#no social media patrick is an outlier and will not be counted

[weallpartyatybcpatricksfuneral]

yeah pete and joe would know internet memes and lingo but not too deeply while andy would know every single niche meme in detail

[progressiveparty]

White Power Within The Republican Party

White nationalists are building political power from within the Republican Party.

The Triumph of Their Will

James Allsup’s political career should have been over before it began. The prolific far-right YouTuber was forced to resign from his position as president of the College Republicans at Washington State University after a video surfaced of him marching in the Unite the Right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. The national College Republicans denounced Allsup, and students in his own chapter complained that it had been “radicalized” since Allsup’s election in 2015.

But Allsup, a member of the far-right white nationalist group Identity Evropa, wasn’t done with Republican politics. In June 2018, Allsup was elected as a precinct committee officer for the Republican Party in Whitman County, Washington State, a two-year position that involves building ties between the party and voters. This caused a rift among Washington State Republicans. While some vowed to prevent him from performing the duties of his office, then-Spokane County GOP Chair Cecily Wright spoke publicly on Allsup’s behalf and hosted an event for him.

August/September 2019

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Months later the Whitman County Republican Committee voted to strip Allsup’s position of all its duties and responsibilities, rendering it essentially meaningless. But, as of presstime, Allsup remains an elected official of the Washington State GOP, even if his office is now merely symbolic. These days, Allsup is mostly focused on growing his audience on YouTube, where he concentrates on national issues and rarely mentions politics in his home state. Forbes magazine highlighted Allsup in an article profiling conservatives making a living largely on YouTube. YouTube recently demonetized Allsup’s channel, making it much more difficult for him to profit from his videos. (Full disclosure: Allsup has made two videos about me, which I have not watched.) Allsup is not an outlier but part of a broader movement by white nationalists and male supremacists to build political power in America through the Republican Party. It would be easy to dismiss him as a basement-dweller making YouTube videos and podcasts; but Allsup is part of a larger far-right movement that has made significant inroads in taking over the GOP, aided by a President who treats neo-Nazis and white nationalists as a valued political constituency group. Identity Evropa, classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, counts Allsup as a member and supporter. The group, which recently tried to rebrand itself as the American Identity Movement, is known for targeting college-age white men for recruitment. It urges its members to become involved in local Republican politics and try to take over local GOP organizations at the ground level. Patrick Casey, Identity Evropa’s current leader, posted about his involvement with his local party in 2017, encouraging members to follow his lead. Here’s what Casey, who goes by the handle Reinhard Wolff, had to say: Today I decided to get involved with my county’s Republican party. Everyone can do this without fear of getting doxed. The GOP is essentially the White man’s party at this point (it gets Whiter every election cycle), so it makes far more sense for us to subvert it than to create our own party. If we’re going to win this, it’s going to take time, effort, and sacrifice. If you’re unable to do activism for various reasons, I’d like to encourage you to join your local Republican party. Present as a Trump supporter/nationalist. No need to broadcast your radical views. It’s actually quite easy to run for and win local offices. Let’s make this happen! And that is what’s happening—not just in Washington State but in communities across the country. The Republican Party is at risk of being taken over by a combination of far-right militia separatists, evangelical Christians, and Internet trolls in the Allsup mold. It is a development that puts American democracy in danger, makes America vulnerable to attack from hostile foreign actors, and leaves the American public less safe. It’s impossible to talk about white nationalism and male supremacy without talking about domestic terrorism. Violence from the far-right is on the rise in America, and the federal government has done little to stop it. Wrote The Washingon Post, “Over the past decade, attackers motivated by rightwing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings, and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist.” President Donald Trump has said he doesn’t believe white nationalist terrorism is a growing threat, though his FBI Director Christopher Wray disagrees with that assessment. In April, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, held a Congressional hearing on hate crimes, white nationalism, and the role of social media. The Republicans called two witnesses to testify. One was far-right personality and then-communications director of Turning Point USA, Candace Owens. Like Identity Evropa, Turning Point USA aims to recruit younger members. It’s a student organization that touts high school and college chapters across the country. Though both Owens and founder Charlie Kirk have lengthy histories of making racist statements, Turning Point attempts to brand itself as a mainstream Republican organization (as opposed to Identity Evropa) and distance itself from the label of alt-right. A broad coalition of far-right groups and personalities has built significant political influence under the Trump Administration and Republican elected officials across the country. A broad coalition of far-right groups and personalities has built significant political influence under the Trump Administration and Republican elected officials across the country. Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist group, spoke at a GOP fundraiser last fall, telling attendees, “You need us foot soldiers.” In April 2017, two alt-right journalists were invited to the White House and allowed to pose for pictures in a briefing room, where they stood behind a podium and made a hand sign that can be meant to signify white power. And Trump regularly retweets known white supremacist figures on his Twitter account. These are all signs of a systemic radicalization of the Republican Party. The GOP’s roster of candidates and elected officials includes an array of far-right extremists and those happy to entertain extremist ideas and figures. The most notorious elected extremist is Steve King of Iowa, a longtime member of Congress with an even longer history of racism and associating with extremist figures. He was stripped of his committee appointments a few months back after telling The New York Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” But King is hardly the only extremist Republican in the Capitol. Former Representative Dave Brat of Virginia has appeared on Infowars, the notorious rightwing conspiracy outlet. Representative Duncan Hunter of California ran a campaign ad featuring a conspiracy theorist who had claimed immigrants are diseased and Muslims are trying to secretly take over America. A book written by then-Representative Scott Taylor of Virginia was blurbed by a prominent anti-Muslim writer. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida has appeared on Infowars and invited Holocaust denier Chuck C. Johnson to be his guest at the 2018 State of the Union. This January, two other Congressmen, Phil Roe of Tennessee and Andy Harris of Maryland, were caught by reporters meeting with Johnson as well. The 2018 election cycle saw a host of extremists running for office as Republicans, many of whom won the party’s nomination via primary. The most prominent example is white supremacist Corey Stewart, who won the GOP primary for a Virginia Senate seat in 2018 after nearly becoming the state’s Republican nominee for governor in 2017. Kelli Ward, a notorious far-right figure who ran for Senate in Arizona, was endorsed by Sean Hannity. Ward and her husband ran a racist conspiracy Facebook group. Toward the end of her campaign, Ward did a bus tour with infamous conspiracy theorist and far-right personality Mike Cernovich—incidentally one of the two journalists who previously made white power hand signs in the White House. Post-election, the news site Vox noted that candidates who self-defined as Nazis did poorly but that “candidates linked to white supremacist groups did quite well.” Matt Shea has served in the Washington State legislature since 2008, representing his native Spokane Valley. Shea made international news this year when his messages with far-right figures on a chat site were leaked by a former political ally who had fallen out with him. According to TheGuardian, Shea “took part in private discussions with rightwing figures about carrying out surveillance, ‘psyops,’ and even violent attacks on perceived political enemies.” One commenter on this chat site, far-right radio host Jack Robertson, suggested this response to a specific female resident of Spokane: “Fist full of hair, and face slam, to a Jersey barrier. Treat em like communist revolutionaries. Then shave her bald with a K-Bar USMC field knife.” All of the chat group’s participants used aliases to mask their identities. Shea’s was “Verum Bellator,” which is Latin for “true warrior.” But Shea isn’t just engaging with the far-right anonymously on social media. He has built a political organization, Liberty State, to advocate for the eastern half of Washington State seceding and forming a fifty-first state. In a presentation on the organization’s YouTube channel, Shea said secession is ultimately about “protecting our Christian culture and heritage.” Liberty State has held rallies, supported candidates for local office, and held a May 23 fundraiser where, according to The Spokesman-Review, the speakers included “Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan; Spokane City Council candidate Tim Benn; and Loren Culp, the police chief in Republic, Washington, who made national headlines when he pledged not to enforce a controversial gun control initiative that voters passed in November.” At the event, Shea’s legislative assistant, Rene’ Holaday, framed the choice facing Washington State succinctly: “It’s either going to be bloodshed or Liberty State.” The event was interrupted by a small group of former Shea allies who have come to regard his views as dangerous. Sheriff’s deputies escorted them off the premises. It’s worth noting that Shea, despite winning reelection multiple times, isn’t universally popular among area Republicans. Multiple sources in Spokane Valley told The Progressive about in-fighting between Shea and other Republicans in the Spokane Valley area. Kent Rinne, a volunteer with Indivisible and a longtime Spokane Valley resident, says of Shea’s Liberty State organization: “It doesn’t come out of the Republican Party. It’s a real splinter group. They actually hate Republicans as much as they hate everybody else.” The most vocal of Shea’s Republican opponents is Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich, who has given multiple interviews about Matt Shea and the danger he believes Shea poses to the Spokane Valley area. In a local radio interview, Knezovich says, “If you get on the wrong side of Mr. Shea, you suddenly become his enemy and he does come after you. I’ve watched it happen to many people. It’s happened to me.” But Shea’s Republican colleagues in the state legislature have declined to expel him as a member of their caucus, despite promises to do so. Tina Podlodowski, chair of the Washington State Democratic Party, says via email: “Washington GOP’s failure to effectively excise him from their caucus is one of the most disappointing things about how they run their organization.” Last fall, Shea acknowledged having distributed a four-page manifesto titled “Biblical Basis for War,” which declares that “God is a Warrior” and that a “Holy Army” is needed to put an end to abortion, communism, and same-sex marriage. Podlodowski noted that the state GOP promised to investigate but “we’ve seen no proof that such an investigation is underway or that the Washington GOP is taking this issue seriously.” Matt Shea isn’t just a one-man operation. He’s building political support for his extremist views. Podlodowski says that Shea, who served as the Republican state caucus chair in the statehouse until last November, is now “promoting candidates to try and take over the Spokane City Council.” The Progressive has also obtained a video of Shea interviewing a small group of young men who talk to him about preparing for “Christian Warfare” and physical training with firearms. The video was recorded at an annual event held by Marble Country, an anti-Semitic and racist Christian Identity group in northeastern Washington State at which Shea has been a featured speaker in the past. “Sometimes I think, ‘Why pay attention to the guy?’ But I have to, because he’s a legislator. He’s worked his way into our politics and he’s helping create a nasty, ugly political environment here.” Rinne, the Indivisible volunteer, speaking of Shea’s impact on politics in Washington State, tells me, “Sometimes I think, ‘Why pay attention to the guy?’ But I have to, because he’s a legislator. He’s worked his way into our politics and he’s helping create a nasty, ugly political environment here.” Podlodowski calls for the same vigilance by people in other states who are dealing with white supremacist elected officials and political organizing. “It’s important to view these folks as part of a nationwide problem, not isolated pockets of extremists,” she tells me. “The Internet has made organizing and radicalizing people in small communities across the country easier than ever before. We need a collective response from everyone who wants to defeat white supremacy and create an inclusive society.” Sidebar: See No Evil: Congress Gives the Alt-RIGHT a Star Turn One sign of the alt-right’s influence within the Republican Party was the derailing of an April 9 House Judiciary Committee hearing on white nationalism and domestic terrorism. The event devolved into a circus, with some GOP committee members openly questioning whether white supremacy is even a thing.

Gage Skidmore Candace Owens The hearing’s star invited witness was Candace Owens, an Infowars and Fox News contributor who had recently remarked that Hitler would have been “fine” had he stuck to being a nationalist in Germany. Owens’s only qualification to be a witness is that she’d been recently name-checked in the New Zealand mosque shooter’s so-called manifestoas one of his influences. By including Owens as a witness—alongside Eileen Hershenov of the Anti-Defamation League, Eva Paterson of the Equal Justice Society, and Facebook’s Public Policy Director Neil Potts—House Republicans ensured that most of the press coverage of the hearing would revolve around Owens’s antics, rather than the threat of domestic terrorism inspired by white nationalist ideology. Owens’s inclusion also ensured that the manifesto received another round of media attention, something extremism researchers have warned will likely inspire other white nationalists to commit violent acts. Considering that Trump aide Kellyanne Conway recently encouraged Fox News viewers to read the document in full, it’s not unreasonable to wonder if the point of Owens’s appearance before the committee was not to combat the threat of white nationalism, but to amplify it. This Piece Originally Appeared in Progressive.org Read the full article

[kjweldon]

2017

It was the death of Prince that established 2016 as the worst year ever. The one-two punch of David Bowie and Alan Rickman had been bad, but no worse than any other year. But in April, Americans decided collectively that the year was a disaster. That was before Donald Trump won first the nomination and then, unthinkably, the presidency. Before Leonard Cohen died. And Gwen Ifill. And Gene Wilder. A nation shellshocked by the election faced the end of the year with grim humor. Pinterest filled up with instructions for making dumpster fire ornaments. The tired jokes made the rounds: protect Betty White. Take Ruth Bader Ginsburg to an undisclosed location until the year ends. Die, 2016, die.

Then Christmas week took Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Debbie Reynolds. The jokes turned to a solemn and miserable silence. For every person who complained about the horror of 2016 on Facebook, there was a commenter ready to point out that arbitrary periods of time could not be evil. The data scientists threw their hats in the ring, pointing out that indeed, the number of A- and B-list celebrity deaths this year were indeed a bit higher than usual, and the average age lower. Or, perhaps, that the number of deaths was normal, and only the clustering was odd. No matter. No one was listening to the numbers guys anyway. People were too busy reposting memes, creating memorial playlists for holiday parties, rewatching Harry Potter and Star Wars and Singin’ in the Rain.

And then New Year’s came and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Other than a few people who believed deeply in unlucky numbers and astrology, no one really believed it was the year responsible for all the death. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that no one wanted to admit, even to themselves, that they had started to become superstitious about 2016. Still, despite the coming inauguration, there was a sense on January 1, 2017, that the long battle had ended, and the world was turning toward morning.

Then Elton John’s airplane crashed. January 2. With the New Year’s holiday on a Sunday, many people had Monday off. They hadn’t even returned to work yet, and another death.

The next day it was LeBron James in a car accident and Michael Phelps of an aneurysm.

That was a bit of a change-up. Most of the 2016 deaths had come from the world of music or film. Sports figures had to this point largely been spared, with the notable exception of Mohammed Ali. But he was long past of the peak of his fame, and his death hadn’t registered as much more than extra ballast to the misery of the year. But now 2017 was starting with two athletes, still young. Guys who had ignored all the fuss thus far were glued to ESPN watching tributes.

Two days passed before the next victim: Sarah Michelle Gellar. Gen X and the Millennials held planned costumed vigils, but the day after her skiing accident, Johnny Depp overdosed, so Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands stood beside Buffy. A few Princess Leias and Snapes inevitably showed up, sparking a national debate over the what it meant to appropriate a memorial. Facebook became the nation’s site of mourning.

Then J.K. Rowling had a stroke, and the whole world keened in grief.

Now the conspiracy theorists came out in full force. Donald Trump, said a commentator on DailyKos, was killing off his competitors for fame. No, argued Alex Jones, it was ISIS, bent on destroying the dominant Western culture. A strange new sexually-transmitted disease caused disorientation, clumsiness, heart failure. A serial killer. A gang of serial killers. Ancient curses. Brand new curses. Desperate for a rational explanation, producers of morning shows booked doctors to talk about the dangers of stress in contemporary life. Celebrities, whose lives were even more stressful than average people, were the first to show the effects of 24/7 social media, lack of sleep, pressure. Surely that was all.

The data scientists were on TV as well, trying to explain that outliers were indeed part of a normal distribution, that some periods would have more celebrity deaths than others. If they were heard at all, it wasn’t for long.. First came the fashion show that killed seventeen major actors, including four People’s Choice winners, in a fire set by Karl Lagerfeld’s cigarette. Then the entire Douglas clan suffered a brutal food poisoning incident at a family function, and only Catherine Zeta Jones survived. Between these two incidents, only three days apart, Anthony Bourdain died of eating improperly prepared pufferfish, the Property Brothers were crushed in a roof collapse, Mick Jagger ODed on prescription pills, Aretha Franklin broke her neck falling down a flight of stairs, and Anderson Cooper was shot in Syria.

Rumors started to fly that the Oscars would be bombed - by ISIS, by neo-Nazis, by Russians, by the Church of Scientology. So few invitations were accepted that fashion designers and drivers were offered spaces. Those who showed included the very old and brave and the very young and ambitious. Maggie Smith accepted her award with a sly look to the camera, a smile, and a slow slump onto the stage. The cause of death was described by her physician as “a terminal case of knowing how to make an exit.”

People put out its first memorial edition that was neither focused on a single celebrity nor published at year’s end. The editors demurred when questioned about plans, but the new People Remembered began to appear biweekly. The New York Times fought the trend for three more months, then began including a memorial insert monthly, which came to be known as the Dead Society Page.

The poster on DailyKos found his beliefs about Trump's involvement rejected by the the community, so he took his theories to his own site. Trump: Celebrity Serial Killer developed a huge following. Trump threatened to sue, but nothing came of it. He may have been too busy on Twitter, discounting the ideas that the most famous were dying first. “Such sad news, but glad the really big celebrities untouched. #MAGA.”  “Created task force to determine why famous musicians and actors dying at such rate. Glad whatever is happening doesn’t affect leaders!”

The dead had indeed not yet included any politicians of note. But then Cory Booker helped an elderly woman out of a burning building and was overcome by smoke inhalation. Two days later, talking to a group of schoolchildren, Al Franken pretended to fall off the Senate balcony, losing his balance and landing headfirst on Booker’s chair. Just one week after that, Hillary Clinton contracted a new and deadly form of bird flu when in Singapore for a Clinton Foundation-sponsored Summit on Women’s Health and died within days.

The series of tributes to fallen Democrats pushed Trump over the edge. At 2 AM the night of Clinton’s funeral, he tweeted out comments about how the country was “purging the losers.”  Unfortunately, his tweets crossposted with announcements of the deaths of Garth Brooks and Danica Patrick. The faith of his base was shaken for the first time, and former fans gathered across the South and the Rust Belt to burn their red caps and copies of Art of the Deal. The great raging bonfires themselves claimed several lives, but none famous, so no one noticed.

B-list actors at first saw opportunity in the loss of more famous competition, but after 27 Oscar winners died in May alone, ambition became overcome by fear. Casting agents found their calls unreturned. Some of the A-list believed there was no avoiding the inevitable. Meryl Streep and Drew Barrymore joked on Colbert that there was no chance of them becoming less famous overnight, so why hide? All three were killed in a gas explosion backstage. The photo of the two women laughing together while Colbert looked on appeared on the front page of two hundred newspapers.

After that, booking late night shows became nearly impossible. The A list thought they were tempting fate; the B list didn’t want to become any more famous than they were. Even the least famous among the famous began to shirk the limelight, as if the very act of being seen on television or quoted in the newspaper might draw death. Producers found themselves rejected by professors, first term Congressmen, mayors of minor cities, athletes in the lesser Olympic sports, and Broadway actors who were not Lin-Manuel Miranda (electrocuted when a hairdryer fell in the tub).

Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell devoted a special episode of This American Life to the celebrity death problem, in which they agreed that it was a good thing that NPR-famous didn’t count. Ira was found drowned in a hotel swimming pool later that week. Vowell locked herself in her bedroom, which she described later in her book Accidental Survivor as going “full Brian Wilson.”

On FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver concluded that greater fame increased risk and calculated a celebrity’s odds of dying based on a formula that included the number of TV appearances over the last five years, number of awards received, and box-office, ratings, or album sales figures, and meme presence. He claimed that he skipped politicians and others because he lacked good comparative data, but the other political bloggers accused him of fearing Trump’s response if the president either topped the list of the doomed or didn’t rank high enough. The List became a touchstone. At grim parties, the famous compared their scores. The country watched nervously as the top twenty died off within two months.

The religious blamed sinful Hollywood lifestyles. Churchgoing increased, as did sales of lucky charms and protective candles and incense. A Pew Research Center poll determined that fully seventy percent of the public believed that the deaths were a punishment, but the country was divided on what it was being punished for. About half believed it was abortion and gay marriage, the other half believed it was the results of the 2016 election. Both sides held vigils - in some places, nightly. A few fanatics hoped the right sacrifice would stop the epidemic and took matters into their own hands. The assassination attempts on Paul Ryan and Pope Francis were unsuccessful, but RuPaul and Keith Richards were both killed.

Richards’ death ended what had become a booming business in death-betting. The odds against him had been so high the bookies lost their shirts. But gambling in all forms increased as people began to lose their faith in randomness, in probability, in chance.

David Brooks wrote a column blaming everything on a lack of bipartisanship, and at last his utterings were considered inane enough to get him fired. Inevitably, people joked that this was one good thing to result from all this tragedy, but now, in September, with more than six hundred celebrity deaths since January 1 by the Washington Post’s estimation, even gallows humor had lost its savor.

The CDC had been unable to determine any common thread among the deaths besides fame. Their only response was a public health campaign on preventing heart diseases and avoiding household accidents. Ads ran in Variety and mass emails were sent to members of the Actor’s Guild and the American Federation of Musicians reminding them about taking their meds, scheduling preventive screenings, keeping fresh batteries in their smoke detectors.

The task force Trump had ordered never actually met, a fact revealed in Mother Jones and reported for two days on the major networks before George Takei, Betty White, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Beyonce and Jay Z, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, and Taylor Swift all died on the same day. Under pressure from members of Congress, who had been fielding unprecedented calls and letters from constituents looking for days in memoriam for each lost celebrity in turn, Trump called for a national day of mourning. Kellyanne Conway emphasized in the announcement that all government employees would still be expected to work.

The country took a day to grieve. In every city and town, at national parks, along rural highways, Americans took to the streets to mourn. They sang, held hands, carried photos and banners with the names of the fallen. And they wept. They wept for their idols. They wept for the songs that would never be written and the stories that would never be told. They wept for the people they were when they first danced to their favorite song, voted for someone they really believed in, watched their team win the championship, fell in love with a stranger on a screen. They wept for their own lost ones, so irretrievably gone, their lives undocumented, unfilmed, their deaths uncelebrated, barely remembered outside their families, their loves. They wept for their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends and lovers who never made the team, wrote the hit, got the role, won the race, whose dreams were so long lost they were unknown, forgotten. They wept for the America they had once believed they were. The nation cried until it had no more tears, and then went back to their homes, where they sat in quiet, the television and the internet and even their cell phones off.

And then it was over. Two days passed, three, a week. No deaths of note. The following week Danny Bonaduce was stabbed by a prostitute, and headlines screamed “Not Over Yet?” but there was agreement that this seemed less an aberration than a return to normality. People Remembered stopped production. Trump threatened a military attack on China. And the networks and magazines and websites began planning their 2017 retrospectives, a review of the worst year ever.

[flauntpage]

Do the Eagles Need to Get Younger? An Investigation…

Do the Eagles need to get younger?

I’ve seen this topic floating around on social media, which I think is just a byproduct of the Eagles bringing back 32 year old DeSean Jackson and 37 year old Jason Peters for the 2019 season and perhaps beyond.

Tack on the extensions for 31 year old Jason Kelce, 30 year old Brandon Graham, and the one-year deal for 31 year old Andrew Sendejo, and the intensity of that “narrative” amplifies.

Is Howie Roseman putting too much trust in guys who are getting up there in age?

My gut tells me no, I don’t think so, since the Super Bowl winning team got contributions from 32 year old Chris Long, 31 year old LeGarrette Blount, and 30 year old Malcolm Jenkins.

But I thought it might be a good idea to go down the list and see who exactly Howie is targeting, then determine if we can draw any conclusions. I cobbled together free agents, trades, and players who were extended while still under contract (like Isaac Seumalo, but not Rodney McLeod, since he didn’t get additional years, just a re-work.) I did not include fringe guys who bounced to and from the practice squad, or who never had much of a chance to make the roster in the first place.

I also didn’t include the draft, or undrafted free agent rookies, because obviously all of those former college players are bringing up your bottom end age number. You’re naturally getting younger through the draft, which adds balance to your free agent pursuits and probably justifies the targeting of affordable veterans on shorter deals, which has been the Eagles’ strategy for some time now.

This exercise identifies the player, his age, and how they were acquired:

2019 free agents, extensions, trades

(T) Jason Peters: 37 (one-year re-negotiation)

(WR) DeSean Jackson: 32 (three-year deal)

(G) Isaac Seumalo: 25 (extended before hitting final year of rookie contract)

(CB) Ronald Darby: 25 (one-year deal)

(C) Jason Kelce: 31 (three-year extension)

(DE) Brandon Graham: 30 (three-year extension)

(LB/ST) L.J. Fort: 29 (three-year deal)

(S) Andrew Sendejo: 31 (one-year deal)

(DT) Malik Jackson: 29 (three-year deal)

(K) Jake Elliott: 24 (one-year deal)

(LS) Rick Lovato: 26 (one-year deal)

(LB) Paul Worrilow: 28 (one-year deal)

That’s where we’re at right now. Peters is back for another year, DeSean returns on a three-year deal, and you’ve got the extensions for Kelce, Graham, and Seumalo. Malik Jackson replaces Haloti Ngata and/or Tim Jernigan on the defensive line and you’ve got Darby and Worrilow back on one-year deals as they come off of injury.

Elliott and Lovato are specialist no-brainer signings, so I wouldn’t even really count them into this exercise. For our purposes, let’s go with with offensive players, defensive players, and other special teamers.

Average age of extended/traded for/free agent players thus far (no Elliott or Lovato):

29.7 years.

That seems high, but there will be more additions. Right now, this list includes five guys who are age 30 or older.

2018 free agents, extensions, trades

(LB) Nigel Bradham: 29 (signed five-year contract extension)

(S) Corey Graham: 33 (returned on one-year deal)

(RB) Darren Sproles: 35 (returned on one-year deal)

(LB) *Corey Nelson: 25 (signed one-year deal, released before season)

(DT) Haloti Ngata: 34 (one-year deal)

(WR) Mike Wallace: 32 (one-year deal)

(LB) Paul Worrilow: 27 (one-year deal)

(TE) Richard Rodgers: 26 (one-year deal)

(WR) Markus Wheaton: 27 (one-year deal)

(CB) Cre’Von LeBlanc: 24 (claimed off waivers)

(TE) Josh Perkins 24 (two-year deal)

(QB) *Joe Callahan: 24 (two-year deal)

(RB) *Matt Jones: 25 (two-year deal)

(LB) LaRoy Reynolds: 27 (one-year deal)

(WR) DeAndre Carter: 25 (one-year deal)

(WR) Kamar Aiken: 29 (one-year deal)

(QB) *Christian Hackenberg: 23 (one-year deal)

(DE/DT) Michael Bennett: 32 (Seattle trade)

(CB) *Daryl Worley: 23 (Carolina trade)

(WR) Golden Tate: 30 (Detroit trade)

(WR) Jordan Matthews: 26 (one-year free agent deal)

I put asterisks next to some of the more notable players who did not make the 53-man roster. Of those guys, Worley and Nelson were the only two that were expected to be on the squad, and maybe Jones as well. Nelson disappointed in training camp and Worley had the legal troubles. They were 25 and 23 years old, respectively.

You see a slew of one-year deals on here though, so even though the Eagles brought in a lot of guys who were in their late twenties and early thirties, none were given contracts that would constrict the salary cap moving forward. Bradham’s contract, which was justified, takes him to age 34. Tate was a free agent on an expiring contract and the Eagles ended up swinging Bennett to New England. Corey Graham returned on a one-year deal to add secondary depth and is now a free agent.

Average age of extended/traded for/free agent players:

27.6, if you include LeBlanc as a free agent, who was claimed off waivers and became a starter in the secondary.

That’s not bad at all.

Average age of Eagles’ final 53-man roster, plus IR list:

26.4 years

The oldest players on the 2018 roster were Peters, Sproles, Ngata, and Bennett, while the youngest was Josh Sweat, at age 21. The Birds had five 22 year olds in Avonte Maddox, Chandon Sullivan, Sidney Jones, Derek Barnett, and Josh Adams.

2017 free agents, extensions, trades

(QB) Nick Foles: 28 (two-year deal)

(CB) Patrick Robinson: 29 (one-year deal)

(WR) Alshon Jeffery: 27 (one-year deal, later extended)

(DE) Chris Long: 32 (two-year deal)

(RB) LeGarrette Blount: 31 (one-year deal)

(T) Jason Peters: 35 (one-year contract extension)

(CB) Dexter McDougle: 26 (Jets trade)

(G) Stefen Wisniewski: 28 (three-year deal)

(WR) Torrey Smith: 28 (three-year deal)

(RB/KR) Kenjon Barner: 27 (one-year deal)

(LB/ST) Bryan Braman: 30 (one-year deal)

(TE) Trey Burton: 26 (one-year RFA tender)

(LB) Najee Goode: 28 (RFA, one-year deal)

(CB) Jaylen Watkins: 25 (RFA, one-year deal)

(G) Chance Warmack: 26 (one-year deal)

(QB) *Matt McGloin: 27 (one-year deal)

(DT) Tim Jernigan: 25 (Baltimore draft day trade)

(CB) Ronald Darby: 23 (Jordan Matthews/Buffalo trade)

(RB) Jay Ajayi: 24 (Dolphins trade)

They got three Super Bowl contributors age 25 and younger via trade, two which were made before the season and one in the middle of the season. Alshon came in on a one-year “prove it” deal and was later extended. Torrey Smith and Stef Wisniewski got three-year deals that would have carried them to age 31.

Otherwise, the pattern was the same – short deals for free agent veterans, three or four trades, and then a smattering of smaller transactions.

Average age of extended/traded for/free agent players:

27.6 – the exact same average number of the players they targeted in this fashion in 2018.

Average age of Eagles’ final 53-man roster, plus IR list:

26.6 years, just 0.2 different from the Eagles’ 2018 roster.

The oldest players on the roster again were Peters, Sproles, 37 year old Donnie Jones in his final year, and 32 year old Will Beatty, who didn’t play a single snap. The youngest rostered players were Sidney Jones and Derek Barnett at age 21.

Findings

If you go through the Eagles roster as it stands right now, Peters, Jaccson, Sendejo, and Kelce are four of the five oldest guys on the squad. If Chris Long returns, he’s the 5th. Beyond them, it’s Malcolm Jenkins, Brandon Graham, and Alshon Jeffery.

It’s a little on the high end, but the Eagles are not an NFL outlier. Jimmy Kempski over at Philly Voice looks into the average age of each roster at the beginning of the season, when the 53-man cutdown takes place, and the Eagles actually had the 11th youngest squad in 2018, an average age of 25.7 when the season began. That spiked by 0.7 as roster moves were made throughout the year.

In 2017, the Eagles averaged 26.4 at the 53-man cutdown, which was 23rd in the league, so a big difference there, but also predicated on the moves made by other teams. They also won the Super Bowl, so yeah.

It should also be noted that the #1 youngest team in the NFL last year was the Browns, at 25.2, while the #32 team was the Raiders, at 27.4. It doesn’t seem like much of a difference between ceiling and floor, and it’s not, but as Jimmy explains in his story, that’s an average gap of 2 years for each of the 53 players, which extrapolates to more than 100 combined years of experience that you’re missing out on, shared throughout the entirety of the team. Something to think about there.

The Eagles have seven draft picks this year, which should result in 5-7 young players, depending on how they want to use those assets. Last year, they only drafted five players, compared to eight in the previous year. This will help swing the age balance down to that average of 26, where they’ve been for the last few seasons.

In conclusion, yeah, it does seem like the Eagles are targeting some older guys this offseason, but the pendulum will swing them back towards where they typically are in the age department.

(If I missed any roster moves, let me know and I’ll add them in)

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