Staff Blog
About Last Night – Kissing the Eagles’ Sister
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| Ron Cortes | Philly.com |
Aside from this morning’s mini-rant I’m finding it
impossible to bring myself to go back and look at last’s game to write up a ‘what
happened.’ The short version is that the
Eagles have become formulaic and predictable – it’s a stat I’ve harped on
already, but 18 passes on 18 third downs really does seem impossible; as down
18 rushes in five quarters. The long
version is a full eulogy of the Reid/McNabb era; I don’t believe that is too
strong.
So instead of our own we’re going to look around the
blogosphere and pick the best of the hate, all complied ATJ. Enjoy.
As the final second ticked off the clock today I recieved
the following text messages.Worst Game Ever
A tie? A F-ing tie!?
Sh*t
What a horrible boring game
Amazing how just a few characters sent electronically
through the air can sum up the feelings of a city so well. A f-ing tie!?
It’s strange, last week’s tough, close loss to a very good Giants team sent me into at least a three day funk.
What happened yesterday — while it was a terrible result that set offensive football back at least 10 years — is not having the same effect. Yesterday was tough, but today I’m honestly dreading the celebrations of the TAMBC more than I’m really feeling all that crappy about the loss mightaswellhavebeenaloss.
I think that’s because we learned something last week that was only confirmed yesterday. This just isn’t a very good team.
Odds on favorite to replace Andy Reid? I have to guess it’s Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
Jeffrey Lurie loves the passing game and the Patriots business model, and he subscribes at least in part to Reid’s philosophy that throwing the football wins games. McDaniels would bring his knowledge of a proven spread offense to Philadelphia which may also favorably match our personnel, in particular the abilities of Westbrook and Kevin Kolb. Westbrook could potentially do much more damage in a system that opens up the middle of the field, and Kolb played in a spread offense at the University of Houston.
It was one hell of a run. A big thank you to Reid and McNabb for turning this Eagles franchise around.
We will always have the memories. Myself, I actually got the chance to attend 3 NFC Championship games, including the Super Bowl appearance clincher. But now we must say goodbye. The ride is over. We are moving backwards. The Eagles are no longer an elite team.
What is the point of hoping for the playoffs? The Eagles aren’t on the level of the Giants or the Panthers. It would just be one and done. Enough teasing us, it’s time to blow this thing up.
Grade: D-
Donovan McNabb, Philadelphia
Eagles. The only saving grace for McNabb in this putrid performance is
that it was an away game, therefore he didn’t have to suffer the indignation of
hearing the cat calls from the always tough Philly faithful.McNabb completed less than 50 percent of his passes for the
second straight week as the Eagles played to a 13-13 tie against the lowly
Cincinnati Bengals. A tie, in this instance, might as well be a loss for the
Eagles given their remaining schedule. And if a tie is in fact like kissing
your sister, the Eagles have one god-awful-looking sister.
This year, there is no obvious backup plan. I have said it before and will say it again: that is Reid’s failing here, this lack of a fallback plan in so many areas. But this one stands out. It is hard to believe they could even think about shifting to a more run-oriented offense at this point, not with the short-yardage problems the team has had, not with Westbrook looking as beat up as he often looks, not as long as they continue to pretend that there has been Federal legislation enacted that makes it illegal for Buckhalter to touch the ball more than twice a game.
They appear to be stuck here.Oh, you’ve noticed?
That was definitely the worst Eagles TV show I’ve seen all season.
I really couldn’t decide if a loss was worse than a draw.
Andy Reid, Donovan McNabb and the offense are on the hook this week. In soccer, you’re cool with a road draw. As a team with postseason aspirations in the NFL, you are not cool with a draw. Horrible.
I really wish this sample wasn’t just scratching the surface …
