As you all probably found out by now, Jeremiah Trotter was cut by the Eagles after seven years and two stints with the Eagles. He was a four time Pro Bowler and in his prime, he was one of the best Linebackers in the league. In 2004, he was a big part of why the Eagles were able to make it over the hump and finally get to the Super Bowl. Remember, the Eagles were starting Simoneau and getting killed against the run. Trotter comes in and the defense improves. He made some pretty big plays against
From an on the field standpoint, this is a good move. Although he’s only 30 and that isn’t the doomsday year it used to be, Trotter was worn down. His aggressive, downhill style saw him receive more than his fair share of contact over the years. Combined with his serious knee injury he suffered in
The Eagles struggled against the run for a lot of reasons, but Trotter was one of them. I’m not going to criticize him because he was unhappy with the size of the guys lining up in front of him. He has a lot of pride and he’s not the kind of guy that’s going to take the blame when an entire team is doing something wrong. Trotter was a big believer in manning up against the other team and playing tough. That’s exactly what he did, so in his mind, he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
However, while he was playing tough, he wasn’t playing smart. While he was banging into the center “disrupting” plays, he wasn’t penetrating the gaps he needed to to stop the run. He made some key stops and made a lot of backs bounce the play outside when they didn’t want to in his day, but his style wasn’t getting it done anymore. It was time to move in a different direction.
Now, Omar Gaither will step in as the starter at MIKE. Gaither is obviously smaller than Trotter is, and a lot of people like to have a MLB that’s big. Size isn’t the only quality a MLB should have, and you don’t even need to be big to be good at the position. The MIKE has to be athletic because in the 4-3, it’s his job to cover two gaps. MLB is more than banging bodies in the middle. There’s a lot of responsibility and ability that’s required to play the position. Trotter didn’t have the athletic ability to do that anymore.
Hopefully Gaither can step up and handle the role. He’s a relatively unproven player who only started a handful of games at WIL last year. He was pretty impressive then, and the Eagles need that to translate to the middle now. We don’t know how he’ll hold up against the run, but we do know that he’s an upgrade in pass defense. He has experience playing all three Linebacker positions, and he can play both man and zone coverage. One of the problems with Trotter was he couldn’t be in the game on passing downs. When he was only in on the so-called running downs, teams could make appropriate adjustments and exploit him in the passing game. Gaither can play all three downs.
Where Trot’s really going to be missed is his emotional leadership ability. Every Sunday, you knew you were getting a guy who loves football and was excited to play every day. Teammates looked to this guy to get fired up. When you turned on an Eagles game, saw him leading the team out of the tunnel carrying an Eagles flag, saw him feeding off Dawk making big plays and getting the fans pumped, you knew the game was in good hands. Takeo Spikes should be able to bring the same fiery leadership, but the fans are going to miss Trotter on game days.
It was tough listening to that press conference. When Trotter tells you that both he and Andy Reid cried over the decision to do this, you’re reminded how tough the business can be. He was so upset; the man wanted to play football here. He loved the city, the team and the fans. Dawkins sounded drained. He couldn’t believe it. It’s tough to lose a fan favorite when it still looks like he could play a little bit. It’s something that had to be done, and I think we need to trust the Eagles’ judgment here, because their track record shows they know what they’re doing in situations like this.
Thank you, Jeremiah. You’ve done a lot for the Eagles and their fans, and this has to be one of the hardest things Reid has ever done. I really wish we could’ve won a title with you, but I bet you’ll feel like you’re there when our guys finally lift the Lombardi Trophy.
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