friggin eagles (your Philadelphia Eagles...)

When the schedule came out in early spring I couldn’t decide if the Eagles were gonna be 9 & 7 or 10 & 6. I ultimately settled on 10 & 6 as my “official” prediction, due to then having the easiest schedule they’ve have in YEARS. That being said, I had them missing the playoffs due to 10 wins not being good enough, due to the Cowpatties and Gints being in their division and much better teams than them. I had them 3 & 3 at the BYE week, which is coming up for them after this week’s game vs the 49ers. If they beat the 49ers, they’ll be 3 & 3 at the bye. If they lose, they’ll be 2 & 4.

Here’s the bottom line folks: The Eagles are an extremely average football team. They’re simply not good enough. They don’t have enough talent on their team, and they don’t have a good enough coach. And Coach Reid is responsible for both of those facets.

He’s been in charge of picking and drafting the players here since he got here 10 years ago, when the naive and ignorant ownership, stewarded by Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner foolishly handed him that duty, with no prior experience on Reid’s part whatsoever. Seriously, Reid is the only one to blame for the actual players we have on this team currently.

And while Reid is a good coach, he’s far from being a great coach, or even a good ‘enough’ coach to get this team where it needs to be consistently. In this 10 years here, he’s 1 & 3 in Conference Championship Games. Period. While others will talk about other things he’s done here (once he’s gone), that will remain his legacy. He’s just not good enough.

Something that I have never read or heard about Reid anywhere (and am surprised by this), that I believe explains a lot about his skills and makeup, is the fact that he skipped a very important rung on his career ladder: He was never an Offensive Coordinator. He went from being a QB Coach at Green Bay (during Brett Favre’s formative years), to Head Coach AND General Manager at the Philadelphia Eagles. The fact that he skipped that rung, has everything to do with his dysfunction here at both of those levels.

He’s always been a terrible game day coach, seemingly unable to adjust whatsoever to the opposing team’s play. He can’t manage a clock; he can’t pick the correct plays on the fly; he can’t manage a game. This is the actual job description for an Offensive Coordinator. He skipped that rung. Is it any wonder he can’t do those things? He refuses to see the obvious and what is just right in front of him constantly.

Everything you ever needed to know about how inefficient Reid ultimately would be, you could have learned (like I did) back in 2003, when, after choking in their home NFC Championship Game the season before (against the Tampa Bay Bucs who we owned the years prior and sent home packing many times), Reid stated, “our WR’s are fine,” when asked by a reporter if the WR corps, let by James Thrash and Todd Pinkston, was good enough to win a Super Bowl with. And he didn’t just say it. He believed it. And it was obvious to any idiot in the United States, that our WR corps sucked. Especially, when you consider we were and are a “pass first” offense! And then the Andy Reid’s Eagles, proceeded to will themselves to ANOTHER home NFC Championship Game against the Carolina Panthers and proceeded to choke again, this time scoring only 3 points.

It was also this year (I believe) that when deflecting another question by a reporter aimed at Reid’s insistence to continue to pass first when it never really seemed to work that well, Reid answered, “passing’s just as good as running,” when asked why he doesn’t run more. That is just flat-out wrong. Passing, by and large, is never as good as running, when discussing globally, and with regards to offensive philosophy, and proven success throughout the history of football. What a complete asinine and moronic statement to make and belief to adhere to. No other NFL coach would agree with that statement ever.

It was the aforementioned 2 statements back in 2003 that convinced me Reid simply did not possess the ability to guide a team to a Super Bowl win. Ever. And it’s why I was calling for his head on a platter after that second home conference championship loss; if I was the Owner, I would have fired him outright, the day after that abomination of a loss to Carolina. But, alas, he’s still here, and our naive and clueless ownership loves him. I don’t think he’s going anywhere for years. No matter how much he continues to fail

I could go on (how Reid has stunted McNabb’s career, his stubbornness with letting other coaches and personnel take over certain reins, etc)…and I will. Believe me. But that’s enough ranting for now.