Fan commentary on the Philadelphia Eagles and other Philly sports happenings. "Our capacity for hurt is matched only by our capacity for loyalty." -- Bill Lyon.
Loved Jackson's emotion. He had to let the d hall thing go but he played like he was happy and invested. It was like back when he was chest bumping big red Good sign!!
the most important -- emotionally anyway -- regular season win since TO's return to the Linc as a Cowboy?
odd moments where they had the play called but didn't get the play off/barely got it off, well, that felt oddly familiar. I'm fearful Vick pulled something and will have a nagging injury. Regardless, any win in the division is great, and on the road, even more amazing.
Hall should have been flagged for the horse collar tackle AND late hit out of bounds. Would like to see Foles in too. For ball security and to reduce# hits on Vick in In garbage time.
great article in philly.com today on eagles various formations Monday.
What amazed me was the down and distance of some of the plays. 2nd and 10 – run, 2nd 14 – run, etc. all these runs, but they were on 2nd a long. We ran it I think twice (at least ) to pick up a 3rd and 3 or 4. Of course he went for it on his first 4th down of the game. And ran it on 4th and a short 2. I think mccoy had 20 carries at halftime.
Great run game, but not exactly our parents smashmouth run game.
The key point from Phil Sheridan's column today that will resonate throughout Birdland.
But this smaller stuff - outsmarting themselves with unnecessary gimmickry - was irritating even when the Eagles were winning. Now it's just unbearable.
Reid should probably be fired for rank incompetence for having McCoy carrying the ball with less than 2 minutes to go in a game they had lost, but he should be fired immediately if he tries to bring McCoy back at any point for the remainder of this lost season.
My brother writes:
I think we learned well before last night and this past Monday that fumbles are really bad. Brown wiped out all his good with this fumbles. Possibly losing us 2 games. Vick cost us one. Flacco fumble coat the ravens last night - although those types of fumbles are more reasonable than brown's or Vicks. Collinsworth basically predicted it early on about brown.
Criticize Castillo all you want, but it was kind of half assed (and unfair) to install him as your D-coordinator but force him to operate a defensive front scheme he didn't necessarily agree with.
I'm ok with letting Washburn go.
The defense has been a disaster since Castillo was fired. If he were still running the D they probably win the Carolina and last night's game which means they are right in the playoff hunt (as crazy as that may seem).
The play of the year was Vick's fumble into the endzone on their opening drive vs. the Steelers. they score there and don't turn the ball over and they likely win the game. With that win, Castillo doesn't get fired after the Lions game. and the rest of the season doesn't implode like it has. Not saying that we'd be leading the division but we would be in playoff contention (again, as crazy as that may seem).
So Washburn has been fired and Foles looked legit last night.
The key graph from Bob Ford's article today.
'Using a well-balanced combination of solid running plays and high-percentage pass plays, the Eagles marched up and down the field against the Cowboys despite doing the marching without their starting quarterback, starting running back and best wide receiver."
26 rushes, 35 passes.
Ford asks the question - why not have similar balance all the time, not just when you're playing rookies at QB, RB, and have a patchwork offensive line. BTW, was it the playcalling or Foles' quick decisions - but either way the line didn't look nearly as porous as it has in previous games with Vick getting knocked around - and that was against DeMarcus Ware last night.
I will give Reid a pass on the line. Any team that is playing 4 of 5 second string linemen can't be good and the depth only goes so far (historically, Reid has been good with linemen line Jamaal Jackson stepping right in for Fraley, etc.).
My brother's take:
The fact that we have no depth is appalling. We NEVER have had depth. Our line simply can't block. How about Gruden at one point saying – "well that guy there just didn't block anyone on that play". then he just killed Bell for being lousy.
I believe the red zone problem is just a fundamental problem with the offense. We could run, but partly because of our deep threats. Inside the 10 there is no longer a deep threat. Vick can run and extend plays to go deep – not inside the 10 because there is just too much congestion. This problem will never go away as we are currently designed.
Have we ever tried a fade to a wideout? I mean it's been 14 years!!
Wasn't Maclin good at one point? Is he still on the team??
Doesn't the kick return embody everything you need to know about this team. It was carefully constructed, it was unique, it was fantastic and pretty much worked, but didn't and we began our drive on the 3 yard line.
We are a team of bobby abreu's. For you non-philly guys – that's not a compliment.
We have one of the best running backs in the league. At a time when running backs could be one of the least valuable things on a team. That's just unfortunate.
I think we were inside the 25 6 times. 6 times!!! And that got us 6 points.
We actually held drew brees to 21 points. Despite looking terrible on D we held them to 21 points. That should beat the saints every time with their D.
Outside the falcons game our d hasn't been terrible (and maybe saints because they were dreadful at times last night). Yes – 5 minutes against the lions and the final Steelers drives, but that's it. Just no one ver makes a play.
Lastly – raise your hand if you knew the eagles were going deep on first play. I looked at my son and said. They have 2 TE's in to block they are going deep to Jackson here. I said "he always does this on Monday night".
My friend PK writes:
Final thought: the great football-ism of the last 15 years is, we are what we are.
After the NYG last-second FG attempt, we were 3-1 in complete control of our destiny. As good a start as realistically possible. But we all noted we were 3 plays away from being 0-4. The assumption then was, we are what we are - a 3-1 team because good teams win close games. Now we've lost 4 straight games and we are what we are.
We're 1 or 2 plays against Pitt and Det from being 5-3. We're also just a couple plays from being 1-7/0-8. Instead, we pretty much are what we are: a team playing good enough to only win 6 or 7 games.
Just an endless loop of nightmares: 2 timeouts burned early in each half. Had 1st and goal 3 times, they have 6 points to show for it, but also gave 7 to the other team in a pick six, so we're a -1 from our 1st and goal situations, in which for some reason we just can't run the ball.
And just a defensive meltdown that continues.
My brother, two friends, and I went to the Eagles Steelers game this past weekend.
We got to Pittsburgh around 830 Saturday night, checked into our hotel downtown, the Westin, and then hit the city. We heard fatheads was great, and it was, unfortunately too packed for us to get in or at least to be seated for dinner in a reasonable time. We wound up at the Pittsburgh steak company restaurant where we polished off some 24 oz ribeyes and four bottles of wine. We hit a couple other bars, watched North Carolina State upset Florida State and called it a night at some point.
Woke up the next morning and started walking to the stadium around 9 AM. Downtown Pittsburgh was kind of deserted on a Sunday morning except for the occasional SUV that was parked on the street and had guys tailgating out of - which was kind of an odd sight. Weather was overcast in the low 50s.
Both the baseball and football stadiums are across the river from downtown and have a whole bunch of bars around them. We stopped at one for breakfast, beers, and bloody's. As we were leaving they put our last order of beers into plastic cups so that we could take them out of the pub. On the street they had some vendors just selling beers out of coolers and we were told it was okay to walk around in this area with open beer bottles on game day. It still felt a little weird, especially as we walked by some police, and we were wondering if the Pittsburgh waitresses were messing with us Eagles fans but we didn't have any problems.
Stopped at another bar, the tilted kilt, great place where the chicks are in push-up bras, tiny blouses and plaid skirts for the slutty Catholic girl look. The whole area was bustling but not particularly crowded. We got into every bar with no wait. To me it seemeds like every Steelers fans down there was wearing a jersey – like nearly EVERYONE, the overwhelming number of which were Polamalu's 43. I'd say for every 10 jersey seven were Polamalu's, one was either Hines Ward or Roethlisberger, one was Lambert, and one was a random player.
Eventually we headed over to the stadium where almost by accident ran into the official Steelers tailgate party 300 feet from the stadium's gates, which was rocking with this great band, Tokyo Radio. Weirdly, it was only about 10% full even though they had cheap beer, no lines and plenty of bathrooms.
Heading into the stadium it was interesting there was no security perimeter, several vendors were right on the curb next to the stadium selling fairground food. We got some good natured ribbing from Steelers fans we were mingling with all of whom were incredibly nice and gracious wanted to know where we were from in Philadelphia and were making connections with the cities and neighborhoods we mentioned. Interestingly, the Steelers tickets didn't have a picture of any player on them but featured pictures of fans taken by fans with their name and hometown wearing their Steelers gear. For the Eagles game, the Steelers fans on the ticket were a father and son from Cinnaminson New Jersey of all places.
Our seats were great. We were under an overhang so when it started raining late game we didn't get wet. Even though we were rows up it felt like we were really close to the field had a great view of the entire action. The stadium seats I guess about 65,000 but it felt a lot more open and smaller than the Linc. A surprising number of empty seats midway through the game (but before the rain). I'm not sure if the weather chased people away or what even though it didn't start raining until their fourth quarter that was consistent with the entire day not feeling very crowded. Heinz Field has only one Jumbotron which is at the open ended end of the stadium which is really all you needed. We also noticed that the stadium and Jumbotron didn't bombard you with advertising and solicitations like they do at the Linc during every stoppage of play. Over the scoreboards are two ketchup bottles, and when the Steelers get inside the 20-the red zone-the ketchup bottles tilt over slightly and their caps open and the score board "fills" with red ketchup.
After the game we walked back to downtown, stopped at a restaurant to eat some gyros, headed back to the hotel picked up her car and headed out. It was about two hours after game time and even with a smaller crowd we were shocked at how bad traffic was at that time leaving the city. Once we finally broke free from the traffic it was two hours to Breezewood and then another hour and a half home from there.
Pittsburgh's a great city for a weekend sports visit, compact downtown within walking distance to the games, good nightlife neighborhoods, great stadium area, and a relatively short drive away. The Steelers fans couldn't have been nicer and the Rooney family clearly goes out of their way to make a fan and family-friendly environment without all of the commercialization and hostility we've become accustomed to in Philadelphia.
