We fast forward to the end of this season and The Eagles are mired in mediocrity. Like the rest of the nation The Eagles can sit home on Sunday night and watch The New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys slug it out for The NFC East crown that was expected to go to Philadelphia for the second consecutive season. For this situation The Eagles have nobody to blame but themselves.
From the preseason The Eagles have not done a good job of protecting Vick. Vick has been running for his life versus teams such as The Cleveland Browns who deemed Vick as a cheesesteak with extra barbeque sauce. In the regular season, Vick suffered a concussion in week 2 versus The Atlanta Falcons and the wheels began to fall off of The Philadelphia express. Vick attempted to come back the following week against The Giants who tried to beat the football out of Vick. After the 29-16 loss to The Giants, Vick looked like he had gone 12 rounds with Rocky Balboa on Broad Street. Before you knew it The Eagles were 1-4 and in the basement of The NFC East.
Each week The Eagles found ways to defeat themselves. Against The San Francisco 49ers, kicker Alex Henery missed two field goals that would have made the difference in a 24-23 loss. The next week versus The Buffalo Bills, Vick danced around in the pocket as time was running out in the first half looking for an endzone target that never came to fruition. Instead of a field goal, The Eagles went to the locker room with nothing to show for the drive and lost the game 31-24. After a stirring road victory in week 11 against The Giants, Philadelphia proceeded to lay down at home the following week to The New England Patriots 38-20 as Patriot quarterback Tom Brady appeared to be running a 7-on-7 clinic all evening.
By the beginning of December, Philadelphia’s record was 4-8 and the playoff talk was replaced with concerns of whether head coach Andy Reid would keep his job. Reid is the longest tenured head coach of current head coaches in The NFL, but all the talk in the summer was of this team being in Indianapolis for The Super Bowl in February. There is no doubt that the lockout hurt this team as they were not able to have practices in May and June. Those months are vital to teams with new pieces to try to come together.
Reid also promoted offensive line coach Juan Castillo to defensive coordinator. Castillo has come under fire unit for the defensive unit, but The Eagles still rank eighth in The NFL in total defense. Castillo has two defensive linemen in Trent Cole and Jason Babin who have combined for 28 sacks this season. In week 14 against The Miami Dolphins, The Eagles recorded 9 sacks ass the fierce pass rush has kept them in games this season.
The difference with The Philadelphia Eagles and The Miami Heat is simple. In The NBA you can have a bad start like The Heat did and recover. In The NFL if you start 1-4 like Philly did the season is basically over. With that said they still made a good run at the end, but if DeSean Jackson had been more consistent and the o-line protected Vick they could have easily won 11 games.
Preach. Everyone jumped to that team thinking It was a dream team. Just like The Miami Heat. Difference is they fixed themselves & went to the finals. The Eagles have all the talent in the world but couldn’t focus on being a team. Since I passionately dislike them, I hope next year is just as bad or worse than this year. So good luck to the Cowboys & Giants. And LOL to The Dreaming Eagles.