Please lock this one up mods

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[h2]Darren Sproles Is the NFL’s Extra Value Meal[/h2]
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NFL
September 16, 2014
by Bill Barnwell

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Through two games, the league’s most influential player might very well be an afterthought who was acquired during the offseason for a fifth-round pick. No, Darren Sproles won’t actually win league MVP when things are all said and done. He’s not the MVP now on a cumulative basis. But in terms of what he’s done in improving his team’s win expectancy, Sproles has had an enormous impact on his new organization. Sproles may very well be the difference between the Eagles starting this season 2-0 and starting it 0-2. In consecutive weeks, he’s been the straw that stirred the drink during second-half comebacks for Philadelphia.

So why did so few teams want Sproles this offseason? And why didn’t that list include the 0-2 Saints, who leaked to reporters that they were cutting Sproles before finding a trade partner and taking the move back? Well, because teams almost always undervalue players like Sproles.

Sproles entered the league as a fourth-round pick of the Chargers in 2005, where he stepped in as the third running back behind LaDainian Tomlinson and Michael Turner before breaking his ankle before the 2006 season, missing the entire campaign. By 2008, he had become a devastating threat as a receiver, averaging 11.8 yards per catch, which is remarkable for a running back. He famously made his name during the playoffs that year, running for two scores against the Colts before catching five passes for 91 yards and a touchdown in a losing effort to Pittsburgh. The Chargers franchised him in 2009 and then gave him a qualifying offer in 2010 that boosted his salary by 10 percent. During those two seasons, he made a total of $13.9 million, which is somewhere in the vicinity of what he’s earned over his seven-plus other seasons in the league.

After a disappointing 2009 season behind an awful offensive line saw Sproles average just 3.7 yards per carry, the Chargers let him hit the market, where he caught on with an offensive mastermind in Sean Payton. The Saints had to give Sproles just a four-year, $14 million contract, trading him after three years of the deal.

While the Chargers saw a back too fragile to test with a starter’s workload and too small to run between the tackles, Payton saw a walking mismatch, a player who would embarrass linebackers in man coverage and look invisible to safeties 15 yards away. He was a running back who would do everything but play like a traditional running back. In his first game with the Saints, Sproles ran the ball only twice for a total of seven yards, but he caught seven passes for 75 yards, returned two kickoffs for a total of 76 yards, and fielded two punts, one of which he took to the house. In Week 2, he scored on a reception. In Week 3, he scored on a carry. He finished with 1,313 yards from scrimmage and 10 touchdowns that season.

By the end of 2013, the Saints had to make a bet on Sproles’s future. Already over the cap heading into the offseason, New Orleans had to clear out space out of concern that an arbitrator might rule Jimmy Graham was a wide receiver, which would cost them an additional $5 million under the franchise tag. Also, the Saints wanted to use any other space they had to target star safety Jairus Byrd, who eventually signed with the team. With a cap hit of $3.5 million and the Saints unlikely to re-sign Sproles after the 2014 season, they decided to cut bait while they could. Other teams saw a player who might be past his prime and weren’t willing to take the risk by giving up more than a fifth-rounder.

Sproles was traded to the Eagles for the fifth-round pick New England sent to Philadelphia for Isaac Sopoaga, who started two games at defensive tackle for a desperate Patriots team last season. Sproles was never going to be a like-for-like replacement for LeSean McCoy, and Chip Kelly has a particular affection for big, tall receivers, but Sproles’s versatility and ability to catch passes all over the formation make him a very useful pawn in Kelly’s high-flying offense. The Eagles gave him a three-year, $10.5 million deal that is more realistically a two-year deal with $1 million in dead money during the third season.

He’s now swung both of Philadelphia’s games in the Eagles’ favor. With the Eagles down 17-0 to Jacksonville at halftime in Week 1 after a disastrous first half from Nick Foles, Sproles was the running back who took a quick snap on fourth-and-1 and ran 49 yards virtually untouched into the Jacksonville end zone for a critical opening score. Admittedly, as Chris Brown noted on Twitter, part of that was thanks to a very questionable defensive line split by the Jaguars, but Sproles was an unquestionable spark. He finished with 11 carries for 71 yards, four catches for 14 yards, and four punt returns for 62 yards.

He had an even larger impact against the Colts. With Foles again struggling to make consistent throws downfield (although admittedly not as badly as he did in Week 1), Sproles became his biggest weapon. With the Colts badly missing starting inside linebacker Jerrell Freeman, the Eagles were able to get Sproles matched up on backup Josh McNary early before moving to screens later in the contest. In all, Sproles caught all seven passes thrown to him, producing 152 receiving yards in the process. He threw in four carries for 26 yards, including a crucial 19-yard run on second-and-goal to tie the game at 20. His 51-yard reception set up the game-tying score in the fourth quarter, and on the next drive, his 17-yard catch-and-run left Philadelphia with a chip-shot field goal to win it, 30-27. After barely making a dent as a receiver last week, Sproles had nearly twice as many receiving yards as anybody else on the roster on Monday night.

Sproles is certainly benefiting from playing in a great offense — as he has for virtually an entire career — but he also makes the offenses around him better. It’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t have been worth a fourth-round pick to a team that could use a third-down weapon with big-play ability, with teams like Atlanta, Baltimore, and even Denver coming to mind. How could a player so impactful fall through the cracks?

By virtue of his archetype, of course. The pass-catching running back is an undervalued asset in football, a player who often spends his career moving around the league and reestablishing himself as a worthwhile talent in each stop. They often sign short-term contracts in free agency for less money than their numbers warrant. Take the most similar player to Sproles, Danny Woodhead. After signing Woodhead off waivers from the Jets, the Patriots used him in a limited role as their backup halfback from 2010 to 2012, during which he averaged 4.8 yards per carry and 10.7 yards per catch on 7.6 touches per game. With a ready replacement in Shane Vereen, the Patriots let Woodhead leave in free agency, where he got a two-year, $3.5 million deal from the Chargers. All he did there was produce 1,034 yards from scrimmage on 182 touches in 2013, scoring eight touchdowns in the process. Any team in football could use that for $1.75 million.

It’s not just Sproles or Woodhead, though. It’s their comparables from the past, guys like Eric Metcalf (seven teams in 13 seasons), Terry Kirby (four teams in 10 seasons), Amp Lee (four teams in nine seasons), and even a fullback like Larry Centers (four teams in 14 seasons). The one real pass-catching halfback who stayed in one spot for his entire career was Kevin Faulk, who had Bill Belichick at the helm from his second season onward. Nobody does a better job with player valuation in football than Belichick, and it’s no surprise he’s had Faulk, Woodhead, and Vereen on his rosters.

Having one Darren Sproles is really valuable, but what if you had two players like that on your roster? Could you line them up in the same backfield and dare opponents to cover them both on option routes? Would a couple 5-foot-6 guys with boundless agility be the best third-and-medium option in the league? Could you rotate them in the lineup frequently enough to keep one well-rested at all times, giving you a nightmare of a matchup on every single passing play?

Until they get their just due, players like Sproles will remain impact contributors on the cheap. And while Sproles isn’t going to score a touchdown each week, he’s going to be a meaningful contributor to Kelly’s offense. He’s already been impressive while the offense struggles to get going. Just imagine how dangerous Darren Sproles will be once the rest of the offense catches up to him

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/darren-sproles-philadelphia-eagles-value/
 
The scary thing is even with our passing game not totally clicking and Foles missing open receivers he's still 2nd in the league in passing yards :lol:

And even though their not connecting right now it's nice to see how open some guys have been on offence, for all the talk that now defences are catching up and figuring out Chip's offence it looks like that hasn't happened yet
 
2nd in passing yards.. and 7th in tds.. or something like that

and this is chip's play sheet:
 
2. Darren Sproles is a tiny little superhero. It’s just not fair that he ended up with the Eagles. How did this happen? New Orleans was really that strapped for cash? I’m not even sure that’s an acceptable answer. The Saints signed Champ Bailey this summer, and then cut him a week before the season. That’s money that should have gone to Sproles.

Then again, having him on Philly is definitely better. It’s too early to say how good the Eagles will be. They can go either 14-2 and look dominant, or something like 11-5 as the best team in a bad division. We’ll see. The only certainty after two weeks is that Sproles and LeSean McCoy will be terrorizing defenses all year. They do it so differently, too. Shady almost floats back and forth through the defense on his big plays. He makes everyone else look like they’re playing on ice. He never looks that fast when he starts, but then you watch him run sweep after sweep out of the shotgun, and he almost always get around the defense.

Then there’s Sproles, who doesn’t make anything look elegant. He’s just throwing himself through creases that don’t exist, bouncing off players who are twice his size. Sproles is actually the Eagles’ preferred option for short yardage at this point, to say nothing of the havoc he wreaks in the passing game. He was the guy who sparked the comeback against the Jaguars — his fourth-and-1 play went for a 49-yard touchdown — and then he was the MVP during the second-half comeback in Indianapolis last night, going for 152 yards in the passing game. He’s also 31 years old, so none of this should be possible.

He’s NFL Earl Boykins, and every time I watch him play I end up watching this old Nike commercial. Look at that little fella. He’s got enough poison in him to kill an elephant.

And again, McCoy is still the running back who rips off eight yards every two or three runs and then catches passes, too. Putting these guys with Chip Kelly was the best idea ever, and also pure evil. The new, drunk Nick Foles is only fair. The universe had to balance things out here.

http://grantland.com/the-triangle/p...and-other-lessons-from-two-weeks-of-football/
 
Didn't like Maclin's game at all. Two drops on screen plays is unacceptable (even if one pass looked a little short, the first drop makes me think he was running too flat out of the backfield). Feel like he has to attack that deep ball that got picked off, too. I know he was running downfield and the DB made a good play, but still. 

Way too many drops last night. Foles looked better last night (in my opinion) than week 1 and he's got to put the ball in better spots, but the receivers need to come up with some of those drops. Need to get that figured out by week 4.
 
Also, I'm pretty bummed with ESPNs reaction to that pick, as if the reason Jenkins stepped into the ball was actually pass interference on Boykin. Give me a break, that was a flop. 

That horse collar call was apparently legit (meaning the one called against the Eagles last week was too), according to something I saw on twitter today about the rule.
 
The horse collar call was the same as the call from last week. I can see why people would question the call but what's done is done. I'm not going to lie I think Boykin did get away with a holding :lol:
 
The horse collar call was the same as the call from last week. I can see why people would question the call but what's done is done. I'm not going to lie I think Boykin did get away with a holding :lol:
Live action it looked legit. (The interception) When they slowed it down on the replay...I knew we pulled a Neo and dodged a bullet. Even if it was a semi-flop, the refs have been calling every little thing. See 49er's vs Bears...
 
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“@MattLombardo975: "No one should be patting themselves on the back, anywhere," Kelly said. "We're fortunate to be 2-0 and we've... http://fb.me/1BiDuolEh”


“@MattLombardo975: Very interesting quote from Chip Kelly today: "Nobody rises to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training." #Eagles”

“@Mfranknfl: Chip on Jenkins INT where Boykin bumped Hilton: "If they threw a flag on it, you couldn’t argue...b/c there was contact." #Eagles”


“@Mfranknfl: #Eagles offense leads #NFL, but Kelly, McCoy want more; plus, Kendricks gets MRI on calf. http://delonline.us/1u37yz6 via @delawareonline”
 
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interesting article about the game scripts. I'd throw all those numbers out with the way chip is handling everything though :lol:. Seems like both metrics yielded the same results and 9-7 or 8-8 might still win the division haha. Plus, they need an independent study on Foles and his vision :nerd:

hope kendricks is alright, #50 looked horrible out there
 
Andy Reid :smh:


Reuben Frank ‏@RoobCSN 33m
Defensive coordinators of the NFC's undefeated teams: Bill Davis, Sean McDermott, Todd Bowles.
 
Why is it that Marcus Smith isn't playing?


And I hope Acho gets the nod over Casey if Kendricks isn't ready to go.
 
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Why is it that Marcus Smith isn't playing?


And I hope Acho gets the nod over Casey if Kendricks isn't ready to go.

Apparently from the BGN report Marcus Smith is buried in the depth chart behind Cole, Barwin, and Graham.


I really hope Huff recovers soon to add another weapon to our receiving corps.
 
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