The Eagles shook up the LB depth chart on Sunday by promoting Akeem Jordan to starting WLB and moving Brian Rolle to the backup spot. There is no secret that I’m a big fan of Rolle’s. I’ve loved him (so to speak) since his days at Ohio State. He then came here and had a good rookie season. He showed a lot of promise.

The problem is that Rolle hasn’t shown the kind of progress this year that the Eagles expected to see. He doesn’t look bad. He still runs around at 100mph and plays his butt off. He’s intense. He’s tough. That stuff was good enough in his rookie year. In Year 2, the team wanted a more polished, more consistent player. While Rolle was good in the mini-camps and maybe even at Lehigh, he has been sloppy in the preseason games.

Rolle made several mistakes in the Browns game. None were huge. None were all that costly. The mistakes were due to lack of talent or effort. They were dumb mistakes. There was an offside call. There was a blown coverage where Rolle got picked by a receiver (should have seen that coming). There were a couple of plays where he was in the wrong gap vs run plays.

While Rolle was sloppy over the last 3 weeks, he wasn’t such a problem that the Eagles felt he had to be replaced. They weren’t thrilled with his play, but weren’t about to bench him without a better option. The initial hope was that Jamar Chaney would steal the job. The coaches still like his talent a lot. The problem is that he’s been hurt and has only played a handful of preseason snaps.

Enter Akeem Jordan.

Jordan has quietly had a terrific summer. He was very good at Lehigh. He has played very well in the PS games. Jordan has been the backup SAM and has played on the #2 Nickel unit. Here are my notes from the first couple of PS games:

PIT – #2 SAM. Did a good job of working his way to ball on GL run and helping to stuff the play. PIT ran a draw to his side. Shed block and stopped RB for short gain. Tackled RB on mis-direction play that came his way. Minimal gain. Played in the #3 Nickel. Tackled RB on draw for little gain. TFL on draw play late in the game.

NE – Good game. Played as #2 SAM and in the #2 Nickel. Good in coverage. Good vs run. Blitzed off the edge and batted a pass back at the QB. Wasn’t officially credited with a tackle, but was around the ball several times. Chaney’s injury has allowed Jordan to play his way into the #4 LB spot. Looks good.

The downside with Jordan is that there’s no upside. He is what he is, a solid player. He’s not going to become an impact starter. He’s not going to be special. In the current situation, that’s okay. Think about it. Mychal Kendricks is the star OLB. DeMeco Ryans is the MLB and veteran/leader. The other LB can be a complementary piece and that’s just fine.

Some have asked how I know Jordan can’t still emerge as a good player. Theoretically it is possible, but the guy has been a starter off and on since 2008 hasn’t ever shown anything special. He’s got 27 starts, 2 INTs, 1 sack. I’d love him to prove me wrong and to break out and become a terrific LB. Major long shot. I’ll be happy if he’s solid and consistent.

As for my son…Brian Rolle…he needs to have the right attitude here. He must see this as a challenge. He can win the job back if he eliminates the sloppy mistakes and makes more plays. Rolle can do it. He’s got to play more under control. He’s got to show more of a feel for things. Going 100mph isn’t always the right answer. Be smart, then attack.

Jamar Chaney isn’t out of this yet, but he’s got the biggest challenge. He must stay healthy and play well.

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Cliff Harris got cut on Sunday. This did surprise me. He showed really good potential early on at Lehigh. He then got hurt and never seemed to get all the way back. He did pick off a tipped pass vs CLE. Cliff has NFL talent. He got caught in a tough situation. Injury + numbers crunch just got the best of him. Not sure if there were any off the field issues. That stuff kept him from being drafted, but I never heard any complaints about him in Philly.

This cut also has a lot to do with the emergence of Trevard Lindley. He’s quietly had a real good showing in camp and the PS games. It won’t shock me if he earns a roster spot. As for Harris, it will be interesting to see if he’s claimed or the Eagles can put him on the practice squad next week.

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AC Viking, our Eagles history expert, did us the great favor to share his thoughts on Eagles legend Steve Van Buren, who died last week. Must read material. Great stuff.

“The Big Moving Van”

by AC Viking

DISCLOSURE: Steve Van Buren was before my time. By almost 20 years. And his college career by even more. Though, from living in the south, I’d learned that down in the bayou at LSU, way back in 1943, he was called “The Big Moving Van”.

Van Buren has 4 of the top 25 rushing seasons for the Eagles – accomplished in 10 and 12 game seasons. No other Eagles had more than three, though I expect McCoy will pass SVB in this respect. If Van Buren’s best years are converted to 16 game seasons, Van Buren would have 4 of the top 6 rushing seasons. (Yes, I know, if Shady McCoy played in 1949, he’d have kicked ass, too. Nevertheless, I think if Van Buren played today, he’d be a starter for someone and very, very good.)

Van Buren and with Concrete Charlie Bednarik were the only names you’d hear at Franklin Field in the mid- to late-1960s not followed by “boooooooo.” The most notorious name you’d hear was HC/GM Joe Kuharich, whose hiring still remains mystifying. Kuharich couldn’t coach very well. But he made up for it by being a terrible GM. (H/T John McKay.)

During the ‘70s, Van Buren had begun to fade into the kind of obscurity that surrounds great athletes whose careers were 25 years in the past and who—unlike Bednarik—don’t seek attention.

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When Dick Vermeil came to the Eagles and turned Wilbert Montgomery into an All Pro, Van Buren’s name seemed to get unearthed again. And the sweetest reference I remember to Steve Van Buren came on January 11, 1981. That was the day the Eagles whipped the ‘Boys in the 1980 NFC title game—it really was the Eagles’ Super Bowl that year.

Montgomery had a huge day on the ground despite a bad quad. Near the game’s end, with the Eagles up by 13 and grinding the clock, Wilbert had maybe his greatest broken-field run . . . a 55-yarder which took him straight, then right, then left . . . then southwest . . . until he finally ran out of gas.

With that carry, the announcers — CBS’s great tandem of Pat Summerall and the late Tom Brookshier, a member of the Eagles last championship team in 1960—said that Montgomery had gone over 200 yards and broken the NFL playoff-rushing record of 202 yards set by the Rams Lawrence McCutcheon in 1975 against the Cardinals. (Ron Jaworski was the Rams QB that day—just months away from being an Eagle—and threw a 66 yard TD to former Eagles WR Harold Jackson to put the Rams up 28-6 in the 2nd Q against “Air Coryell”. From that point on, the Rams gave the Cards a steady diet of McCutcheon, who finished the game with 37 carries—setting a playoff record that lasted just 4 years . . . when Tampa Bay’s Ricky Bell pummeled the Eagles in the most heartbreaking of many heartbreaking playoff losses for 38 carries for 142 yards in the Bucs’ 1979 divisional playoff win.)

But Summerall’s initial report of a new record wasn’t correct. A few minutes later, he said that Montgomery had 196 yards, tying the Eagles’ great Steve Van Buren’s incredible championship performance in the 1949 NFL Championship game at the LA Coliseum in a torrential downpour (Whoever says, “It never rains in Southern California” must have been from England, right? Oh, that’s right, he was.). A few minutes later, Summerall correctly said that Montgomery actually had 194 yards.

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At that point, 33 years after he retired, Steve Van Buren still owned the record for most rushing yards in an NFL title game and in an Eagles game. While the new benchmark had become the Super Bowl, Van Buren’s records stood for another 6 years.

Brilliant SB games by Dolphin Larry Csonka in 1974, Steeler Franco Harris in 1975, Redskin John Riggins in 1983 (S Lyle Blackwood is still trying to hold on!), and Raider Marcus Allen in 1984 couldn’t top Steve Van Buren’s 196 yards in the LA downpour. It took the ‘Skins 1-game wonder, Tim Smith with 204 yards, against an absolutely awful Broncos defense in the 1988 SB to finally move Van Buren from No. 1 spot.

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Van Buren and the rest of the Eagles ’49 team were among the greatest NFL teams ever—with three NFL HOFers: Van Buren, Concrete Charlie Bednarik, and TE Pete Pihos—and several other great players. The Eagles played the “full house T” with Van Buren usually as the LHB, though sometimes at FB right behind the QB, and the RHB was the under-appreciated WWII vet Bosh Pritchard—who led the NFL in YPA rushing at 6.0 in 1949. The QB was Tommy Thompson, who in 1948 had a QB rating of 94.8—nothing to sneeze at, especially with the shape of the ball and the way the game was played back then. There was Bucko Kilroy at OG and DT, who became a perennial All Pro and played like Ndamukong Suh.

In 1949, after winning the title game against the Rams, the Eagles finished at 12-1.

The Eagles’ offense finished 1st in total offense and 1st in rushing.

The Eagles’ defense finished 1st in total defense, 1st in pass defense, and 2nd vs the run – by just 21 yards—to the Chicago Bears . . . the only team to beat the Eagles in 1949 by a score of 38-21. (The Bears held the Eagles to less than 25 yards rushing while running for 200 yards and passing for another 257 yards behind All Pro QB and Notre Dame Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Lujack. Backing up Lujack and kicking extra points and FGs was the not-yet ageless rookie George Blanda, who went on to play another 24 years.)

The 1949 Eagles defense, for its time, was as great as the 1991 Eagles. In fact, the ’49 Eagles outscored their opponents 364 to 134, giving up just 11 points per game. (If you toss out the Bears game—a team in the old West Division that may have had the Eagles’ number back then—the Birds’ defense gave up just 8.7 pt/game.)

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What I found most interesting in looking back at Van Buren’s career the business side of his career. He joined the NFL in 1944. The next year, in 1945, an upstart professional league called the All America Football Conference was starting—just as the AFL would do 14 years later. (The Cleveland Browns, one of the original 8 teams, won the championship every year until 1949, after which the league disbanded and the NFL added the Browns, LA Rams, and SF 49ers.)

In 1945, Van Buren led the NFL in rushing with 852 yards, KO returns with a 28.7 average and 1 TD, and scored 18 TDs in just 10 games (the record McCoy broke last year)—and he even picked up 1 interception. Van Buren, like all pro athletes of the era, played on year-to-year contracts. And he was no fool.

Before the ’46 season, rumors persisted that Van Buren might jump to the AAFC. He’d been an All Pro his first two years. The AAFC was—like the AFL later—creating leverage for NFL players.

Van Buren’s career ended in 1952 because of an injury. In 1953 he became an Eagles’ assistant coach. And in 1963, he became head coach of the Newark Bears of the Atlantic Coast pro football league—where he won the 1963 title against the Springfield Acorns and, the following season, lost the title game to the Boston Sweepers.

In 1965, with Van Buren as their Head Coach, the Newark Bears applied for admission to the fledgling AFL. With the Jets and Giants already nearby, the AFL rejected the Bears’ application. The team then moved south to Orlando, with Van Buren staying behind in the Northeast. In 1967, Van Buren surfaced as the head coach of the Middletown franchise in the new North American Football League.

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A couple years ago, Ray Diddy did a bit for NFL Films, re-introducing us to Steve Van Buren as the 58th greatest player in NFL history. It’s worth a peek. He was truly dominant. The misdirection plays he ran are great to watch. And the downfield blocking was, well, exactly what you’d expect to see from Jeremy Maclin.

RIP, SVB.

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The game review on the Eagles/Browns will be posted later.

If you want to hear Jimmy Bama and I talk about it, check out our newest podcast. Things started off normal, then the show went all over the place. We had a lengthy discussion on the 1998 Eagles. I showed off my useless knowledge of the statistics from that season. And my math skills. Jimmy liked the math skills more. The show went just over an hour, but the discussion was so entertaining that we didn’t want to arbitrarily end it. Take a listen and let us know what you think.

The levels still are off. I moved my mic back a couple of extra inches, but that didn’t help as much as I’d hoped. We’ll figure this out eventually.

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