really necessary. But there is an exception, and that’s if the team getting the ball first uses the entire overtime or most of it and scores with little or no time on the clock. That could leave the second team with no time left – which isn’t likely – or very little time on the clock – which is quite likely. Which is why it’s stupid not to expand overtime from 10 to 15 minutes. If it’s a matter of “player safety,” we’re talking about a handful of games each year and maybe a few more minutes of football. If you want both teams to have a fair chance to score, you can’t play a 10-minute overtime.
8. Only six Hall of Fame defensive backs have been drafted in the second round, and the Eagles have drafted two of them – Eric Allen in 1988 and Brian Dawkins in 1996. The others are Washington’s Paul Krause and the Cowboys’ Mel Renfro, both drafted in 1964, the Lions’ Lem Barney, drafted in 1967, and the Packers’ LeRoy Butler, drafted in 1990. So the Eagles have drafted more Hall of Fame defensive backs in the second round over the last 50 years than every other team combined.
9. There’s so much anti-Shedeur Sanders sentiment going into the draft, and I’m sure it’s a result of just how over-hyped everything Colorado football has been since Deion took over and a sense that the program is all about show and not really about winning. But Sanders is going to be a really good pro. He’s incredibly tough. He was sacked 94 times the last two years and some of those were on Sanders for holding the ball too long, but Colorado’s offensive line was terrible, and he showed tremendous tenacity popping up after every one of those sacks without missing time. He’s the most accurate quarterback in the draft and can really squeeze the ball in tight windows. He completed 74 percent of his passes last year – best in the BCS – while also leading the BCS with 8.7 yards per attempt. That’s an impressive combination. He throws accurately in the pocket or on the move, and he’s got polished fundamentals and elite poise that make him NFL ready. I have a hunch we’ll see him twice a year in a Giants uniform.
10. Saquon Barkley was tied for the 57th-highest career rushing average in NFL history coming into 2024 at 4.3 yards per carry (minimum 1,000 carries). Just one year later, he’s tied for 15th with a 4.7 career average.
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