Money

I think we all share a sense of loyalty to him; however, several important contributors to the Super Bowl team have moved on. It's just the nature of sport. He'll always have that SB catch, but the truth is that there are probably six receivers on the team that are more talented than him. In the past, he's proven to do well in a reserve capacity...he's also proven that he cannot be anything more than that. Maybe we keep 7 WRs, but I think Tyree is really on the outside looking in.

I hate to spoil the party, but there's no present interest on our end in Anquan Boldin. This is the type of rumor that would be more appropriately classified as a myth; however, the team could pay someone like Boldin or Braylon Edwards if they wanted to. The notion we don't have the financial resources is false. There would be consequences of absorbing such a large contract, but it can be done. Never underestimate the creativity of NFL capologists. Also, Tom Condon represents 75 NFL players. Connecting the dots between him and Eli and concluding that Boldin is suddenly on our radar is pretty foolish. Condon also represents Peyton Manning and Chad Pennington ... should we now link Boldin to the Colts and Dolphins? No. Move along, people. There's nothing to see here.

Being around for awhile doesn't make him experienced or accomplished. He has 54 career catches; Steve Smith surpassed that total last season alone, while Domenik Hixon put up 43 catches in basically half a season. He's never been a good receiver, so it's hard to see what pearls of wisdom he could possibly pass along to younger players, many of whom are already better than him.

Being a leader -- assuming he's perceived as such -- only goes so far when there are six or seven better players at your position. If the young guys outplay him, no amount of leadership or intangibles will save his roster spot.

Losing one guy becomes a big deal when it's your most irreplaceable guy. If it had happened earlier in the season, we'd have had more time for players like Hixon and Manningham to adjust to new roles. Kiwi had two weeks prior to the start of season to adjust back to a position he played throughout college and during his rookie season...and I think performed well from game 1 on.

Because of a reduced sample size, I'm presupposing that the offense and defense faced similar competition. Football outsiders has a DVOA formula that adjusts for opponent. According to that measure, the offense ranked 6th in the league whereas the defense ranked 8th. The problem is that DVOA is designed to measure efficiency, not consistency. So it doesn't really confirm or disconfirm the notion that our offense went through sizable lull periods under Gilbride's guidance. It just says that over 16 games, our offense was the 6th most efficient.

Not to say Tyree isn't valuable, but our front office's ability to populate the bottom third of the roster with competitive, versatile athletes makes him somewhat expendable. In 2005, we really needed a dynamite ST presence like Tyree. Today, we have guys like Hixon, T2, Dockery, MJ, DeOssie, Goff, Kehl, etc. to step up on coverage units, which really loosens the stranglehold Tyree previously had on a roster spot.

Unless he gets into trouble off the field, there's absolutely 0% chance Manningham gets cut. He's the most natually talented receiver on our roster, and I'm not sure there's a close second.

Even a naked eye review of the week-to-week scores suggests a decent amount of consistency from the offense. It's hard to effectively analyze our performance post-Plax; we basically fell apart. The defense lost Osi, but that happened in the preseason (giving us time to adjust) and we had a capable replacement in Kiwanuka. Conversly, we lost Plax late in the season and really had no one to step in and replace his impact (especially as Toomer seemingly fell off overnight). That's why I think the post-Plax games are not a fair measure of our offensive coordinator. When we had 17, we were as consistently dangerous as any offense in the league. I suspect you're right about '07, although that season was clouded by an especially inconsistent QB play and serious injuries to Jacobs and then Ward, which makes it all the much hard to objectively evaluate Gilbride's performance.

Count me among those who think the jumpball is really low percentage. We were far too reliant on it when we had Plax.

You just explained the difference between a willing student and an unwilling student. Tiki redefined his game, while Bradshaw has failed to make the necessary strides. Entering him into the game last season simply carried a lot of risk, which is why most of his playing time happened when we were comfortably ahead. The team hasn't given up on him by any stretch of the imagination, but I can tell you that the negative whispers about his work ethic aren't completely unfounded.

Applauding Bradshaw for being 4th all-time in kickoff return yards is like complimenting Vinny Testaverde for accumulating 40,000 career passing yards. If Reuben Droughns had 77 kick returns over the past two years, he would rank 7th. Bradshaw ranked 29th last year in KR avg (22.2). The year before, he ranked 17th (24.2). Any way you slice it, he is a below average kick returner, if not bad altogether. Conversly, Domenik Hixon has put up a KR avg. of 36.5 in 11 career kick returns for us. I don't see what's so mystifying about his dearth of playing time. You don't secure the ball, you don't pass protect, you don't play. It's a pretty simple formula. They aren't keeping him out of the game to spite him, and it's a decision that involves Coughlin, Gilbride, and Bradshaw's position coach, Jerald Ingram.

In the regular season, our offense averaged 26.7 ppg (3rd in the league) while our defense allowed 18.4 ppg (5th). The standard deviation for offensive ppg was 10.7 (9.88 in games 1-11, while Plax was still with the team), whereas the standard deviation for defensive points allowed was 9.0. By comparison, the highest scoring team in football was the New Orleans Saints at 28.9/g. Their standard deviation was 9.94. Meanwhile, the best defensive scoring team in football was the Pittsburgh Steelers at 13.9/g. Their standard deviation was 7.95. According to this data segmentation, the defense was slightly more consistent than the offense in 2008. It's a small difference, especially when the data accounts for Plax's absence. Furthermore, the offense was similarly consistent to the highest scoring unit in the NFL (9.88 vs. 9.94) whereas the defense was 1-pt higher than the Steelers (9.0 vs. 7.95). Altogether, both units appear to be impressively consistent by this measure (with an edge to the D), and there's nothing to suggest the offense suffered from multi-week lull periods. --- I don't suggest anyone is above criticism, and I stated as much earlier in the thread. Nobody is above reproach. I think the guys on our team deserve respect, and a lot of vitriol directed at Gilbride has been disrespectful. There's a big difference between informed criticisms and childish name-calling, the latter of which has been far too prevelant throughout the fan community. --- I'm not asking you or anyone to name his replacement. I'm asking who, in your opinion, is a good offensive coordinator? Booyah listed Marty Morningwheg. Who is a good play-caller in you estimation?

I think he's good, too, and they seem to stay afloat even when McNabb or Westbrook miss time with injury. I also think if you go to an Eagles message board or listen to Philly area radio, you'd see tons of heat directed at him and Reid. I'm curious who some of Gilbride's more vocal critics are have in mind. TCBV, VG, nesta, jm4pz ... ?

I'm disinclined to accept the premise that our offense goes through multi-week slumps whereas our defense was more consistent. That requires another round of detailed research that I'm not interested in doing at the moment. The nicknames bother me more from a comedy standpoint than from a fan standpoint, although I should point at that, good or bad, the guy is apart of our team. Let me rephrase: just as we did against Carolina, I think we ran enough against the Eagles. The implied premise that we would have had similar success against the Eagles if we ran the ball more (as we did vs. the Panthers) doesn't hold up when you consider (a) the Panthers were without their best interior run defender, and (b) the Eagles had a top three run defense whereas the Panthers were towards the bottom (and that was when they had Chris Kemoeatu healthy).

That's part of it, certainly. More specifically, an offensive coordinator really only has two choices: run or pass. Unless he can think of some third revolutionary way to advance the ball, his choice boils down to those two options. That inherent simplicity empowers fans to be more critical (i.e. "we should have run more"). Conversly, no one besides the coaches and players understands the extent of the defensive scheme, the responsibilities, and the intricacy of all 11 players working together. With that type of asymetrical information, it's really hard to evaluate a defensive coordinator and separate his ability from the success/mistakes on the field.

Just out of curiosity... Since so many of you think so lowly of Gilbride, please indulge my intrigue and name some offensive coordinators that you would rather have instead of him. Only present-day OC's count. Current head coaches are not eligible; only gentleman presently employed as "offensive coordinator" for an NFL team.

During their concurrent tenures, Gilbride's offense and Spagnuolo's defense were almost identically effective according to a variety of metrics. Ranking inside the top-10. You would be very hard-pressed to make a case that our defense was better than our offense. Yet Spags is eternally reverred. The trend appears to be that any good DC will be loved and respected, while any good OC will be second-guessed and ridiculed. I can't really identify the underpinnigs here, but it is what it is. I really suspect the Madden video game is apart of it. Well since you are friendly with disgruntled Oilers fans, maybe you could lead the charge for the next generation of silly nicknames. After two decades, it's time for some fresh material. Still disagree on the Philly game.

Oh, you mean the kick return where he got run down by David Akers. If that's Hixon, we lead 7-0. Turnovers = bad. That's your explanation for why Bradshaw doesn't get much playing time. Having two excellent RBs ahead of him factors into his deployment as well.

I think you and Bradshaw need to take a tandem bicycle ride together. -1.4% DVOA. Fumbles. Two 1,000 yard rushers (not to mention the top two guys in DYAR) ahead of him. He did not play well last year, and the coaches could not trust him to play fundamentally sound. And yet were remiss to not get him more playing time? You want to talk about mistakes, how about the inconceivable stubborness of using Bradshaw (rather than Hixon) as the kick returner, where he ranked 29th in the league. Field position is important, too...

Offensive coordinators are a different ballgame, especially when contrasted with defensive coordinators. People loved Spags (and John Fox before him) but never missed an opportunity to rag on Gilbride, even though our offensive and defensive numbers were similarly good (i.e. top-10 in points, yards) during their tenures. It's intentionally lame. If you haven't picked up on it by now, I have a really low opinion of fans who purposefully deploy degrading nicknames as attempts at "comedy." Belicheat, Dim Lewis, etc. F- And for the record, those Gilbride nicknames were made up by Houston Oilers fans in the early 1990s. So if anyone really wants to be funny, maybe they could come up with something original. We ran frequently against Philly, too, even without the early point totals we were able to generate against the Panthers. But in that game, it didn't pay off.

How soon we forget that I used to author 20-page offseason plan and mock draft threads in my youth. I actually have a lot of them saved on my computer. But now if I want to start a football thread, I usually just do it on BBI because there's more members there. Besides, I've kinda refocused my literary output to comedy instead of sports.

He was a good but not great college player. I liked him at Wisconsin. He has a long way to go before he's deployed in regular packages because of his one-dimensionality and the players in front of him (Boss, Matthews, Hedgecock). The premise that he can revolutionize our offense is laughable, and I really don't think it's a lock for him to beat out Darcy, who has a lot of ability and is two years removed from ACL surgery. Maybe we keep 4 TEs. Anyway, the clearest avenue for Beckum to be a contributor is special teams and possibly goal line packages. Otherwise, he along with Barden and Beatty are loooking at red-shirt rookie seasons. This isn't meant to say they aren't good; it's a reflection of the depth of our existing roster.

That's very noble of you, Nadmiral. That's my nickname for you.

Mix in some passes to I-Clean Dicks and a few more handoffs to Random Gayclubs and we can call him Kevin Gaypride.