Well, the Eagles got beat by another average football team. I thought it was best summarized by Steve Young after the game when asked to describe the Redskins performance in one word, and he just stared at the camera until he could come up with "Efficient".
There is blame to go all around for this one.
Donovan McNabb still looks like a quarterback recovering from ACL surgery. There are a lot of throws that he is currently missing on that a healthy Donovan McNabb makes easily. Some of it is timing, like the deep balls, and some of it is his leg. Why these players feel the need to rush back from ACL surgery is beyond me? It probably cost Daunte Culpepper his career and Carson Palmer was not fully healthy until the start of this season.
As was discussed ad nauseum last night, the receivers are having a very difficult time getting open, especially when they are being jammed at the line. I agree that LaRon Landry made a great play at the end of the game, but Kevin Curtis has to figure out a way to tuck that catch away. I imagine the immediate knee-jerk reaction will be for fans to pine for the days of TO. I'm not nearly at that stage. Reggie Brown showed last year that he can be a very good receiver in the NFL. For some reason, he has not shown up to play yet this year. Hopefully he realizes that for the Eagles to succeed, he needs to step his game up.
But my real problem with the Eagles right now is the coaching. They are not giving the players the best chance to succeed. I have usually supported the Eagles coaching staff in the past when it comes to playcalling. But last night they seemed to be using the running game as a way to give the receivers a quick breather on first down. The Eagles have a very good running game when they decide to use it. Yet Brian Westbrook only had 17 carries last night.
The most disconcerting trend last night was the Eagles reliance on McNabb once they got inside Washington's 25 yard line. According to my counting, the Eagles ran 25 plays inside Washington's 25 yard line, and only 2 of those plays were running plays to Westbrook. They tried to get him the ball in the open field with some short passes, but obviously the Redskins were keying on him during passing plays and taking their chances with the Eagles receivers making plays.
Washington is an average team. Green Bay is an average team. Both teams played essentially not to lose, and they ended up not losing. I'm not ready to write off the Eagles season yet, mainly because the NFC is awful, but they are in a big hole right now.
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It is time for the Tony Kornheiser Experiment to end. I will preface this by saying that I love Tony Kornheiser. Using the written word to express humor is one of the most difficult things in life. But he is one of the few newspaper columnists in the country that is actually funny. And I love his radio show, which was billed as sports talk radio, but rarely discussed sports. With that said, he is terrible on Monday Night Football. The only substance he "adds" to the telecast are the random statistics that the producers feed him. He has essentially become an audible computer graphic. And this has been made even more glaring by putting Ron Jaworski in the booth. Jaws has quickly become the best football analyst on TV. So you have Jaworski breaking down a play immediately after it happened, then you have Kornheiser adding, "Aww, c'mon Jaws, you're just saying that because you're rooting for the Eagles".
The third quarter of last night's game was basically unwatchable with Kornheiser and Charles Barkley making the same three points for forty five minutes; McNabb and Reid don't get a fair shake, Philadelphia fans are brutal, the Eagles wide receivers have always been bad, save the TO year. It seemed like they told Jaworski to just sit that quarter out. Fortunately for me, Anthony Bourdain was in South Carolina eating BBQ, so it was an easy choice to flip over to The Travel Channel.
At some point the NFL has to step in and tell ESPN, "Listen, we appreciate you guys trying to bring more viewers to the broadcast, but we're the N F Friggin L. We are the most popular sport in the country, and it isn't even close. Just broadcast the game and people will watch it. You don't need to have a late night talk show in the booth during the third quarter. People are watching the game because they want to watch a football game. Also, fire Chris Berman while you are at it. He annoys us"
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Does anyone really believe that the Arizona Diamondbacks are going to make the playoffs?
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