Evaluating the Eagles: Part III

Tony - You are 100% correct. They have not done an adequate job of surrounding McNabb with talent. Hopefully, they learned their lesson by watching Fitzgerald abuse them that "real" talent is needed to win championships.

pj - Baskett is raw, but he has displayed improvement each year. He deserves more opportunities, but Reid uses so many personnel packages he often gets lost in the mix.

Baskett has incredible physical talent, we just don't use him right. He's big, has a long, fast stride and can jump like a mofo. just need to use him on deep routes and he will outrun most. he needs to work on his hands, he's still raw and barely played in college right? we have to give him more tries.

The Eagles are incredibly stubborn with their receivers.  That's why I anticipate Lewis and Brown to be back. It took a career ending injury to get rid of Pinkston and some stupid comments during the Super Bowl to get rid of "what's his name" from UCLA.

Alot of mock drafts have the Eagles picking up Pettigrew from OK St. and Moreno from Georgia. That would make too much sense.  I fully expect the Eagles to pick up nothing but Lineman in the first round. And I can hear Andy Reid now, " We are very pleased with what we have at the wide receiver and tight end position right now."

McNabb has played his entire career with sub-par skill players and in my opinion, looking back at all these drafts, the Eagles have done a tremendous disservice to McNabb by being stubborn or blind and not getting him the help he deserves.

You want to see what good skill players can do? Just look at Arizona. They, as a team, were not that good. But when you have two stud receivers, a good QB, and good role players than you win. Bottom line. I hope the Eagles surprise us in this draft, in a good way.

I think it's a play-calling and personnel package issue down in the redzone. Baskett is rarely in the game inside the ten. He does have the size and strength, but Reid won't put him in the game.

You're correct. The throw by McNabb in the Cleveland game was awful. He dislikes the fade pattern, which might explain his poor throw and the fact that they don't call it much. Don prefers to throw to tight ends in the redzone. This is why it's imperative they target someone like Brandon Pettigrew. He's a beast to handle.

I'm not sure he will ever, either.  But he showed some flashes this year, right? 

We obviously agree that the redzone is a particularly tough place to operate, where size and strength matter much more than in the open spaces between the 20's.  So Curtis' (and Jackson's) ability is diminished and a guy like Baskett gives you a better shot. 

I was just unhappy to see his role reduced down there seemingly immediately after the Cleveland game and the end of half interception.  He might have made a bad read on the ball, but it wasn't a particularly good throw by 5 either.

Once Curtis returned, Baskett took a back seat. I'm not sure he'll ever be a big redzone threat.

It would be nice to know why Baskett faded towards the end of the year, as he seems like he could be that "big, physical redzone threat" we could certainly use.