We\u2019re covering a lot of ground in this week\u2019s Roob\u2019s 10 Random Offseason Eagles Observations, but I promise no mention of Taylor and Travis\u2019s wedding, World Cup soccer or Olivia Rodrigo\u2019s new album.<\/p>\n
BRYCE HUFF IS FULL OF IT:\u00a0Did you see Bryce Huff\u2019s comments about his failed 2024 season with the Eagles? In an interview on Caps Off Podcast, Huff blamed his horrible performance on Eagles fans, who he claimed were already giving him a hard time the first week of training camp: \u201cFirst week of camp, for the fans especially. Like, they take pride in going after people.\u201d The reality is that Eagles fans were initially excited about the addition of Huff, who had 10 sacks a year earlier with the Jets. Nobody was on his case a week into training camp. It wasn\u2019t until the season started and there was zero production, even though he was playing 30 snaps per game, that everybody got frustrated with Huff. And not just fans but his coaches as well. But that shouldn\u2019t even matter. If you\u2019re making $17 million a year, you better be able to handle a little fair criticism when you\u2019re not producing. All Philly fans want is effort and Huff refused to give them that. Huff also said he lost respect for the Eagles when he was inactive for the Super Bowl. OK, Bryce, tell us who you should have replaced? Josh Sweat, Jalyx Hunt, Brandon Graham or Nolan Smith? Blaming everyone but yourself is a really bad look. Dude couldn\u2019t play. Take some accountability. His ineptitude was nobody’s fault but his own.<\/p>\n
WHY JEFF LURIE IS THE BEST OWNER IN PHILLY HISTORY:\u00a0Jeff Lurie being awarded a major national humanitarian award is deserving but shouldn\u2019t be surprising considering the work he\u2019s done on behalf of autism research. The Eagles Autism Foundation has raised more than $50 million since Lurie founded it in 2019, and the Eagles Autism Challenge has become a fabulous annual family event every spring. You just don\u2019t see pro sports owners this hands on, creative and pro-active toward a cause like this. To really appreciate the impact Lurie has had on the Eagles franchise and the city you have to look at where the Eagles were before he bought the team from Norman Braman in 1994. The Eagles had never won a Super Bowl and hadn\u2019t won a championship in 34 years. They had won four playoff games since 1960, reached one Super Bowl. They had won their division five times in 62 seasons, and they hadn\u2019t won consecutive division titles since the 1940s. The stadium was a disaster. They practiced in a dump. Rich Kotite was their coach. Lurie came in, gave the Eagles a real scouting staff for the first time, began hiring capable head coaches, got the stadium and practice facility funded and built, surrounded himself with forward-thinking people like Joe Banner and Howie Roseman and brought the franchise up to true NFL standards. In 32 years since he bought the team, the Eagles have won 11 division titles, reached four Super Bowls and won two. During that span, the Eagles have the 5th-highest winning percentage in the NFL (behind the Patriots, Packers, Steelers and Chiefs), and they\u2019ve won the 3rd-most playoff games. Only the Patriots and Chiefs have reached more Super Bowls and only the Patriots, Chiefs and Broncos have won more Super Bowls. Nobody in franchise history has meant more to Eagles football than Jeff Lurie. On top of being a great humanitarian and citizen.<\/p>\n
YEAH, THE O-LINE MATTERS:\u00a0How crucial is it for a running back to have an elite offensive line to play behind? His last four years with the Giants, Saquon Barkley averaged 4.0 yards per carry, which ranked 23rd\u00a0of 29 running backs with at least 500 carries during that span. The Giants had exactly zero Pro Bowl offensive linemen those years and in fact haven\u2019t had a Pro Bowl o-lineman since Chris Snee in 2012, six years before they drafted Barkley. He comes here in 2024, Landon Dickerson, Cam Jurgens and Lane Johnson all play out of their minds and make the Pro Bowl, Jordan Mailata has his best season and makes 2nd-team all-pro and Mekhi Becton is a big surprise at right guard. And Barkley averages 5.7 and goes for over 2,500 yards, an NFL single-season record including playoffs. That\u2019s why Dickerson and Jurgens\u2019 health may be the single most important issue facing the 2026 Eagles with the season approaching. If this o-line gets back to 2024 standards, there’s no reason Barkley can’t as well.<\/p>\n
THIS AIN\u2019T TRAINING CAMP:\u00a0I don\u2019t even like calling what the Eagles do now training camp. For me and I\u2019m sure a lot of Eagles fans, training camp is what happened at Hershey, West Chester and Lehigh, where fans \u2013 all fans, not just hand-picked VIPs \u2013 could sit alongside the field and watch the team practice every day of the summer. Where little kids could carry their heroes\u2019 shoulder pads back to the fieldhouse. Where fans could line up after practice for autographs. Where you would run into players hanging out in town between practices. Where an entire NFL franchise took over a small town for a month and a half. I understand why things have changed. With just one practice a day and state-of-the-art training and medical facilities a few steps from the Jefferson Health Training Complex fields it doesn\u2019t make sense to move operations an hour away. I get it. Doesn\u2019t mean I have to like it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
THE DAY ELMER ANGSMAN DESTROYED THE EAGLES:\u00a0It was Dec. 28, 1947, the NFL Championship Game between the Eagles and Cards at Chicago\u2019s Comiskey Park. The Cards had a running back named Elmer Angsman who had averaged 3.7 yards per carry during the regular season \u2013 3rd-worst in the league \u2013 and whose longest touchdown run that year went for three yards. All Angsman did in the Cards\u2019 28-21 win was run for a 70-yard touchdown \u2026 and then run for another 70-yard touchdown. To this day, he remains the only player in NFL history with two touchdowns runs of 70 yards in the same playoff game \u2026 or in his entire career. Those are also the two-longest rushing touchdowns in NFL Championship Game (or conference championship game) history. The crazy thing is Angsman had the two-longest playoff rushing touchdowns in NFL history for 35 years, until James Lofton of the Packers ran 71 yards at Dallas in the 1982 conference semifinals. Those were the two-longest postseason touchdowns vs. the Eagles until 2009 when Felix Jones had a 73-yarder in the Cowboys\u2019 wild-card win at AT&T Stadium \u2013 that was the Donovan McNabb Air Banjo game, McNabb\u2019s final game as an Eagle. In all, Angsman ran 10 times for 159 yards in that game, and his 15.9 average remains the highest in NFL history in a playoff game and highest against the Eagles in any game. Finally this: Those were the only postseason touchdowns of Angsman\u2019s seven-year career. Best of all: His name was Elmer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
JALEN HURTS STAT OF THE WEEK:\u00a0Jalen Hurts has thrown 26 touchdown passes and one interception in 425 pass attempts his last 16 home games.<\/p>\n
REMEMBER THAT GUY?\u00a0It\u2019s insane how quickly things can change in the NFL. A year ago, Mekhi Becton was considered a huge loss for the Eagles after making the transition from 1st-round offensive tackle bust with the Jets to starting right guard on a Super Bowl champion. Becton signed a two-year, $20 million contract with the Chargers and things did not go well. His 37.1 Pro Football Focus grade was 2nd-worst among 67 guards who played at least 500 snaps last year and and his 35.5 run blocking grade was worst. It was so bad the Chargers released him in March after paying him $9.65 million of that $20 million, and here we are four months later and he still doesn\u2019t have a job. Becton just turned 27, he\u2019s a year removed from starting for a championship team and he can\u2019t get a job. Crazy.<\/p>\n
REASON #368 LESEAN MCCOY SHOULD BE A HALL OF FAMER: Only player in NFL history with 11,000 rushing yards, 500 catches and a 4.5 rushing average.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WHAT ABOUT TY ROBINSON?\u00a0I wish the Eagles had found a few more snaps somewhere last year for Ty Robinson, the rookie 4th-round defensive tackle from Nebraska. I get they have a ton of depth at that position, and if you play him you\u2019ve got to take someone who\u2019s really good off the field, and unless it\u2019s a blowout that doesn\u2019t make sense. But we don\u2019t really know much about Robinson. The Eagles invested a 4th-round pick on him and he\u2019s now 25 years old and has played only 125 snaps, 51 of them in the meaningless season-ender vs. Washington. Only six 4th-round rookies last year league-wide played fewer snaps. I don\u2019t think Robinson is a roster lock, especially if the Eagles feel like they need to keep Uar Bernard on the 53 to protect him from being poached. Jordan Davis, Jalen Carter, Moro Ojomo and Byron Young will be on the 53, and Bernard would be the fifth interior lineman. Even Gabe Hall was ahead of Robinson at OTAs. I\u2019m guessing for Robinson to stick \u2013 and he\u2019ll need a big training camp \u2013 they\u2019ll have to keep six and he makes it ahead of Hall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DAVEY WHO?\u00a0Spring this trivia question on your Eagles fan friends: Who\u2019s the last quarterback to make a Pro Bowl with the Eagles and retire having never played for another team? I love this question because you have to go back to Davey O\u2019Brien, who won won the Heisman Trophy for TCU in 1938 and was the Eagles\u2019 1st-round pick in 1939. O\u2019Brien made a Pro Bowl as a rookie after leading the NFL with 1,324 passing yards (despite six TDs and 17 INTs) and retired a year later at the age of 23 to become an FBI agent. Interesting Davey O\u2019Brien note: He attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, the same high school as 1987 Heisman winner Tim Brown. That makes Wilson the only high school to produce two Heisman Trophy winners.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019re covering a lot of ground in this week\u2019s Roob\u2019s 10 Random Offseason Eagles Observations, but I promise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,326151,593,326152,85],"class_list":["post-780516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-eagles-blog","tag-nfl","tag-roobs-observations","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}