Scoreboard watching seems so unnatural in football. It just doesn’t fit. The pace of the game and the way the schedule is set up makes it difficult and underscores the fact that George Carlin missed one difference between football and baseball in his famous bit. Here:

Yet not-so strangely enough, the Eagles are left to scoreboard watch in Week 17. Worse, there is a chance that the Eagles will know their playoff fate – yay or nay – before they kick it off against the Cowboys at the Linc next Sunday. That means the team  has to sit around and hope the Buccaneers or Bears lose and then it has to go beat the Cowboys, who need to win to get in.

What a pain.

But doesn’t it just figure that Andy Reid and the Eagles are in this spot?

And doesn’t just figure that the Eagles lost Sunday’s game by a yard with no timeouts remaining after a pass into the middle of the field?

Doesn’t that just personify the entire Andy Reid Era? He burned up all the timeouts long before the team really needed them, threw the ball way too much and answered all the same old questions the same old way.

“You guys aren’t very creative,” Reid answered when asked about having to answer the same old questions after every loss.

Sigh!

Takes one to know one.

Regardless, the most important point seems to be that Andy Reid continued yet another miserable trend during his decade-long run in Philadelphia. That trend? Reid has lost the biggest game of the season every single year.

Every single one of them.

No, this isn’t to say Reid’s run has been a failure because that would be wrong. Plus, the Eagles definitely have won some pretty big games over the last decade. But, in the biggest game of every season, the Eagles have lost every one. Certainly this fact is often determined long after the fact and Reid is hardly the only Eagles’ coach to accomplish this dubious feat. After all, we’re heading into the sixth decade without a title in Eagles-ville.

But it’s pretty difficult to dig up another bunch of Eagles teams that have been blessed with so much talent over such an extended period of time. Yet somehow Reid and his gang somehow figure out a way to come up with nothing at the end.

Maybe that’s more maddening than the press conferences and the play calling.

Looking back at January

We kick off our revisiting of 2008 at the beginning. Back then we still had no idea what was in store for us, though with the aid of hindsight we could see the seeds being planted. For instance, in January the Mets went out and got ace pitcher Johan Santana.

The Phillies?

Pedro Feliz.

In no particular order here are the notable events of January 2008:

  • Goose Gossage elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the antiquated secret society called the Baseball Writers Association of America.
  • Roger Clemens went on “60 Minutes” to tell America he takes his vitamins.
  • Donovan McNabb creates a controversy when wrote on his blog that the Eagles need more “weapons.” Sheesh… just think if he would have gone to Mexico with Jessica Simpson.
  • Terrell Owens cried.
  • Mike Lieberthal announced his retirement.
  • The Phillies got Pedro Feliz.
  • Not even close

    Finally, here are some predictions I made back in January… nope, I wasn’t very close on any of them.

  • Despite a 15-win season from Adam Eaton, the Phillies finish third in the NL East.
  • After drafting an offensive lineman with the top pick, Andy Reid replaces Joe Banner as COO of the Eagles.
  • Curt Schilling writes an entry on his blog telling himself to shutup.
  • Scott Rolen finally finds a manager he can play for… it’s Charlie Manuel!
  • The Patriots lose in their first playoff game after the 16-0 season.
  • It turns out that Roger Clemens never took performance-enhancing drugs, but, as it turns out, he shot Ol’ Yeller.
  • No athletes test positive in the Tour de France and Beijing Olympics.

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