Who Will be taking snaps for the Eagles this year?

As the Eagles enter the part of the off-season after the draft, one thing is certain; nobody, probably even Chip Kelly, knows who the starting quarterback is going to be this year. Now I am just going to throw darts about what the Eagles are gonna do and then I’ll discuss what I think the best option should be:

What the Eagles Will Do

To understand what the Eagles are likely to do it is important to understand the contracts of four candidates for the starting job. Obviously, Matt Barkley has not signed a contract being a recent draftee but it is likely that he will make the team. Here are the others.

Will Dixon have what it takes
to stay with the Eagles?

Dennis Dixon His contract is for the minimum wage for players in the fourth, fifth, or sixth season for both years.  That means the first year is worth $715,000 and his second year is $730,000. If it turns out that he becomes the starter he will earn $1.05 million. His cap hits for 2013 and 2014 are $815,000 and $755,000 respectively.

Nick Foles carries his original contract into this season. The deal goes til 2015 and he is scheduled to make $500,000 this year then $615,000 and $660,000 in the last two years of the contracts. The cap hit the Eagles will take is about $135,000 extra per year because of the signing bonus.

Michael Vick As many of you already know Vick restructured his contract from a deal with three years left to one that ends in 2013. His base salary for this year is $3.5 million which is much less than the $15.5 million of the old contract. He will be able to bring in over $7 million if he fulfills a whole bunch of incentives. His cap hit will be $12,200,000.

Now that contracts are out the way, it’s a little easier to see how things are going to go. Obviously Barkley will make the roster as the Eagles traded up to snag him (but in a round lower than they drafted Foles last year) and Vick seems to have a good chance since he restructured his deal to make him more attractive for the Eagles. Now it comes to who they leave out of the roster; Dennis Dixon was on a practice squad last year so sending him there wouldn’t be too much change for him but I’m thinking the Eagles are gonna want to make a trade of this. This means that Nick Foles is likely on his way out as his trade value is incredibly higher than Dennis Dixon’s. So with this I expect Matt Barkley to start with Michael Vick taking the backup role (and likely stepping in at some point during the season). Dixon will take the reserve spot and hopefully never state on the field.

Alternative situation: Maybe the Eagles restructured Vick’s deal telling him that there was no chance

Contract and age are two of the
many negatives about Vick

that he will be the starter this year. They will then trade him because his contract is now more attractive to other teams. In this situation Dixon still remains the backup but Foles and Barkley battle it out for the starting spot.

Or maybe: Dixon steps in since he knows Kelly’s system perfectly and somehow becomes the starter shocking everyone in the world.

What I Would Do

This is rather simple: I would start back at the Draft and pick Geno Smith with the #4 pick but since that isn’t possible I will make do with what we have now. Looking at a comparison of Vick and Foles’ play last year you see that Vick ranked 26^th in ESPN’s QBR and Foles ranked 28^th. Both those spots are terrible but you have to remember how awful their offensive line was last year. Just for point of reference, Philip Rivers was ranked 31^st and Joe Flacco was 25^th. One thing that Nick Foles does edge Vick in is completion percentage. Foles completed 60.8% of his passes while Vick was a slightly worse 58.1%. This being said Vick is also older and a dog killer, so I am going to take Foles in this situation.

Pretty much a guarantee to be on the
squad

As we continue our way down this ladder tournament of Eagles quarterbacks Michael Vick will take on the Eagles’ newest draftee, Matt Barkley. People will say that Barkley had a terrible senior year and that if he would have came out after his junior year he would have been a first round pick. They are right about the first part and even though Barkley had a career high number interceptions in 2012 it does not mean that he wasn’t productive. USC greatly underachieved as a team and Barkley faced injury problems his senior year. He still threw 36 touchdowns and had a quarter back rating (regular) of 157.6. He also had his highest yards per attempt of his career. Vick struggled last year with injuries as well and Barkley might not be at the same level as Vick yet when it comes to attributes. However, I would choose Barkley over the best running quarterback of all time due to age and money. Vick is 32 and his career is likely on the downhill and he will have a huge cap hit.

Up Next: Mike Vick vs Dennis Dixon. Neither of them are really attractive but Vick is obviously is the greater talent. However, I do not plan on either of these playing much (in my world, in real life I think Vick will play) so I will choose Dixon. Dixon just seems like your typical third string quarterback; he doesn’t threaten the starters, kind of stays out of the way, and provides some versatility to show the offense when they play a team with a rushing quarterback. (I know Vick could do the same but his contract is just so heavy even with him taking less money). So at the end of the day, I would trade Vick to some team that could tolerate having a dog murderer on their team.

Who knows what could happen
to the Sunshine/Dirk hybrid?

Last Matchup: Dennis Dixon vs Free Agents. First I’ll give a list of professional free agents: Tim Tebow(no chance), Trent Edwards (already cut him in April so that would be redundant), Charlie Batch (plausible), Byron Leftwich(plausible), Matt Leinart(he’s a joke), Tyler Thigpen(Who?), JaMarcus Russell(Nope), Jordan Palmer(Carson’s not even good anymore), and Caleb Hanie(nope). Now let’s look at some undrafted free agents…wait… wait… all of the good ones are taken: Matt Scott (Jaguars) and Tyler Bray (Chiefs). Matt McGloin was the next highest rated quarterback and he will be attending Washington Football Club’s camps as an unsigned free agent (he would have been good story

and I also found out that he kicked ass in three sports during high school). So that’s it… it’s either Dixon, Batch or Leftwich and since Dixon is already on the roster I choose him… weird that they all played for the Steelers at one point.

Now it is between Barkley and Foles for the starting job and I think Foles wins it due to experience but I’d expect to see Barkley in at some point.  

Philadelphia Eagles Depth Chart - 2013
Quarterback
	STARTER	2ND	3RD	4TH
Mine	Nick Foles	Matt Barkley	Dennis Dixon
PHI 1	Matt Barkley	Michael Vick	Dennis Dixon
PHI 2	Foles/Barkley	Foles/Barkley	Dennis Dixon
RARE	Dennis Dixon

Side Note: All quarterbacks that I might have said aren't good are all ridiculously talented people who I have much respect for.

NFL week 7 headlines

Tim Tebow is finally getting his chance to play. The Broncos realized Orton's 6-21 record isn't that good and so why not let Tebow play. All Tebow did in college was win, now this is the pros, he isn't very accurate but almost led a comeback against the Chargers if it wasn't for a dropped 2-pt conversion. Thank you Denver for finally giving Tebow the job. He is not going to win the super bowl or even lead them to the playoffs he might not even win a game this season. But does it matter if the Broncos don't win a game the rest of the season. For all those people that don't think he should play because he isn't good, how do you know he isn't good he played 3 games last year went 1-2, Orton had his chance and didn't do shit with it, it is time to see if that first round draft pick was a good pick or not. Let Tebow play and let him fail if he is going to fail so at least we all know he can't play in the NFL. But only good can come out of Tebow finally playing.

• He can lead then to a winning record and the playoffs (doubtful).
• Everyone will find out if he can actually play QB in the NFL.
• More fans will be at Denver's games now to see Tebow, therefore more money for the NFL
• They lose the rest of their games, Andrew Luck is their starting QB next year
  

I know some bad can come out of it, like for all you Tebow haters, if he plays well he will have proved you wrong.

Carson Palmer now plays for Oakland after the Bengals surprisingly accepted a trade for 2 first round picks or a first and second round pick (not exactly sure). Im not sure why you would accept 2 draft picks for a player you don't need nor want but they did it anyway. Because of Jason Campell getting hurt many expected Palmer to start and the question arose. Can Palmer start after being retired just 5 days ago? Well he is not starting, I thought he would, Kyle Boller got the nod. But is it a big deal if Palmer would have gotten the start, the other QBs are Kyle Boller (who is starting) and Terrelle Pryor. Boller tried to play for the Ravens but that didn't work and Pryer has just been activated this week also. Palmer could have been picked up yesterday and he would still play better than the other QBs for Oakland. Plus Palmer played last year and has been working out all summer in case he had the chance to come back.

Jerome Harrison was about to be traded back to the Eagles for Ronnie Brown but a physical denied the trade. When Harrison was examined by Philly doctors they found a brain tumor. If it wasn't for this trade the tumor could have became serious before it was found and the NFL world could have lost a player who just 2 years ago rushed for 286 yards in a game. Luckily for Jerome his tumor was found and his surgery went well according to espn's Chris Mortensen.

HandshakeGate what does that even mean. This was the big handshake controversy between Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz. The reason Schwartz went after Harbaugh after the handshake is because Harbaugh did shake his hand hard but pushed him on the back as he went by. Schwartz wasn't happy with the push and you could see him turn and say "what the fuck" then he proceeded to run after him and get all up in his grill. Both coaches didn't do anything wrong they just got a little carried away with it. Harbaugh shouldn't have slapped and shook his hand so hard and Schwartz was fine with going after him but he took it to far when he kept try to get in the face of Harbaugh. The best thing about all of this was it reminds me of back in 1992 when John Chaney(Temple basketball coach) went into John Calipari's(UMass basketball coach) press conference after their game and said "I'm gonna kill you". So next time two people with the same first name start getting into it just start video taping because it will end up being youtube worthy.