Congrats to David Akers, your NFC Special Teams Player of the Month for October!

While not quite as dubious as leading the minor leagues in home runs, we can safely say that this award is a mixed blessing (at best) for Akers and the Birds. I’m cool with the kicker getting his props if he’s hitting a bunch of clutch kicks to win games (like the Bironas guy in Tennessee), but, um, Akers actually missed a couple kicks this month and the only reason he had to kick so often was that the Birds couldn’t get into the endzone.

The stats are even more damning: the longest kick Akers made in October was 37 yards, and the average length of his made field goals was 27.1 yards.

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In addition to a multimedia Trent Cole lovefest in the papers this morning (well deserved, good for Trent Cole), more than one blathermonkey stepped up to remind us all that (a) Dallas is coming to town this week and (b) it is right and just to hate on them.

Personally, I thought it was the most insightful thing Phil Sheridan has written in a while, if only because he was trying to channel the anger/ hatred/ bloodlust toward the other team, and not just the one we’re supposed to be rooting for. I’d say that they’re using their powers for good rather than evil, but I’m not exactly sure that’s correct. Anyhoo, way to pitch in, boys.

I especially liked the quotes from Sav Rocca, in which he demonstrated his familiarity with the Dallas rivalry, translated into non-American English:

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Good guys win today (complete with a heartfelt manhug for Andy Reid and Brad Childress), improving this week’s storyline from “Cowboys and Birds headed in opposite directions as T.O. comes to town” to “Eagles can play their way back into contention with win over Dallas.” I’ll take that.

What I saw from my stool at the bar:

1. You can’t complain about the WRs not making plays this week. The blathermonkeys were mean to the WRs (”Birds’ receivers aren’t good enough“) this week, and the WRs played well — we can only hope in response to this criticism!  Screw you, Phil Sheridan!  You won’t have Reggie Brown and Kevin Curtis to kick around anymore!  They actually have the Curtis catch up on nfl.com — get it while it lasts!

2. I’m sick of rationalizing Trent Cole’s success by saying that he’s just a pass rusher. He’s on a very short list of playmakers on the Eagles defense, and he seems to be the most emotional/ intense guy out there (which is important since there’s no more Trotter or Dawkins). There should be more Trent Cole shirts in the stands.  I’ll show my appreciation by adding his name to my tag cloud.  Yup, the tag cloud.  That’s how we roll here in Web 2.0.

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This time I’m just skipping the caveats about how much I like ProFootballTalk and just proceeding directly to the part where I accuse Mike Florio of, in the words of our British cousins across the pond, talking absolute rubbish.

Florio posted earlier this week that the Birds’ or-gan-eye-zay-shun’s silence regarding Donovan McNabb’s future with the team — in contrast to its very vocal support for Andy Reid — is a possible indication that Dunavin’s future with the Eagles is limited. Note that the comments from Reid, Joe Banner, and Jeff Lurie all came in response to the highly publicized legal troubles of Reid’s kids and the wild speculation amongst the Philly blathertariat (radio shows, newspaper headlines, freakin’ editorials) that Reid would quit during the bye week.

To summarize, then, McNabb must be on his way out because no one has publicly defended his future with the team.

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In the considered opinions of professional sportswriters Bob Ford and Phil Sheridan, the Eagles’ season is essentially over at 2-4 and the only question left to ask is which week would be most appropriate to introduce Kevin Kolb as a starter.

Whilst they attempt to slip a couple caveats into their analysis (Sheridan is more willing to say the season is completely over than Ford), both embrace an apocalyptic viewpoint in re: the state of the Birds and their prospects for success this season. Never mind that the Eagles were ranked in the top half of the NFL in the FootballOutsiders DVOA rankings or that they recovered from a 5-6 record to win the division last year! The team has lost a couple close games, and the experts insist that the coach and QB must go!

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I don’t think the Eagles are terrible. Sure, the defense came up pretty small at the end of the game against the Bears, but they also stopped the Bears inside the five-yard line on a prior drive, so let’s assume those plays even out. And the offense moved the ball decently well, and probably could have scored at least one more TD, but they never looked explosive or dangerous.

All in all, it wasn’t good, it wasn’t too bad, and when it mattered most, the Eagles couldn’t get it done, so they lose this week. 

I think this game is how most of the Birds’ remaining games will go. They’ll be in most games, but will sputter or succeed based on a few high-stress plays at the end of the game.  (Read the rest of this story.)

A rare media appearance by Mrs. McNabb this week (that’s the one that’s married to Donovan, not Donovan’s mom — we hear plenty from her). Raquel “Roxie” McNabb is not very Anna Benson; she avoids the unwavering gaze of the local blathermonkeys and even does a solid job of managing her online digital footprint/ privacy (the search engines are pretty thin on Dunavin’s better half).

She spoke to the “Yo!” section of the Daily News to pimp her charity event this week, which by all accounts seems like a good thing that will help people and inspire us all to give something back to the community. We also learned the following (and by “learned” I mean “inferred and speculated”):

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I may have been the only one in my section (and maybe the whole stadium) that knew to heap disdain on this fellow for sporting his Ricky Watters shirt. For who, Ricky? For what, misguided fan?

Still, it’d be disingenuous to pretend that we weren’t all super-excited when the Birds signed Watters way back when. We all thought we needed the Marquee Feature Back (this bled into the Ricky Williams obsession at the ‘99 draft). Wow. Did we not get it even a little bit. The lesson here (as always) is that you cannot trust the braying masses of Negadelphia. Just don’t listen to us. At all.

Also, I’d like partial credit for being a week ahead of the curve on the Nerdbirds (Seahawks) sucking. These guys are a mess; they make the Eagles look talented and composed by comparison. At least the fans on Sunday night had the good taste to actually boo the home team, though most of the vitriol seemed unfairly focused on Shaun Alexander.

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Mad props to the good folks at NFL Network for not only (a) bringing back the highly excellent and consistently outstanding America’s Game series, but also (b) for showing previously unaired episodes. Last winter they worked through the 20 best teams of all time, and now I guess we’re filling in the gaps with the other 21. Super duper. The DVR is set.

I finally got around to the (highly recommended) episode on the 2002 Bucs last night. Overall, the episode was definitely in the top quartile (and might have edged higher were it not for the obnoxious and not-quite-as-charming-as-he-thinks presence of Warren Sapp throughout), and surprisingly Eagles-centric (given that the Eagles have never won a Super Bowl). My big takeaways:

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The 700 Level stole my thunder on this one, but since I was an early adopter on the Shawn-Andrews-is-goofy meme, I feel like I get to double-post this one.

If you have a moment, definitely look up the Shawn Andrews post-game video from the Jets game on PhiladelphiaEagles.com, in which Andrews explains that he was happy the game didn’t go to overtime since he had “eaten a lot that weekend” and was feeling “bloated.”

Attaguy, big fella. We’re all friends here, feel free to share those details. Circle of trust, circle of trust.

Link:
Eagles-Jets postgame, Shawn Andrews [PhiladelphiaEagles.com]