What Did You Expect?

If anyone was banking on free agency for the Birds to improve over the offseason, you can forget about it. Eagles' flunky Dave Spadaro has already set the stage for the Birds' offseason plan with his article today, titled "Eagles Must Trust Draft In This Off-Season".

Try not to get too frustrated by some of these comments:

You can take this to the bank, and you can factor this into how you fill the holes on this Eagles team: The Eagles must, must, must trust the draft of the last couple of years when they look ahead. There are some players who must step up and play key roles in 2007.

I know that when March rolls around, the fans are going to yell and scream that Player X "Is a great fit!!" And that "Player Y can put us over the top!!"

But it doesn't work that way. Free agency fills a hole here and there, but history shows that free-agency additions miss more often than they help.

Now, hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Eagles will target one or two or three free agents and go hard after them. They've always been aggressive when they've seen players they think can make a difference and the results, frankly, have been mixed.

For much of this past season, the Eagles' 2006 draft class was largely criticized. There was minimal impact from the group, and in the end only linebacker Omar Gaither (fifth round) was a real contributor. Wide receiver Jason Avant (fourth round) saw some time here and there and defensive tackle LaJuan Ramsey (sixth round) played early and then spent the rest of the season on the sidelines.

The Eagles insist that the '06 draft class will prove to be outstanding, so we should start seeing some of those players stepping into prominent roles in 2007.

And that, in the end, has to have an impact on how the Eagles approach their off-season thinking.

For example, the Eagles defense was described as "soft" by defensive coordinator Jim Johnson after the loss in New Orleans. It was the second time he referred to his group that way, and as the Eagles wade into the months ahead, they know they need to toughen up, add a harder edge, get better on defense.

Spit in the wind all you want. It's what we do in the off-season. Just don't forget that the Eagles have some young talent on here that has to play an important part of success in the immediate future. The Eagles have to trust their draft.

Since we all know that Spadaro is pretty much parroting things he's heard from the Eagles front office, this article is probably pretty legit. Great....I'm completely underwhelmed.

I'm so excited about trusting Bunkley (pictured above) and LaJuan Ramsey, guys that couldn't get off the bench all year, to be our running stuffing DT's. Even less thrilling is the fact that it looks like we'll be relying on Chris Gocong, a guy who was on IR all year and played against D II competition, to be our answer at strongside outside linebacker. Plus, that article seems to hint that we'll be replacing our small, slow, Polynesian kick returner with a smaller, slightly faster, white kid who hasn't competed in a legitimate sporting even since he flamed out in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

Wow...I don't know about you guys, but I already can't wait for next year. The 2007 Philadelphia Eagles: Feel the Excitement!