The Eagles are eager to find out when Michael Vick is going to be fully reinstated by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell because that will allow them to make a deal with New England which would involve quarterback A.J. Feeley and one of the Patriots back up tight ends.
It’s been reported in Boston that the Pats are interested in Feeley. That’s not a shock to any one when you see who is backing up Tom Brady, who is coming back from an ACL tear.
The Pats QB backups are Andrew Walter and Brian Hoyer. Need I say anything more.
Another report out of New England points out that the Eagles are interested in acquiring one of the Patriots backup tight ends.
The Pats have four tight ends on the rostere. Ben Watson is the starter with Chris Baker, Alex Smith and David Thomas backing him up. The Pats willl be able to keep only three of them.
The Birds on the other hand, currently have four quarterbacks on the roster but will only really have three available to play until Vick is reinstated by the NFL commissioner. Once he is given the thumbs up, then Feeley will be expendable.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that a deal would make sense to both teams.
The Eagles desperately want to have pass catching tight ends who can be effective in the red zone. Despite breaking a team scoring record a year ago, they struggled in the red zone.
The use of the two tight ends in the red zone seems to be much of what Andy
Reid and Marty Mornhinweg have come up with during the off season as the
solution to their red zone problems.
I like that thinking because defenses have to play man to man in the red zone and the tight end is very difficult to handle down there by the goalline.
It’s very difficult to stop good
tight ends in the red zone because linebackers must honor all run
fakes, while at the same time being responsible for the tight ends in
pass coverage.
Reid and Mornhinweg were putting in plays throughout the OTA’s and early in training camp for the starter Brent Celek and rookie Cornelius Ingram. They see Celek coming into his own, but they still need a second effective tight end.
Once Ingram suffered the ACL injury, they had to shelve much of the red zone game plan.
I think they look at backup New England tight ends Baker, Smith and Thomas and feel like they can execute that red zone game plan with any of them, especially Baker.
He made the Eagles linebackers look like they were lost when they tried to cover him in the red zone during the preseason game.
