Eagles news: Holding calls, edge rusher snaps, and celebrations

It’s a great start to December. The Philadelphia Eagles are on an eight-game win streak, they’re hitting their stride on the most important part of the regular season, and The Philly Specials released their third album. Vibes are high.

Before we, as a collective, move on to the Week 14 game against the Carolina Panthers, there are a few new stories that need to be touched on. Let’s dive right on in.

Cooper DeJean celebration explained

Cooper DeJean rocks. After executing the perfect tackle/power double leg takedown of Derrick Henry, he dropped a new celebration on the world.

In that video, you can see Nakobe Dean doing it with him. It didn’t stop there, though. Fran Duffy noticed that it was just about everyone on the team.

That’s so awesome. It looks goofy, but it also goes incredibly hard at the same time. That begs the question: what the hell does it mean? Luckily, rookie edge rusher Jalyx ‘Big Pimpin’ Hunt had answers for everyone when he went on The Philly Special Show. 

“That’s a defense celebration… Whenever there’s a big hit: Chill. Calm down, calm down,” Hunt said as he was mimicking the hand movements, “… like, we do this relax, relax. It’s a confidence thing. It’s how we carry ourselves because we’re definitely looking for those hits. We’re looking to be the more physical team. A hit like that, on a (running) back like that, you gotta chill. I know y’all are gonna go crazy, but you gotta relax.” (42:21 in the video below)

It keeps getting better and better. That celebration is essentially the defense (and the whole team) saying, ‘This is business. Don’t get hyped. This is what we do. We hit people. We set the tone. Nothing special about it.’ 

This defense is so cool to watch. You can see the guys having fun. They’re playing fast, loose, and confident. That wasn’t the case 365 days ago. 

Where did Brandon Graham’s snaps go?

Before Brandon Graham tore his tricep, he was playing way more defensive snaps than you would assume any 36-year-old defensive end would be playing. He ended up being on the field for 292 plays, per Next Gen Stats. That translates to an average of 45.6 percent of defensive snaps per game. That’s a lot to have to take care of with a small edge rusher group. The Eagles figured it out against the Ravens, and it worked really well.

This table shows the snap percentage of the edge rushers in Week 12, Week 13, and the difference between the two:

10.3, 14.5, and 19.3 add up to 44.1. That works out pretty nicely: Hunt, Sweat, and Smith all split BG’s snaps. You’d rather have these guys be able to rotate more than that, but if they can hold up with that workload things look to be set. 

Keep in mind, Bryce Huff will come back at some point and he’ll find his way into the rotation at times. He might not be great, but at least he’ll be able to get on the field to keep the better players fresh.

Getting holding calls

One big thing that was overwhelmingly exposed against the Ravens was the frequency and egregiousness of offensive holds on Jalen Carter that went uncalled and unpenalized.

Now, you can do the old, ‘There’s a hold on every single play. The refs can’t call it every time,’ thing, and you’d be right. Except there were zero holding calls on the Ravens’ offensive line at all. Not just against Jalen Carter, but anyone. That’s the troubling part here.

Luckily, we got a gem from defensive coordinator Vic Fangio at his Tuesday press conference. He was asked if there was anything the coaches could do to help Jalen get some holding calls and Vic answered, “I don’t know. You got any ideas?”

Well Vic, I certainly do. Let’s call these PEDs (Penalty Enticing Devices). As a caveat, these may break some rules that the NFL has laid out, but who cares? The other teams are breaking the rules on the field.

White paint:

One thing that you’ll see around the NFL is wide receivers wearing gloves that are the same color as the other team’s jersey. It typically works better with the home team because the away team usually wears white. Wearing gloves that are the same color as a jersey makes it tough for refs to see holds. Typically holds in the trenches are a little more than just hand stuff, but clearly the refs aren’t seeing the egregious things, so this could just be a little edge.

The Eagles are going to be at home for four of their next five games, and they have an opportunity to use home-field advantage and their home jerseys, specifically the black alternates.

Have the equipment team or the grounds crew paint a small part of the sideline about 30 minutes before the team comes out to do their warm-ups. In that time, have your defensive linemen slide on their bellies (or wherever they are commonly held) through that paint, like a slip-and-slide. 

If done correctly, this will hopefully coat their jerseys in enough of a layer of paint that it looks like the natural wear and tear of a football game. 

Here’s the kicker: Only wear the black jerseys at home (aside from the Kelly Green game) for the rest of the season. An early announcement of a black jersey will hopefully be enough to coax the other team’s offensive linemen into wearing black gloves to hide their inevitable holds. Now, they’re in a bad spot and their scheme will be working against them.

Black and white are complementary colors. Black gloves on a white-ish jersey will become even more apparent. Bada bing. Bada Boom. You got yourself a holding call. You’re welcome.

The other option is to not wear the Black alternates or the Midnight Green jerseys because the colors are so dark. Just wear the Kelly Greens from here on out. No one’s gloves match that and everyone loves them; it’s a universal win.

Tearaways:

This plan is straightforward: if teams are grabbing your guys, make the parts that they grab come off.

NFL jerseys aren’t the tearaways kind like they used to be, so this will take a little help from the equipment managers. Have them rip some of the stitching at the seams, that way pieces of the jersey just kind of shed off when they’re grabbed.

You want to yank the inside of Jalen’s collar to hold him in place? Congratulations: you’re now holding Jalen’s collar and everyone can see it. You played yourself, you doofus. 

You want to grab the nameplate on the back of the jersey? Cool it’s in your hand now. Take that home with you and hang it on your ‘I couldn’t block this guy’ wall. 

Studded collars:

Justin Jefferson has been wearing a $1 million diamond necklace during games. You don’t have to spend nearly that much on this plan. Studded chokers are around $13 on Amazon.

What Justin does is gaudy and weird. What Jalen can do is functional fashion and it can easily be explained: ‘We’re some dogs. Coach gotta keep me on a leash.’

Is inflicting bodily harm a step too far? Maybe, but probably not. If you don’t want your arm to be ripped to shreds via faux leather and zinc spikes, then don’t grab around Jalen’s neck like this (picture on the right):

Those are just some ideas. Given resources, time, and an NFL rulebook, I can come up with more. Feel free to reach out.