The Philadelphia Eagles traveled to Nashville for a game against the Tennessee Titans in week 4 in which the two teams would exchange haymakers for four quarters and nearly an entire overtime. Both teams had made the playoffs in 2017 and were holding 2-1 records entering the contest. The two quarterbacks had already missed time…
Summer for football fans can be just as entertaining as watching paint dry. The MLB season and the NBA and NHL playoffs are great in their own right, but we all know football is king. As the calendar turns over to July we can see the football season coming around the corner. The seemingly never-ending…
Good teams almost invariably have good quarterback. Bad teams pick near the top of the draft and have the opportunity to select a top signal-caller. But what about teams in the middle, teams that are neither championship contenders, nor poor enough to have a chance at a franchise-changing QB? The 2016 Philadelphia Eagles found themselves…
“He’s got a beautiful mind.” That’s what former NFL QB and first-year QB coach Jon Kitna said about new Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator Kellen Moore. The decision to promote Moore from QB coach to offensive coordinator had people outside of the organization scratching their heads at first. Moore has just one year of coaching experience…
Ball placement refers to the location of a quarterback’s throw relative to a receiver and nearby defenders. Good ball placement depends on the situation, route, and coverage, but it is the location of a throw that best allows a receiver to make a play on the ball while minimizing the opportunity for the defender to…
Cornerback Chris Harris, Jr. is making headlines for his current contract impasse with the Denver Broncos. However that shakes out, it’s bound to end with him signing a deal making him one of the NFL’s highest-paid defensive backs. It’s an opportune time to review Harris’ journey from undrafted free agent to one of football’s best…
Since 2000, every franchise had selected a wide receiver in the first round—except the New England Patriots. That streak ended Thursday night, when New England tabbed Arizona State wideout N’Keal Harry with the 32nd selection. The Patriots’ spotty track record choosing receivers, along with concerns about elements of Harry’s game, raises some interesting questions. In…
An underrated aspect of the NFL Draft, I often talk about how very few players manifest as being what I call ‘scheme agnostic,’ players you would expect to go to any of the 32 cities and execute at the same level. In my experience, the vast majority of players fit better in some programs than…
The 2019 NFL wide receiver draft class is as diverse as an NFL playbook. Whether you are a looking for a true X, an undersized speedster, a big slot receiver, a contested catch monster, or a special teams maven, this draft class has something for you. We’ll borrow a page from high school yearbooks and…
NFL teams build vertical boards to help make sense of the individual talents in the draft class. Joseph Ferraiola put together a top 50 vertical board using an NFL-type grading scale, also commented on some of his favorites. The grading scale I’m using was developed by Dan Hatman last draft season. The scale allows you…
Last year, Joseph Ferraiola wrote that “we’re thinking about quarterback ceilings all wrong,” poking holes in the conventional draft wisdom on QB projections. He re-examines this theory by looking at 2018 rookies Josh Rosen and Josh Allen and applies this lens to the 2019 class’ top signal-callers, Kyler Murray and Dwayne Haskins. When projecting NFL…
African-American NFL coaches and general managers have had a tough off-season.. Head coaches Todd Bowles, Hue Jackson, Vance Joseph, Marvin Lewis, and Steve Wilks were all fired in the past calendar year, and only one black coach, Brian Flores, was tapped to fill any of the eight total openings. The NFL Network’s Jim Trotter pointed…
Dave Gettleman is not the most popular man in the greater New York area these days. After the Giants started his general manager tenure 1-7, ultimately finishing his first year 5-11, Gettleman began cleaning house, trading defensive end Olivier Vernon and superstar wideout Odell Beckham, Jr., in separate deals to the Cleveland Browns. The Beckham…
Since 2008, former NFL scout Dan Shonka of ourlads.com has been capturing “ball velocity” of quarterbacks throwing at the NFL combine, and posting it online. Some in the media have taken notice of the results and drawn conclusions from the historical data. “There has never been a QB who threw less than 54 mph with…
For the Patriots, as with everyone else, the draft is a critical time to address your needs. Not only their success but also Bill Belichick’s emphasis on versatility makes his drafting strategy one of interest. So, Dave Archibald wonders, what the heck is with the fifth round? On Friday, the New England Patriots traded a 2020 fifth-round…
Previewing the Combine: The Quarterbacks The annual rite of passage is upon us: The NFL Scouting Combine. In just over a week over 300 hopeful NFL players will descend upon Indianapolis to participate in perhaps the world’s strangest job interview process. For the quarterbacks, the process is relatively simple. They’ll take to the podium and…