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| Vick hasn't been great, but is far from the biggest reason why this team is losing. |
I just want to point out that early in this football season, when the Eagles were 3-1, I took a LOT of flack for "being negative," or "not supporting the team," or "not being a real fan."
Hey, they were 3-1, and in first place, so what could there have been to complain about, right? Wrong.
The way they won those games was COMPLETELY unsustainable. The difference between myself and the average football fan is that I understand how the game works, and I can look past the win-loss record and actually see what is happening. More importantly, I can see what is likely to happen next (likely being the key word because nothing is guaranteed, of course).
When you can't score TDs in the red zone, and when you have a consistent barrage of turnovers (even if you're winning games), it is just a mirage.... or fool's gold to borrow a line from Lurie at the end of last year.
A lot of people look at how a player, coach, or team is performing based solely on winning and losing. However, I think that is a bad way to judge performance, and this Eagles team has proven me right in the last 4 games.
Outcome based performance evaluation is a very flawed way to judge what is actually happening. I'll give you an example: people give pitchers too much credit for wins, and too much blame for losses.
If you read an Associated Press recap of 2 different games, each with the starting pitcher going 7 innings and giving up 3 runs, but the team won 1 and lost 1, the recaps will treat each starting pitching performance in an entirely different way, even though they are exactly the same performance (down to hits allowed, strikeouts, walks, and literally EVERYTHING, even all of the hits and walks happening in the exact same sequence and everything being 100% identical in both of the pitcher's performances).
The first recap will talk about how the pitcher really gutted a win out and pitched very well. This is because the offense scored 5 runs, and the team won 5-3.
The other recap will talk about how the pitcher was just a little off, and he didn't "have what it took to win," because the offense only scored 1 run, and the team lost 3-1.
The pitcher pitched exactly the same both times. The only difference was the offense, yet the last word about the pitching performance will vary wildly, depending on whether the game was won or lost. This is a stupid way to evaluate a player's performance. Both games the pitcher pitched fairly well, but not spectacularly. That should be the takeaway both times, but it isn't.
You simply cannot win NFL games when you squander scoring opportunities, and this team has done that for 2 solid years now. When you have four different 1st and goals, and OPPOSITION OUTSCORES YOU ON THOSE 4 OPPORTUNITIES, your team is in big trouble, regardless of the final score. Sooner or later this kind of horrible football WILL catch up to you.
If you were wondering why I was complaining then, it is because I am not the average sports fan, I can look past the win-loss record and see how good the team actually is. I do not wear rose colored glasses when I look at my teams, I see them for what they truly are.
To those who told me I wasn't a "real fan," I would simply ask if being a "real fan" requires burying my head in the sand and pretending that everything is fine when it is, in fact, anything but. Being realistic about a team is not the same thing as not being a fan of said team.
I know the game, I know what it takes to win, and I will call it as I see it. If you want to evaluate teams, coaches, and players based solely on wins and losses... fine. That's your right to do so. Just know that I won't be doing that, and my opinions as to what will happen in the future will be correct more often than someone who evaluates things in a different way.
That said, the biggest problem with this Eagles team is not Michael Vick (though he hasn't helped), not even the epic and horrendous collapse of the offensive line (which is by far the biggest problem, player-wise). The problem is very simple. Andy Reid thinks that his system is so good, and that he is so smart, that any random body will succeed as either a coach or a player. The main problem can be defined in one word: arrogance.
After Jim Johnson died, Reid thought he could take any random coach, unqualified or not, and have him run a Super Bowl winning defense, so he hired Sean McDermott. That was an unmitigated disaster, so instead of LEARNING FROM HIS MISTAKE, Reid hires a laughably unqualified man as his next defensive coordinator (an offensive line coach who had last coached defense at the high school level in the 1980s. You can't even make this stuff up.
He refused to admit his mistake after last year's completely disastrous outcome, and then had to fire the guy midseason this year. Andy Reid has put on a clinic on how to make a quality football program and literally turn it into a laughingstock.
The management of this team consistently makes terrible draft picks, which is the next biggest problem. LAst year's 2nd round pick DIDN'T LAST EVEN ONE YEAR IN THE NFL. Last year's first round pick got injured this year, and the play at right guard actually IMPROVED when a 5th round draft pick rookie was inserted into the lineup.
Jeff Lurie enables Reid, and thinks he has the Gold Standard of the NFL, when he actually has a total laughingstock of a franchise. The Eagles are the butt of jokes all across the league, and they're the only ones who don't know it.
Until Lurie completely cleans house (this includes wonder boy, Howie Roseman), this will NEVER change for the better. The fact that Roseman got a FIVE YEAR EXTENSION a couple of months ago just proves my point. This news just came out today. Think about this for a second. If completely wasting first and second round picks to an insane degree gets you a FIVE YEAR EXTENSION, what else do I need to say about the way this franchise is run? There's nothing to say, except please let this 15 year nightmare finally come to an end, and a complete end, without Reid or anyone else in management.
It's time to blow it up and start over completely. I wouldn't be upset if they got rid of every player on the roster at this point. Jason Peters can stay, but I wouldn't even care if they traded Shady McCoy. He has way too many runs that lose yardage, because he, like Vick will never accept a 3 yard gain when that would help his team the most. He tries to make every play a TD so he can get on Sportscenter. Selfish and stupid, just like the rest of the team. He will completely stop his momentum in the backfield on almost every play, even on a 3rd and 2, trying to get 50 yards when the team only needs 3. That's why it's time to blow it up.
Al Redrup
