Philadelphia

Considering the less-than-thrilling manner in which the Washington Nationals’ 2010 season expired, I’d pretty much been avoiding watching baseball regularly. In fact, I avoided it so well that I had no idea that winter meetings were beginning. But the Nationals sure didn’t forget. They kicked off winter meetings with the stunning announcement that they had signed free agent outfielder—and former Philadelphia Phillie—Jayson Werth to a 7-year, $126 million contract. I’ll paraphrase my reaction: “What? We got him?”

Even though it’s only Week 12, it’s not too early for a team to start formulating its offseason plans. For some teams, this is easier said than done because they have a formidable list of needs (link to Skins article). For others—like the Eagles—a short list of needs has created an opportunity to “beef up” key positions. And with plenty of draft capital at their disposal, the Eagles can use their offseason to gain a big advantage on their division rivals.

If the NFL were to write an educational book for up-and-coming players, they might title it Everybody Fumbles. And after it publishes, they might want to send a copy over to Ahmad Bradshaw. The New York Giants’ running back currently leads the league with six fumbles. And in the second half of the Giants’ loss to the Eagles this past Sunday, it appeared that Bradshaw had fumbled yet again. That was, until the fumble ruling was overturned after a Giants’ challenge. The officials claimed that Bradshaw’s forearm had touched the ground before the ball came loose; thus, he was down and the play couldn’t be ruled a fumble. But was that really the right call?

Since we have an extra day to kill before this week’s latest installment of the Eagles-Redskins rivalry, I’ve put together some interesting numbers to help pass the time.

(NOTE: The predictive value of these stats is highly questionable considering all of the mitigating circumstances involved. But I love looking at stats, so I figured I’d see what I could find. Basically, you should just take them with a grain of salt.)

Eagles rookie Kurt Coleman should consider himself lucky. That’s because he just avoided becoming the most recent NFL player to be fined for a helmet-to-helmet hit on a defenseless receiver. Coleman would have received the fine for the helmet-to-helmet hit that he laid on Colts receiver Austin Collie during a play in the second quarter of Sunday’s Eagles-Colts match. The play was ruled an incomplete pass, and the rookie safety was flagged for what the officials referred to as a helmet-to-helmet hit on a defenseless receiver, but the league has opted not to fine Coleman for the play even though it resulted in Austin Collie suffering a concussion and needing to be carted of the field on a stretcher. Hey, Goodell. What happened to all that tough talk about cracking down on helmet-to-helmet hits?