By G. Emrich

It’s time to have a look at the final roster and make some guesses as to how the Eagles’ season will pan out.

There were no real surprises when the Eagles announced their 53 man roster, and really only one rookie played their way onto the roster once the preseason started (Keenan Clayton- Linebacker). Graham and Allen both showed great promise during the preseason, and both will start this Sunday. Kafka is the third string QB, Harbor is the backup TE (unless the Eagles sign a veteran between now and this weekend, which seems unlikely at this point). Cooper is either the 4th or 5th WR and may see time on special teams as well. Lindley and Te’o might see time as backups, and both rookie LB’s (Clayton and Chaney) made the team but are unlikely to see many snaps this year.

There were a few other notable moves. The Andrews Brothers’ era came to an unceremonious end when the Eagles shipped Stacey away for a bag of peanuts. Last year’s training camp superstar Cornelius Ingram was released, not signed to the practice squad, and is currently without a job. That my friends, is a rapid fall from grace. The Eagles also traded for Antwan Barnes, another 3-4 OLB, more on this later. Lastly, last year’s training camp disaster, Quintin Demps, and last year’s opening day starter at safety, Macho Harris, were released, leaving the Eagles with all of three safeties on the roster (Mikell, Allen, Coleman), the last two being rookies. It’s a ridiculously young roster, and Howie Roseman’s fingerprints are all over it.

So how do the Eagles stack up against the rest of the NFC? It’s hard to tell at this point. First, the NFC is a substantially stronger conference than it was back in the glory days of the McNabb/Reid dynasty, and that might be understating the situation. Those were good Eagles teams, but not much better than the current squad (better offense now, better defense then). It’s actually quite remarkable when you go back and look at the conference during those years, pathetic really.

This year’s team boasts an offense that should be explosive if the offensive line comes together (which is far from a foregone conclusion). Don’t expect the running the running game to be any better or any worse than it’s been in past years (if there’s one thing I confirmed from watching all the preseason games, and I mean the first half of every preseason game played this year, it’s that the Eagles care less about running the ball than almost any team in the NFL, not that you need to watch all that football to figure that out). Kolb is the wildcard. There’s reason to hope that he’ll be good, perhaps very good, but we won’t know until Sunday.

The defense is a crapshoot. Four new starters will take the field on Sunday (five if you include Bradley), Graham, Allen, Sims, Hobbs, and lots of new faces fill out the rest of the defensive roster. Yes, they played well in the preseason, but they weren’t tested all that much. Graham is a definite improvement at LDE, but Bunkley and Patterson are still incapable of getting off the line of scrimmage on passing plays, which remains the Eagles biggest problem. Look for the Eagles to experiment with all sorts of different combinations up front on third downs this year in an effort to create more pressure from that position. The LB corps can’t help but be better with the return of Bradley. Sims is an unknown at this point and Jordan is a borderline starter. Allen and Hobbs both clearly won their position battles during training camp and the preseason, but Allen is a rookie and Hobbs is a question mark. Samuel is supposedly going to be more physical this year (right), and Mikell was flat out bad the last part of last year (here’s hoping that was a bit of anomaly).

We can break it down position by position, but the general theme of the roster is that it’s young everywhere, relatively deep on offense, not very deep and undersized on defense. Roseman (and presumably Reid since he still has final say) appear obsessed with speed over size on defense. Their entire defensive line is undersized, and it’s noticeable on the field. And with the exception of Bradley, the LB corps are also undersized. It’s the kind of defense that should create turnovers, but also give up big plays and wear down against more physical teams (especially when Reid goes into pass, pass, pass mode and the offense can’t sustain drives).

In the end, the season mostly hinges on the play of Kolb and the offensive line. I think it’s likely that the defense will essentially be a better version of last year’s defense, but it won’t be a dominant defense, and they will struggle at times. If the offensive line stays healthy then it should be a solid group, and I believe Kolb will perform well if he has time in the pocket to deliver the ball, maybe better than well. I think a realistic hope/expectation is for the offense to match last year’s production. If that’s the case, and perhaps it’s asking a little much considering it’s Kolb’s first year, the Eagles should be better. The problem being that both the division and the conference should be improved, so even an upgraded Eagles team wouldn’t be a shoe-in for the playoffs.

It all starts Sunday against a very, very good Green Bay team. I’m not one for making pointless win-loss predictions, but I will go out on a limb and say, look for a high scoring game this weekend.  Let’s do it.