Why Agholor Is Becoming My Favorite Current Eagles Player (After Sproles, Of Course)
What is it about a comeback story that makes it so appealing? Why do they garner so much attention and praise? Heck, there's even an NFL award for Comeback Player of the Year. Maybe it's the tendency for the general public to root for the underdog. People want to see someone come from nowhere and achieve a near impossible task. The drama that comes with it all is hard not to love, right?
No matter what it is, we're always going to be drawn to a comeback story, especially in sports. It can be a team coming back from a huge deficit to win the game (Miracle at the New Meadowlands), turning a bad start to their season around and making a deep playoff run (the Eagles' 2003 season), or even a player, whom almost everyone had given up on and forgotten about, returning and playing at an MVP level (Mike Vick's 2010 season).
This is one of the reason's why Nelson Agholor, #13 Nelson Agholor, is starting to become my favorite current Eagle to root for... after Darren Sproles.
It's easy to remember Agholor's disastrous first two years of his career. Disastrous might even be an understatement to describe how bad he was. But it's also easy to forget the circumstances behind them.
The night of the 2015 NFL Draft, there was already some buzz by a few draft experts that the Eagles could take Nelson Agholor, who's stock had been rapidly on the rise, with their 1st round pick (20th overall). The team had just lost Jeremy Maclin in free agency to the Chiefs and needed to find his replacement. Therefore, who better than the prospect who's skillset and physical dimensions matched Maclin's almost identically: 6' tall, 200 lbs, quick route runner, really good speed, reliable hands, promising return skills, and positive intangibles.
Jeremy Maclin might not have been the best WR in franchise history, but he was my favorite WR I've watched play in the midnight green. I loved his all around game and how reliable he was, even though he was overshadowed by DeSean Jackson for the first few years of his career. In 2014, with D-Jax on the Redskins, Maclin became the new top WR in Chip Kelly's "high speed" offense, and that resulted in the best season of his career to date with 85 receptions, 1318 yards receiving, and 10 TDs.
Now imagine being Agholor, and as a rookie you're tasked with replacing a player with those types of numbers. Not only that, but going into the 2015 season the Eagles were being hyped up as a possible Super Bowl contender (I'll admit, I was one of them), which put even more pressure on Agholor to play well. And to top it all off, Philadelphia isn't really the most patient fanbase there is (more on that later).
The following season in 2016 there would be no more excuses for him. He wasn't a rookie anymore, and with the new coaching regime and franchise QB Carson Wentz in place it was time for him to start showing why he was drafted in the 1st round. But with each drop Agholor dug himself further and further into something that he wasn't solely responsible for making but was 100% responsible for digging himself out of.
For those of you who have seen the movie "The Replacements" starring Keanu Reaves, think back to the scene where they're having a team meeting with the coach and they're discussing their fears. Reaves' character, Shane Falco, talks about quicksand...
"You're playing and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can't move... you can't breathe... because you're in over your head. Like quicksand."
That is exactly what Agholor was in, quicksand. And it seemed as though there was no hope at all for him to come back from it. It would have been really easy for Agholor to just give up. Maybe he could hope that the Eagles would release him after next season so that he can sign with a new team. A change of scenery could be what both sides needed. That's the mindset that a number of players in the league have.
But not Agholor.
Maybe it was the new WRs coach Mike Groh who found a way to get Agholor out of his own head. Maybe Agholor finally found a way to not let all of the negative stuff get to him. Or maybe it was just time for Agholor's skills to take over. Regardless of the reasons, Agholor has come into this season looking like a completely different player.
The chatter started off small back in mini-camp. There was talk about Agholor not dropping passes anymore. Then during training camp the talk was about him looking like the most impressive player of the WR group. In preseason we started to see glimpses of the playmaking ability we heard so much about, but we were cautiously hopeful.
But 5 games into the regular season it is now becoming clear that the Nelson Agholor we had been hoping for since that draft night back in 2015 is finally coming into fruition before our very eyes. And nothing has been more indicative of that than this play against the Cardinals...
For me, as a fan, I've been hoping and praying for the emergence of Nelson Agholor. I was highly upset when
This breakout season that we're all witnessing is a testament to one thing that us Eagles fans sometimes lack: patience. The number one thing we want is our first Super Bowl Championship, that's not a debate. We want the Eagles to win, and after going through the embarrassing seasons that we've gone through the past several years it is very easy to lose patience.
But we need to remind ourselves that with some players it just takes time. Roddy White, Dion Lewis, Alex Smith; those are only a few examples of players that needed a few seasons to develop before it all clicked. That's not the case with every player, of course. But part of the process of building a championship team is knowing when to hang on to a player that's struggling and when it's time to cut them loose.
It still remains to be seen just how good Agholor can be. Does he still have upside to be a legitimate #1 WR, or is he best used as a really good slot receiver? Either is possible. Some fans still don't want to fully buy in to his success, and that's completely understandable. That's a decision the Eagles' front office has to make as well, whether they're going to retain Agholor or not beyond this season.
Personally, I will be doing the same thing as I was with Maclin in 2014: rooting for this kid more than almost anyone else. I want him to continue to prove the doubters wrong and make plays that this team needs him to make. And hopefully this time next year I won't have to put one of my team names as "Missin' Agholor".
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