Eagles playoff football: Worst losses ever

Once again the Eagles ended a season filled with promise and expectation with a frustrating defeat in the playoffs. Under head coach Andy Reid, it’s an annual rite of January that his team will frustrate and underwhelm when the playoffs begin. That’s just what the Eagles do when the playoffs start.

This time it was the Green Bay Packers who perplexed Reid with a rarely seen running attack that just made the Eagles’ inability to cash in on opportunities all the more maddening.

You know… different year, same crash-landing result.

So as the Eagles push into their second half-century without a championship (the third-longest drought amongst NFL teams and 15 years longer than the Flyers’ epic run without a title amongst Philly teams) it’s only fair to size up the latest failure with the other mind-numbing defeats.

Here are the Eagles’ worst non-Super Bowl losses in the playoffs in no particular order of disappointment:

2003 NFC Championship at Lincoln Financial Field (Jan. 18, 2004)

Panthers 14, Eagles 3

You know the phrase, “It was like watching paint dry…” In the case of this game such a statement would be unfair to paint, the color spectrum and the periodic chart of elements. Truth is, it would have been preferable to watch paint dry than this football game.

Usually the numbers don’t tell the entire story of a game, but this one sure did. Donovan McNabb, playing with torn cartilage in his ribs, went 10-for-22 with 100 yards passing and three interceptions by 5-foot-9 cornerback, Ricky Manning Jr. Eventually, Koy Detmer came on to relieve McNabb, but it wasn’t enough to boost the Eagles.

Of course what would a playoff loss in the playoffs be without complaints of Reid’s coaching moves? What would we talk about if we weren’t befuddled about the coach’s decade-long aversion to a running game… even when it’s working? The word after this game was that lineman Jon Runyan pleaded with the coaches to keep running the ball, especially since Correll Buckhalter and Duce Staley combined for 137 rushing yards.

No, this one might not have been the most disappointing loss in team history, but it was easily the ugliest.

2002 NFC Championship at Veterans Stadium (Jan. 19, 2003)

Buccaneers 27, Eagles 10

This one began with Brian Mitchell’s 70-yard kickoff return to set up a touchdown run by Duce Staley that had the old stadium shaking behind the raucousness of the fans in its final football game. It ended with Ronde Barber returning an interception 92 yards with a crowd so quiet that Barber could be heard celebrating his run in the upper reaches of the stadium.

From here the Buccaneers went on to trounce the Raiders in a Super Bowl most thought was destined to be the Eagles’ to lose… only if they got there, of course. In fact, the scene in the parking lot before the game was as celebratory as it could get without the brush fires or flipped over cars. There was even one enthusiastic gentleman in moll of the parking-lot scene urging the Eagles to “Beat the Bucs” while parading around with a deer head trophy.

Wrong type of Bucs, dude.

Maybe we should have seen how it was going to turn out based off the overconfidence beforehand?

1988 NFC Divisional Game at Soldier Field (Dec. 31, 1988)

Bears 20, Eagles 12

The Fog Bowl

Unbelievably, Randall Cunningham threw for 407 yards on 27-for-54 passing with 254 of those yards spread amongst Keith Byers and Keith Jackson. However, Cunningham also threw three interceptions and by the time the thick fog rolled in off Lake Michigan and visibility was reduced to nothing, the Eagles’ chances of finding the end zone also disappeared.

Unbelievably, The Fog Bowl seems like something perfectly suited to happen to the post-1960 Eagles. That’s especially the case for the late-80s to mid-90s versions of the team where it could be argued that those Eagles’ teams were amongst the most talented in NFL history to never win a Super Bowl. It was almost as if the Eagles of this era had a starting pitching rotation with four aces but couldn’t quite get to where they were supposed to be.

The Fog Bowl personified this era. The Eagles, specifically Cunningham, did everything but score a touchdown and win the game. And for once, it seemed as if the folks watching at home and the players on the field saw the same exact things. The same goes for Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw calling the action in the broadcast booth:

Lundquist: "Cunningham will throw … or run. Sacked for the fourth time. Wait a minute …"

Bradshaw: "He got rid of the ball, Verne."

Lundquist: "Must have. He completed it to somebody. And we're not trying to make light of this, but it is actually impossible for us to see the field."

Cunningham says the Eagles could have played with more than 11 players and no one would have been the wiser.

“When that fog rolled in, you might as well close your eyes and close up the shop,” Cunningham told ESPN.com. “That was it.”

The fog rolled in late in the second quarter with the Bears leading 17-6. From that point all the Bears had to do was go into a stall… for 30 minutes. Nevertheless, Bears quarterback Mike Tomczak insists the game was won because the Bears were better.

No so, defensive stalwart Seth Joyner told ESPN.com.

“Some wins you win by domination, and some wins you win by default,” Joyner said. “He needs to go back and look at the film.”

Needless to say, there are a lot of Eagles’ playoff games that could be said about.

1978 NFC Wild-Card Game at Fulton County Stadium (Dec. 24, 1978)

Falcons 14, Eagles 13

When punter Mike Michel was forced into kicking duties and missed an extra-point in the first quarter, it hardly seemed like a big deal. After all, with five minutes to go in the game the Eagles led 13-0 and were poised to win their first postseason game since the 1960 NFL Championship.

But Falcons’ QB Steve Bartkowski threw two touchdown passes to take the lead, with the game-winner coming on a 37-yard pass to Wallace Francis with 1:39 to go in the game. Actually, it was the ensuing extra point that proved to be the winning score in the first-ever wild-card playoff game (video).

Still, the Eagles had a chance to win the game. Ron Jaworski appeared to have hit rookie Oren Middlebrook at the goal line with 45 seconds left, but the ball fell out of the receiver’s hands. Jaworski overthrew Harold Carmichael with 17 seconds left, to set up a 34-yard field goal attempt, but of course, Michel shanked it.

Needless to say, that spring coach Dick Vermeil drafted barefoot kicker Tony Franklin in the third round of the and Michel, just 24, never appeared in another NFL game.

So why was Michel kicking at all and why didn’t Vermeil go out and get a real kicker when starter (and Temple alum) Nick Mike-Meyer went down with a rib injury? Better yet, why didn’t Vermeil get a real kicker before the Eagles’ first playoff game in 18 seasons especially since Michel missed three of the 12 extra points he attempted? Good questions, huh…

Actually, reports from 1978 say Vermeil did try out a bunch of kickers only Michel was the best of the bunch in practice. Though the missed kick was Michel’s last play in an NFL game (his 35.8 yards per punt average not good enough to get him a job punting), reports were that Michel rarely missed in practice. Nevertheless, kicking in practice against some guys off the street and in the playoffs is a little different.

Daily News beat writer Gary Smith, now with Sports Illustrated, wrote:

This was like taking a driver’s ed class at the Indy 500.

Sunday’s defeat was nowhere as bad as losing because of a missed extra point or because the fog was too thick to run the offense. But then again, when it comes to losses in the playoffs Andy Reid deals in quantity, not quality.

Reid says everything by saying nothing

Typically, a guy could set his watch during one of Andy Reid’s post-game press conferences. In fact, it usually took just about three minutes after all the throat clearing and injury updates when I would reach down and grab my right shoe and fire it hard as possible at the television set.

Wide left.

Unbowed, it would take a minute more of evasiveness and non-answers until I would grab my left-footed Chuck Taylor with my right hand and do my best impression of some sort of dissident journalist. Luckily my aim was bad.

So out of ammo and not willing to get up and dig into the couch cushions for the remote, I’d watch Andy Reid’s head mounted on the TV screen as if it were a prized trophy elk. The eyes on the thing were almost lifelike as they scan the room to focus a fuzzy gaze on the questioner. Oh, what those eyes must have seen! Babbling brooks, the greenest brush sprawling under a canopy of stately oaks, squirrels and rabbits and birds.

Then here comes the shoe-throwing idiot trying to take him down with some rubber sole to the dome.

Sometimes press conferences just aren’t fair.

Look, Andy Reid didn’t do anything wrong by sitting in front of the cameras and recorders while attempting to deconstruct Sunday night’s big victory over the New York Giants, nor was he exactly revealing, either. However, unlike in the past where his lips would move and sound would emanate from his mouth, the non-words and mish-mash of words that began to sound like the teacher from the Charlie Brown cartoons weren’t that offensive.

I didn’t go for my shoes.

Andy Reid’s verbosity in press conferences is nothing new. In fact, Reid’s brevity is analyzed so much in these parts that it’s a cliché. Sports comedians in Philly have two standard impressions in their arsenal—Charlie Manuel’s Appalachian twang and Andy Reid clearing his throat to talk about someone’s groin injury. Get Charlie away from the cameras and he’ll drop some pearls on you and regale one and all with tales about playing ball for Billy Martin and against Sadaharu Oh in Japan. Reid is probably the same way—get the guy away from the glare and he’s probably brimming with stories and wisdom.

Hey, if the guy doesn’t like to talk to a room full of strangers, what are you going to do?

No, the thing that’s most interesting to ponder is the idea that sports press conferences could imitate those serious affairs with political types. More specifically, think if the local scribes just starting hucking shoes around the first time they got offended. It would be a hail of white sneakers and old loafers flying through the air like moths buzzing an outdoor light. Media folks have a low threshold to begin with, and it’s not just the subjects on the dais with the microphone that should duck and cover. The local media will turn on each other like angry snakes with an empty stomach if given the chance.

So what’s the point? OK, try this… maybe Reid is loosening up. No, it’s tough to tell from the way things unfold after the game, but the color-coded tension level has dropped to something like a warm earth tone. Remember how it was when Donovan McNabb was still the quarterback? Heck, remember how it was after the opener when Kevin Kolb was moved from the starting QB spot and players were sent back into the game despite suffering concussions. Back then, Reid had to bob and weave Sugar Ray Leonard against Roberto Duran in the “No Mas” fight.

Reid seems relaxed these days. Why not? At 7-3 the Eagles just might be the class of the NFC. The interesting part, though, is how it got to this point. It was simple, actually. All Reid had to do yank Kolb in favor of Sports Illustrated cover boy, Michael Vick, duck and cover from the flying shoes and poison pens and hope that everything would fall into place.

It was that simple.

Still, who would have guessed that 10 weeks after the Week 1 debacle that Reid would be riding Vick’s coattails to a coach-of-the-year bid? Better yet, with Vick behind center the conservative coach (with a penchant for gadget plays), is making calls he never made with McNabb. That fourth-down play that turned into a long TD run for LeSean McCoy is not a call Reid would have made with McNabb.

“Michael Vick is playing out of his mind right now, and that’s a beautiful thing,” Reid said during his press conference.

That is the old coach opening up and letting it all out.

Stop making sense

For a guy who drives great distances to get to work/games, I really don’t listen to sports talking on the radio. There are many reasons for this and none of them are an indictment on the genre itself. Hey, people like to talk about sports and they like to listen to the radio when they drive. It’s a happy marriage.

But it’s not really a mode of communication one can sink their teeth into. That’s not a knock on sports talking radio, it’s just the way it is. See, sports radio happens in real time. It’s a continuous thing that exists for a second and then blows away in the wind, kind of like real life or something metaphysical like that.

However, the topics discussed are singular, static moments. Sports news happens and then that’s it. So in order to discuss certain topics, speculation and referencing “sources” often pushes the conversation. Come on… if you’re just putting the news out there and allowing it to stand by itself, it doesn’t make for a great time, does it?

Still, it all makes my head hurt. It’s like eating Fruity Pebbles all the time instead of going for something healthy. Look, I like Fruity Pebbles as much as the next guy and I could eat it all day. However, if I do that for too long it’s going to have a serious affect. It might even kill me, not unlike that movie where that dude went around eating McDonald’s morning, noon and night. After a day or two it stopped being fun or even funny.

Nevertheless, it’s kind of like when some huge real-life news occurs and everyone dials up CNN or MSNBC or something (I’d say FoxNews, but you know…) to find out what’s going on. Apparently the Eagles were/are on the verge of trading Donovan McNabb, which is kind of like a historical moment for the Philadelphia sporting scene. It’s a really big deal, to say the least.

So I dialed it up for the ride home and strangely it took only five minutes for my head to start hurting.

Again, that’s no fault of the medium, the hosts or the genre. It’s just that there isn’t a lot of real information out there aside from the stuff coming from “sources.” Having spent a large portion of my adult life mingling with “sources,” I understand that those dudes will say anything. Sometimes they even know what they’re talking about, too. In fact, my “sources” are usually more right than wrong, but that’s only with what I tell other people. Some of the crazier things they trot out there are really freakin’ crazy.

Whew! I can’t wait to write that book.

Anyway, my head was spinning from all the teams and speculation on other teams that weren’t named by “sources.” There were the Rams, Raiders and Vikings. There were first-round draft picks and defensive backs speculated upon. Legacies both past and present were bandied about.

It was a big mess and it made my head hurt.

After listening from approximately the time it took to get from the Wachovia Center to the part on the Expressway where it seems like eight lanes converge into one with the Art Museum looming above the psychotic automotive mess, I was done. I tapped out, but not for the reason most would think. It was for another reason of my own creation and one that needed me to quiet things down with some podcasts of Terry Gross’ show, “Fresh Air.”

Has there ever been a radio program so aptly named?

So what was the thought that sent me scrambling for the dial with one hand while using the other to steer into rush hour traffic on the Schuylkill? OK, try this out…

What happens if Donovan McNabb comes back to the Eagles next season? Really, what happens then?

It seems as if we are so resigned to the fact that McNabb will be traded away soon that we could forget the notion that we really don’t know what’s happening. Yes, the guys reporting on the story are doing terrific work and are finding out facts that have helped it all make sense. Still, when sports executives say something in front of recorders, microphones and cameras, it really should be taken with a grain of salt or whatever it is one takes when they converse with someone known for being less than truthful.

It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that McNabb will be introduced as the starting quarterback for the Eagles in the home opener next September. And if that happens, what then?

How will the fans react? How will the media types react?

Better yet, what will a return by McNabb mean for Andy Reid and the Eagles? After all, there was a reason why quarterback Kevin Kolb was selected with a second-round draft pick, just as there was a reason why the team signed Michael Vick. If the Eagles are simply going to keep McNabb, what was it Reid and the gang were doing when they got those other quarterbacks?

Really, what were they thinking?

That’s why it won’t be a huge shock if nothing happens. No one really knows what goes through those heads they have over there at the NovaCare complex. Maybe they just really, really like the attention, which is why they are allowing this mess to drag out as long as it has. Actually, it seems as if there ought to be smoke coming out of the top of the place as if they were electing a pope.

Who’s the new (or old) guy? Apparently any guess is as good as anything.

What are words for (again with the Missing Persons)?

I didn’t learn anything today. Not one scrap of information or insight into a topic. Nada. Generally, I approach the day with the hope that some morsel of knowledge will lodge itself into the locus of my mind, but sometimes that’s just hit or miss.

Obviously, today was a miss.

Chalk it up to the company I kept. For instance, I planned my morning around the fact that I wanted to tune into the day-after press conference starring Andy Reid hoping to face a veritable barrage of clichés, doublespeak and non-answer answers. You know, the same reason everyone tunes into those press conferences.

However, this afternoon when Reid faced the music after the ugly, 34-14 defeat in the first round of the playoffs to the Dallas Cowboys, the session was even more flummoxing than usual. In fact, I counted just two instances where Reid claimed that he needed to “do a better job,” and three variations of the phrase “myself” when owning up to the responsibility of Saturday night’s debacle before I quit counting. Those are rather paltry numbers for a man who loves a cliché as much as he loves oxygen, black clothing and pedestrian offensive schemes.

What happened was there was a departure from his regular tact of cliché use and taking the long way around to answer a direct question. Instead, on Monday after noon Reid simply decided he wasn’t going to say anything at all. Nothing revealing, interesting or even the least bit contemplative.

He just said nothing.

Oh there were actual words dropping from Reid’s mouth, but if one gathered them all up from the stew they formed there at the podium and rearranged them, there might have been a whole paragraph. It might have been coherent, too.

No one expected Reid to say much when asked about the future of his quarterback and running back and why his team looked so ill-prepared for a playoff game. But even for a man of Reid’s ability to say nothing, Monday’s performance was particularly exquisite. Every once in a while he taunted the reporters with something that seemed like it was going somewhere, like when he said he had, “three stinking good quarterbacks that could play in this league. … I don’t want to give up any of them. I like them all. The more you have, the better you are.” But then he wouldn’t say which stinking guy he liked best.

That stinks.

If that wasn’t enough, Mark McGwire came on the TV with Bob Costas for his first interview since, well… since he was knocking satellites out of the sky with mammoth home runs on an episode of The Simpsons. But where Reid said nothing, McGwire said a lot. He even got a little weepy when telling Costas about all the people he disappointed either by doing steroids during his playing career, or copping to it on Monday. I’m not sure which.

Where McGwire got off track wasn’t by speaking in circles, because by all intents McGwire appeared to be speaking earnestly. No, McGwire’s problem was that he was just wrong. He was wrong about why he did steroids, why he continued doing them, what they actually did to help him knock satellites to the earth with home runs that went to outer space, and why he was admitting it now.

Either McGwire didn’t understand what he was talking about or he thinks people are stupid… and that’s just mean. But hey, thanks for crying.

“I did this for health purposes. There’s no way I did this for any type of strength purposes,” he said, noting that he was ready to retire when injuries limited him to just 74 total games in 1993 and 1994.

Yet when he was healthy, he kept on taking it and even dabbled with HGH, “once or twice.”

No, he could not pinpoint the number of times he injected a needle full of human growth hormone into the folds of his stomach.

Still, the part that makes one arch the eyebrows, scratch the head and/or chuck a shoe at the television set was when McGwire claimed that steroids did not help him when he played. They helped his health, sure, but not his performance.

So why was he crying again?

“I truly believe I was given the gifts from the man upstairs of being a home run hitter, ever since … birth,” McGwire said. “My first hit as a Little Leaguer was a home run. I mean, they still talk about the home runs I hit in high school, in Legion ball. I led the nation in home runs in college, and then all the way up to my rookie year, 49 home runs.

The strangest part, of course, was when McGwire kept saying that he wished that he never played in the so-called “steroid era” of baseball.

“I wish I had never touched steroids,” he said. “It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.”

Oh, so that’s it… it was the era. And here we were thinking a guy just made a bad choice and he was on national cable television confessing to Bob Costas. But now that we know it was just the era we can keep our eyes open. For instance, if it was Dec. 31, 1889 people knew that the “Gay Nineties” were about to begin and they could act accordingly. One hundred years later, Mark McGwire realized that the “Steroid Era” was in bloom and got to work.

You should have seen how greedy he was in the 1980s and how he could strut like John Travolta in the ’70s.

So that leads us to the main point—is it better to be terse and unrevealing like Reid or a veritable chatter box and wrong like McGwire.  Easy call if you ask me.

Chewing up the cupcakes

We were sitting in a restaurant on the 16th Street Mall in Denver watching the early football games and just wiling away the time before Game 3 of the NLDS when the text messages started rolling in.

“What is with those brown uniforms the Broncos are wearing?”

It was true. In some sort of tribute to earth tones, the AFL, or Al Davis, the NFL thought it would be a neat idea for the Broncos to where brown, yellow and white. It was similar to the San Diego Padres color scheme from the 1970s, only uglier and with a picture of a horse. The throwback uniforms the Broncos wore on Oct. 11 defied the notion that NFL stands for “No Fun League,” because whoever came up with the idea to wear those duds clearly had an excellent sense of humor.

But that part doesn’t matter now.

“Are you watching the Cowboys get beat by the Chiefs? Wade Phillips will get fired after this one.”

That was the jest of the majority of the text that floated in. Indeed the Cowboys-Chiefs game was showing on one of the screens, and sure enough Phillips’ 2-2 club had their hands full with a 0-4 team. The Cowboys and Phillips definitely looked like they were in trouble when the Chiefs scored a touchdown with 24 seconds left in the game to force overtime.

Miles Austin might have saved the season that day for the Cowboys based on the messages I was getting. The receivers 60-yard TD catch won it in OT and capped off a 10-catch, 250-yard effort. More notable, after the game Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones said Philips wasn’t going anywhere…

Yet.

Perhaps that scare from the Chiefs was the kick in the rear the Cowboys needed? Including that game, the Cowboys won six of their next seven before going on a three-game winning streak to end that season in which they notched two straight shutouts for the first time in team history and knocked off the 13-0 New Orleans Saints.

Of course none of that will matter if the Cowboys lose to the Eagles in the first-round playoff game on Saturday night, but think about it for a sec—Philips and the Cowboys were on the precipice and responded. Additionally, they very well could have the hottest defense in the league headed into the playoffs.

Getting two shutouts in a row is not as easy as the Cowboys made it look.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia the Eagles were busy patting themselves on the back during the six-game winning streak that carried them into last week’s debacle. So pleased with the way things were going the team’s brass gave coach Andy Reid a contract extension.

“This is just another statement by Jeffrey (Lurie) and Joe (Banner) to say we have the top organization in the National Football League,” Reid said.

Indeed it was something like that. After all, you can’t argue with the bottom line—Reid and the Eagles went 11-5 this year and set the franchise record for points in a season. He also has the most wins in franchise history and been to the playoffs eight times in 11 years.

That’s not too bad.

But there’s something about all those points and the 11 wins that feels a bit hollow this season. Maybe it’s because the Eagles were 0-4 against teams in the playoffs and they won just one game against a team with a winning record.

That’s not too good considering Banner has claimed his team has the best roster in all of football. Oh yes, they’re very fond of themselves with all that “Gold Standard” talk. But it makes one scratch their head and wonder why the Eagles can’t beat any good teams.

Like maybe more than once.

Good teams beat good teams. So if we’re going to define Reid’s legacy as anything it’s that he certainly knows how to plow through a schedule full of cupcakes. True, Reid has a 10-7 record in the playoffs, but seven of those wins are in the first round, while five of the losses have come in a championship game where the opponent has been legit.

Want to talk about the bottom line? OK, if the Eagles don’t win it this season, it will be a half a century—50 years—since a team from Philadelphia was the champion of the NFL.

"Maybe just too much effort," Reid said when asked about his teams' failure in the biggest games of the year.

Oh yes, the trying-too-hard argument.

Gold standard? How about the Chicago Cubs of football?

Nevertheless, the sentiment out of Dallas is that despite an 11-win season and an NFC East title, Phillips is gone of the Cowboys lose.

Reid? Yeah, he’ll be back—win or lose.

Where's the hot seat?

I’m not going to pretend to be a football expert or even someone who knows anything about football aside from what was learned at J.P. McCaskey High School in the late 1980s. So with that in mind please excuse me if the next question is… well, dumb. Anyway, here it comes:

Why is Andy Reid still the coach of the Eagles? Or, at the very least why isn’t he at least sitting on the ol’ hot seat?

Is this not a fair question?

Perhaps Joe Torre’s “firing” means any coach or manager – no matter how successful – is fair game. In that regard maybe Andy Reid’s biggest crime is the same as Torre’s in that they were too successful. Torre, of course, managed the New York Yankees for 12 seasons and took them to the playoffs for an unprecedented 12 straight years. He won the World Series four times, lost it twice and racked up 1,173 regular-season victories.

But, Torre did not win the World Series since 2000 and was not able to take the Yankees back to the Series since losing to the Marlins in 2003. Clearly, such a long drought was unacceptable to the Yankees’ new bumbling and egomaniacal bosses.

Never mind the fact that the egomania was built on the back of Torre’s success.

Football, of course, is a different animal than baseball. There are many more players and coaches and much more specialization. They have meetings about having meetings in football and truth be told, almost all meetings are a waste of time. Worse, they have meetings on the field before every single play. Baseball, it sometimes seems, is also becoming far too specialized, which makes for a less-interesting game to watch. Even worse, the coach actually walks onto the field to discuss strategy, which seems really odd.

Is there another sport that allows the coach to go onto the field during the middle of the game? Hell, tennis doesn’t even allow coaches to sit on the sidelines.

Anyway, the only reason I ask about Reid and his future with the Eagles is more because of Charlie Manuel than Joe Torre. After all, for three seasons Charlie Manuel was scrutinized over the tiniest bit of minutia regarding his job performance and his personality. Fans and media called for Manuel’s head because, as they pointed out, he wasn’t smart enough. They based this on the notion that he couldn’t pull off a double-switch and because he was from Virginia and talked funny.

You know, because the double-switch is the most important move a baseball manager ever makes and because that Philly accent sounds so intelligent. And yes, I was using the sarcasm font.

So if Charlie Manuel can win more games in his first three seasons than any other manager in franchise history save for the guy who had Grover Cleveland Alexander pitching for him, and get the team to the playoffs for the first time in a decade-and-a-half while some folks are genuinely upset over his two-year contract extension, why isn’t Andy Reid feeling the heat?

Look, I know the Eagles just passed through the most successful era in franchise history and that they got to the NFC Championship for four seasons in a row. But it’s over. According to people that know better, the Eagles do not have the players needed to fit into their schemes. Even with the pass-happy offense, Reid’s Eagles don’t seem to have the receivers they need to make now immobile quarterback Donovan McNabb more effective. Actually, the Eagles did have the receiver they needed to make the rather pedantic offense good, but they ran that guy out of town because he was a diva.

Seriously, how does a coach help run the best player on the team out of town and still keep his job? Lawyers are always looking for a precedent when contemplating trying a case – is there a previous instance of a coach “firing” the best and most effective player on the team and staying on the job?

Again, I’m no expert on the NFL or the Eagles so excuse my ignorance. But as an outsider looking in from a cursory view I don’t understand why Reid isn’t feeling more pressure. Or maybe he is and I just don’t know enough to make a more intelligent point. But how come it’s OK for him to continuously take the “responsibility” for a bad game, or to tell the press that he/we “must do a better job?” He did it again after the loss to the Bears yesterday when quarterback Brian Griese marched his team 97 yards with less than two minutes to go for the winning touchdown.

He does this ad nauseam to the point that it should make one nauseous.

It seems that he has used the “responsibility” and “better job” edict so much that there ought to be consequences by now. Worse, the mistakes that necessitate such excuses are chronic and have been for a long time.

Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue with the track record no matter how angry fans seem to be after watching the games on Sunday. The Inquirer notes these facts in the Oct. 14, 2007 issues:

Since Reid took over as the Eagles' coach in 1999, the 31 other teams have combined to fire and hire a total of 91 coaches. Discounting rookie head coaches, 36 of the 91 never made a playoff appearance with the team they coached. Nine others failed to win a playoff game.

Under Reid the Eagles have been really good. But it doesn’t seem as if the Eagles are going to win their first title since 1960 any time in the near future. This idea would remain unchanged even if the Eagles were 3-3 instead of 2-4.

Anyway, I’m not one of those guys who profess to know everything. That’s why I ask… maybe I just don’t get Andy Reid.

Am I the only one?

Other observations

• There was no way that Manny Ramirez would have thrown out Kenny Lofton at the plate during the seventh inning of last night’s ALCS Game 7. But Lofton not scoring the run that would have tied the game at 3 is not why the Indians lost the game… but it didn’t help.

• It’s official: The Red Sox and Yankees have traded places. The Red Sox are the big-monied team that is maniacally organized and always seems to have the means to get the right player to step in at the perfect time, while the Yankees are the team that replaces the manager despite going to the playoffs year after year.

• Is there a more entertaining/maddening player than Manny Ramirez?

• Terry Francona is heading to his second World Series in four seasons with Boston… how come the Phillies can’t get a guy like that?

Oh yeah… never mind.

• Finally, the Phillies released their schedule for 2008. They open the season against the Nationals on March 31 after another one of those exhibition two-game series on March 28 and 29 against Toronto.

Other highlights include a two-game series in Colorado on April 21 and 22 before the return matchup at the Bank on May 26, 27 and 28. Interleague-wise the Phillies host the Red Sox and Angels starting June 16.

For the rest of the schedule, click here.

To punt or not to punt

So we’re still talking about 4th-and-15. Of course by “we” I mean the royal “we.” You know, the editorial “we.” Nevertheless, “we” still would have punted on the 4th-and-15 even though there was only 1:56 left in the game and the Eagles appeared to have converted on the 4th-and-10 before it was nullified on a penalty.

Initially, I wasn’t aware that there was 1:56 remaining in the game, which kind of changed things a little bit. With so little time remaining the proverbial onus was really piled on the Eagles’ defense. They really had to stop the Saints despite the fact that Deuce McAllister and Reggie Bush had, as Col. Hap Hapablap says, torn through them like a tissue at a snot party.

But, it was no secret that the Saints were going to run the ball. The Eagles knew that, which is why they punted. It’s just that they couldn’t stop them. It’s as simple as that.

Meanwhile, one thing no one has mentioned is the punt. It was a high, easy-to-fair-catch boot that gave the Saints starting position at their own 22 that went just 39 yards. That’s a good punt for an above-average high schooler, but suppose punter Dirk Johnson was able to kick a 45-yarder? Or a 50 yarder? Does that change things?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, it doesn’t seem as if anyone will stop talking about 4th-and-15 any time soon. It also appears as if the punt will be a part of Andy Reid’s coaching legacy. Only another Super Bowl appearance can make the decision to kick the ball away nothing more than a cloudy memory.

Hey, at least he didn’t call time out before opting to punt… and say what you will, deciding to punt on 4th-and-15 with 1:56 to go is not the reason the Eagles lost to the Saints on Saturday.

In other news, the Phillies open up camp in Clearwater in 30 days.

What the... ?!?!

So a guy leaves town for a few days and all hell breaks loose in the Philly sports’ scene? Unfathomable craziness is unleashed like a plague of locusts ready to keep the citizens up all night with their constant chirping and desecration to the foliage.

Actually, TV types described it as a “black cloud” hanging over the city. I wouldn’t go that far, but what can you do with a group of people so weighed down in cliché? After all, these people believe the world revolves around sports. Actually, in a lot of cities – including most portions of Philadelphia – it does not. Intellectual discourse occurs, deals are brokered, people live lives, sing songs, raise children and dance jigs.

Overpaid men running around in tight fitting clothing never enters the consciousness.

Oh, but boy oh boy does it ever in these parts. Frankly, as I spent a Sunday afternoon soaking in a jacquzzi in attempt to loosen a balky hip flexor spent as one of those men running around in tight clothes while watching the second half of the Eagles football game and reading Richard Ford’s latest page turner, I noticed a few things that made me smile. Oh no, it wasn’t a smile of joy or the proverbial bleep-eating grin, but an ironic smile of seeing. Seeing and believeing.

Here’s what I saw:

TV shots showing Jeff Fisher, the coach of the Tennessee Titans, calmly strolling the sidelines at Philadelphia’s corporately named football stadia with a breezy demeanor and a cup of coffee in his right hand. Frankly, with the coffee in hand, Fisher looked as if he had the happy distance of a suburban parent at a 5-year-old’s soccer game. In fact, I was waiting for another one of the parents to meander over to Fisher and ask him, “how ya hittin’ ‘em,” or how much he paid to fill up the Audi this week.

Watching Fisher made me realize a few things. Firstly, watching football in a Jacuzzi with a good book and the sound down is fun. Secondly, it’s just a matter of time until Fisher or any number of other professional sports coaches gets a sponsorship from Starbucks or Folgers or any of the other hot beverage companies. However, I doubt Jeff Fisher would need to use one of those cup sleeves around his coffee to keep him from burning his hands.

I need one, though, because I’ve spent the past 35 years avoiding all manual labor. Regardless, all that time spent in warm, bubbling water has dried out my unblemished digits.

Thirdly, that Jeff Fisher seems like a good coach. It’s hard to decipher that simply from watching a guy drink coffee on the sideline of a football game, but Fisher seemed much more involved and enthusiastic about the proceedings than Philadelphia’s coach. With his tempered and unobnoxious fist pumps and slaps on the back for his players, Fisher looked as if he was genuinely enjoying his job.

Across the way, the Philadelphia guys were shown shuffling nervously from foot to foot and speaking with laminated charts and folders covering their mouths as if under surveillance. Why bother with all of that? Based on how the game went it was clear that the Philadelphia coaches’ headsets were tapped.

Fourthly, I thought that the Fisher dude would look pretty good on the home team sidelines. Then I remembered that he was here and gone over a decade ago. Perhaps they can get him back because it seems as if he figured out how to mix in those tricky hand-off plays into the offensive arsenal. Then again I can’t be so sure about his prowess since I had the sound down.

Anyone who didn’t think Donovan McNabb was finished for the season the second he went down on that fateful second-quarter play should have their sports-watching rights revoked. Those people are just far too optimistic for the bloody, treacherous and objectionable world of sports viewership. In sports, bad things happen all the time… it’s like a sport within a sport. If a big, seemingly invincible football player like Donovan McNabb falls down and does not get up after a rather innocuous play, count on him rolling off the field in an electric-powered cart and then heading uptown for an MRI before boarding a plane for Alabama to have his torn anterior cruciate ligament and damaged meniscus repaired.

Meanwhile, in light of McNabb’s situation in which he faces nearly a full calendar year before he can take a live snap in a regular-season NFL game, I haven’t heard anyone talk about the real realities of the situation.

Perhaps the very idea of those realities hurts more than a torn cruciate ligament?

What are those notions? Well, how do we phrase this… I suppose there is no delicate way to do it, so let’s come out with it… is it over for the Eagles? By over, I mean is it time to give up the idea in which the football masterminds forget adding a piece here or there to patchwork the roster and get the team a playoff berth?

Is it time (Gasp!) to rebuild?

If it is time to (Gasp!) rebuild, does that mean A.J. Feeley is the quarterback for the rest of the way?

We all know that the window of opportunity for championships, glory and Chunky Soup commercials opens ever so slightly for a very fleeting moment in time. When that window closes, it’s better and cleaner to simply get back to work in order to make it open up again rather than attempting to break through when everyone knows it’s been bolted.

Again, I had the sound down, but it seems as if the Eagles really like to utilize the forward pass play a lot. And by a lot I mean more than 50 times a game from time to time. Since that’s appears to be the case, shouldn’t they get some wide receivers that can catch the ball?

Speaking of catching the ball, whatever happened to that Greg Lewis fellow? Or that first-round draft pick dude who liked to talk too much? Are they still around? You know the Eagles picked that loquacious fellow before Chad Johnson, Reggie Wayne, Steve Smith and T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Man, would a first-round draftee look good catching passes right about now…

According to an acquaintance who is a scout for an NFL team and could be an assistant GM before the decade is out, Andy Reid has a reputation for being very organized and on top of things.

I have nothing else to add there… just tossing it out there for everyone.