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5 Comments (2 conversations)
Michael Curran
EJ I have to disagree with your word usage they “allowed” Phillips, Dean and Blankenship to walk away. Sorry if that is being picky.
Phillips got a contract Howie was never going to offer. Good luck to Carolina. 30 million a year for a guy who averages 6.5 sacks and rarely plays a full season? I don’t think the contract will age well.
Howie knew the moment they drafted Campbell and gave Baun that contract Nakobe was gone. I wish he could have fit him in but his injury history I think was a prohibitive to that.
Blankenship? He is a dime a dozen S in this league. I think Marcus Epps being inserted into the secondary had more to stabilizing that secondary last season. Blankenship can’t tackle or cover. Christian McCaffrey zooming past him while Blankenship stood there will stay in my mind forever.
Ron Pollock
I agree on your points Michael. Enjoyed the article for the discussion..plus, Howie ain’t done yet.
Les Bowen
Hi Michael — we tried to trick you, I wrote the piece. I agree that $30 million a year for Phillips is too much, but, that doesn’t mean the Eagles have an adequate replacement. In fact, they needed (and obviously still need) to substantially add to their edge talent, instead of subtracting. You can call Blankenship a dime a dozen or whatever. He sure helped win a Super Bowl. Again, who is coming in? And Dean’s blitzing ability kept the pass rush from being a real disaster at some points during the season.
Jim Kempner
Les, my hope for the team is based on last year’s offensive underperformance. To a significant extent, it was due to OL injuries, plus the OC, and an underlying philosophy of avoiding mistakes, ie, turnovers.
Hopefully, a new OC plus plasma injections will ‘fix’ most of those issues.
On the defensive side, the addition of a bona fide corner should provide the DL with added time.
Dan Bernard
I agree w/ Les. A lot of people have had McCaffery blow by them. Blankenship was on 2 superbowl teams. The Eagles just don’t seem to like to spend money at safety. That price for Phillips was too much, but they need more on the edge. And we hope Campbell is close the player Dean has been the past two years, cuz he was really good.