Much like Andy Reid and the Eagles, we’re playing this game preview straight. Now is not the time to fret about playoff scenarios and the likely end of some very very very impressive Eagles’ careers. Now is the time to focus on the Cowboys game and the last couple days of coverage in the papers. We’ll have time later (and by “later” we mean “in thirty minutes”) for a lengthy discussion of our sports feelings and the end-of-days scenarios for our favorite players.
What we’re talking about today:
The new kid might also be a choke artist (!). In what might be a hint of blathermonkey/ fan angst for years to come, we had a volley of DeSean Jacksoncoverage rounding out the end of the holiday week. The CamelCased One is certainly primed to be the next star for this team, and as such will need to shoulder a fair amount of heavy scrutiny for the next couple years. While it’s great to hear that he’s the team’s playmaker (which we’d been pushing for a while) and that Andy Reid expects him to make plays, catch the ball, all that, the thing that’s nagging me about DeSean is that maybe he gets nervous too. That is, he dropped the ball with the game/ season on the line. For the franchise whose quarterback famously puked in the Super Bowl, it’s not exactly sweet that the alleged best player on our team for the next few years appears to get nervous at the end of the game. Not to panic, but I think it’s fair to be be VERY VERY disturbed by this.
Everyone’s favorite Eagle. Fittingly, L.J. Smith won’t play today (listed as doubtful), in what has to be his final game as an Eagle. How appropriate! Topics that merit revisiting after the season: how terrible a decision was it to bring back L.J. Smith? The cynics amongst us can pin at least two-and-a-half Eagles’ losses indirectly to him (Chicago, both Washington games). What if a Terminator came back through time and prevented the Eagles from franchising him last year? Would the Birds have won one more of those games? Sort of like a retroactive roster abortion?
End of days, Part 1. So now it looks like conventional wisdom has Dunavin coming back for the Eagles next year. Sweet. There. I said it. Also, that was about the only thing I got right in this set of mid-season predictions. By the way. Though I was close on B-West not breaking 900 yards rushing (he’s at 886 right now) and Shawn Andrews not playing another down.
End of Days, Part 2. So Dawk has to be back next year, no? He made the Pro Bowl, which is probably partially a lifetime achievement/ he’s a popular guy around the league thing, but still. He’s at least going to be in camp. And those bitter, bitter comments from Tra Thomas. Wow. I hope he isn’t pissed on his way out. GREAT Eagle. Runyan too. Big sigh. We’ll have more time for this in the next few weeks.
Speaking of, an offseason of villainy. Remember the guys who cut Duce Staley and Jeremiah Trotter? Yeah. They’re back. Get ready to turn your hatred on the front office.
This week’s blathertariat non-story. So the quarterback is telling people he’s played well. Uh huh. So maybe his delivery wasn’t perfect, but, um, doesn’t everybody do that? That is, when you hand in your performance review at work, do you tell everyone you think you sucked? Didn’t get the kerfuffle here. What I thought was interesting was how Andy Reid addressed the non-story on Friday:
“He has done very well. I think, statistically, when you look at it, he has done a nice job. The only stat I really care about, however, is that the team plays well. That’s the most important thing right now. I think when and if you take that statement he made out of context, and you really know what Donovan is all about, he’s about the football team. If you finish reading the whole quote, I think he finishes up where I don’t see that as a negative statement.”
So no one asked Andy Reid if he thought Dunavin’s self-assessment was negative. But Reid’s answer indicates that he realizes how the comment was chewed up and digested by the media, to the point that he suggests that it may have been taken out of context (”If you finish reading he whole quote…”). So Andy Reid realizes that the press are trying to make a story out of this, but he won’t say that outright, though he still will give the politically correct answer. Eerie. The Birds’ media team definitely prep him for these things. Or (most disturbingly), he reads it himself. Reason number 467 that the Philly media is a lot of work to deal with (also why we love said media).
Let’s say everything the Eagles need to happen earlier in the day happens. Are they then going to beat a divisional foe to close the deal? What’s their record in the division again (1-4)? Their coach thinks he could have run it “a few more times” after abandoning the balance that brought him a three-game win streak, calling pass plays, disastrously, 16 times in a row in the second half last week. The quarterback who can’t quite produce a game-winning drive when the chips are down thinks he’s had a “great” year and would just like to mention, with the season on the line, that he could use a new contract.
Bah, humbug.
Yikes. These people all need a vacation from each other.
My own prediction. Since it’s my blog and this might be the last Eagles game for a while, I’m treating myself to the twin fantasies of (a) the game actually mattering and (b) the Eagles playing well. We’ll pretend that the Cowboys aren’t the Eagles’ superiors on both sides of the line and that the Birds haven’t been atrocious within the division this year. Instead we’ll focus on Tony Romo struggling this time of year and imagine that the Eagles will make a couple big plays on special teams (hey, why not). Birds prove that they aren’t just last year’s 8-8 team (or even 8-7-1) with a better punt returner: Eagles 27, Cowboys 23.
Domo did a nice job of tethering the Detroit kerfuffle to the ongoing frustrations of Eagles’ fans (and the local balthertatriat) with the tone of Andy Reid’s interactions with the press. Certainly worth a read. Domo explains that he gets a lot of e-mail demanding that he and the rest of the blathertariat ask tougher questions of Reid, and insists that he and others actually do ask tough questions. Domo gets most of it correct — I certainly believe that they ask tough questions — though I don’t entirely buy his characterization of the pressers (below):
Once upon a time, nobody paid much attention to coaches’ news conferences unless somebody was being hired or fired or comparing the feeling of a loss to someone breaking into his home and sodomizing his wife and kids (Ray Rhodes).
That was before Comcast SportsNet. That was before the Internet and video streams and YouTube.
Now, news conferences have become reality shows. People watch them every week the same way they watch “The Hills” and “Flavor of Love.” They are looking for action. They are looking for confrontation.
After a loss, they don’t want no stinkin’ tough questions. They want my Daily News colleague Les Bowen throwing a shoe at Big Red. They want Comcast SportsNet’s Derrick Gunn giving him the finger. They want Bob Grotz, of the Delaware County Daily Times, asking him why his wife insists on sitting in on every damn postgame news conference, home and away.
They want Rob Parker or somebody like him stirring the pot and trying to make the coach lose his cool and say something he’ll later regret.
Now that’s real hard-hitting journalism.
So what he seems to be arguing is that the people don’t actually want tough questions in the press conference — they crave histrionics. And Rob Parker is giving them exactly what they want: tabloid sports coverage (akin to “The Hills” etc).
Some comments here:
1. There is nothing more boring than listening to the reporters complain about the press conferences. We’ve been over this before.
2. I don’t consider it outrageous at all to characterize sports as cheap reality TV. I mean, maybe not cheap — this thing has a HUGE TV contract, but let’s not forget that this is all entertainment, and it can rightly be described as Brad-and-Angelina for the Male 18-to-54 set.
3. I think the argument above makes sense for the out-of-town fans. Did I watch the Marinelli clip on YouTube (after seeing links on The Big Lead and Deadspin and PFT)? Of course I did. (Same as the Shaun Ellis snowball thing, etc etc.)And I love the trashy tabloid stuff on those sites — but only when it’s not the team I care about. For the national audience, this stuff sells.
4. For the local stories, I’m going to have to accuse Domo of not giving us enough credit. Or, rather, of generalizing a bit. I watch all the pressers. All of them. They’re my favorite TV show. What can I say — I really like the Eagles, and I love that I get direct access to their content. And I watch them so that I can make my own decisions about what the guys running the team are thinking and saying. I don’t want incidents (though I giggle when they ask Dunavin about smiling too much — that kills me).
4a. Still, I listen to WIP, and I know that the tasts of the fans are…diverse.
5. The unspoken/ unexplained element of Domo’s article is that the broadcast of those pressers further disintermediates an already threatened local press corps. That is, why do we need them to take careful notes and write a story in the paper if we can watch/ read the precise quotes on the Birds’ site? With the live video, the blogs, the local TV coverage — all of this threatens something that was once a differentiator for the local print media: access to the press conferences. They still have the locker room, but Dave Spadaro and co. are working hard to film a lot of those interviews as well.
5a. And in a world where the newspaper biz is on life support (I assume I don’t have to explain why?), I have to feel for a guy like Domowitch: a total pro whom I respect a ton but whose world is imploding around him. There will not be a Daily News and an Inquirer in 18 months (probably sooner, in all honest); there will be one local newspaper, and it’ll be thinner and lighter on local coverage. So we feel for you, Domo, we do. You guys deserve a bit better.
I was actually going to do a post where I just listed and linked all the articles in the local papers about how many times the Eagles threw the ball on Sunday, and how each and every one of those sportswriters is bored of the Run-The-Ball-Andy meme.
Then I realized that not only was I sick of reading those same stories, but I’m also sick of my meta-critiques of the abundance of said stories. (Also, it would have actually taken too many alt-tab-ctrl-c-ctrl-v keystrokes to actually link them all, and I’m feeling lazy. Seriously, I counted and we got to double digits very quickly.)
Instead, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the profound cruelty of last night’s Chicago - Green Bay game. My takeaways/ reflections:
1. How do I allow myself to get so agitated about a game where the exact placement of the ball between downs is both (a) absolutely essential to deciding the outcome of the game and (b) maddeningly imprecise. Did the Bears really get that first down? Did they? They need to get lasers in that shiznit stat. How has Vegas not gotten this done yet? Don’t they have a vote?
2. I know, I know, DeSean Jackson is a rookie. But so is Matt Forte, and Matt Forte made all the plays he needed to at the end of that game to give his team a great chance to win. He did not wilt under pressure; he embraced it. I’m just saying.
3. Whilst craizer things have certainly happened in the NFL, there was something especially mean-spirited about the ending of the Bears game last night. Not that it really actually mattered for the Birds, but I had convinced myself that it did, and the way it all went down (the blocked FG? the penalty on the first drive of overtime?) just felt all too appropriate. OF COURSE the Bears were going to win in the most improbable fashion possible! Of course!
Posts are going to be a bit slow over the next couple days. Duty calls. Just remember — Phillies World Series DVDs make GREAT gifts.
Okay, so football season ended a week earlier than it probably should have.
We got to live the dream a bit over the past month — a dream that definitely didn’t exist after the gloomy Cincy-and-Bal’more fortnight — and now it’s 98 percent over. Sure, crazy things happen in the NFL, and they’re not out of it yet, but they’re pretty much out of it. Certainly we as fans have it better than the players and coaches: at least we can mentally move on at this point and maybe even enjoy unwrapping a Phillies DVD on Christmas morning. Those poor bastards still have to pretend they’re in it for another week and get ready to be pushed around by the Cowboys. Consider yourself blessed!
Day-after storylines to help you nurse your hangover.
For the avoidance of doubt. Andy Reid’s Monday presser was a predictably grim affair. When pressed to explain who might have been at fault on the game’s final play — the one that ended six inches short — Reid actually answered the question (obliquely, at least). He observed that he thought the quarterback did a good job getting the football into a tight spot, but that the route needed to be run into the end zone. Hmmm. I hope Reggie Brown doesn’t have too much trouble selling his house in these wintry economic times!
Run-the-ball-Andy meme. That old chestnut? It was tough to find an article/ game report that didn’t highlight the run-pass ratio. It predictably came up again in the Monday presser, in the context of “Does it feel like you’re answering the same questions every week?” Reid’s answer was that the reporters weren’t very creative, but, well, I’m not sure that they’re the ones lacking for imagination in this one particular case.
Westbrook isn’t well. A theory on Brian Westbrook’s health — this is the first game in a month for which he didn’t have an extended period of rest (and in fact lost a day). He had two full days of rest from Thanksgiving to the Giants’ game, and then an extra day ahead of the Monday Night Game. At this point, it probably all matters to a guy like Westbrook. Oh well. That’s what happens when the offense depends so heavily on one guy (and that one guy, while awesome and deserving of my man-crush, sturggles to be healthy every week). Depth in the backfield needs to be addressed in the offseason.
Playoff Beard update. It looked like Andy Reid hadn’t shaved yet, but it’s unclear if the rest of the locker room is still on board with the beards. If you shave, does that mean the team has given up entirely? Perhaps there’s a hybrid solution that would appropriately reflect the Birds’ post-season prospects: little Hitler mustaches? Slightly longer-than-average sideburns?
Reflections on a losing record in the NFC East. I mean, do you really think a team — which has won one (1) of its five division games so far — that can only win 2 out of 6 division games should be in the playoffs? That sounds pretty mediocre to me. Stranger things have happened, but it’s not like we can complain about unfulfilled potential or tough breaks or whatever. You are your record, and the Eagles’ division record is 1-4. Yuck.
Philadelphia 33, Cleveland 13. The old dog, Andy Reid, has learned a new trick: running the ball. In the Eagles’ last three games, Donovan McNabb has thrown it 87 times and Brian Westbrook has run it 69 times. Contrast that to the previous three games, when the Eagles won just once: McNabb 137 throws, Westbrook 47 runs.
You don’t win with McNabb, or anyone, throwing it 46 times a game. And you don’t win letting Westbrook carry it 16 times a game.
I’d be shocked if Reid and offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg go back to throwing it 65 or 70 percent of the time. Ever. And certainly not tonight against a team they ought to be able to beat into submission. (Emphasis mine.)
“Shocked,” Peter? Period ever period? Really? Ever is a strong term: would you care to place a wager? As in, you bet me that the Eagles will never again throw the ball more than 65 percent of their offensive plays in a single game? And I get your house when it happens? Like next week?
Uh huh. No word yet on whether I get his house.
In all fairness, Peter was right about one thing: you don’t win when you throw it 46 times and run it 16 times (though only 12 of those were Westbrook). Nice work with the math, Peter!
(Also, the fact that the math did work out so neatly only adds to my earlier convictions in re: the Platonic ideal of a Bad Eagles Loss.)
Not quite Cincinnati-game frustrating, and not Baltimore-game terrible, and not even Redskins-home-loss humiliating, but pretty crappy. Nothing shameful about the defensive performance (though the Redskins’ offense doesn’t conjure up memories of the Greatest Show On Turf), but the offense was a bad in all of our old/ familiar/ favorite ways.
That is, today’s loss approached the Platonic ideal of a bad Eagles game: no plays or playmakers amongst the wideouts, an abandonment of the running game, some iffy clock management, and — most importantly — a horrific performance from L.J. Smith. If they could have just managed to somehow surrender some points at the end of the first half (in some particularly surprising/ unlikely manner involving the special teams?), well, the universe just might have exploded.
After a couple weeks of strong performances, we can’t pretend that the Birds weren’t due for one of these efforts. They certainly didn’t get blown out, they just didn’t really make any of the plays that are required to win. Pretty standard, really.
Highlights of frustration below:
Welcome back, the-wideouts-aren’t-good-enough meme. The drops were bad throughout, but the Redskins dropped their fair share as well. This was a game where I wish I could have been in the stadium to see if guys were actually getting open (my guess is an emphatic no). We love the CamelCased one, but young DeSean dropped a couple that would have made a difference. He’s a rookie, yup, but he was also the best guy the Birds had out there today. I dunno. At least we’re all pretty well-versed in beating up on the wide receivers. I look forward to closely monitoring which diva pass-catchers from around the league are unhappy this off-season.
There’s something about Jason Campbell. Does this guy play this way every week? I mean, it doesn’t seem threatening and explosive at all, nothing vertical or down the field, but he’s a pain in the ass on third down. Those scrambles for first downs are insanely frustrating.
The Redskins’ best player. Helluva a day from the Redskins punter. Seriously — that Ryan Plackemeier did himself proud out there.
Intrigue remains in re: Big Five. McNabb wasn’t great today, but he also wasn’t terrible. He’ll take heat for this game, sure, but it didn’t look like he had a ton of help out there — from his teammates or the play selection. And he did make a couple big throws in the fourth quarter, only to get let down by the overwhelming lameness of the wide receivers. Net net, it means that we can’t emphatically ship him out of town in this week’s papers.
L.J. Smith and his personal quest to lose games against the Redskins. Was it the two drops in the first half on third down? Or the horrific missed block on the screen to Westbrook at the Redskins’ five (lots of good questions in the postgame pressers about that one)? Which specific play was the worst? I actually think that he might have been the one who was out of position at the beginning of the third quarter when the Birds burned their timeout as well. Maybe we wouldn’t get down him so much if he hadn’t also been personally responsible for goal-line mistake against the Skins in October as well. Not impressive. I hope the fans at the Dallas game remember that this will be their last chance EVER to boo L.J. in an Eagles uniform.
Other BOOOOOs. Asante Samuel for dropping that pick. Reggie Brown for being almost but not quite good enough. Sav Rocca for being outpunted.
My goal is to not spend the rest of the evening moping about and reading every word bit of Internet content on the game. I’m putting in a movie, ideally something really stupid and/ or cartoonishly violent. More tomorrow.
Anyone else feeling set up for spirit-crushing disaster this afternoon?
The this-is-2006-all-over-again meme has what looks to be a battered and reeling Washington Redskins team as a brief layover ahead of next week’s season-ending Boss Fight against the Cowboys. Sure, the Redskins are a decent team, but they appear to be collapsing, and are doing all sorts of dysfunctional stuff (players calling out the coach, etc etc). With the Birds playing so well of late, it looks like this week’s game should be more than manageable for the Eagles.
Certainly that’s the narrative we’d all prefer. The problem is that this is a division game, and I get the sense (mostly due to Chris Cooley’s blog) that the Redskins really don’t like the Eagles. I think the Skins will come to play today. And I think that means that this will be a brutal, anxiety-filled affair.
My bullet points and storylines ahead of the game:
Chips on shoulders and other cheap motivational tactics. I really can’t get enough of all this chip-on-shoulder talk. First it was Dunavin, then it was Reggie Brown? Sure. Awesome. I actually wish that the Eagles would take it a step further and start rocking the none-of-you-people-respect-us thing. That would work quite well, actually, in that, um, we didn’t really respect the Eagles during the dark interregnum of the Cincy-and-Balmore fortnight.
Injury report. Trent Cole has to be salivating at the prospect of getting a backup tackle this afternoon instead of massive and talented Chris Samuels. Hopefully that will make up for the depleted Birds’ receiving corps and suddenly third-string offensive line, where it looks like Mike McGlynn will replace Todd Herremans. We like the rumblings about how McGlynn likes to “play to the whistle” (=”play dirty”), but we’d prefer if he’d pipe down about the Penguins.
Of FedEx Field affairs of yesteryear. I like that the Eagles traditionally play well on the road against Washington. That includes a 7-2 record over their last nine there as well as the best single play that the Birds turned in last year. I’ve only been to FedEx Field once, for the late-season game in 2003 (the Eagles cruised but Westbrook tore his triceps, essentially dooming the season), and I found it to be a wholly disagreeable place. $25 to park in some office park and THEN I had to take a bus to the stadium? BOOOOO. What’s nice is that I think B-West treats FedEx Field like an extended home game and Dunavin certainly doesn’t seem intimidated by it.
Speaking of Skins games. That game on October 5 was humiliating. I felt personally defrauded by how unpleasant a day that was at Lincoln Financial Field. Hopefully the guys on the team feel the same way. I can only assume that the run defense will turn in a better effort this afternoon. My nightmare scenario today is a repeat of that day, though: lots of back-breaking third downs, patient running from the Skins, and a spotty/ pass-heavy offense from the Birds. The thought of Jason Campbell methodically converting third-and-3s is horrifying.
Who I got. In lieu of any further recycling of this week’s sports pages, I’ll do some predicting. While I do think that the Redskins will show up for work this week and won’t half-ass it, I don’t think the last couple weeks of Eagles games are bogus. That is, I think the Eagles are playing the run better on defense (and playing great defense across the board) and that Donovan McNabb just might be on a mission of vengeance. I expect some legit NFC East pushing and/ or shoving this afternoon, and I expect the Eagles will be standing at the end: Eagles 23, Redskins 13.
Check about the above clip (about a month old) from HBO’s The Life and Times of Tim, kicks in about the 3:20 mark.
The premise is that Tim takes his girlfriend’s dad (a big Birds fan) to Giants stadium to hang out with Tim and his buddies (Giants fans all). While there, the girlfriend’s dad is repeatedly insulted by loathsome and uncouth Giants fans, with the phrase “Suck It, Philly” as the unifying thematic element.
Some thoughts:
1. At the risk of encouraging the Giants fans in my life, that’s a pretty solid catchphrase, and one I expect to hear quite a bit in the coming months/ years.
2. As was observed on the e-mail string that brought me this clip as well as the comments on YouTube, um, it sort of seems like the Philly and New York fan roles are a bit reversed in this video. As in, you’d expect it was the Eagles fan that peed on the Giants fan’s shoes.
3. That said (a), we’ll take it. For once, the joke isn’t about the thuggish Philly faithful and their Santa-hating snowballs and their in-stadium jail cells.
4. That said (b), it’s kind of like they’re calling us sissies. We’d better find someone’s shoes to pee on!
5. They definitely don’t serve cheesesteaks at the Meadowlands. The food there is effing awful.
6. Insulted as I was, I really enjoyed: “‘It’ means ‘penis’ and that’s why there’s an arrow pointing to it.”
Now competing with Kendra Wilkinson’s MySpace Pics and the Phillies new ballgirls on Philly.com is a charming Andy Reid photo retrospective.
Obviously, the good stuff is found in the (chronologically) early part of the set, which features not just one, but two photos of Big Red controversially clad in something other than Slimming Black.
Yes, you can imagine my shock and astonishment when I stumbled upon these. Especially since it’s not like he’s wearing midnight green in lieu of the now-favored black.
No no, Big Red seems to have been briefly convinced that it was a good idea for a dude pushing 330 to wear horizontal stripes. Did Tammy sign off on this?
