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Woj: Sixers to Hire Elton Brand as General Manager

Kevin Kinkead - September 18, 2018

Photo Credit: Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

Wow.

Report:

Woj also says that Alex Rucker will be elevated to Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations while Ned Cohen and Marc Eversley remain in their respective roles of Assistant GM and Senior Vice President of Player Personnel.

Brett Brown told us today at his annual media lunch that a GM would be named soon, but I didn’t see this coming.

Edit:

Thursday news conference, per Woj. Sixers PR confirmed the news.

The Eagles Can Do Worse Than Jordan Matthews

Kevin Kinkead - September 18, 2018

Photo Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports

Three things immediately came into my head after hearing that Jordan Matthews was at the NovaCare Complex today:

  • He’s only 26 years old.
  • He has familiarity with Carson Wentz.
  • He caught 16 touchdowns in his first two seasons with the Eagles and was productive in the not-so-distant past.

All positive stuff there, those knee-jerk mental reactions.

However, the next things that I considered were this:

  • He’s a slot receiver and plays the same position as Nelson Agholor, who is coming off a career year.
  • He didn’t do well in Buffalo last year, dealt with a knee issue, and was released by the Patriots with an injury settlement (hamstring) this summer.
  • He’s had some drop issues in the past.

Three positives and three negatives, but when you add all of it up, it does make some sense moving forward. You plug the gap with a guy who knows your system and knows your head coach and quarterback, a guy who comes cheap and doesn’t bring baggage or bullshit with him.

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Eagles Tuesday: Jim Schwartz and Mike Groh

Kevin Kinkead - September 18, 2018

Photo Credit: Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports

Alright I’m back, sorry about that. Spent three hours at the Sixers media lunch and hopefully can get chunks of that transcribed later tonight.

Jim Schwartz and Mike Groh spoke to the media today, their first time addressing reporters since Sunday’s 27-21 loss to Tampa Bay.

Here’s what Schwartz had to say:

  • need to be more consistent on the road, fans definitely help provide home-field advantage for the defense and the entire team
  • road travel doesn’t really affect performance, game plan doesn’t change on the road, doesn’t see any reason for the discrepancy in home/road performance in those areas
  • On giving up the 75 yard touchdowns: “…I think we’re on the wrong path if we just say it’s an aberration. The (first) one was on a blitz and (second) one was considered to be a pretty safe zone, and both of them were the same result, and it just goes to show you, you can’t let your guard down on any play. There is a risk of blitzing. I know most of the — every time I step on to the field, or come out of the tunnel, all I hear is, “Schwartz, you’ve got to blitz every play, you’ve got to bring it every play.” And I understand, they mean you have to pressure the quarterback, which we’re all for, but there is some risk inherent to that. We took a risk on the first play, we paid dearly for it. We didn’t execute very well on a 75-yarder, a lot of different layers to that. It’s never one person’s fault, but then we also didn’t tackle very well. I think that the first play is probably off of that because we never laid a glove on him, but the second play, we had chances, and we didn’t look like ourselves a lot of times. There were sometimes where running backs and wide receivers were dragging us for two and three extra yards, and you generally don’t see that from us. We need to get back on track to playing physical football and tackling well.”
  • feels like they could/should have gotten to the quarterback on the DeSean Jackson touchdown pass, feels like the defense was “sloppy across the board,” tackling wasn’t as good as it normally is
  • Andrew Luck is completing passes and remains accurate as a quarterback, not shying away from contact and still has very good mobility
  • Indy head coach Frank Reich is one of the best guys he’s ever met in the business, did a great job in Philadelphia as offensive coordinator
  • few missed assignments in the game, though they did “blow a coverage that we very rarely ever blow” on the third touchdown
  • 100% of defenses are better suited to playing with a lead, but there weren’t as many 3rd and longs in this game and the defense didn’t play as many snaps as they normally do because of time of possession – just not enough snaps to go around for everybody, which is why Michael Bennett didn’t receive as much playing time as last week
  • Colts are good on third down, haven’t turned the ball over a lot, haven’t taken a lot of sacks, showing good stuff in the red zone, big play wide receiver in T.Y. Hilton and a “very smart veteran quarterback” in Andrew Luck
  • Hilton is a threat, often catches balls in deep and mid-ranges down the field and can damage you for large chunks of yardage as a time
  • didn’t think Jalen Mills was playing too “far off” on Sunday, says he usually mixes up his coverages and that the defense just didn’t show great technique all around in the loss

And Mike Groh:

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Time for Howie Roseman to Call the Steelers

Kevin Kinkead - September 18, 2018

Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Josh Gordon? Nah.

Dez Bryant. Nah.

Antonio Brown? Yes.

Check out this report from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Ed Bouchette:

I can’t read the actual story because it looks like the newspaper’s website crashed or something. I’ll keep clicking on it until it loads.

Anyway, the news comes one day after Brown responded to a former Steelers PR guy who criticized the six-time Pro Bowler:

Yes, this is a good idea. Trade Antonio Brown to the Eagles and LET’S FIND OUT what kind of numbers he’d put up with Carson Wentz.

We’ll send you Nick Foles, Kamar Aiken, and a 7th rounder for AB’s services.

It’s time for the Eagles to #DoTheDeal.

FedExField: Not Exactly a Home Fortress

Kevin Kinkead - September 18, 2018

I don’t think we got around to the Redskins yesterday because, if we’re being honest, they’re pretty low on the NFL totem pole as of week three in 2018.

Most of Monday was spent on Eagles post-game stuff, the Carson Wentz-is-healthy press conference, and bitching about Josh Gordon and Dez Bryant. If you were watching other games on Sunday, you probably kept an eye on Packers/Vikings or stayed up to watch the Cowboys vs. Giants slapfight.

Washington failed to find the end zone in a 21-9 home loss against the Colts. They ran the ball 22 times for 65 yards and the team’s leading receiver was running back Chris Thompson, who snagged 13 Alex Smith dump downs and swing passes for 92 yards.

You’d think Redskin nation might be buzzing after a dominant week one road win, but that wasn’t the case at all:

FedEx holds 82,000 fans. It’s kind of a pain in the ass to get to, located 30 minutes outside of D.C. just off the hellish 495 beltway.

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Brett Brown: Coaching up the Coaches (Plus a Few Minutes with Monty Williams)

Kevin Kinkead - September 18, 2018

Sixers camp begins this week, if you can believe it. We’ll spend a few hours with Brett Brown today at his annual media lunch, but Monday night was set aside for teaching, as the head ball coach held his annual “coach the coaches” clinic at the Camden practice facility.

There were not a lot of open seats in the building. Not sure what the final head count was, but a few hundred folks came from places like South Jersey and Jenkintown to learn about the Sixers’ offensive and defensive philosophies and receive some free instruction from an NBA staff coming off a 52-win season.

This was our first look at the newly assembled group of assistants, which includes Monty Williams, Billy Lange, and Kevin Young. All three assistants spent about 20 minutes going through a specific demonstration for the assembled coaches, will I’ll elaborate on further down.

First, here are some notes from Brett’s introduction, which explained the way the Sixers mark their practice court.  We missed about 50% of his presentation because we were speaking with Williams behind the bleachers at the time:

  • Brett talked about the Sixers’ four-point line, which is painted a few feet behind the actual three-point line and has been written about on several occasions. The reason they use this line because Brown likes his three-pointer shooters to start further off the arc and step into their shot, rather than hugging the line in a catch and shoot situation. Brown describes this as the difference between deep shooters who are “huggers” and “steppers.”
  • Defensively, they use the four-point line to mark their pick-up points, as in that’s where they want to step up to the opponent’s ball-handlers when coming down the floor.
  • Billy Lange is going to be taking over defensive responsibilities this year with Lloyd Pierce becoming the head coach in Atlanta. Pierce was heavily involved with the defensive side of the ball last season and is seen as the architect of the Sixers’ top-five defense.
  • Monty Williams is going to focus on the offensive side of the ball, plus set plays and special situations, which was Kevin Young’s role last season.

More after the jump:

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Your Tuesday Morning Roundup

Chris Jastrzembski - September 18, 2018

Photo credit: James Lang-USA TODAY Sports

Guess who’s back, back again? Carson’s back, tell a friend.

And thank God he’s back now after the Birds fell to “FitzMagic” and Nick Foles didn’t perform up to his playoff standard in the first two games of the season. Wentz will certainly give the offense a much-needed jolt. Head coach Doug Pederson won’t “coach scared” with Wentz playing his first game in more than nine months, so he will have no limitations Sunday against the Colts.

So with the franchise back, the next question is what to do at wide receiver. Mike Wallace broke his fibula and could be out for the season. With Alshon Jeffery still week-to-week during shoulder rehab, your top receiver is Nelson Agholor. The best chance to bolster the roster was to get Josh Gordon from the Browns, but the Patriots got him for a fifth-round pick. CHEAP.

But maybe the Eagles were smart to not go after Gordon and shouldn’t go after Dez Bryant. It definitely sounded like Doug Pederson was looking at a veteran wide out, but who it could be remains unknown. Maybe Corey Coleman?

Probably not Chad Johnson, but he offered his services to the team:

In other news, the Eagles worked out four offensive linemen.

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Crossed Up: The Blame Game

JoyOnBroad - September 18, 2018

Anthony and Bob breakdown the Phillies’ rotation issues ahead of the 2019 season and discuss who’s most at fault for the team’s late-season collapse.

Please subscribe to the show ([iTunes] [Google Play] [Stitcher] [RSS]), leave a 5 star review, and follow us on Twitter: @AntSanPhilly @BWCrossingBroad

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