Is this a decent strategy? I have Eli and got burned last week by starting him. It's almost as if I am going to debate who to start each week btwn Vick and Eli unlike the Manning, Brees, Rodgers, etc..etc...owners who don't have to think twice or at least shoudn't.
I am thinking of bailing on Eli and picking up Foles to protect against the injury risk to Vick. Good move or bad? Can Foles be plugged into the offense and be effective? I was listening to "The Herd" this AM and Peter King seems to think so sans the running ability.
5
Thoughts?
IMHO this is really a roster management question, but I suspect it can evolve into some interesting general football discussion.
Eli Manning - A front of the line Tier 4 QB1 that people had to pay a front of the line Tier 3 price for to get in their drafts.
Michael Vick - A back of the line Tier 3 QB1 that people had to pay a mid range Tier 4/Tier 5 price to get.
Once you leave the Tier 2 QBs, the situation becomes about trade offs, and what you can live with. Both Eli Manning and Vick have the capacity to give you a half season of low end Tier 1/front end Tier 2 production. The downside is the other half of the year, Vick will probably be hammered into IR and Eli Manning will go into his annual mental funk, mostly because his father has spent his entire lifetime terrorizing him for not being Peyton but relieved that he isn't Cooper.
The large question becomes if the Eagles offense is sustainable? Is the Chip Kelly up tempo game sustainable?
Yes and no. More likely no. Mike Vick cannot read a defense, he never could, he never will. One of the reasons the Philly O line suffers so many injuries is Vick will hang onto the ball, forcing his O line to sustain their blocks for a very long time. This wears down your O line, this increases their risk of injury, this demoralizes the unit over time. You aren't wearing out offensive lineman by playing more snaps. You are wearing them out by asking them to unreasonably hold their blocks, play after play. If center Jason Kelce goes down, then IMHO, Vick is instant trade bait in standard redraft leagues. While Vick cannot read a defense, Kelce can and does. There is a marked reason why Vick became a human turnover machine when he lost Kelce last season and had to rely on Dallas Reynolds to snap him the ball.
What Chip Kelly has done well is schematically put a round item into a round hole. Under Reid, the crazy Fat Man would ask a QB1 who can't read a defense, can't decipher even basic coverages and wouldn't be able to look off a safety if you put a gun to his head, along with a career completion percentage that was chronically too low to be an effective West Coast QB, to take 5 step drops and let undersized WRs try to break through press coverage deep down the field to get a splash play and then try to do it 70 percent of the time while you have an elite weapon like Shady McCoy on the sideline. Kelly isn't reinventing the wheel, he's putting Vick into a situation that requires less reading and more reacting, where Vick is absolutely deadly. When all hell breaks loose, that's when Vick can put his foot on your throat. Kelly is doing what Reid should have done all along, ask Vick to choose to run, give it to Shady or lock on with a quick strike to DeSean Jackson and let Jackson operate in open space.
The issue starts to arise when the Eagles have to shift over to a more conservative offensive plan to defend a lead or handle the 2nd half of games. Part of this is because in order to win, the Eagles have to hide their defense. I'm an old man, and even I could get separation from Patrick Chung. The Eagles have a horrid secondary and generally have to rely on Mychal Kendricks to be an all around playmaker to give that defense even half a chance. If you want to hide your defense, you need to win the time of possession battle, grind out the clock and generate a top shelf pass rush when you do get on the field defensively. It's in these less up tempo moments that Vick is going to hurt you. He opens himself up to more turnovers, and he's getting his linemen in some bad spots by holding those blocks too long. He's not a good enough "game manager" and can't execute well enough on traditional third downs to give McCoy and Brown some breathing room to grind out the clock.
As it applies to Foles, he is not suited for the pace of Kelly's offense, what he is suited more is for the back half of game situations where you need a more traditional QB1 to hold a lead and kill the clock. What helps DeSean Jackson, is that safeties have to account for Vicks legs. You put Foles in there, and you'll see defenses able to bracket Jackson more. And the Eagles don't really have the depth offensively to roll coverage off of Jackson.
The Eagles need to win via shootouts. That defense is not built in a complementary skill set to that offensive scheme. You can't switch Foles for Vick and get the same kind of results in a speed to burn offense.
IMHO,
- In a two QB start league, Vick is a must start as your QB2 until he is either injured or falls apart. If you are in a two QB league and Vick is your QB1, then you probably need to get hopping on trying to make some trades.
- In standard 12 team redraft, Vick is someone you ride right now while he's hot and before NFL defenses begin to adjust. Once he's cooled off, he's a matchup play with high upside until he gets hurt. Like any "gimmick" offense, the best way to bust it is with dominance from your nose tackle. When Vick cools off and the Eagle are facing an elite defensive front line, I'd temper down the expectations of the Chip Kelly offense. Once an elite nose has disrupted a line and is doing it all day, doesn't matter what scheme you run, someone is going to get blown up.
- In dynasty or if Kelce goes down, Vick is a sell high.
- Eli Manning, for all his failings, is in a stable system with good receiving weapons and has an established rapport with his coaches and teammates. It's unfortunate he has a dad that goes Mommy Dearest on him and will cane him for not having matching coat hangers in the closet, but he's still a valuable QBBC fantasy option.
If you have Eli Manning and Mike Vick as your QBs, you are in a QBBC. What you want is to not have to try to predict which will get in their hot streak. Well there's what you want and what you have. Getting Foles isn't going to change what you have into what you want.
As for Peter King and what I think of his fantasy advice on the radio, well I'd rather trust Patrick Chung in single coverage of Megatron before I'd trust Peter King. Peter King is just a more successful version of Jason Wood, just without all the insecurity and malice.
move.
