Four Downs: Eli Manning is a liar

It was set to be a relatively quiet week until Thursday night, when the Eagles traded for Jordan Howard, taking care of a hole at running back. A 6th round pick for a player as productive as Howard is a steal. Don’t take my word for it, take the people who watched him, they’re livid.

Other stuff happened too. Let’s review.

Speaking of review…

Great news, pass interference is now reviewable!

Bad news, the refs are going to screw it up. You know they will. This is a league that can’t figure out what a catch is. Expanding reviewable plays is a major step in the right direction, but it is inevitable that they will handle it poorly.

Baldy is the new Gil Brandt?

Brian Baldinger says he knows who the Eagles are drafting. That reminds me of when Gil Brandt wrote down who the Eagles were drafting in March of 2015 in a sealed envelope, and then after the draft it was opened and… he was right. It said Nelson Agholor.

You could probably chalk Brandt’s prediction up to the ineptitude and rigid thinking of the Chip Kelly front office. But Baldy’s prediction is riskier. He’s not only saying that he thinks the Eagles are picking Player X, but he is also saying that the Colts are just as interested in him, so that they may have to trade up to get ahead of the Eagles. Or that the Eagles might have to trade up to prevent the Colts from trading up. Game theory in action.

Doug Pederson thinks Doug Pederson has room to improve

Pederson is already one of the best coaches in the NFL, combining outstanding leadership with strong play calling and pushing the league to new heights in aggressiveness. So it is exciting that he thinks he can get better.

“Last year was obviously a tough year. But I look at it, some of the fourth-down decisions, I look at and again, like I mentioned earlier, maybe I go and throw the ball a little more instead of run the ball. You’ve got to weigh it back and forth. Two-point conversions, I think about some of the decisions I’ve made. Still having the aggressiveness and showing the team that we’re going to stay aggressive in kind of a calculated way, not in a silly, kind of a whim type of decision. Other areas I’ve looked at, third-down decisions. … And then just running the team. Day-to-day, managing the team. Still being open, still being honest, communicating with the players. Being demanding, holding guys accountable, things like that. Those are all the areas I can continue to grow in.”

A Super Bowl winning coach who has changed the way the game is played thinks he can get even better.

Eli Manning made shit up

Eli Manning gave an interview where he talked about how rough Eagles fans are.

“You go there, and that 9-year-old kid is giving you the double finger,” he said. “Not a thumbs-up. Not, ‘We’re No. 1.’ And he said something about my mom; I had to Google what it was. It’s just different. It’s a different culture.”

Standard “Philly fans are mean” stuff. But hold on a moment...

He has been at it so long, he said, that he has seen young Philadelphia fans grow up before his eyes. “Now I see him and he’s got his 9-year-old kid with him,” Manning said, smiling. “Same deal. It runs in the families down there.”

If this is true, it means the original 9 year old had a son when he was... 14. So none of this happened.

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