This may have been discussed already. I'm curious to see how Pete Jenkins does with the D-Line. Did any of you catch this blurb from NFL.com?
An Eagle stays landed,
By Adam Schefter
NFL Analyst
Adam Schefter's "Around the League" reports and commentaries can be seen regularly on NFL Total Access.
(June 9, 2006) -- They started working together in 1999, Eagles coach Andy Reid and defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, and now they are tied together through 2010.
This offseason, very quietly, the Eagles exercised their option for the final two years of Johnson's contract, tying him to Philadelphia through the 2010 season. It is the exact year that Reid's contract also runs through.
The defensive coordinator's deal keeps Johnson amongst the three highest-paid defensive coordinators in the game, along with the Washington Redskins' Gregg Williams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Monte Kiffin. There never was much of a question that the Eagles would exercise the option, but this was the offseason in which they did it.
But Johnson is a lot more concerned with reviving the Eagles' pass rush than landing contract guarantees. Eagles officials believe the team's biggest problem last season was the lack of pass rush. It is why the team poured much of its offseason salary-cap space into free-agent defensive end Darren Howard and used its first-round pick on defensive tackle Broderick Bunkley.
Now Johnson can be the master schemer that he is, devising more ways to get increased pressure. One is expected to come with a more active rotation. The Eagles can have a rotation because of their surplus of defensive ends. In addition to signing Howard, the Eagles also are getting back former first-round pick Jerome McDougle, who has recovered from the gunshot wound he suffered before last season.
With rookie Broderick Bunkley manning the middle, the Eagles can get more creative.
Eagles officials say McDougle has shown up at their Organized Team Activities with a new attitude, a new energy, a new urgency he lacked before. It's almost as if the 27-year-old McDougle feels he has been given a second chance to reach the potential the Eagles saw in him when they drafted him in the first round in 2003.
And what also has helped McDougle, and each of the other Eagles linemen, is the presence of new defensive line coach Pete Jenkins. Reid was able to coax Jenkins out of retirement after the defensive line coach had worked under Nick Saban at LSU. Jenkins is considered a superb technician, and those techniques now are being transferred to McDougle and Howard and each lineman on the roster.
So now the Eagles have a new defensive line coach in Jenkins, a deal in place with their defensive coordinator Johnson, and the hopes that this will be a very different season from the last one.
An Eagle stays landed,
By Adam Schefter
NFL Analyst
Adam Schefter's "Around the League" reports and commentaries can be seen regularly on NFL Total Access.
(June 9, 2006) -- They started working together in 1999, Eagles coach Andy Reid and defensive coordinator Jim Johnson, and now they are tied together through 2010.
This offseason, very quietly, the Eagles exercised their option for the final two years of Johnson's contract, tying him to Philadelphia through the 2010 season. It is the exact year that Reid's contract also runs through.
The defensive coordinator's deal keeps Johnson amongst the three highest-paid defensive coordinators in the game, along with the Washington Redskins' Gregg Williams and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Monte Kiffin. There never was much of a question that the Eagles would exercise the option, but this was the offseason in which they did it.
But Johnson is a lot more concerned with reviving the Eagles' pass rush than landing contract guarantees. Eagles officials believe the team's biggest problem last season was the lack of pass rush. It is why the team poured much of its offseason salary-cap space into free-agent defensive end Darren Howard and used its first-round pick on defensive tackle Broderick Bunkley.
Now Johnson can be the master schemer that he is, devising more ways to get increased pressure. One is expected to come with a more active rotation. The Eagles can have a rotation because of their surplus of defensive ends. In addition to signing Howard, the Eagles also are getting back former first-round pick Jerome McDougle, who has recovered from the gunshot wound he suffered before last season.
With rookie Broderick Bunkley manning the middle, the Eagles can get more creative.
Eagles officials say McDougle has shown up at their Organized Team Activities with a new attitude, a new energy, a new urgency he lacked before. It's almost as if the 27-year-old McDougle feels he has been given a second chance to reach the potential the Eagles saw in him when they drafted him in the first round in 2003.
And what also has helped McDougle, and each of the other Eagles linemen, is the presence of new defensive line coach Pete Jenkins. Reid was able to coax Jenkins out of retirement after the defensive line coach had worked under Nick Saban at LSU. Jenkins is considered a superb technician, and those techniques now are being transferred to McDougle and Howard and each lineman on the roster.
So now the Eagles have a new defensive line coach in Jenkins, a deal in place with their defensive coordinator Johnson, and the hopes that this will be a very different season from the last one.
Comment