No More Phillies, So Now What?
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They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
If that’s true, Andy Reid is certifiably nuts.
The Corpulent One refuses to use his best players correctly and as a play-caller allows himself to fall into the same traps over and over again. Sunday night’s pivotal game against the New York Giants was a microcosm of Andy Reid’s pig-headed tenure as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. His mismanagement of the clock for the umpteenth time this decade was criminally dumb. And why he called a pitch on a 3rd and inches, we’ll never know.
The most shocking is how misused Brian Westbrook is. Arguably the best running back in the league right now, opposing defenses are not afraid of him because they know Reid will never decide to run up the gut and wear out an opposing D. If Reid committed to regular conventions of a football running game, other teams would fear Westbrook enough that the play-action pass would become one of the deadliest weapons Reid would have in his arsenal. And, if you remember, he had that idea for about two minutes when Westbrook and Terrell Owens were teammates. It worked beautifully. This means Reid either doesn’t trust his receivers, doesn’t trust his opponents’ fear of Westbrook, or doesn’t trust his quarterback to sell the fake hand-off. Either way, Reid’s abandonment of a proper running game has sacrificed the play-action pass as well as made the Eagles’ offensive schemes wholly predictable. They’re not going to go right at you, but try to cutely dance and swirl around you with fancy dump passes, shovel-passes, and end-arounds (which have actually been successful with DeSean Jackson, but we digress.)
The Eagles will either win beautifully or lose ugly, but it seems they will never win a smash-mouth game under Andy Reid. And they certainly won’t win important games in the last two minutes.
Hilariously enough, the Giants loss was not all Pop ‘N’ Fresh’s fault. The Eagles’ defensive line was absolutely manhandled by the Giants’ offense, who average 4.9 yards per carry. Brandon Jacobs, on his own, had 5.7.
Finally, in addition to their inability to stop New York’s run attack and Reid’s inability to manage a two-minute drill or play a short-yardage game, the Eagles had to contend with a couple very shaky officiating calls.
Now, let’s get this straight, they probably would have lost the game anyway, but when bad officiating leaves the outcome of a game in doubt, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of everyone involved.
The most egregious call was Eli Manning’s pass that was clearly thrown past the line of scrimmage. It was called as such and how there was enough evidence to reverse it is beyond us, but it was fun to hear 60,000 people channel their inner-Walter Sobchak and scream, "OVER THE LINE!" in unison. The other call that raised the ire of the fans was Jacobs’ “alleged” fumble in the end zone. Now let’s look at this rationally instead of placating the national media and screaming our heads off.
It was a borderline call, and a tough one to make, but it certainly leaned towards a fumble. Put it this way, if there was enough evidence to reverse the illegal pass on Manning, there was enough evidence to reverse the touchdown for Jacobs.
Take those seven points away from the G-Men and we have a real game, or at least one decided by the players without the specter of doubt. After the Ed Hochuli nonsense earlier this year, and the questionable calls on an almost weekly basis since, we would not want to be an NFL referee up for review this off-season.
On a final note, CNN proved how little journalistic integrity they have after they ran this ditty on their “Political Ticker” blog. It’s from Alexander Marquardt and it advances every negative stereotype any outsider has on this city based on lazy observations and just plain shitty journalism. Marquardt reports that Vice-President-elect Joe Biden attended the Eagles game last night and was summarily booed by Philly fans because, I guess, we hate Vice Presidents?
Someone get this jackass a clue, please.
Do some research, Alex. Sarah Palin was booed by Flyers fans because A) Philly is overwhelmingly Democratic, B) She made everyone with similar beliefs look stupid, and C) Fans were smart enough to know they were being played for political gain by Flyers’ owner Ed Snider. Any numbskull watching Sunday night’s game or with the journalistic integrity to investigate something before they report on it would know that Eli Manning committed an intentional grounding penalty that was (surprise, surprise) not called by the refs immediately before NBC panned up to Vice-President-elect Biden.
So for those of you who can’t do simple math (we’re looking at you Mr. Marquardt), Eagles fans were booing Eli Manning and the refs, NOT Vice-President-elect Biden. After Barack Obama was elected president last Tuesday, thousands of Philadelphians celebrated in the street, so please tell us why we would boo his running-mate 5 days later?
Even if you didn’t know about the intentional grounding non-call on Eli, perhaps mention that Biden was sitting near Eagles’ owner, Jeffrey Lurie, who called the Eagles the NFL’s “Gold Standard,” without ever winning a Super-Bowl. Maybe in a game were the Birds played more like bronze than gold, fans were just a little frustrated with their negligent absentee owner?
But lazy journalism and general stupidity are not why Alexander Marquardt is a tool. No, he went above and beyond by pulling this out of his bag of gems, “Eagles fans also infamously threw snowballs at Santa Claus at a December 1968 game.”
Ugh. Not again.
It was 40 freakin’ years ago! Not to mention that the Santa in question was a skinny kid the team picked out of a crowd before halftime and was, in all fairness, a crappy Santa (but he WAS sober, despite the legend).
Look, a lot of what Philly fans do is pretty indefensible, but do you HAVE to go back to the “Snowballs at Santa” well? It’s not that it isn’t a fair argument, we’re just all so sick of hearing it.
So basically, thanks for coming out Alexander Marquardt. If you were an opera, you’d be FAILstaff. And yes, that fulfilled our nerd-joke quota for the week.
Image credit: Sportslogos.net
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It's hard to believe that the Eagles can't trust their passing game. Desean, Hank "Put the Lotion in the" Baskett and Curtis are more than reliable. Is it their lack of faith in Donovan McNabb to be able to actually throw the ball at the hands of these receivers? The game was a sloppy mess and yet another loss this season that could have easily been a win.
How Long Have We Been Saying "GET RID OF REID'
I actually disagree with you about the "Over the line of scrimmage" and phantom fumble plays. But even so, that's neither here nor there. Except in the most egregious of cases, I'm not one to blame losses on bad calls. Bad calls happen, and as many bad calls go for you as against you in the end. The good teams find ways to ensure that the bad calls won't make a difference in the game in the first place.
Andy's characteristically uninspired play-calling has gotten to be too much to bear—especially the atrocious calls on 3rd and 4th down at the end of the game. It was the Bear goal-line snafu all over again. Isn't insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?
I've also completely had it with Donovan having that "Aww, shucks" look on his face when things don't go right, and Andy having that expressionless look of non-understanding how his idiotic plan didn't work. How 'bout some passion? How 'bout some fire? How 'bout going to the sideline and throwing a helmet, or getting in someone's face?
Totally with you, Ross.
I say they were shitty calls because of the evidence they were based on and the rules for overturning a play. That said, they lost that game because Reid mismanaged it again and the D-Line got molested.
That "Aw Shucks" look kills me too. The Phillies World Championship grace period does not extend to Reid and McNabb.
Not being able to get over the hump to a championship is frustrating but I disagree with getting rid of Reid. I lived through the years of Kotite, Rhodes and of course the Swamp Fox. I'd rather have Reid's 10 years of winning than a return to that mess. Reid has the highest winning percentage of any Eagles coach that coached more than 2 games.* Sorry, I realize he is frustrating at times, but he has brought more success to the franchise than anyone else ever has.
*If you advocate the return of Bo McMillin or Fred Bruney, I can't argue with you.
The question isn't whether he's better than anyone the Eagles have had before, because that's a no-brainer. The real issue is whether he's the best that the Eagles can do right now. Sadly, I suspect that the answer is yes, but I'm not going to give the guy a free pass just because we've done better than we had been doing before he arrived. And I'm not going to cease screaming for Marty Mornhinweg to snatch that laminated play chart out of Andy's hands and beat him over the head with it.
I actually think it's a Chinese Food menu and not a play chart, but that's just me.
OK, even though this article seems to support your points about Andy Reid, I think it proves mine instead:
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/8789616/The-10-best-and-10-worst-NFL-coaches
Yes, they went there and named Andy Reid the worst coach in the NFL.
But look at the source. "Big Sexy"* is the biggest moron in the sports journalism business. And if you agree with him, just remember, this is a man that actively campaigns every year for a team to sign Jeff George, believing he can still be a starter in the NFL. I rest my case.
*Yes, Whitlock calls himself "Big Sexy"
Whitlock could never be the biggest moron in sports journalism when names like Skip Bayless, Gregg Easterbrook, and Stuart Scott still run amok.
I like Easterbrook and I am not so sure he can be considered a sports journalist.
As for Bayless, Scott, Screamin A. and Bill Conlin...I am not sure I can pick the biggest moron. Well, Whitlock and Conlin are the "biggest," but you know what I mean.
Conlin's pretty awful, especially cuz he's a local guy so I read him more than Bayless et. al.
But I have to see Screamin' A. and Bayless on TV, which makes it worse.
As for Whitlock, I'd say I like him more than I don't. He was the only one not screaming for Don Imus' blood, and I really respected that.
I respected Whitlock for that at the time, I just wish he would be consistent. He flip flops on the issues so much that I can't take him seriously. It always appears to me that it depends on how much he likes/dislikes the person as to which side he takes.
Just as I told Ross months ago...who cares about the regular season, they'll make the playoffs no problem.