Eagles News: Philadelphia’s receiving corps ranked among NFL’s elite

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2024 NFL receiving corps rankings: Bears and Texans crack the top 5 - PFF
3. PHILADELPHIA EAGLES. A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith form one of the top wide receiver duos in the league. Over the past two years, Brown has earned an elite 91.2 receiving grade and Smith has earned an 81.7 mark. Tight end Dallas Goedert is also a factor with a 78.2 receiving grade and six touchdowns since 2022. The Eagles then added running back Saquon Barkley this offseason to round out a very strong receiving corps.

A.J. Brown wants receivers to get together, like tight ends do - PFT
“Wideouts wassup?” Brown said. “The Tight Ends get together for a weekend. The Db’s link up. The pass rushers even get together. Come on guys, we can’t be too big time to link up and learn. I’m a fan of everyone and willing to work with whoever. Let’s make it happen wideouts.” Tyreek Hill seems to be interested. “Let’s go Bro,” he responded.

4 Eagles players most likely to make “the leap” in 2024 - BGN
Last year, whenever anyone wrote an article listing players “most likely to break out,” the name at the top of the list was linebacker Nakobe Dean. The reasons were understandable. He was a third-round draft pick with tons of athleticism, seen as a steal of a pick at that point in the draft. He had mostly watched from the sidelines in his rookie season and was being handed the starting off-ball linebacker job before training camp opened. But his “leap” season last year never materialized. He was often exposed in coverage when he was healthy, and was absent most of the season due to a Lisfranc injury that essentially wiped out his sophomore season. Fast forward to the mandatory minicamps this year, where Dean is seemingly behind on the depth chart in Vic Fangio’s defense behind free agent acquisition Zack Baun, who you will be reading more about in a minute. While it’s too soon to give up on Dean, I’ve lost confidence that he’s going to be an impact player in the NFL, and there simply aren’t any indications, at least right now, that he’s ready to make the kind of jump we thought we’d see at the beginning of last season. So, if not Dean, who are the Eagles most likely to make “the leap” in 2024? Here are four possibilities.

Five players the Eagles need to step up in 2024 - PhillyVoice
5) QB Jalen Hurts. And finally, yep, the QB1 needs to step up in 2024. In 2023, Hurts took a step backwards from his MVP runner-up season in 2022. As you’re all aware, the Eagles started out 10-1, with six of those wins coming against teams that would eventually make the playoffs. Hurts was squarely in the conversation for league MVP at the time, even though novice fans could pretty easily see that he and the team as a whole were not playing nearly as well as the 2022 team that often dominated opponents. From December on, the Eagles abruptly went from a Super Bowl favorite with at least a two-game lead over every other team in the league to one of the worst teams in the NFL. You can blame the defense, or the offensive scheme, or the absurd in-season change at defensive coordinator, or the play calling, or any number of other things, and you’d be right to do so, but Hurts is fair game as well. His individual performances from December on were not acceptable for a player on a $255 million contract, and he was the leader of a team that suffered as staggering of a collapse as we’ve ever seen in the modern NFL. In the aftermath, Hurts’ leadership skills — always thought to be the biggest checkmark in his favor — came into question. The 2024 Eagles will be under intense scrutiny, and a lot of that will fall on Hurts. He has bounced back from adversity in the past, and it will be interesting to see how he responds to a disappointing season.

Bouncing Back - Iggles Blitz
This will be the first time the Eagles come off a terrible finish and bring back the coach. Both coordinators got replaced so it isn’t as if the Eagles kept everything the same. There will be plenty of change. But things are different when you change the whole staff. Going from Rich Kotite to Ray Rhodes was a huge shake-up. Going from Andy Reid to Chip Kelly was about as different as it gets. The change from Doug Pederson to Nick Sirianni wasn’t quite as drastic. Still, things were different and Sirianni’s new ideas and fresh approach helped the team to develop into a winner. Sirianni has a tough challenge. He has to build on the things that went right in 2021 and 2022, even 2023. He also has to fix everything that went wrong in 2023. Knowing what to fix and what to leave alone isn’t easy. There is a mixture of scheme, culture and people (coaches and players).

Biggest Eagles questions by position: Offense - NBCSP
Running back: Can Saquon Barkley return to form? The other obvious question at running back is about the pecking order with Kenny Gainwell and Will Shipley behind Barkley. But if all goes to plan, Barkley is going to play the majority of snaps in 2024 after signing a three-year, $37.75 million contract this offseason to leave the Giants and join the Eagles. During the spring, Barkley didn’t flash as much as you’d expect him to in a passing camp in shorts. So we’ll be looking for those flashy plays out of the former No. 2 overall pick this summer. When Barkley has been healthy, he’s been one of the best running backs in the league but his career has seen some ups and downs. A couple years ago, Barkley had over 1,600 scrimmage yards but he battled through some nagging injuries in 2023 and his production dropped. At age 27, it’s not like Barkley is an old guy but he has logged a lot of touches in his career and it’s natural to wonder if he’s still the same Pro Bowler we’ve seen at times in his career.

The Cowboys’ options if 2024 is Dak Prescott’s swansong with the team - Blogging The Boys
Going with a veteran to replace Prescott is probably the most unlikely and least desired option for the Cowboys. Going this route would mean the Trey Lance trade/experiment failed and for whatever reason they didn’t come away with their future QB1 in the 2025 NFL Draft either. This would be a tough pill to swallow for a variety of reasons, but there could be a stopgap player available via free agency to keep them competitive. Russell Wilson is probably the best vet QB Dallas could target to replace Prescott, but nothing he’s accomplished in the past few years would suggest his play is on par with No. 4. The next best is probably Jacoby Brissett and Jimmy Garoppolo. Then there of course the former high-draft picks Zack Wilson, Sam Darnold, Justin Fields, and even Davis Mills. Nothing screams QB1 upgrade over Prescott, but these are likely their vet options.

Imagining what the Giants defense may look like in 2024 - Big Blue View
Most of what we see from Tennessee suggests that they were a mediocre defense under Bowen. In 2023 the Titans were 16th in points allowed with 367 (which was a good deal better than the seventh-worst 407 given up by the Giants under Martindale). That was similar to the 359 points allowed in 2022 and the 354 in 2021, although the latter was good for sixth among NFL teams. The Titans were similarly middle of the pack in passing and rushing yards. A more useful way of looking at team defense is via the concept of expected points added (EPA). EPA uses historical data to determine how many points a team can be expected to score on average when they get the ball to begin a drive at a given yard line, with adjustments for game situation. Defensive EPA can be calculated similarly but with the opposite sign. In today’s offense-dominated NFL, only a handful of teams have defenses that are good enough to provide a net benefit to their team’s chances of winning. For the rest, it’s about how much they can minimize the damage. The 2023 Titans ranked 23rd in defensive EPA by the metric as calculated by Pro Football Reference. They were middle of the pack in 2022 and 10th in the NFL in 2021.

An NFL ‘QB salary cap’ is the owners’ dumbest idea yet - SB Nation
NFL owners are growing increasingly concerned about mammoth quarterback salaries, and reports indicate there have been some exploratory discussions on how to manage the spending. Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network said on The Rich Eisen Show Wednesday that some owners have met about the possibility of installing a QB salary cap, which would limit the percentage of the cap which would be spent on a signal caller. Pelissero went on to say that the conversation right now is a non-starter, because so many teams have already paid their passers and don’t want to be hemmed in, but the fact this topic is being broached shows there could be some discussion on it in the future.

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