The Eagles are inferior to the Redskins, yet well positioned to pull off an upset

The Philadelphia Eagles are quite likely to end up with the worst record in the NFC East this year. They also, in my opinion, have a better than even chance of starting 1-0 after beating the Redskins tonight.

The basis for my pessimism caution is the matchup between new Eagles coach Chip Kelly and Redskins defensive coordinator Jim Haslett. All offensive coaches focus on creating situations in which they can array more blockers against fewer defenders and get the ball to one of their (so-called) skill position players with room to run. But there are a few factors that make tonight's situation not quite routine.

My favorite non-Redskin players to watch

I've tweeted some of these names before, but partly out of boredom and partly because I was reminded by this tweet...

Frank Gore is so damn good. 49ers offense would really miss him and I love their backups too.
— Cian Fahey (@Cianaf) August 26, 2013

... I decided I may as well put together a little list.

This is not a list of best players. It is merely the ones who for totally subjective and biased reasons I tend to notice and enjoy the most when I catch them on TV. Also I am talking about my enjoyment of them throughout their careers, not necessarily just with their current team.

It's probably not a coincidence that this tends to skew towards team that end up in prime time a lot:

Are tactical innovations in the NFL making football fans' vocabulary obsolete?

You could say I came of age as a football watcher as a teenager in the 90s, so I consider traditional I-formation offenses to be the norm. That style of offense allowed for a fairly clean and simple understanding of what constituted play action. There's more to it than this, and occasional exceptions, but from our perspective as a fan any time we saw a fake handoff we could call it play action and we got by just fine. As Tanier said in a recent Mandatory Monday, "We need to learn enough Spanish to get around Barcelona; not every verb needs to be properly conjugated."

But recent tactical developments in the NFL such as read option and packaged plays (not the same thing, but there is overlap between them and it is not a coincidence that they are arriving in the NFL simultaneously) may force fans like us to abandon some of our simplistic definitions. A read option play in which the running back doesn't get the ball isn't so much a fake because up until the QB reads the defensive end's first step there was a legitimate chance the running back could end up getting a carry. Regular old fake handoffs, of course, are designed to be fake from the beginning.

Redskins I'm watching

Here's a short list of the Redskins I am most interested in watching now that I'm back in the blogging game after a year and a half off:

Will Montgomery

I try not to outright pick on players, but I was probably Will Montgomery’s most consistent critic last time this blog was active. Many commentators described him as at least adequate for a backup, a view which I tended to protest. Of course players improve with experience all the time (and the new offensive approach does wonders to help out O-linemen) so I wasn’t entirely shocked when he looked much better last year. I at least noticed that he wasn’t jumping off the screen as a liability each play, but Pro Football Focus gave him an outstanding +21.3 grade for the season. I strongly respect PFF’s work and find their grade’s informative, though they are not necessarily definitive and I feel free to disagree with them. So now that I am back to doing more detailed analysis I am looking forward to finding out whether Montgomery is as good as they seem to think.

On the problems of evaluating field goal kickers

 If you follow me on Twitter for some reason you may recall my objections to the general fan enthusiasm to cut Graham Gano or Billy Cundiff after every missed field goal or to praise Kai Forbath as a savior after every successful kick. You could be forgiven for thinking I was just being contrarian because I admit that's occasionally my thing. But I actually think the approach to evaluating field goal kickers - not only by fans and media but by NFL coaches as well - is deeply flawed in ways that will take more than 140 characters to discuss.

THE PROBLEM OF MEASUREMENT

Let’s get right to the point: you can tell pretty much nothing about the quality of a field goal kicker from his field goal percentage. Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders wrote back in 2006 that “There is effectively no correlation between a kicker’s field-goal percentage one season and his field-goal percentage the next.”

What are some possible reasons for this?

The blog is coming back

I've got the itch again. After a hiatus of a year and a half I intend to start the blog back up for the 2013 season.

It may be in a somewhat limited capacity compared to what I did in the past. It is unlikely I will do the full play by play breakdowns of entire games. Most likely I will re-watch the games and then do more limited posts on certain aspects that I want to highlight.

This is for a few different reasons. The first and most obvious is simple time constraints. Additionally, committing to that format was rather limiting. I would get so hung up on completing all four quarters that it pretty much prevented me from writing other kinds of posts. Less ambitious goals will let me dole out some bite size chunks in a way that can work for readers who don't have the patience to slog all the way through the play by play. I know that if you read my stuff you read every other Redskins blog and site, so by not even trying to be comprehensive it will increase the odds that I can contribute something that you don't see elsewhere.

For this preseason, you will probably not be seeing the usual stuff like roster predictions. This is because I was exceptionally busy last year and was unable to spend any more time on the Redskins than watching each game once, live. I frankly lack strong opinions on most of the bottom half of the roster. So this August I will be getting back up to speed on this team, at least when it comes to the details.

(NB: In 2012 the Redskins built around a superstar rookie QB, were at the forefront of a tactical revolution that swept the NFL, and went on a dramatic win streak to turn what seemed like a lost  season into a surprise playoff berth. Yep, THAT's the year I took off.)

Within the next day or two I should be able to publish a piece I've been working on about the problems of measuring field goal ability and how, as I perceive it, NFL teams do not make rational decisions when it comes to signing and cutting kickers.

After that the first preseason game will be upon us, and we'll just play it by ear from there.

Cool? Cool.

Niles Paul moves to tight end

For some reason I was initially caught off guard when I heard that Niles Paul was moving to tight end. But after only a moment's thought I was actually surprised by how obvious it seemed in retrospect, and in fact was sort of bothered that I hadn't thought of it beforehand.

Here's what he did well last year:

- Run block.

- Force fair catches as a gunner on punt coverage.

Here's what he didn't do:

- Get open on pass routes, pretty much ever.

Now if you know me, you know I like the guys who do the (so-called) little things like block and contribute on special teams. But the reality of the modern NFL and all it's specialized packages means that your entire depth chart is going to be forced to play from scrimmage at some point, so no one can get away with doing just the little things. As such, given the additions to the wide receiver corps Niles was going to have a hard time keeping his roster spot. So if you think he's a guy who can help the team, the challenge is to find a role which plays to his strengths and minimizes his weaknesses.

There remains the question of whether Niles has ever gotten into a three point stance in his life, and if he would be able to hold up as a blocker on the line. But in the modern NFL, including the Redskins offense, multi-TE sets often have a tight end flexed, lined up in the slot, or in backfield motion as an H-back. So there is a lot of flexibility in how to use him.

And as a tight end he would of course be more often matched up against safeties or linebackers on his pass routes, so just maybe he could contribute as a pass catcher too. But if his impact in the passing game still proves to be minimal, that's less of a problem if he's the second tight end on the field instead of a wide receiver.

Now this doesn't mean Niles is safe, necessarily. Fred Davis is still around, getting a one year trial to see if he is worthy of a long term contract. And Chris Cooley may not be ready for the glue factory just yet. But there are big questions about both of those guys, especially in a long term sense. So while Niles will in all likelihood be competing against others for the third spot, there's nothing wrong with looking at as many options as possible that could eventually replace Cooley or Davis if needed.

This move sure seems to give Niles Paul the best chance to a) make the team and b) contribute on the field, so I'm all for it.