What's Wrong With The Philadelphia Eagles?

that's what's going through everyone's head in eagles nation. i see tv polls, web polls, and radio polls all asking the same question. those polls list all sorts of things that are sub-standard with the team right now, from game planning and play calling to QB play and defensive secondary play to contract negotiations and malaise. i think it comes down to one thing that is the cause of all of it -- line play. the philadelphia eagles o- and d-lines are just sucking right now and it is having a cascading effect on everything the team does and how the coaches prepare the game plan.

- o-line - there are two guys on the offensive line who are below average to poor nfl players - artis and honeybuns. neither is physical enough to run block effectively or stand up to a bull rush. with artis working on one bad wheel, he doesn't even have quickness (normally his best attribute). on top of that, tra is coming off injury and hasn't been that effective, and andrews is playing hurt and hasn't been that effective. of that entire unit, runyan is the only one i can say has been playing pretty well, but even he has played better in the past. if you can't protect the qb, you cannot pass. if you cannot open holes, you cannot run. everything on offense hinges on the success of the 0-line. it's that simple. blame donovan all you want for erratic throws and complain all you want about the sports hernia or play calling (as i have done). the bottom line is if the QB is on his ass on every play, you cannot have success passing the ball. buddy knew that, bud carson knew that, and jim johnson knows that. that's why there is such a premium on pass rushers. i don't care if you are joe montana, johnny unitas, or tom brady. you can't pass the ball accurately if you do not get protection. remember that game where the buddy ryan eagles ran roughshod over the 49ers in the first half, only to see montana stage a huge comeback? the reason that happened is because the niners figured out a way to keep montana on his feet. as soon as he got some time, he was able to carve up the eagles d. similarly, on sunday when mcnabb had time, the eagles scored points... when he didn't have time, the eagles didn't score points. andy has to figure out a way to keep 5 on his feet. drew bledsoe and jake plummer both carved up the eagles d because their teams max protected them and put them in a good position to succeed. when the rams offense started to go south it wasn't because their skill players declined. it was because their all-world o-line, which could get away with blocking only 5 or 6 guys on every pass play, lost members due to free agency departures and injury. once defenses started to get to warner, that offense stopped being the "greatest show on earth".

- d-line - the middle of the d-line is actually playing well i think. the loss of corey simon notwithstanding, this is the best 4 tackle rotation i can remember on the eagles. i do think depth is a problem now that grasmanis is out, but i don't think this is where the d-line is suffering. the defensive ends stink. there is no way to get around it. kearse (lost a step, never bothered to work on technique), kalu (one dimensional 3rd down player), cole (rookie, too many mistakes), and juqua thomas (special teams player) are the worst set of ends i can remember. we have no difference makers at the defensive end position for the first time in a long time. how about this string of defensive ends: reggie white, clyde simmons, william fuller, hugh douglas, and mike mamula (just kidding). that's 20 straight years of dominant pass rushers on this team. this year's vintage has none. subsequently, they get zero, and i mean *zero*, pass rush whenever they rush 4. if you can't rush the passer, you're not going to defend the pass very well. this has forced jim johnson to blitz more than he wants to (contrary to JJ's media persona as a mad blitzer, he is usually pretty judicious on blitzing). so JJ's options at this point are to: a) rush 4, play coverage, and watch the QB stand there with impunity, carving up your defense or b) blitz and leave the d-backs at risk. pick your poison.

ultimately, reid has to answer for the condition of the two lines. with final say over personnel, he's the one who picked these players. for the defense, losing mcdougle was huge, but who's to say that he was actually going to live up to his draft position? in hindsight, losing burgess was the biggest loss on defense. he was the team's best defensive end in the playoffs last season, and he's having a heck of a season with the raiders. how is he going to fix that d-line? what about the o-line? runyan and tra are likely done after the season. what's the plan for replacing them? i can see a healthy andrews taking over for runyan, but is he really counting on todd herremans to protect don's blind side? this team looks old and slow right now, and no where is this more apparent than on the lines. that is the #1 problem imo.

Why I Hate the West Coast Offense

after years of bitching about the west coast offense (more specifically andy's version of the west coast offense), i decided to sit down and think about exactly why i hate it. let me preface by saying that, in general, i am among the more optimistic eagles fans out there. those who know me know that i am not a gloom and doomer. i backed the team when they drafted a QB over ricky williams (not don specifically as i didn't know that much about him, but i did agree that they had to build around a QB). i generally defend the team against what i consider to be unfair criticism of their management philosophies. i also believe that andy reid is the best coach the eagles have ever had and may be the best coach in any sport that i have seen in this city. billy cunningham (burnout), mike keenan (jackass), and larry brown (the devil) are right there with him, but their faults seem to be much more serious than andy's (too methodical and deliberate). he doesn't seem to have a quick processor, but certainly does seem to be in it for the long haul, does seem to be pretty damn likeable, and certainly isn't the devil.

that said, i hate the west coast offense and here's why:

- terminology is too complex - as if it's bad enough that they don't call the play in from the sideline quickly enough, have you ever heard don say one of the bird's plays on the air? it's an entire paragraph of text. instead of a nice play like "I Right 32 Iso" where everything is scripted ahead of time, andy's offense is more like an a la carte menu where you mix and match parts like a mr. potato head. i can see where this offers you the most flexibility in terms of game planning, but i think i also think that it adds lots of complexity and time on game day (when you are on the clock). the verbiage of each play specifies every offensive skill position's assignment and where they line up as well as the o-line blocking assignment. that's a lot of information to communicate effectively in the short amount of time between plays. this is one of the reasons why there is such little time left on the clock when the birds get to the line.

- it takes 4 years to learn it - are you kidding me? in a league where the average career lasts just over 5 years, running the west coast offense means most of your players aren't fully up-to-speed for a large portion of their careers. you can get an entire college degree in that amount of time. this is another huge downside of the complexity of the offense.

- not enough power running - the theory behind the west coast offense is using short passes as a ball control mechanism and hope for people to break tackles in the secondary. all this passing means that teams cannot run when they need to (e.g. the eagles), especially when the need to pick up one measly yard. it's football for cripes sake, when are the fat guys going to start knocking heads? it's less fun watching fat guys trying to keep some slightly less fat guys from running around them than it is watching fat guys trying to mash the hell out of those slightly less fat guys. even most of the other coaches from the bill walsh tree have ended up coaching primarily run based offenses. holmgren, shanhan, gruden, mariucci, and sherman are all run first coaches now. they've all seen the light. why not reid?

- getting long in the tooth - the west coast offense has been around for quite a while now. every defensive coordinator knows what makes it tick and has a set of strategies designed to combat it.

- upside comes with a downside - in order for the WCO to work, everyone needs to be in sync. this means the QB and the receivers need to make the same read on how the defense is playing, the o-line needs to be able to protect the passer, the qb has to make an accurate throw, and the receiver needs to catch the ball. if any one of those things doesn't happen, the play won't work. on a pass play, the *entire* o-line needs to block well or the play breaks down. contrast that to a running play... in order for a running play to work, the o-line needs to carve out *one* hole in the defense somewhere and the running back needs to see it and run through it. that's it, not nearly as many variables with a run. also, the probability of having a successful play even though someone on the o-line completely blows an assignment is much greater on a run than on a pass (especially if your QB has a sports hernia). the upside of the passing game is certainly higher than the upside of the running game -- much greater opportunity for big plays -- but the downside of the passing game is much greater than the downside of the passing game as well. i find few things as painful to watch as an out of sync passing game, where pass after pass continues to hit the turf.

- last, but not least, it's boring - the west coast offense is not far from an endless loop of this play: qb gets the snap, takes a 3 step drop, flings it to a wideout running a 5 yard slant, wideout catches the ball and falls or dives to the ground. yay the team got a 7 yard gain. boo it's boring to watch. too much dink and dunk passing for this football fan.

sad quote from the past: "that's eagles football, baby! mash, mash, mash, score." -- duce staley

the philadelphia eagles are as far away from that model as anyone in the history of professional football.

Game 7 Thoughts

great googly moogly. well, the blocked kick wasn't quite the same spark that westbrook's punt return was... the philadelphia eagles played another stinker today.

- sigh, another bad start. i can't quite figure this team out. they come out completely flat and lifeless. no emotion, no intensity. what's the deal with that? we were out "gameplanned" on both offense and defense again, which is concerning in itself, but the lack of personality on this team is discouraging. is there a fundamental flaw in the makeup of this team? is all of the negative karma from the various contract issues affecting the entire team? could it be something as simple as hugh douglas being gone? i discounted the loss of douglas' personality from the locker room when they cut him, and i still don't really believe that could account for this string of lifeless performances, but it's possible. i'm at a total loss here. even when this team was going 3-13, they were never this bad. there is some sort of mental breakdown going on with this team right now.

- broncos opened up with 11 men on the line with the intent of pressuring the bejesus out of don. well, it worked. of course the birds predictably opened up with an all pass all the time game plan. unpredictably, don ended up on his kiester on about the first 12 plays. aikman said he's never seen anything like the broncos high risk fronts... well, i have. it was called the 46 defense, and it was exciting as all get out to watch. it was obvious from the start that the broncos did not respect the birds ability to get the ball downfield nor their ability to protect the qb. andy wasn't ready for this, and didn't shift to max protect until the game was out of hand. in fact, big red's first adjustment was to spread the field with more receivers to try to get more broncos into coverage. well, it didn't work. don got even less time than he did at the start of the game and started to get hit even on 3 step drops. by the time he went max protect, the broncos had already scored 4 times. you can't even blame the pressure on honeybuns and the turnstiles. the birds were blocking with 5 and the broncos were rushing 7.

- hit of the day: mike patterson took out the head linesman with a nice leg whip to the knees. the linesman got up pretty high for an old guy, i was impressed.

- kearse had a nice bullrush on hood's pass interference early in the game. of course, like 5 plays later he went out with a shoulder injury. pam oliver said that he "sprained his AC joint in his shoulder". well, i have no idea what that is, but to me it looked like an old fashioned "dislocated shoulder". i'm concerned that he'll be out for a while.

- way to run the ball more, andy. that fat f*ck called passes on 12 of the first 13 plays. do you suppose by this point the opponent has a read what he's going to call? it was 21-0 before andy *finally* decided to run. we called two runs in a row and then don threw his first pick.

- what got into the offense on the last drive of the first half? they looked like the real eagles. i'll tell you what happened, the broncos stopped rushing the qb. they rushed 4 and dropped back into coverage and don ripped them apart. andy has to figure out a way to protect our now immobile qb.

- i did have one chuckle during the game. as TO took the quick hitch for the 91 yard TD, big red started skipping down the field and actually slapped a ref on the ass.

- as poorly as they played, they had a shot to win the game. that last pick in the endzone killed all their momentum and the defense sagged terribly. aikman pointed out that brown ran the route too vertically and gave the corner the opportunity to cut inside him. he made this same mistake against the falcons. both of these plays would have gone for a TD. let's hope he doesn't keep making that mistake. that said, i don't think don should have thrown the ball.

- i'd never thought i would say this, but this team misses pinky terribly. greg lewis is not a #2 wideout.

- can you believe that a jim johnson defense gave up 550+ yards and 49 points? what the hell is going on? have teams caught on to him? one place the broncos got to him, over and over, was the play action bootleg. this was the play that tampa killed them with in the championship game a few years back with ken dilger and it reared it's head over and over in today's game. what the hell am i saying? everything the broncos did shredded the birds d today. ugly, ugly, ugly.

going to be a miserable f*cking week fellas.

Feedback Welcome

all feedback (positive, negative, or otherwise) is welcomed and appreciated. feel free to leave comments disagreeing with or supporting any positions i've taken, i love a good discussion.

Friday Links

- in the "i'm surprised it took this long" department... TO (who leads the NFL in receptions) says the birds need to throw him the football more.

- even when they get something right, this season's eagles can't seem to get it exactly right. darwin walker was supposed to be on the field for the blocked field goal.

- with the fanbase screaming for a qualified candidate, the phuckins' finally interview this season's jim leyland and may be considering moving the fences back.

- shane conlan thinks paul posluszny is better than he was.

- with derrick williams out for the season, it looks like joe pa is going to play justin king only on offense for the rest of the season.

- had to fix the blog template as the links on the right weren't rendering properly on IE. other browsers weren't having the same problem. i use firefox and recommend it highly.

Thursday Links

- don admits that he should have thrown the ball away on the three sacks. let's hope that's not just interview speak. "All three sacks Sunday, including one that took the Eagles out of field-goal range, were the result of McNabb trying to scramble and finding he couldn't elude his pursuers. He agreed yesterday that he has to get more attuned to throwing the ball away in such situations."

- big red shows some emotion.

- birds sit at 14th in DVOA ranking. scary stat... skins, giants, cowboys sit at 7th, 8th, and 9th.

- "ask jerry markbreit" (link found on footballoutsiders.com, use bugmenot.com if you don't want to register)

- interesting, mostly empirical team ranking methodology (found on footballoutsiders)

- the phuckin' phillies interviewed mike arbuckle today. i just heard on comcast sportsnet that the phuckins have no interest in jerry hunsicker (by all accounts the most qualified remaining candidate). how much would we all have to chip in to have urbina (or urbina's workers) set the phuckins' ownership on fire?

- flyboys had a nice comeback win tonight. goalie and power play still suck, but eh, we're used to it at this point, right?

Wednesday Links

- birds cut todd france and signed jose cortez... oh well, there goes joe's dream of hearing the french national anthem after field goals. i think les bowen is right when he speculates that the reason for this move is so cortez can kick off and leave just field goal duties for akers when akers returns.

- profile of merrill reese. my all-time favorite merrill call, "Who is this Lemuel Stinson, and why is he doing these *horrible* things?!"

- paul domowitch says that the slow starts are the reason for the run/pass ratio.

- cashman is staying with the yankees. if waiting for him isn't what was causing the phillies to dilly dally, then i'm very irritated. "Montgomery is turning down interview requests." i hope that means from reporters and not potential GM candidates...

- jack mccaffrey is thinking the same thing we all are, "f*cking phillies...(shake head)"

TMQ Idiocy

last week, gregg easterbrook declared in tuesday morning quarterback, his often entertaining always pompous column, that warrick dunn was the "most effective undersized back since [thurman] thomas".

whaaaat? are you serious? thurman thomas was listed at 5-10 and 205 during his playing career. this makes him slightly taller and about the same weight as both barry sanders and emmitt smith. barry was even thurman's direct successor at oklahoma state.

i emailed him, but no correction in this week's TMQ must mean that he really believes that thurman thomas was better than *both* barry sanders and emmitt smith... (or he didn't bother to read my email). regardless, that was a dumbass statement.

TO's House for Sale!

nn Landing Ct, Moorestown, NJ RES ACT $4,399,000

MLS # nnnnnnn DOM 1 Sub/Nei None Available Ownership FeeSimple Bed Bath 5 /7 /1
MLS Area Moorestown Twp SchDist Moorestown Twp Type Single/Detac Apprx Age 9
County Burlington County, NJ - High Design 2-Story Int SqFt 7,917/A
Zip Code 08057-3951 - Mid Style Contemporary Unit Floor #C/A

rich people. pfffht! what kind of house has more bathrooms than bedrooms? only people who don't have to clean their own bathrooms would do such a thing.

Tuesday Links

- akers may be back in two weeks

- bob ford has an interesting, and not unreasonable, theory on why the playcalling has been so unbalanced

- phils waiting for cashman's decision. fortunately, ruben wade jr. and mike arbuckle are not considered serious candidates. several baseball people were surprised that wade jr. is not a more serious candidate for the job. i'd bet that has more to do with their surprise over the phillies making a good decision than with the perception of how good a "baseball man" wade jr is.

- let's hope this GM gets more power than the last real GM the phillies hired, woody woodward. "At what was supposed to be an off-the-record luncheon meeting he requested with me to reveal his concerns and frustrations - that alone could have hastened his firing - Woodward said nobody seemed interested in hearing the minor league operation under Jim Baumer and Jack Pastore was broken beyond repair. "I don't think they'll let me do anything,'' he said. That was in early May. A month later, Giles announced he was letting Woodward go in a press conference where the words "comfort level'' were conspicuous."

- biggio's wife was "slapped upside the head" by some rowdy white sox fan. how much do you want to bet that this would be a huge national story if it happened here?

- chris webber may finally play a game

- mo cheeks wants to see "iverson shoot less and maybe lead the league in assists". i've never doubted that AI had the ability to do whatever he wanted on the court. the only real question was getting AI to buy into that. let's hope mo can get through...

Andy Needs to Give Up Playcalling Duties

i'd like to see andy give up his playcalling duties for three reasons:

- first, because i think he hasn't been doing a great job of it (see run/pass ratio, call on 4th and 1, leading the league in 3 and outs, etc)

- second, because the process of mornhinweg and childress relaying suggestions to andy for the final call is too long of a process and causes the eagles to burn too much play clock before the call goes to mcnabb. this was a contributing factor to the birds running out of time in the first half.

- third, and most important, because i've decided that a lot of the reason why the eagles struggle in the areas i find infuriating are due to a lack of strategic thinking. with andy mired in the details of playcalling, who is responsible for the game strategy and clock strategy? no one. why is andy's run/pass ratio so lopsided? because no one is looking at the big picture. he probably doesn't even realize what his ratio is during the game. every organization needs a leader, someone who is not mired in the details and can focus on the strategy, rather than the tactics, of the organization. i think andy has a pretty good handle on how to do this during the week, leaving most of the scheming to his coaches, letting banner do the negotiating, etc. i don't see andy doing much of this on gameday and i think the team suffers because of it. even if andy is the best playcaller on the team, is he so much better at it that he can afford to either give the strategic thinking responsibilities to someone else, or worse yet, to ignore it completely? i don't know what the truth is, but i do know that the birds clock management sucks and they keep making the same mistakes over and over. i have to believe that having andy focus on these things rather than the minutia of the game would leave the team in a better position to win.

Andy Needs to Get Fat Again

the eagles got better each season under andy reid, and andy got fatter each season he coached the eagles. coincidence? maybe.

this season, andy is on the LA weightloss diet and the birds have taken a step back. another coincidence? maybe, maybe not.

all i know is that lots of fat people like being fat. john kruk had the worst year of his career when the phillies made him lose 20 lbs. next season he got fat again and had a great year.

maybe andy needs to stop eating sprouts and start drinking gravy again.

Merrill Reese Sees the Future?

something odd about yesterday's radio broadcast. some time during the third quarter, mcnabb threw an 11 yard pass to TO coming across the middle. i heard merrill reese say "mcnabb goes to TO" on my headphones before don actually threw the pass. how is that possible? i wasn't the only one who heard this, as joe heard the same thing. how is this possible? there isn't much of a delay on those broadcast, but i'm serious when i say that merrill said this about a beat before donovan threw the ball.

anyone else notice this?

Monday Links

- hmm, sal paolantonio suggests there could be a rift between banner and reid on westbrook's contract

- bob ford thinks defensive coordinators have caught onto the fact that don can't throw deep (don please get the surgery)

- good job of coaching by harbaugh on the blocked kick

- reuben frank's game in a nutshell. "“I didn't look very smart on that one,” head coach Andy Reid on an unsuccessful fourth-and-one conversion from the Eagles' 30-yard line with 31/2 minutes left." my fear is that andy thinks the mistake he made was in going for it (which was the right thing to do) rather than a problem with the playcalling.

- don admits to being restricted on throws. "Sometimes going across the body when rolling out I’m not able to get much on it," McNabb said of the restrictions on his throws. "That pretty much comes from not being able to use your legs. You’re not able to rotate as quick or as hard as you normally would. But I think what we were able to do in the offensive scheme really took some pressure away from it." (don PLEASE get the surgery) i don't want to go back to the days of watching the dink and dunk offense from 4 seasons ago.

- jack mccaffrey's take on the game. "That was not a strange compilation of fortunate bounces, although there were a few in the mix. No, it was what the Birds have become, by design, then by necessity."

- mark eckel's take on the game

- penn state crushes illinois. said michael robinson after the game, "As a competitor, you'd much rather be out there," he said, "but at the same time you have to understand the circumstances. When you're up by 40 points, there's no point in going out there and getting injured. Even though it's hard not to play and to sit on the side, you have to understand the situation and you have to be OK with sitting out." i wish our pro qb would gain such perspective.

Game 6 Thoughts

well... a win is a win is a win i guess so that's good. the finish was incredibly dramatic and exciting, so that's good. so... someone tell me why i'm so grumpy. certainly, i'm less grumpy than if they had lost the game, which i'm sure my wife is thankful for :) in general though, i'm pretty unhappy with today's game, i must say.

- first and foremost... run the ball you fat f*ck!!!!!!!! this is one of the reasons why i hate the west coast offense. yes, there are variations of the west coast offense that run the ball more than reid's offense (gruden/mariucci/holmgren e.g.), but even then, none of them are the power running, smash mouth types of running games that i like. west coast offenses use too many draws, traps, and delays imo. the most entertaining offense i ever saw was the redskins offense circa joe gibbs 1.0. power running game to tighten things up and throw deep over the top. that was entertainment. this dink and dunk passing garbage sucks.

- donovan mcnabb continues to make the same mental mistakes over and over. most people bitch about him being inaccurate. really, when you look at the numbers, that doesn't really bear itself out. yes, he does throw the ball at receivers feet on occasion, but most qbs have throws get away from them from time to time. most other qbs lose the ball high, mcnabb errs to the low side. either way, that doesn't bother me. what does bother me is the mcnabb continues to make the same mental mistakes over and over. first of all, he took 3 bad sacks today that were not the line's fault. there is no reason for him to have taken those sacks -- he should have thrown the ball away all three times. not only did it cost the eagles yardage and ultimately cost the eagles 3 points, but he is also taking hits unnecessarily. i don't begrudge his choice to not get the sports hernia fixed right now, but since he has chosen to play through it he needs to avoid taking hits. second, and the much MUCH bigger issue is his throw to lj smith at the end of the first half. this is the same FREAKING type of throw that he made to dorsey levens at the end of the first half of the playoff game vs minnesota last season. yes, neither of them cost the birds the game, but it's totally unacceptable for him to be making those rookie mistakes at this stage of his career.

- speaking of the end of half play, the offense was called for a penalty because lj didn't get set before the snap. why didn't he just set himself right where he was tackled? there was no reason for him to run down the line to line up next to runyan. the only requirement is for him to be on the line covering runyan. it was going to be a kill the clock play anyway. why line up all nice and purty?

- andy called a horrible game. andy did the right thing by going for it on 4th and 1 at their 30. what was that play he called?!?! run the ball you fat f*ck!

- it's becoming increasingly clear to me each week... westbrook is not an every down back. he doesn't get you enough tough yards. with him, it's feast or famine and he's a big reason why the birds lead the nfl in 3 and outs. you have to move the chains and the guys who move the chains get you 3-5 yards a pop. football outsiders' analysis indicates that westbrook only has a "successful" run on less than 35% of his runs. yes, honeybuns and the turnstiles have an impact on this, but westbrook does not break tackles either so that is a match made in hell. westbrook makes lots of people miss, but he cannot break arm tackles from anyone, not even corners.

- deep balls? hello? do we have them in our offense still? andy? don? hello? i doubt that andy is not calling deep plays. don is either not feeling mentally comfortable with what dallas and san diego did on defense or he's not physically comfortable throwing the deep ball anymore (in which case he needs to just get the f'n surgery). don't know what it is, but we're not throwing deep enough.

all right, enough bitching about a win. maybe the mikell block and ware return will spark the team like westbrook's punt return did a couple of years ago, who knows?

some other thoughts and observations.

- the first play of the game, the chargers split out lorenzo neal wide left... gee you think they're going to run to that side? eagles stop tomlinson in his tracks. was that play setting up this one? early in the second quarter, neal goes in motion to the right and michael lewis drifts out with him. lewis continued peeking in the backfield and made no attempt to cover neal. neal runs an out and up and catches a pass 20 yards downfield.

- overall, the defense played really, really well today. the d-line really controlled the line of scrimmage and kept blockers off the linebackers. san diego's starting center was out today and i think they missed him, but i don't think it would have made a difference

- darwin walker did make a difference, however. he was very active and obviously juiced to get back in the game. my new favorite fat guy mike patterson didn't make any flashy plays, but i thought he held up well on run defense.

- kearse was a factor, which was nice to see -- though the way he celebrated his sack seemed a little over the top to me. one nice play drawn up by JJ that phil and i both noticed. kearse lined up across from the right tackle as the o-line got into their set. simoneau comes up to the line and takes kearse's place and jevon moves out farther left. at the snap, simoneau shoots the gap between the tackle and guard, causing the tackle to block down on him. this frees kearse up with a free run at brees. he didn't get there in time, but he did get a mamula.

- speaking of simoneau. simoneau played a lot more than adams after gates started eating up the bullet over the middle. mark did a much better job on gates than adams did and made the play on trotter's interception with his hit on brees.

- LJ fumbled again! that lucky SOB got away with this one when the play got called back as a result of randall godfrey's roughing the passer penalty. i reiterate, LJ is a fumble waiting to happen and i cringe every time he catches the ball.

- interestingly, merrill and mike quick both thought the birds got a favor from the refs on that roughing call because godfrey got there as don was throwing the ball. i'm pretty sure the roughing was for godfrey driving mcnabb into the turf -- which i think the league made illegal after tony siragusa drove rich gannon into the turf and knocked him out of that playoff game a few seasons back -- rather than the timing of the hit. overall though, i thought the refs were pretty bad. for a while it looked like they were trying to fix it for the birds, but the bad calls all evened out in the end.

- in a show of solidarity, honeybuns and the turnstiles made sure they each got called for a penalty so no one would get singled out for praise or criticism.

- wow, did greg lewis take a shot!

- lito plays off the receiver too much. i don't blame him for the long pass to caldwell on the chargers' third possession, but lito counts on his closing speed too much methinks. sheldon brown is always in the right position. looked to me like dawkins scolded lito after a slight overthrow by brees on a long pass cost the chargers a touchdown early in the game. on the same play, dawkins gave the receiver and elbow to the middle of the back as they both fell to the ground. yikes, what a mean mother f-er! that elbow would have broken most normal people in half.

bottom line, i don't see the birds learning from their mistakes and i do see them making the same critical errors over and over. i should be happy that they won in dramatic fashion today, but my irritation over don's poor decision making, LJ's poor ball protection, and andy's play calling is overwhelming that right now. i can accept the fact that they're not going to blow every team out of the water like they did last season. what i cannot accept is that they keep making the same stupid mental mistakes over and over. this team is going nowhere if it doesn't get it's head on straight soon. if the cowboys game wasn't enough of a wakeup call, then i don't know what it's going to take.

Wednesday Links

- dear donovan mcnabb, please get your surgery

- blah eagles come back to the pack blah. it's been too long without a game already

- quote of the day: "We put the fun back in 'dysfunctional,' don't we?" Minnesota center Matt Birk told reporters

- cheer up flyers fans. our goalie isn't the only one who's sucking right now...

Tuesday Links

two weeks is a long time to wait after an eagles loss.

- jerome mcdougle is one of the unluckiest and/or fragile guy i've seen in a while. rookie year - gets high/low-ed on his leg in the preseason hurting his ankle, knee, and hip -- when i saw it live i thought for sure it was a willis mcgahee type injury -- he comes back but is limited all season second year - hurts his shoulder (i think) in the offseason working out, gets rolled over on his knee, and has an irregular heartbeat problem. third season - get *shot* and now has a hernia and is out for the season. wow

- rich hoffman discusses the eagles' weaknesses

- chad lewis could be coming back

- seems like pitkanen may have finally gotten the sand out of his p*ssy

- billy wagner's agent is "bean stringfellow"

- it's too easy to pick on the phillies...

No Posts

No posts for the last several days due to work. Even missed all of the weekend football games. Rats.

Friday Links

- i think it's overreacting a bit, but marc narducci says the birds making the playoffs is not a sure thing

- hey brad warfel, another "you were right all along" article

- profile of paul posluszny

- it's possible the birds may use lito or westbrook on kick returns

Separated at birth?

TO and mr. 3000

Wednesday Links

- football outsiders take a look at last sunday's blowout loss

- eagles drop to 11th in DVOA

- matt hasselbeck still leads all QBs in DPAR, don drops to 6th. after two stinkers, westbrook drops to 22nd. TO drops to 14th. LJ jumps to 4th. honeybuns and the four turnstiles maintain their 26th place ranking. d-line checks in at 5th.

- eagles cut mike labinjo and signed zeke moreno... andy sending a leetle message to the coverage teams?

- mark eckel suggests arrogance in the eagles front office is the problem. (he was very close to corey simon and seemed a little bitter about the birds cutting him)

- hey dave montgomery. rich hoffman has a great idea... how about you hire a GM first and let him deal with wagner?

- randy miller says that gerry hunsicker is the leading candidate for the GM job. meh. at least he's not ruben wade jr.

- here's a shocker! flyers lose because the goalie stinks and we suck on the power play. hitchcock says this team is "built for 5 on 5 hockey". why isn't skill or goaltending important to clarke? why? why?

- lindros recalls the flyers fondly. anyone doubt that clarkie is still sticking pins in little eric voodoo dolls?

Tuesday Links

quick note. a lot of sites these days require a login and password. if you don't want to take the time to sign up for accounts everywhere, use bugmenot to use someone else's pre-existing account.

- ed wade proves that he'll never get it. "I've earned this right to be the general manager of the Phillies. I earned these eight years for the sacrifices I made and my family made. And I think you can go out there and talk to other baseball people and they'll tell you whether I got the credentials to do this job or not." his argument is that he has the "credentials" to be a GM. geez, ed, i didn't realize a background in PR plus 8 seasons as lee thomas's lackey was all it took to be a certified, bona fide MLB GM. you schmuck. no one cares about credentials. when are you going to start talking about results and a track record of success. credentials are a bastion of the imcompetent. your defense is that "no one complained when i made those moves and everyone in baseball agreed at the time that they were good moves"... meaning no one should complain about them after the fact if they didn't complain about them before. you know what ed, anyone can GM like it's "paint by numbers". if you only make the moves that are obvious on the surface, what value did you add to the process? where are your brilliant strategic moves where you fleeced the unknowing other party?

- bill conlin on the dumping of wade

- jack mccaffrey says the fans finally win

- golf writer joe logan writes about the move. "I hope this isn't one of those fire-Buddy-Ryan-hire-Rich-Kotite moves," Internet user pathfinder22 wrote on philly.com. "Please let them bring in a baseball man with some sort of good track record."

- some of trader ed's lowlights

- paul hagen takes a look at some candidates to replace "the head"

- even andy admits there are problems on the birds

- sam donnellon wonders if the problem is that teams have finally figured JJ out

- flyers play the big e tonight

- why do these guys make it an either or situation with lindros and forsberg? how come they don't remember that it should have been both of them together on the flyers?

Ed Wade Gone!

finally that nebbish is gone! the eagles got squashed, but with penn state winning and ed wade's firing i think i'll survive the week.

dear phillies, if you hire brian cashman to be the new GM i promise to buy two season tickets next season. i will buy them the day you announce cashman as the new GM. no joke. same goes if you can steal billy beane from oakland or john schuerholz from atlanta (though i doubt schuerholz would leave the braves as he has nothing to gain). apparently, theo epstein's contract runs out at the end of the season. i'd take him too -- even though he's a "billy beane wannabe" who my friend ben says "acts like they invented the game". any of those guys and i promise to buy season tickets and keep them for at least 5 years.

on the flip side... if you promote ruben amaro jr to GM, you will lose me as a fan for life. no joke about that either.

Monday Links

- rich hoffman says we have to admit that the birds aren't as good as last year

- reuben frank is about dead-on in his analysis of yesterday's game

Game 5 Thoughts

what a stinker the birds put up today -- i found it literally painful to watch. this was worse than the thumping the steelers laid on them last season.

- no one on the eagles had a particularly good game, while lots of guys on the cowboys had great games. the cowboys out played, out hustled, out coached, and especially out "physicalled" the eagles in all phases of the game. it was sad to watch and completely unacceptable.

- lack of pass rush continues to be a concern. could the under the radar addition of marco rivera be the most important offseason addition to the cowboys? the birds have been getting most of their defensive line pressure up the middle this season, but in today's game, rivera and larry allen did an terrific job of controlling the middle of the line. with patterson, truck driver, and hollis unable to get a push in the middle, the cowboys offense was able to do whatever it wanted the whole game. early in the game, i think mike patterson was surprised by larry allen's strength. he seemed almost shocked at how allen was pushing him back once larry got his hands on him. i don't think the birds even hit bledsoe on blitzes.

- special teams is going to be a big problem for this team if they don't get better soon. they have had a advantage over almost every other team on special teams over the years (i read somewhere that they're the only team to finish in the top 10 in special teams every year for the last 5 years), but that advantage is gone now. the last time the eagles had kick coverage this bad was when danny smith was the special teams coach.

- why do the birds have such a poor record in games leading into the bye week? they've dipped back under .500 (3-4) in games leading into the bye under reid. seems strange compared to his overall winning percentage (.663 after today's loss). is that a pattern or a variance due to small sample size?

- why the hell was mcnabb still in the game with 5 minutes left in the game? i really wish i had some insight into andy's reasoning. that was definitely a "fat f*ck" moment.

- the birds' inability and/or lack of desire to run kills them in games like this because a) there is no backup plan if the passing gameplan isn't working and b) the drives are too short if they aren't moving the ball so the defense never gets a chance to rest. one of the tv guys mentioned that the eagles were among the league leaders in 3 and outs. that's not a good sign.

- o-line didn't play any worse than any other unit, but tra got absolutely pancaked by eric ogbogu -- who incidentally is the underarmour "we must protect this house" guy.

- i think mcnabb has to have his surgery done now. against teams with little pass rush, don does fine. against teams with a pass rush, he just cannot function back there. why take the risk of him getting creamed? he doesn't have his quickness and he can't avoid these guys coming free. let him get it fixed and come back in time for the last 4 games.

- TO loafed through most of this game.

- kearse was invisible again (and they stopped chipping him once they figured out that a rookie could handle jevon one on one).

- shawn andrews looks much heavier than he was at the start of last season. he doesn't look very mobile right now.

- bottom line, they played like ass and they better come up with better efforts than this if they want to win the division. the other teams have caught up to them in terms of talent, so it's going to be a dogfight the rest of the way. they had better be ready.

this is going to be a miserable two weeks.

Friday Links

- ray didinger writes a nice article about the fat guy.

- eagles notes from the inquirer. some interesting tidbits including parcells talking about how everyone talks about him being a "running coach" but the record for number of passes that mcnabb is on pace to break is held by drew bledsoe (when he was coached by parcells). another example of how the media gets locked into and perpetuates misconceptions.

- dexter wynn is going to start returning kickoffs

- chris collinsworth calls mcnabb "the next favre", and also mentions how cataldi and his cronies booed don at the draft (oops sorry i meant "booed the non-selection of ricky williams", like that makes a difference, cataldi). you know, the funny thing is jets fans have been booing their team's draft picks for as long as i can remember, but you never hear about that. i remember the year the jets picked jeff lageman in the first round the whole room went ballistic. not a peep from the media.

- adam schefter calls 5 "mcmazing"... lol. what? "mcmazing"? that's mcdiculous and mclame.

- we may see the debut of ryan moats soon as a kick returner

- apparently the birds' practices are shorter than other teams' practices.

Thursday Links

- good article by skip bayless about how don used TO's offseason sniping to motivate him.

- too bad the title of this article isn't "wade sets up meeting with employment agency"...

- LJ's having a great season (except for the ball protection issue) and leads all tight ends in catches

- what is it with AI and TGI Fridays? does he live there?

- mark eckel writes that the NFC east is improved, but the other teams haven't caught the birds yet. he also writes this article about the defensive line injuries,

- does jayson stark get royalties for reuben frank stealing his schtick?

- dr z moves the eagles up to 2nd in his power rank... from 6th. 6th? that's laughable. though he does write a nice article about blitzing.

Hockey Is Back

it was nice to watch a hockey game for the first time in a while. the rules changes seem to have made *some* impact on the flow of the game (though not as much as i expected). the two line pass to richards was nice, and there weren't as many penalties as some of the gloom and doomers were predicting (i.e. 20 penalties per team).

on the other hand, for all the changes the flyers made in the offseason, you could chalk up last night's loss to the the same problem the flyers have had for the last, what, 7 or 8 years? their goalie was better than our goalie, and we suck on the power play. nice to know some things never change :)

Wednesday Links

- comparison of style differences of reid and parcells

- phillies announce manuel all the coaches are coming back. do the phillies have the sack to actually announce that wade is coming back or are they going to be p*ssies about that too? what a second class outfit. well, another season of ignoring phillies baseball coming up for me.

- bdawk's goal is to be the best free safety ever. well he certainly is the best free safety ever to play for the eagles.

- TMQ calls for some media love for the birds' defense and then links to this story about eminent domain abuse.

- don ranks second in DPAR among QBs so far this season. shockingly, the top rated QB so far is matt hasselbeck. TO ranks 11h among receivers, westbrook ranks 10th among backs, LJ is 5th among tight ends, o-line ranks 26th (though that is measured by running effectiveness), and d-line ranks 5th.

- eagles second in both sportsline's power ranking and espn's power ranking.

- sportingnews' "war room" analysis of the birds upcoming game against the cowboys. don't know how much it's worth. they give the cowboys the edge in the QB vs pass defense breakdown when the "cowboys have the ball". ha ha. either that's a misprint or the "war room" must be located in texas stadium.

- this just in, the eagles got better tv ratings than the phillies.

- birds are on a pace to break every passing record.

Peter Forsberg - Eric Lindros

two guys who will be linked together forever. phil anastasia looks back at the trade that sent peter forsberg to quebec and brought eric lindros into town. it's a pretty fair column and certainly doesn't have the revisionist history feel that i find in most recent columns about the lindros affair.

seems like most fans and media only remember the negative aspects of the whole eric lindros era. i like to remember that until bobby clarke told him to tone it down to reduce his chances of being injured, eric lindros was the most dynamic and game changing player who ever played for the flyers (at least that i've seen). his physical presence was amazing, as was his skill level. how many nhl scoring champs have the flyers had besides lindros? hart trophy winners? love him or hate him, eric hovered around 3rd or 4th highest points per game for most of his career. sadly, his body (and his brother's body) could not hold up to the pounding. yes, he was a primadonna. yes, he was a baby. so what? so is TO, and i don't see anyone running him out of town.

actually, when i look back on it. the only thing i would regret, if i were the flyers, would be packaging forsberg in the trade instead of rod brind'amour (who is the guy quebec really wanted). farwell insisted on keeping rod and convinced them to take forsberg instead. good job russ. way to make the right move. not saying i would have made the right move, but i'm not an nhl GM. also, i'm still bitter about having to watch vanbiesbrouck instead of richter and sean burke instead of curtis joseph. remember, joseph said he would take less money to come here.

most people blame lindros, but it wasn't his fault he got traded here. farwell was the guy who went out and got him, knowing full well that he was a primadonna. clarke came back and proceeded to bitch about his attitude the whole time he was here. clarke's the one to blame, not eric. eric gave his body and his (now mush for) brains to this city. clarke gave us vanbiesbrouck and burke instead of cups.

Tuesday Links

- akers' injury might be worse than the eagles initially thought. david is seeking a second opinion.

- bill conlin calls for the phils to demote ed wade not fire him. i don't care what they do as long as i don't have to see ed wade's gigantic, misshapen head on tv anymore (or hear the word "potential").

- football outsiders' similarity scores on eli manning have improved as has his performance. now at least guys like jeff george and phil simms are in the picture.

- eagles rank 5th in DVOA after 4 weeks.

- JJ claims he didn't make many adjustments after the chiefs scored on their first three possessions. trent green doesn't believe him, and neither do i.

- profootballweekly speculates that the eagles may use more formations with josh parry on the field to get better protection for mcnabb. ha! i guess they've never actually watched an eagles game or josh parry play...

- jack mccaffrey calls for phillies fans to resist the call from the darkside. -- "In the end, the Phillies were left to overwhelm a hopeless team in order to have the chance on the final day of the season to back into a tie for the best second-place record in the National League."

- nd kalu compares chiefs fans to eagles fans. -- "This place isn't hostile... they don't know what it means to be hostile... everyone kept talking about the fans in KC... they have nothing on the guys at the Linc."

Jody McDonald Back On Air

hooray! we have an alternative to wip on the radio dial!

today was the first day of 950 wpen's format change to sports talk. they are broadcasting syndicated shows in the morning (ex-wip jock tony bruno), mid-day (jim rome of jim "chris" everett fame), and evening, but in the afternoon they are pitting jody mcdonald (ex-wip and wfan) against howard eskin.

i didn't get a chance to listen to him too much today, but i'm sure he'll be great. he is my favorite sports talk host both for his objectivity and knowledge, and is probably my second favorite radio personality overall (behind ray didinger). welcome back jody!

Game 4 Thoughts

i love going to see the games live, but it's also nice to be able to sit at home and watch multiple games too. thoughts on the early games:

- eli manning surprised me. i honestly didn't think that he was going to amount to much more than a journeyman because of his demeanor, sensitivity, and general sourness. i'd still like to see him do it against a good defense and do it after he's had some dawkins in the mush, but kudos to eli for a good outing today. looking forward to seeing what JJ comes up with for him. eli certainly won't have time to sit in the pocket with impunity like he did today.

- the eagles and the patriots like to think that parts are interchangeable, but as the eagles defense suffers without trotter, today the patriots defense suffered without their losses. the two plays that highlighted this in particular were LT's two touchdown runs. on the first TD, tomlinson ran up the middle, juked the first wave of tacklers and ran smack into chad brown. he powered brown through the last 3 yards into the endzone. ted johnson likely stops him cold here. on his second TD sweeping left, he encounters monty beisel and shrugs him off like a gnat. bruschi might have stopped him on that play.

thoughts on the birds:

- that was as bad a first half that i've seen the eagles play in the reid era... and yet they were only down 11 at the half. historically, that kind of start, especially against AFC teams on the road, dooms the birds to an entire day of so-so play. it was nice to see them turn it around and get a big win on the road.

- can we have tony gonzalez block on kearse on every passing play? kidding aside, i thought kearse played pretty well and had several momentum changing plays -- larry johnson fumble, tony gonzo ole sack, two passes knocked down.

- mike patterson played great i thought, though i must admit i am biased because he's my new favorite fat guy.

- nd kalu made a great play on patterson's sack. the tv announcers were focusing on trotter's coverage on gonzalez, but to me the guy who made the play was kalu who dropped into coverage when his pass rush was stymied.

- tough day for rod hood. he hung in there though and came up with a nice deflection on sheldon's second pick.

- can't say enough about andy reid's ability to stay level headed and not panic. even after france's blocked kick and subsequent kickoff return for a TD, andy stood on the sidelines with a wry grin. compare that with dick vermeil on the other sideline who went completely apeshit on trent green after throwing the first sheldon pick and score. i think that mindset was a big part of the difference in this game.

- as my friend ben emailed to me the other week, can we have troy aikman announce every eagles game? i think he not only is the best in the biz now, but he's the best and most insightful football analyst i've ever heard. good job by him explaining that TO was getting so wide open because KC had keyed their defense around stopping westbrook.

- the o-line played great in pass protection today. mcnabb had lots of time and had a nice pocket... but artis hicks still cannot play.

- about mcnabb. he didn't have his 'a' game today, but it was more than good enough. how sick is it that you can talk about your qb not having his 'a' game when his line was 33/48 for 369 yards 3 TDs and 1 INT? even his INT was on a play where it seemed like TO was gassed and should have been able to break up. we're looking at an nfl MVP in the making.