As everybody knows, I mostly use this blog to talk the NFL draft and free agency. That is my bread and butter. I do believe that front offices do their  fair share of homework on the internets and it would behoove them to read www.allphiladelphiasports.com for my recommendations. We were very high on both DeSean Jackson and LeSean McCoy and the Eagles grabbed both of them.

The Eagles used this past draft to add several defensive pieces. In the 2011 draft, I believe the Eagles will add an offensive lineman or two in the first two rounds and target a cornerback in round 2 or 3. In round 4, I’m hoping that could add a bruising RB to backup LeSean McCoy. One player that I’m enamored with is Roy Helu, Jr. out of Nebraska. He is a 6’0″ 220 pound Polynesian bruiser. He’s currently ranked as the 8th best back in next year’s draft class according to Draft Countdown. If he’s available in round 4, I would take him. He’ll probably go in round 3 though.

Last year Helu had 1147 yards on 220 carries (5.2 YPC) and 10 TDs. Against the Huskies, Helu posted 110 yards on just 10 carries and had 2 TDs. He’s a player you’ll want to keep your eye on for the remainder of the year. He also averaged over 10 yards per carry against Idaho in week 2.

Check out these highlights below. I wish there was a better quality version, but you’ll see how this dude runs.

Roy Helu Jr. Highlights

RB was a need many of us wanted the Eagles to address.  It wasn’t a priority, especially after landing Mike Bell.  It could have waited until round 5 and that’s exactly what happened.  There’s no question that LeSean McCoy, Mike Bell, and Leonard Weaver can get the job done themselves, but you can never have enough RBs in this league. Let’s take a look at the Eagles 200th overall pick Charles Scott.

Scott is a 6’1″ 231 pound RB from LSU.  He had 542 rushing yards and 4 TDs this past season in 9 games, but he has ammassed 2,317 yards and 32 TDs over the course of his collegiate career.  2008 was Scott’s best season where he turned in 1,174 yards and 18 TDs.  (See stats)

I’m loving what I see on the tape.  He puts his head down and just trucks forward using his weight to his advantage like Beanie Wells or Shonn Greene.  The Eagles got themselves a player.  Excellent late-round steal if you ask me.  Take a look:

There is a ton of speculation surrounding whether McNabb will be traded this offseason.  The Eagles have a decision to make and they cannot keep delaying the inevitable.  Do they stick with #5 or do they move in a new direction and hand over the reigns to the quarterback that they surprisingly drafted with the 36th pick in the 2007 NFL draft?  I say the Eagles should go with Kevin Kolb and here’s why.

I’ve always been critical of Donovan McNabb.  He simply strikes a nerve with me.  It’s for all the obvious reasons: he has never won a Super Bowl after having several legitimate chances to do so, he has been injured way too many times, he doesn’t take the game seriously enough, and he is terribly inaccurate.  What bothers me the most is when he throws the ball straight into the ground or 10 feet over the receivers head on 3rd down and smiles and laughs about it.  That drives me absolutely nuts.

McNabb is far from a consistently accurate QB.  McNabb supporters will point to his interception to passing attempt ratio being amongst the best in the league.  That is a great characteristic of McNabb.  He rarely turns the ball over. That’s because he rarely gives the opposing team to opportunity intercept him because the majority of his passes are over- or under-thrown.  I would rather focus on his completion percentage.

In 2009, McNabb was 20th in the league — not even in the top half!  Alex Smith, Jay Cutler, David Garrard, and Jason Campbell all had better completion percentages then McNabb.  That is unacceptable!  This wasn’t just one isolated year.  In 2008, McNabb was ranked 18th in completion percentage.  Jason Campbell, Shaun Hill, Trent Edwards, and Jeff Garcia all ousted McNabb in the category.  McNabb beat out Ryan Fitzpatrick by a mere 0.8%.  In 2007, McNabb was ranked 20th.  Beaten by Joey Harrington, Brian Griese, Jon Kitna, Sage Rosenfels and Vince Young. In 2006, McNabb was ranked 23rd.  Again beaten by Joey Harrington and others such as Damon Huard, J.P. Losman, and Mark Brunell.  I could go on, but I think I made my point.  For the last 4 season, McNabb hasn’t even cracked the top 50% in completion percentage and his completion percentage was worse than Joey Harrington during 2 seasons.

I’ve made my case about McNabb.  Now what do I like about Kevin Kolb?  Everything.  I like Kolb’s work ethic, attitude, and most importantly his skills on the football field.  Kolb has the attitude of a winner.  You can see that he takes the game very seriously when he plays.  He plays the game with a passion that cannot be met by McNabb.  Kolb throws a beautiful football.  It’s usually a tight spiral delivered right on the money.  He rarely over and under-throws receivers like McNabb.  Unfortunately, we haven’t seen enough meaningful games from Kolb to have a perfect picture of his capabilities.  We have the previous season’s Ravens debacle and two games this past season against the Saints and Chiefs to judge him.

I don’t put any weight into the Ravens game.  If McNabb was playing awful against the Ravens on a full week of preparation, what makes anyone think that Kolb would do any better against the Ravens without any preparation?  Kolb at least was able to move the football and pick up first downs.  He just made a few stupid rookie mistakes against a pretty good safety by the name of Ed Reed.  A more telling story of Kolb is how he played against the Saints and Chiefs.  In both games, Kolb threw over 300 yards and had 2 TDs.

Another reason that I feel that the Eagles should choose Kolb as their starting QB next season and trade McNabb is because the Eagles have a young football team at the skill positions.  With DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, Brent Celek, and LeSean McCoy all 25 years or younger, I think it’s better to have a young QB to grow and develop with them.  I think Kolb has a better rapport with those players.  Just look at how well the offense played together with Kolb against the Chiefs.  Granted, it was the Chiefs, but we got a glimpse of what the future offense would look like with Kolb and these great young players.  Bleeding Green Nation has reported that when the young players have a question about the offense, they tend to go to Kolb instead of McNabb.

I think it’s time for a new era in Philadelphia and that Kevin Kolb should be the Eagles starting quarterback next season.  Trade McNabb for a 2nd-round and a 5th-round pick.  Pick up an offensive lineman in the first round and then focus on building up the defense in round 2 and 3. It’s the Eagles blue print for success.

Jay should be making his case for why McNabb should return to the Eagles shortly.

The Eagles roster has been set.  A.J. Feeley was released this morning.  Fenuki Tupou has been placed on IR.

The loss of Stewart Bradley now becomes glaring on the depth chart with a few new names at the LB position.   Here’s a good read on rookie LB Moise Fokuo, Fokou who? Word is also going around that Macho Harris may have the starting FS role over Quintin Demps.

It’s also good to know that Danny Amendola and Jack Ikegwuonu have been added to the practice squad.  The practice squad also includes guards Paul Fanaika and Mike Gibson.

Quarterbacks (3) – Donovan McNabb, Kevin Kolb, Michael Vick

Running Backs (3) – Brian Westbrook, LeSean McCoy, Eldra Buckley

Fullback (1) – Leonard Weaver

Wide Receivers (7) – DeSean Jackson, Kevin Curtis, Jason Avant, Jeremy Maclin, Reggie Brown, Hank Baskett, Brandon Gibson

Tight Ends (2) - Brent Celek, Tony Curtis

Offensive Lineman (10) - Jason Peters, Todd Herremans, Jamaal Jackson, Stacy Andrews, Shawn Andrews, Nick Cole, Max Jean-Gilles, Winston Justice, Mike McGlynn, King Dunlap

Defensive Lineman (9) – Trent Cole, Brodrick Bunkley, Mike Patterson, Victor Abiamiri, Chris Clemons, Juqau Parker, Jason Babin, Darren Howard, Trevor Laws

Linebackers (6) – Chris Gocong, Omar Gaither, Akeem Jordan, Joe Mays, Moise Fokou, Tracy White

Safeties (4) – Quintin Mikell, Quintin Demps, Sean Jones, Macho Harris

Cornerbacks (5) – Asante Samuel, Sheldon Brown, Joselio Hanson, Ellis Hobbs, Dimitri Patterson

Specialists (3) – David Akers, Sav Rocca, Jon Dorenbos

This article is an interesting read.  We obviously all thought of the wildcat formation when we first heard of the Vick signing, but we also wonder about what other role he could serve on the team.  We even hoped that Vick could play a little TE after the injuries the Eagles have suffered.  Here are some other ways the Eagles could use Vick:

Maybe a few snaps at RB or in the slot.

Surprisingly, I don’t ever recall Vick taking the snap as a placement holder for field goals.  Add fake field goals into the list of possible ways to use Michael Vick.  If teams see Vick coming out for a field goal, they’ll have to burn a timeout to adjust their package as well.

Look for more two-point conversions with Michael Vick.  With Michael Vick, I’m sure you convert the majority, if not 90%, of your two-point attempts.  Just two yards, are you kidding me?  Do you know how much speed we have at QB, RB, and WR now?

Expect Vick to have an 8- to 10-play package.  Every hour defense coordinators have to prepare for Vick, an hour less that they get to prepare for DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, Brian Westrbook, LeSean McCoy, Kevin Curtis, Donovan McNabb.  You get the picture.

OUTCOME: EAGLES LOSE 27-25 AFTER AKERS MISSES GAME-WINNING FG FROM 43 YARDS.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: ELDRA BUCKLEY
8 CARRIES, 23 YARDS, 1 TD; 6 RECEPTIONS, 56 YARDS, 1 TD

GAME NOTES:

– Jeremy Maclin must have had some jitters early on.  He fumbled his first punt return, which the Eagles recovered, but he shined later in the game.  He had a couple nice catches and great returns later in the game.

– DeSean had a tremendous game.  He made a great play on an end-around, as well as some very nice catches.  LeSean McCoy was also outstanding.  If Westbrook was out for the whole season, I would not be worried a single bit with McCoy taking every snap for the Eagles this season.  With DeSean, McCoy, Maclin, and now Vick, the Eagles could have the fastest offense in the history of ever.

– Lorenzo Booker made a nice 30+ yard grab right by the sidelines from Feeley.  He displayed his nice set of hands and showed why he deserves to beat out Buckley for that RB spot.  Buckley one-upped him just a few plays later with a nice 6-yard TD run.  I still like Buckley over Booker.  He can block and he runs the ball hard.  Buckley also had a nice 4th down reception form the 3 the next drive for a TD.  I like this guy!

– WR Brandon Gibson, the Eagles 6th-round draft pick, received many praises.  He caught everything that came his way and laid a sick block to help Eldra Buckley gain some extra yards on a reception.  The Eagles have a lot of wide receivers.  This guy is worthy of making the team, but how many WR’s can the Eagles keep? DeSean, Maclin, Curtis, Avant, and Baskett should be locks.  Do the Eagles take a 6th WR and keep Gibson.  Is Reggie Brown the odd man out?  This should be interesting.

– Joe Mays played well.  I would give his performance a B.  He’s definitely no Stewart Bradley.  That’s a huge loss, but if all 11 players on defense play well together, they should be able to overcome that loss.  He has the skills.  With more time with the 1st team, he can step up into that role.

– Brent Celek left the game with a sprained shoulder.  Let’s hope it’s not serious.  The last thing we need is another injury.

– Jason Peters didn’t look to good in his first preseason game.  He’s missed a lot of time this preseason, so let’s hope he just has to get his timing down.

– Macho Harris looked good and was great at getting pressure on the QB. I love the Macho Man.

I couldn’t believe the news when I first heard it.  The Eagles have officially signed Michael Vick to a two-year deal.  Most people are disgusted by the move.  I am not.  It’s just business.  I’m not going to say the front office sunk to a new low.  They want to win.  The man did his time, has been remorseful, and as a forgiving person, I’ll give him a second chance.  When I heard about the signing, all I could think of is the wildcat formation.  Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson in the backfield.  Are you serious? The options for their offense is limitless.

This is the fastest offense in the history of ever. . .

DEASEAN JACKSON, JEREMY MACLIN, LESEAN MCCOY, BRIAN WESTRBOOK, KEVIN CURTIS, AND MICHAEL VICK.

SIX… 6 WEAPONS… IS THAT ENOUGH “WEAPONS” FOR MCNABB?  I GUESS WE NEVER HAVE TO HEAR THAT SORRY EXCUSE FROM MCNABB THIS YEAR.

..and that’s without even getting to their all-star Offensive Line (on paper and injury free).  Let’s just hope that they all get healthy in a hurry and can gel quickly.

I love the way the first day of the draft went. I was very surprised. I wanted Knowshon Moreno. I was pissed when he went to the Broncos. In my opinion, the Broncos should have focused on their defense, which was ranked in about the bottom 4 last year. No worries though, the Eagles got a true game-changer in Jeremy Maclin. He should have been a top 15 pick, so I’ll gladly take him at 19. Can you imagine the Redskins, Cowboys, and Giants trying to defend a 3 WR set of DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, and Kevin Curtis?  If McNabb can’t find one of those guys open with THIS line, he has serious problems.  I don’t want to hear another complaint out of #5′s mouth.  It’s time to get it done McNabb.

Some people were upset with the Eagles pick in Maclin. Yeah, most of us wanted Moreno; he was gone, too bad, what the hell are you gonna do? Maclin will be a stud in this league! He is just like DeSean Jackson but bigger and more physical. He puts the Eagles receiving corp over the top.

To make things even better, we get a RB in round 2 and it’s none other than LeSean McCoy: a guy who easily could have been a late first, early second-round pick. I’ve graded Knowshon Moreno an A prospect and LeSean McCoy a B+ prospect, but there’s not much difference between the two. We have a RB that is elusive, quick, can make things happen with the screen play, and fits in perfectly with the Eagles system. Everyone was so obsessed with a RB in this year’s draft, it seems like we all forgot that we still have Brian Westbrook. Yes, Westbrook is coming off a knee injury and is 30-years-old, but he is still the #1 guy and I expect him to rebound this season to his 2007 form. We didn’t need a starting runningback, we just needed a #2 RB on our depth chart.  Anyone who is comparing LeSean McCoy to Ryan Moats is crazy.  McCoy will be much better than Moats.

Our defense has 10 starters returning, the 11th guy need not be named.  There’s no need to worry about going offense/offense with the first two picks.  The defense has plenty of bodies.

No more knocking the front office. They are not cheap and they know what the hell they’re doing. Trading down in the last two years has paid dividends and I am relentlessly optimistic about the 2009 season. McNabb must be thrilled with Stacy Andrews, Jason Peters, Leonard Weaver, Jeremy Maclin, and LeSean McCoy. Yes, I’m still pissed about them letting Brian Dawkins go, but it’s Dawkins who decided to leave for greener pastures. This team is ready for a Super Bowl.  Let’s make it happen!

NFC East Roundup: No first day picks for the Cowboys.  Ha!  The Redskins got a gift with Brian Orakpo falling to them. The Giants had a pretty good draft too: WR Hakeem Nicks, LB Clint Sintim, and OT William Beatty on day one.

Knowshon Moreno gets taken early. No big deal. We take the 2nd best WR in the draft, Jeremy Maclin, a few spots after he was expected to go. No big deal. There are plenty of RBs left and aren’t the stars perfectly aligned when LeSean McCoy falls to the Eagles in round 2. I am loving this year’s draft by the Eagles.

So all we need is a TE in round 3 and we’re ready to make that Super Bowl run next season, right? Jared Cook, Shawn Nelson, Cornelius Ingraham, and Chase Coffman are all still available. Jared Cook should be gone soon, but Chase Coffman is the Eagles guy in round 3. Why can’t they draft in round 3 on day 1 like they used to?  We’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to see who else the Eagles pick up.

May we see more highlights like these from LeSean McCoy in Midnight Green:

Knowshon Moreno went much higher than anticipated. He went #12 to the Broncos. Eagles had to come up with Plan B. They obviously wanted to boost the offense. They’re not sold on Beanie Wells (thank goodness), it was too early to take Donald Brown or LeSean McCoy, so why not add another playmaker to the receiving corp?

Brandon Pettigrew was on the board, but I’m not sold on him as the Eagles pick: he’s more of a premier blocker than a premier receiver and the Eagles like their TEs to be receivers and I still think the Eagles want Jared Cook or Chase Coffman in round 2. The Eagles traded up from 21 to 19 to take Maclin, so they must have been sold on him. I don’t know what the Eagles had to throw in: maybe a 5th or 6th rounder? We have four 5th rounders, so they might as well spend them.

I expected Maclin to be taken between 10 and 15. I rated him much higher than Darrius Heyward-Bey, who the Raiders foolishly drafted at 7, so I love the pick. Why the hell wouldn’t the Raiders trade down? That’s why they are a terrible organization. Plus, Maclin in the return game is a huge boost to our special teams. Maclin returning kickoffs, DeSean returning punts, and Quintin Demps as our alternate, that’s tremendous!

RB Plans: Wells is still on the board, so that’s another RB that should go soon, and luckily gone before the Eagles are tempted to take him. I don’t see Donald Brown falling that far — he’ll go by mid-2nd round at the latest. LeSean McCoy is an option for the Eagles in round 2. I wouldn’t be upset with Andre Brown in round 2 (I love his upside). I don’t want Shonn Greene. I’ll gladly take Mike Goodson in round 3 and if he’s gone, I wouldn’t be upset with Javon Ringer either. We have options. RB is deep.

Let’s take a look at what we’re getting with Maclin. DeSean Jackson, Kevin Curtis, and Jeremy Maclin in 3 WR sets — they may be a bit undersized, but that’s a ridiculous amount of speed — I like it: