Back And Ornery

Obviously, things have been a bit slow on Frank Helps You Think It All Out- mainly due to the arrival of the little guy to the right. It is interesting how I managed to maintain the blog for years through rigorous full time employment- but our new denizen is a demanding master.

Posting will continue however. Phil Sheridan has a good column up today on the foibles of the Philadelphia Eagles: Eagles' purge says a lot about '09 season.

You can read it yourself. But his main point(s) is a good one.

Phil’s Point 1: The Eagles have unceremoniously dumped nine guys and $17 million in payroll.

Brian Westbrook, had a great career and was simply on the decline because of injury and age. A couple, Shawn Andrews and Reggie Brown, were once promising draft picks who got big contracts and then vanished in their own very different ways. One, Darren Howard, was an ill-advised big-money free agent signing who wasn't as productive as expected.

Kevin Curtis was a solid player derailed by injuries. Will Witherspoon was a desperation move whose contract exceeded his contributions. Sean Jones was a mistake. And then there were depth guys like Chris Clemons and Jason Babin - the kinds of guys who are on every NFL roster.

Phil’s Point 2: There are still another $20 million in bad contracts hanging around.

This round of clear-cutting didn't address another $20 million or so for returning players who just weren't worth what they got paid in '09: Jason Peters, Stacy Andrews, Michael Vick, Ellis Hobbs, and Omar Gaither.

Phil’s Point 3: It is hard to win play-off games when one third of your roster spots are clear mistakes of one sort or another.

I made a similar case last year that paying the McNabb-Westbrook axis as elite players in a capped League was problematic when, in fact, neither were elite players anymore. This year appears to now be uncapped- so it is hard to argue against taking the recent cap flexibility to purge a ton of mistakes around Philadelphia.