Mike Merrell’s Three-and-Out In the 2012 preseason poll, the media picked what turned out to be the 7-6 University of Southern California Trojans as the top team in the land. It took three years to recover from being burned by their compulsive love for USC, but like a battered wife who can’t figure out that her prince just isn’t all that …
Football is a nearly year-round endeavor these days, for players, coaches, and (obsessive) fans. Between the Senior Bowl, the NFL Combine, free agency, the draft, and OTAs, news keeps flying year-round. Except for right now, and the next 6 weeks. This is the dead spot, the one stretch of solid vacation that coaches and players get. In prior years, Chip …
When it comes to the NFL Draft, Chip Kelly heeds the advice of Horace Greeley: “Go West, young man.” In Kelly’s three seasons as the Philadelphia Eagles head coach, the team has used nine of its 21 draft picks on Pac-12 prospects. For this reason, it was unsurprising that Kelly decided to go west with USC receiver Nelson Agholor in …
Since our last update, the Eagles have finished their draft and signed a bunch of free agents to complete their roster. They also made some key staffing changes, which helps us understand some of those roster additions. I’m talking about the revamp of the Eagles’ pioneering Sports Science department. Shaun Huls, a very low profile former Navy Seals trainer, got a …
Chip Kelly always knew it would be tough to draft Marcus Mariota, even before he won the Heisman Trophy, led the Oregon Ducks to the National Championship Game and killed it at the NFL Combine. It didn’t dissuade anybody that Oregon lost the national title to Ohio State, or that Mariota’s pro day wasn’t nearly as good as his combine. …
There is no debate: in college football, nothing is more important than talent. The overwhelmingly positive correlation between talent and winning says it all. While many factors go into becoming a successful, winning program, no other has as much of an impact as talent. There’s a reason coaches take recruiting so seriously. This week, we look at the four most …