Andy Reid's Offensive Line

On September 23, I read Paul Domowitch’s column in The Philadelphia Daily News. (Link to column) "Offensive line is real reason why Eagles picked Michael Vick over Kolb” is the headline above the column. While I do not fully buy into Domo’s theory, I do believe the offensive line played a major part in Andy Reid’s decision to start Vick over Kevin Kolb. The sieve of the Eagles’ offensive line is largely responsible for Kolb’s concussion on Opening Day, and Vick has the mobility to elude a great deal of the pressure Eagle quarterbacks will face for the rest of this season.

If I was head coach of the Eagles, I would have announced Vick as the four-week starter at quarterback. I would have given Kolb a month to recover from his concussion and brought him back to start on October 17 against the Falcons. As it is, Reid has decided to start Vick for the rest of the season. Whatever role the offensive line played into his decision, Andy Reid is responsible for the wreck that unit has become. As the coach himself often says, this one’s on him.

Early in Reid’s tenure with the Eagles, the offensive line was a strength. The line has been in steady decline ever since. Isn’t this ironic? People often refer to the fact that Reid’s job immediately prior to becoming head coach of the Eagles was as the quarterback coach of the Green Bay Packers. They don’t realize that he only spent one season in that role. Prior to that, he worked exclusively on the offensive line. Andy Reid played offensive tackle and guard at Brigham Young. From 1983 through 1991, Reid was an offensive line coach at four different colleges. He then went on to become an offensive assistant and then offensive line coach for the Packers. In 1997, Reid was employed as the team’s tight ends coach. It was not until 1998 that Reid served under Mike Holmgren as Brett Favre’s quarterback coach. The man spent over twenty years working exclusively on offensive lines; one would think he understood the unit’s importance to a football team.

Let’s look at the how the Eagles’ poor offensive line of 2010 came to be:

For nearly a full decade, the Eagles had possibly the best pair of tackles in the National Football League. Tra Thomas, Ray Rhodes’ final first round draft pick, started at left tackle in Philly for eleven years before the Eagles let him leave as a free agent after the 2008 season. Jon Runyan arrived in 2000 as a free agent from Tennessee and started at right tackle in every game the Eagles played from the day he showed up through the 2008 postseason, when the Eagles allowed him to leave via free agency. When their Eagle careers ended, Thomas and Runyan were 34 and 35, respectively. Amazingly, despite knowing both tackles’ contracts ended after 2008 and that their ages would keep the Eagles from trying to retain either of them, the team had no solid plan for replacing the bookends of the offensive line.

In 2009, the Eagles allowed 38 sacks. That was only the third time the Eagles gave up that many sacks since 2003. The other two years were 2005 and 2007. 2005 was the year the Eagles suffered from Super Bowl hangover and finished in last place in the NFC East. 2007 was a different story. Tra Thomas missed the September 30 game against the Giants due to injury. The team’s second-round draft pick from 2006, Winston Justice, made his first NFL start that night. Not so coincidentally, the Eagles allowed twelve sacks that night. Osi Umenyiora, whom Justice spent most of the night attempting to block, was credited with six of them. Winston Justice started every game at right tackle for the 2009 Eagles.

How did Justice come to be the Eagles’ starting right tackle last season? Oh, boy, what a mess. Like most messes, this story is not a simple one, and it revolves around uncertainty. It starts on April 24, 2004, the first day of the NFL Draft. In the first round, the Eagles traded up from the 28th pick to the 16th pick. At the time of the trade, everybody knew the Eagles made the trade so they could draft Steven Jackson, the running back from Oregon State. Instead, Andy Reid surprised the entire football world by selecting Shawn Andrews, an All-American tackle from Arkansas. Because Thomas and Runyan were on the team, Reid envisioned Andrews as a guard. Although a broken leg cost him the final fifteen games of his rookie season, Andrews quickly became the best guard in the league.

In 2008, it became apparent that Shawn Andrews was falling apart. In June of that year, he abruptly left the team for “personal issues.” He did not show up to training camp the next month. On August 4, The Philadelphia Daily News published an article in which Andrews spoke about dealing with depression. Six days later, he showed up at training camp. Andrews started playing again and began the 2008 regular season starting at right guard for the Eagles. In the second game of that season, Andrews left with a herniated disc. The Eagles didn’t expect him to miss the rest of the season, but he did. About six weeks after initially sustaining the injury, Andrews went under the knife.

With his physical problems supposedly corrected, Andrews was expected to return to the Eagles starting lineup in 2009. Andy Reid was still worried about the depression, so he sought to do what he could to make sure the Eagles became the ideal atmosphere for his Pro Bowl right guard. In late February 2009, the Eagles signed Stacy Andrews, Shawn’s older brother, to a six-year, $38.9 million contract. Stacy Andrews was a fourth round pick of the Bengals in the same year in which the Eagles drafted Shawn. Stacy had been Cincinnati’s starting right tackle in 2007 and 2008. It would have been reasonable to assume that Stacy would take on that role for the Eagles and replace Jon Runyan in 2009 except that he had torn his anterior cruciate ligament in his second-to-last game as a Bengal. As a preemptive move, Andy Reid switched the Andrews brothers’ positions; Shawn became the starting right tackle and Stacy was named the starter at right guard. It was a move to guard against the limited mobility Stacy would probably experience coming off the torn knee ligament. Still, the Eagles expected Stacy Andrews to be healthy enough to start the 2009 season (familiarize yourself with this concept). As it turned out, Andrews was neither healthy enough nor pass blocking well enough to warrant playing time. Stacy was benched after the season opener and only started one other game the rest of the season. In order to avoid being cut, he accepted a reduced salary in March 2010. He was then traded to Seattle for an undisclosed 2011 draft pick. Max Jean-Gilles and Nick Cole started the other fourteen games at right guard.

Reid’s creation of a comfortable environment for Shawn Andrews did not end with the signing of the player’s brother. A week before the 2009 draft, the Eagles traded their first and sixth round picks for Jason Peters, Shawn’s college roommate. Peters had gone undrafted in 2004, but had worked his way onto the Buffalo Bills’ roster and had been selected to the Pro Bowl following both the 2007 and 2008 seasons. Peters had been involved in a contract dispute with the Bills for a year, which is why he was available. After the trade, the Eagles signed him to a six year, $60 million deal. Although he was selected to three consecutive Pro Bowls—he was voted as the NFC’s starting left tackle after his first season as an Eagle—Peters’ play has been inconsistent since he became a starter in the league. In 2008, Peters led the league by allowing 11.5 sacks, despite playing only thirteen games. In Peters’ first year as an Eagle, he was rated the worst starting left tackle in the NFL by Football Outsiders. I don’t think you’d find many Eagle fans who would disagree with that assessment. Peters started every game at left tackle for the Eagles in 2009. He is still the starter at that position.

As poorly as Reid’s acquisitions of Shawn Andrews’ brother and college roommate turned out, Shawn’s situation ended up worse. His back never felt good enough to allow him onto the football field in 2009. The Eagles released him in March 2010. Since Shawn was unable to play, Winston Justice was the Eagles’ starting right tackle throughout the entire 2009 season.

Todd Herremans was slated to start at left tackle in 2009. He missed the season’s first five games due to a stress fracture. When he returned, he started at that position. Nick Cole started at left guard during Herremans’ absence. When Herremans was healthy enough to play, Cole took over at right guard for Max Jean-Gilles, who is more of a run blocker than a pass blocker.

Until tearing his ACL in the fifteenth game of the season, Jamaal Jackson started at center. Although he was never drafted, Jackson is a very good NFL center. In my opinion, he is one of the top three or four centers in the NFC. The problem is that Andy Reid and the Eagles have never acquired a legitimate center to back up Jackson. After Jackson injured his knee, Nick Cole took over as starting center in the final game of the regular season and the wild card game. Both of those games were road games against the Cowboys. The Cowboys recorded four sacks in each of those games. The Eagles weren’t able to run the ball in either contest. Jay Ratliff, the Cowboy nose tackle who always abuses the Eagles, looked like Joe Greene against Nick Cole. The poor offensive line play was the primary reason the Eagles managed to score only fourteen points combined in the two games.

Actually, the offensive line was responsible for a lot that went bad for the Eagles last season. I already explained how the players on the line were put together. Let me now look at them as a unit. The Eagles’ 2009 starting offensive lines broke down like this (from left tackle to right tackle):

Jason Peters, Nick Cole, Jamaal Jackson, Stacy Andrews, Winston Justice – 1 game (Game 1)
Jason Peters, Nick Cole, Jamaal Jackson, Max Jean-Gilles, Winston Justice – 4 games (Game 2-5)
Jason Peters, Todd Herremans, Jamaal Jackson, Nick Cole, Winston Justice – 9 games (Games 6-8, 10-15)
Todd Herremans, Nick Cole, Jamaal Jackson, Stacy Andrews, Winston Justice – 1 game (Game 9)
Jason Peters, Todd Herremans, Nick Cole, Max Jean-Gilles, Winston Justice – 2 games (Game 17, Wild Card Playoff)

Including the playoff game against Dallas, the Eagles had 85 starts on the offensive line. 17 of those starts were made by a player drafted in the second round. 20 starts were made by players drafted in the fourth round. The remaining 48 starts were recorded by players who were not drafted. Granted, two of the three undrafted players who started on the offensive line were Jason Peters and Jamaal Jackson, who have played at a very high level in the NFL. But Peters has severely regressed since having an excellent year in 2007. The other undrafted starter was Nick Cole, who is serviceable. Cole is mediocre, at best. The second round pick is Justice. While Justice is not as bad as he was in that infamous start against the Giants, he is another mediocre, at best, lineman. True, the Eagles expected Shawn Andrews to start; he would have been the only first round pick on the line. So the line the Eagles put together included one first rounder, a bad second rounder, and a bunch of fourth rounders and undrafted free agents.

How does Andy Reid expect to have a credible offensive line when he’s building the unit with players no one expected to be good? The success of the Eagles’ offensive line is based on getting lucky with unheralded players. That is no way to plan for winning. While it is true that drafting is an inexact science, players are drafted in the first and second round for a reason. Andy Reid does not seem to understand this. If he did, he would have learned from the mistake of 2009 and built a better offensive line for 2010.

In the offseason, the Eagles did not sign any offensive linemen who were projected to make the two-deep depth chart. They went into the draft with thirteen picks—they drafted zero offensive linemen. Think about this: the offensive line was a disaster last season, especially in the final two games against the rival Dallas Cowboys, yet the Eagles did not add a single offensive lineman.

Furthermore, although Jackson tore his ACL two days after Christmas 2009, the Eagles expected him to be fully recovered by the start of the 2010 season; therefore, they signed no true backup center. Unlike Stacy Andrews the year before, Jackson actually was healthy enough to play at the start of this season. Unfortunately, he tore his right biceps in the season opener against Green Bay and will miss the rest of the season. This time, Mike McGlynn, a fourth round pick in the 2008 draft who played tackle in college, took over Jackson’s starting center spot.

I understand that teams can’t really afford to sign backups who only play center. At the same time, I think it behooves every team to have at least one reserve offensive lineman who has played center before. Two seasons in a row, the Eagles have cost themselves by not having a credible center to take over after Jamaal Jackson was injured.

The offensive line in general is just terrible. Barring more injuries, the Eagles’ starting offensive line for the rest of the season will be (from left tackle to right tackle) Jason Peters, Todd Herremans, Mike McGlynn, Nick Cole, and Winston Justice. Awful. Through three games this year, they have already allowed fourteen sacks—who knows how many sacks they would have given up if not for Vick’s superior mobility—despite playing two of those games against Detroit and Jacksonville (by contrast, the Eagles three opponents this year have recorded a total of twelve sacks in their five other games). This line was a problem last year and the Eagles have done absolutely nothing to make it better this year.

This also explains how and why this is the second year in a row that the Eagles’ starting quarterback suffered an injury in the opening game. Yes, McNabb suffered in injury in 2009 Week 1 that forced him to not play in Weeks 2 and 3. Kevin Kolb was concussed in Week 1 this season and missed Week 2 due to that injury.

If we’ve learned nothing since 1999, it is that Andy Reid does not learn well. This offensive line does not seem likely to improve in 2011. Very strange for a team coached by a man who has spent the majority of his life on the offensive line.

Reid Wrong for Vick

I know there are a lot of people out there who believe Andy Reid made the right call in electing to start Michael Vick over Kevin Kolb for the foreseeable future. There are a seemingly equal number of people who believe Reid is making a huge mistake. I am about ninety percent into the latter camp. I think the coach made the wrong decision, but I don’t think it matters much. No matter the quarterback, I fully believe the Eagles are incapable of winning the Super Bowl as long as Andy Reid makes the team’s football decisions.

Those who believe Vick should be the starter do so for the following reasons: based on his track record as quarterback of the Falcons, Michael Vick is a winner in the NFL; Vick has played spectacularly through six quarters this season while Kolb had a pretty bad beginning to his 2010 season; the Eagles’ offensive line is awful, especially injury replacement center Mike McGlynn, and Kolb’s limited mobility will get him hurt again; Vick gives the Eagles the best chance to win ten or eleven games this year and make the playoffs; and, frankly, Kolb has not shown anything to forcefully prove that he should have been starting over Vick anyway. I cannot disagree with any of those reasons; they are all one hundred percent correct. Still, I believe Kevin Kolb should be the Eagles’ starting quarterback.

The Kolb supporters tend to subscribe the following: after three years of grooming Kolb and five months of propping him up as the starter, two quarters is not enough time to determine that he’s not the right guy for the job; Kolb shouldn’t lose his starting job because of an injury; Kolb is much better suited to run Reid’s West Coast Offense than Vick; Kolb played good-to-great in his two starts last season, so Reid should have more confidence in him; and it undermines Kolb’s standing with his teammates for him to lose his starting job so soon. I cannot disagree with either of these arguments either.

What the people in both camps are neglecting to do is take the coach into consideration. We have seen Andy Reid for eleven years; we know him by now. From what we know of Reid, Kolb should be the guy. Let me count the ways:

1. Michael Vick is 30 years old. Anyone who’s followed the Eagles during Jeffrey Lurie’s ownership tenure knows that this organization does not like signing or extending players in their thirties. Some might think the quarterback position would be immune to this, but the Eagles have not yet shown this to be true. The Eagles drafted Kolb just as McNabb turned 30. At the time, the effective portion of McNabb’s contract was set to run out after the 2009 season, when he would be 33. Due to their organizational philosophy, Eagles can see Michael Vick as nothing but a short-term fix. This was not a move for beyond 2010.
   
2. The Eagles have wanted Kevin Kolb to be the starting quarterback since November 2008. I will always believe that when Andy Reid benched McNabb for Kolb at halftime of the Eagles’ 2008 game in Baltimore, he anticipated never playing McNabb again. Had Kolb led a second half comeback victory, that most certainly would have been the case. The Eagles last that game, however, and Kolb’s most infamous highlight was throwing a pass that Ed Reed turned into the longest interception return in NFL history. Still, I think Reid was ready to make a permanent move to Kolb. Unfortunately for the young quarterback, the Eagles had a short week because of a game Thanksgiving night. It would have been an unfair and impossible situation to put a guy in the position of starting his first NFL game without a week of practice preceding it. In that Thanksgiving game, McNabb went out and had one of his three best games since the Super Bowl year of 2004. Then, the Eagles went to the NFC Championship Game. Losing in the previous round may have made Kolb the starting quarterback in 2009.
   
3. Michael Vick is not the type of quarterback you want Andy Reid to trust. People in Philadelphia have often remarked that Reid called a more balanced offense when McNabb was out due to injury. I think this is because Reid did not trust the backup quarterbacks the way he did McNabb. He trusted McNabb. When that trusted quarterback played, Reid called fewer running plays than any other coach in the league. If Vick gains Reid’s trust as the starter, Reid will be inclined to revert back to his throw throw throw days. While you do not want any quarterback to play in that type of system, but I cannot think of a one less suited to play that style than Michael Vick.
   
4. The decision to start Vick effectively breaks the bond that Kolb had established with the Eagles’ young core of offensive players. In this regard, Kolb had succeeded with the Eagles’ recently drafted skill position players in a way that Donovan McNabb had not. Although McNabb put up decent numbers throwing to DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin, and Brent Celek and handing the ball off to LeSean McCoy, they were actually Kevin Kolb’s guys. They bonded with him and believed in him. More so than McNabb, Kolb had the confidence of the team’s young nucleus. The move to start Vick, especially since Andy Reid said that Kolb’s injury had nothing to do with the switch, undermines that. Kolb and the rest of the young guys had been looking forward to this as their time. They were coming up together. Now those guys play for Vick. Who is Kolb? What is his role? In his press conference this morning, Reid said that he cannot predict if Kolb will still be on the Eagles’ roster after next month’s trading deadline. That tells the team, especially the skill players with whom he had bonded, that the team does not believe Kolb is ready. What reason do those guys have to believe it now?

Michael Vick gives the Eagles the best chance to win the NFC East this year, but what about 2011 and beyond? The Cowboys were the only team in the division to beat the Eagles last year, but they are now 0-2. Nobody in Philadelphia believes that McNabb’s Redskins are a threat. The Giants looked like a mess Sunday night and their offense looks to be in shambles. The division is there for the taking. Going with Kolb means growing pains. While I believe the Eagles are a 2010 playoff team with Kolb as the full-time starter, not many in the city or organization agree. The general consensus is that they would be a better team in December than in September and October. Vick is more experienced, more seasoned, and has proven that he can win playoff games with under-talented teams. I just don’t believe this is a smart approach to the development of the football team.

Naming Vick the starting quarterback is all about right now. The only outcome that can justify this move is the Eagles winning the Super Bowl this coming February in Arlington. At the very least, they need to play in that game. I don’t think this is a Super Bowl caliber team, though. It would be one thing if Vick became the Eagles’ long-term starting quarterback, but I’d be very surprised if we see him wearing midnight green on Opening Day 2011.

This reminds me very much of the mistake the Packers made by allowing Brett Favre to come back in 2007. Yes, Green Bay reached the NFC Championship Game that season, but they neither won nor reached the Super Bowl. In the end, the only thing that was accomplished that season was delaying Aaron Rodgers’ development by one year. 2007 could have been that year of transition, 2008 could have been about getting a taste of the playoffs, and 2009 could have been a Super Bowl year. If the Eagles really do keep Kolb and intend to start him in the future, this year of starting Michael Vick will only delay Kolb’s development and waste a year of Jackson, Maclin, Celek, and McCoy’s careers.

Trading Kolb would be a bad move, too. It would be akin to starting over one year after…starting over. If Reid and the rest of the Eagles hierarchy did not fully believe in Kevin Kolb, they should have drafted another quarterback high this year’s draft. They could have even acquired Jason Campbell in the Donovan McNabb trade. They could have done something. Vick is not their answer. He’s too old for their eyes. We know this.

For the 2010 Philadelphia Eagles, it is Super Bowl or bust. I think it’s going bust.

If I was an Eagle fan, I’d be very upset today. This is a sign that the Eagles organization, once again, is settling for merely competing.

The Gold Standard: Defending Eagle Fans

Sunday, as the Eagles lost to the Packers to open the season, Twitter was bombarded by people sarcastically asking Eagle fans if they were sorry yet for wishing Donovan McNabb away. I tried arguing with some of them for a while. I knew, however, that it was a useless effort. The national perception will be what it will be. But the truth is that, while Eagle fans in Philadelphia had grown weary and tired of their quarterback, only a minute minority considered him the team’s biggest problem. Many thought it was time for him to go—how many times can you continue to try the same thing before realizing that it’s just not working?—but there were also many who thought that it was Andy Reid, not Donovan McNabb, whose time with the Eagles should have ended. Nationally, McNabb has always been portrayed as the fans’ fall guy. That was never the truth. It was never that simple. Besides, at no point during his tenure in Philadelphia was McNabb ever the top target of the fans’ ire. Not once.

McNabb was always the nationally publicized face of the fans’ frustration because he was the quarterback. When the team has a winning record and one is not physically in the area talking to local people, listening to local talk shows, and reading local newspapers and websites, it is very difficult for one to pick up dissatisfaction with a team’s front office. But rest assured, most Eagle fans are fed up with the Andy Reid—Joe Banner—Jeffrey Lurie triumvirate.

Lurie, the team owner, and Banner, the team president, spent much of the time from 2000-2005 speaking of the Eagles as the “gold standard” of NFL franchises. Yes, “gold standard,” was their phrase. This irked the team’s fans to no end. Rightfully, the fans wondered how the Eagles could be the gold standard without having any Lombardi trophies to showcase. Even if none of them were, at the time, recently won, each of the Eagles’ division rivals has won multiple Super Bowls. The Eagles still have zero. At no point have Lurie and Banner acted as if increasing that total is a priority.

It is true that only one team can win the Super Bowl each year, but the goal of a professional sports team is to be that team. Every action of the organization should be to get the team closer to winning that Lombardi trophy. Sometimes that means signing a free agent; sometimes that means gutting the team and starting over. It should never mean watching the team get close every year and doing nothing to change the personnel or philosophy.

I often speak of the concept of not allowing being very good to prevent you from being great. The Eagles, as an organization, do not subscribe to that philosophy. They feel their decade was better than the Ravens, Buccaneers, and Giants. I don’t understand this. The fans don’t understand this. The goal is winning the Super Bowl. Those three teams won the Super Bowl; the Eagles did not. This does not seem to bother the Eagle management.

Naturally, most of the fans don’t like this. They want to win a Super Bowl. They see that winning the championship is more important to them than it is to their team’s management, and it frustrates them to no end. They wonder how the “gold standard” can be satisfied going year after year without accomplishing the ultimate goal.

It is easy for the national media to come into the city and cast the fans’ disgruntlement with Lurie and Banner as typical Philly fan behavior. They can shrug it off as fans not knowing how good they have it. They never identify it for what it actually is, though: Philadelphia fans are sick and tired of Eagle ownership being content and satisfied with merely getting close every year. So that story is never reported. People outside the Philadelphia metropolitan area never learn how disgusted the fans in the city are with Banner and Lurie.

Shortly after Lurie and Banner took over the team, the Cowboys won the NFC East’s ninth Lombardi trophy. During the Lurie era, the Giants added a tenth. Every NFC East team other than the Eagles has won at least three Super Bowls. The cross-state rival Steelers have won six, including two in the past half-dozen years. Meanwhile, the USFL’s Stars are the only professional football team in Philadelphia to win a championship since 1960. That’s right: the Eagles wore throwback uniforms in the 2010 season opener to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the team’s most recent championship.

While Lurie has owned the team, the Buccanneers, Panthers, and Cardinals have all reached the Super Bowl for the only time in franchise history by defeating the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game. The two sorriest franchises in NFL history, the Bucs and Saints, have won the Super Bowl. This most recent decade featured the Red Sox, White Sox, and Phillies winning the World Series. Those three teams have all been around since 1901, yet had combined to win exactly one World Series between 1918 and 2000. The Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1961.

Eagle fans are still waiting for their championship. Lurie and Banner, though, are content. The fans in the city have been frustrated with Banner and Lurie long before they grew tired of Donovan McNabb. Even during McNabb’s darkest days with the Eagles, the fans desired Banner and Lurie’s departure more than they did the quarterback’s. After all, Banner and Lurie are the ones who continually allow Andy Reid to stay in town and do what he does.

Andy Reid. Oh, man, are the fans ready for that man to go.

Reid is the man who consistently wastes timeouts because the coaching staff takes too much time signaling plays into the quarterback.


• Reid is the man who replaced Jeremiah Trotter with Levon Kirkland in 2002. Kirkland is the man largely responsible for being too slow to respond to Joe Jurevicius’ infamous 71-yard catch & run in the NFC Championship Game loss against Tampa Bay. Kirkland was replaced by Mark Simoneau in 2003. Every Eagle fan remembers DeShaun Foster running over Simoneau twice on the same 5-yard touchdown run in that season’s NFC Championship Game. It doesn’t seem like much of a coincidence that the Eagles finally made the Super Bowl when Trotter returned in 2004.
  
  
• It was Andy Reid who has become legendary for clock mismanagement. He even started 2010 off by burning his second half timeouts at the wrong time, even though his clock management against Oakland in 2009 will be the standard for all future clock management blunders. After failing to convert a fourth down, the Eagles trailed the Raiders 13-9. Oakland took possession at their own 44-yard line with 2:42 left in the game. The Eagles had two timeouts remaining. Reid called the Eagles’ second timeout after the Raiders’ first play. 2:10 remained. Then, with 2:02 left on the clock, Reid burned the team’s final timeout after the Raiders lost two yards on second down. He should have let those two seconds run off the clock to bring up the two-minute warning. By calling the timeout, Reid gave the Raiders the option of throwing the ball on 3^rd & 10—the Raiders had no fear of stopping the clock with an incomplete pass because the upcoming two-minute warning was going to stop the clock anyway. Had Reid saved the timeout, the Raiders would have run the ball on 3^rd & 10, which would have pretty much guaranteed the Eagles of forcing a punt and getting the ball back. Since the Eagles gave Oakland the option of throwing the ball, the Raiders threw the ball and picked up the first down. Three kneel downs later, the game was over and the Eagles were beaten by JaMarcus Russell.
  
  
• Reid is the one who gave his young quarterback such wonderful weapons as Charles Johnson, Torrance Small, and the unforgettable Trash & Stinkson (so named by Michael Irvin on ESPN) combo. Pinkston, you’ll remember, not only punked out against Ricky Manning, Jr. during the NFC Championship Game against the Panthers, but also inspired the legendary Joe Theismann quote, “You've heard of alligator arms; this is alligator body. Todd Pinkston has got a touchdown. Watch this: he now sees the safety coming from the left, that ball's in the air, he just, he does not want to get hit.”
  
  
• Reid is the offensive guru who drafted Freddie Mitchell when Reggie Wayne and Chad Johnson were still on the board.
  
  
• Reid is the coach who started Hank Fraley for five consecutive years even though he was never able to handle a nose tackle. Fraley’s inadequacies against nose tackles was a major factor in the Eagles losing record against teams with 3-4 defenses during his time as a starter, including Super Bowl XXXIX. While Deion Branch was the MVP of that Super Bowl and I thought Tedy Bruschi actually deserved the award, Vince Wilfork truly was the best player on the field that day. Fraley’s inability to block Wilfork was the biggest reason that, outside of one 22-yard run, the Eagles ran for 23 yards on 16 carries that day.
  
  
• Reid is the one who put together the roster that began the 2007 season without a player who had ever returned a punt in the NFL. Not so coincidentally, two different Eagles fumbled punt returns that day. One was recovered for a Packer touchdown; the Packers recovered the other, drove 6 yards, and kicked a field goal as time expired—Green Bay won 16-13.
  
  
• Reid is man who tried to help Shawn Andrews’ depression in 2009 by signing and trading for his brother and college roommate, respectively. The brother, Stacy Andrews, was benched after the first game of the season and traded away two weeks ago. The roommate, Jason Peters, was acquired for first and fourth round draft picks. While he made the 2009 Pro Bowl, he led the Eagles in penalties, allowed seven sacks, and Football Outsiders had him rated as the worst starting left tackle in the NFL last season.
  
  
• Reid is the one who, coming off a Super Bowl appearance, allowed the Terrell Owens situation to deteriorate to the point that he felt compelled to get rid of a player who led the NFL in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns through seven games in 2005 (Owens had 154 yards in his final game as an Eagle). The Eagles, of course, lost eight of their final ten games that year to finish in last place.

Even though Super Bowl XXXIX was there for the taking, many Eagle fans still look at the NFC Championship Game in January 2003 as the one that got away. Everything was set up for them to win that game. It was a game they could not lose. During ESPN’s pre-game show, Sal Paolantonio reported that the Eagles knew they couldn’t lose that game. That game was to be the last ever in Veterans Stadium, and the Eagles were playing Tampa Bay that day. The Eagles had defeated the Bucs 21-3 in the 2000 playoffs and 31-9 in the 2001 playoffs. Both of those games, as well as a 20-10 Philly win during the 2002 regular season, were played at the Vet. Furthermore, the Eagles had won in Tampa in the final game of the 2001 regular season to force the ensuing playoff matchup to be played in Philadelphia. In short, that group of Eagles was 5-0 against that group of Buccaneers.

The Eagles also had the weather on their side that day. The game-time temperature was 27 degrees Fahrenheit. It was well-known that the Bucs had trouble in cold weather games. Until the final game of the 2002 regular season when they defeated a 4-11 Bears team Champaign that the franchise had ever won a game played when the game-time temperature was 40 degrees or less. Plus, the Bucs entered the NFC Championship Game having never won a playoff game on the road.

It was a game the Eagles could not lose unless the coaching staff did not keep them focused. After a long opening kickoff return followed by a Duce Staley touchdown on the second play from scrimmage, it seemed the Eagles were on their way to an easy victory and trip to San Diego for the Super Bowl. Then…they came unglued. The Eagles only score three more points on the day. Watching that game live—and I’ve watched it three times in the years since—it was clear that once Tampa Bay did not go away after that first touchdown, the Eagles did not know how to respond. They appeared unprepared to face a team that was going to actually try. They walked into the NFC Championship Game expecting a walkover. When the Buccaneers fought back, the Eagles did not know what to do. That’s on the coach. That happened on Andy Reid’s watch.

Eagle fans know all of this, and they’re tired of it. But all you’ll ever hear nationally is how they wanted Donovan McNabb gone. Come on, man.

That’s not to say the fans weren’t ready for McNabb’s departure. The fans were smart enough to know that trying to make an inaccurate, playmaking quarterback into a West Coast Offense quarterback was a bad fit. They were also knew that, after eleven years of watching him throw passes behind receivers and at their feet, his accuracy was not going to improve. They saw that movie many, many times; they knew the ending was not going to be watching the commissioner hand the Lombardi trophy to Jeffrey Lurie.

It’s true that McNabb was never going to win over all of the fans in the city. But he won most of them over. Most of the fans are adamant that he is the best quarterback in franchise history. As I suggested earlier, had it been put to ballot, McNabb would have stayed with the team and Andy Reid would have been the one packing his bags.

The fans are ready for Andy Reid to go. They are tired of him. They have zero belief in his ability to lead a team to a championship. They know this is not going to end well.

So when you hear the Eagle fans boo this season, don’t assume they are all directed at Kevin Kolb. Most of them are intended for the man on the sidelines and the two men up in the owner’s box. Be sure of that.

Two Minutes, a Timeout, & a Chance

WRITTEN JANUARY 20, 2009

Two Minutes, a Timeout, and a Chance:
The Legacy of Donovan McNabb
"Just put me at the one-foot line, give me all three of my timeouts, and give me my boys."—Terry Bradshaw
The 2009 NFC Championship Game is a microcosm of Donovan McNabb as a Philadelphia Eagle. It would be inaccurate to say this game will be his legacy. We have seen this game many times already. In the end, it is just a reaffirmation of his legacy, who he is as a quarterback.




Before we get to the quarterback, let me say that he was not responsible for losing the game. The Eagles' defense came up very small in Arizona. Forget about Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald playing pitch & catch in the first half. And I acknowledge their shut down job on the Cardinal offense during the third quarter. However, Quentin Demps had no business being on the field on defense, especially during crunch time. The moment—the game—just seemed to overwhelm him. His personal foul for unnecessary roughness on Kurt Warner was dumb, dirty, and downright bush league. That fifteen-yard penalty cost the Eagles three points. Everyone seems to have forgotten that fact. That penalty occurred during the Cardinals' final drive of the first half, at the 1:27 mark. With three seconds left, Neil Rackers kicked a forty-nine yard field goal. Minus those fifteen yards, it would've been an NFL record sixty-four yard field goal attempt at worst and a Hail Mary attempt at best. Those were three gift points; and those three points turned out to be really, really big, didn't they? As Mike Quick said during the radio broadcast, the game was too big for Quentin Demps, and he needed to not be on the field.

Then there was the fourth quarter drive. Donovan McNabb's sixty-two-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson gave the Eagles a 25-24 lead to overcome the 24-6 halftime deficit. After the ensuing kickoff, Arizona began their next possession from their own twenty-eight with 10:39 to play. By the time the Eagles offense next came onto the field, they trailed 32-25 and had only 2:53 left on the clock. That Arizona drive? Fourteen plays. Seventy-two yards. 7:52 taken off the clock. During that nearly eight-minute drive, the Cardinals converted two third downs and one fourth down. All the Eagles needed to go to the Super Bowl was to get one stop. One stop. As the Cardinals drove deeper into Philadelphia's territory, the Eagle's top priority was keeping the red birds out of the end zone. If the Cardinals could have been held to a field goal, the Eagles would have been able to win the game with a field goal of their own. A Cardinal touchdown, on the other hand, would require the Eagles to get the ball into the end zone themselves.

When Kurt Warner threw a screen pass to Tim Hightower on 3^rd & Goal from the eight, Quentin Demps, the rookie who should not have been on the field at the time, had a chance to tackle the running back at the two. But instead of wrapping up and properly tackling Hightower, Demps went for the big hit. Hightower bounced off the hit and fell into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown.

I'm not going to absolve the kicker of blame, either. David Akers missed a forty-eight yard field goal. That's understandable—and forgivable. But then, Akers also missed an extra point. That is not acceptable in any game, let alone a playoff game. That missed extra point cost the Eagles two points when you take into account the failed two-point conversion after their next touchdown. The two missed kicks really cost them a total of five points in a game they lost by seven.

So in the end, the defense and the special teams cost the Eagles the game. They are the reason the Eagles lost the game. But they are not the story. The quarterback, Donovan McNabb, is the story.




I am not an Eagles fan—never have been—but I am a Philadelphian, and I do follow all the Philadelphia sports teams. I know what goes on in the hearts and minds of Eagles fans. I know what they want.

When it comes to the quarterback—when it comes to football in general—the stat line is largely irrelevant. Football is not baseball. The stat line does not tell you how good a player is. The stat line does not tell you how well a player played. The stat line does not tell you the story of a game. Look again at that quote from Terry Bradshaw. It is the embodiment of what any football coach or quarterback wants. All you ask for is to have the ball in your hands with a chance to tie or win the game at the end. That's what Donovan McNabb got.

McNabb's numbers in the championship game were fantastic. 28-47, 375 yards, 3 touchdowns, 1 interception, 97.4 quarterback rating. Those are great numbers. Those numbers look like NFC championship clinching numbers. Against the Arizona Cardinals, though, those numbers amounted to "not quite enough".




You cannot judge Donovan McNabb, or any other quarterback, by his numbers. How you judge them, really, is by what they do in the big games when they are presented with a chance to tie or win the game. With the lone exception of a divisional round playoff game in January 2004, Donovan McNabb has not done that in the postseason.

Since the end of the NFC Championship Game, I have heard numerous national sports pundits question the Philadelphia sports fans and their issues with Donovan McNabb. On ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning, I heard former NFL quarterback Kordell Stewart ask, "What more does he have to do?" What he has to do, Kordell, is win.

Donovan McNabb is a very good quarterback. The Eagles fans, however, do not want a very good quarterback. They do not want an excellent quarterback. What they want is a Super Bowl champion.

Yes, I know Donovan McNabb has won many games as the quarterback of the Eagles. I also know that his career postseason record is 9-6. His record in the championship rounds (NFC Championship Game or Super Bowl) is 1-5. Some might say, "The Eagles made it to five NFC Championship Games and one Super Bowl during this era. Is that not enough?" In professional sports, it is not enough. The NFL is not the NCAA; every team has an equal opportunity to build a championship squad. The Super Bowl title is a realistic goal for every NFL franchise. A team that is 1-5 in the championship rounds is good—very good—but it is not a team that is accomplishing the goal.




Some years ago I was told that one of the keys to achieving success is to not settle for being very good. Being very good often gets in the way of being great. When explaining this concept to people, I often use the analogy of Tiger Woods changing his swing. He went into a so-called slump for a while afterward, but we all know what happened once he was finally comfortable with the new swing. He did not let already being the best golfer in the world stop him from making himself an even better golfer.

All those who suggest Eagle fans should be satisfied with this era of making five conference championship games and one Super Bowl are telling those fans to settle for being just very good. Why should they?

Sports are not just about the present. They are about making memories. I have heard people say that Eagle fans will miss Reid and McNabb when they are gone, that Eagle fans will look back on this era as a special time. I say the fans will look back and remember Aeneas Williams' interception, Joe Jervicius and Ronde Barber running down the sideline forever, DeShaun Foster running over Mark Simoneau twice on the same play, the world's slowest "hurry-up" offense, and a whole slew of infamous images from the University of Phoenix Stadium. This has been an era of missed opportunities.

I know there are people out there who prefer it this way than to be a team who only wins it all once and then fades into oblivion. As a Denver Broncos fan, and I would much rather have my team have its history with only one playoff victory during the past ten years than to have been an Eagles fan with their five conference championship game appearances. Why? Because the memories of the victories in Super Bowls XXXII and XXXIII are priceless. Settling for less is a losing mentality. Similarly, I think Bears, Buccaneers, Rams, and Ravens fans would all refuse to trade their Super Bowl winning memories of yesteryear for a repeatedly "competitive" team. Sure, the Eagles fans have had it much better than Bengals, Browns, Chiefs, and Lions fans. But, really, whose goal is merely to be the tallest midget in the circus?

Furthermore, you must take into account the Eagles' division. The NFC East is not the AFC East, AFC North, or any other division. By any measure, the Eagles are the least successful NFC East team of the past thirty years (they are, actually, the least successful NFC East team of NFL history, but I'm trying to keep the scope of this argument within one generation). The next least successful team has won three Super Bowls during the past thirty years. Which team is that? It doesn't matter; each of the other teams in the division have won three Super Bowls during that time period. Meanwhile, Pennsylvania's other NFL franchise is about to play for their sixth Lombardi trophy. So while the Eagles' four chief rivals have won a total of sixteen Super Bowls to their zero, Eagle fans are supposed to be thrilled? (And let's not forget that even the Baltimore Ravens have won a Super Bowl this decade.)

This is where the Eagles fans are. They don't care about the quarterback's stats. They don't care that only Kurt Warner has thrown for more yards in a Super Bowl than Donovan McNabb. They don't care that Tom Brady and Brett Favre are the only active quarterbacks with more postseason victories than McNabb. They don't care that he has the lowest interception percentage in league history. They do care that the quarterback of their team will drive the team down the field to win the game. Repeatedly, especially in the playoffs and most definitely in the championship rounds, Donovan McNabb has failed to do this.

The loss to the Cardinals dropped the McNabb-led Eagles to 1-3 in playoff games decided by less than ten points. All three of those losses have occurred in the championship rounds. That does not even include the 2003 NFC Championship Game against Tampa Bay. In that game, the Eagles trailed 20-10 when McNabb threw an interception to Ronde Barber. That play began with 3:27 left on the clock and the Eagles at the Buccaneers' ten-yard line. It does not include the 2004 season's conference championship game loss to the Panthers. That was a 14-3 game, a home postseason game lost without scoring a single touchdown (only the 1978 Rams, 1979 Buccaneers, 1988 Bears, and 2000 Raiders have failed to score a touchdown in a conference championship game played at home). The one win was the 4^th & 26 game against Green Bay. Donovan McNabb came through big time in that game, and he led the Eagles to an overtime victory. He has not done it since.

Let's look at those three losses. The first was the McNabb-Reid Eagles' first appearance in an NFC Championship game. January 27, 2002, in St. Louis. The Eagles trailed by five with two minutes left and had the ball around midfield. On fourth down, McNabb threw an interception to the Rams' Aeneas Williams.

The next was Super Bowl XXXIX against New England. Again, McNabb's numbers were great. 357 yards and three touchdowns. But he threw three interceptions, two of them crushing. The first, to Rodney Harrison, took place at the New England four-yard line when the Eagles had a chance to register the first score of the game. The second, to Tedy Bruschi, occurred at the midpoint of the fourth quarter. Because of a number of missed opportunities in the first half, the Eagles trailed 24-14. That interception was the very first play after a thirty-six yard gain by Terrell Owens that put the Eagles at the Patriots' thirty-six. It ended the Eagles chances to win the game without a miracle. And when the Eagles did get the ball again, they ran the slowest hurry-up offense in football history.

At least this year's game did not end with an interception. But it did end. On a 4^th & 10 incomplete pass that followed a 3rd & 10 pass that sailed behind a wide open Hank Baskett and a 2^nd & 10 pass that missed a wide open DeSean Jackson. The McNabb-Reid Eagles are now 1-4 in NFC Championship Games (1-3 as the favorite, 0-4 against teams they had played in the regular season, and 0-3 against teams they had defeated in the regular season). Each of the last three losses resulted in the only Super Bowl appearance for the winning team in that team's entire history.

It is easy, especially when looking from a national perspective, to look at each of these games as single entities. At the individual level, none of them are McNabb's "fault." When you look at the whole, you see the pattern; you see that Donovan McNabb does not win the game. As long as he is the quarterback of a contending team and unless the Eagles are going to blow out every team ala the 1985 Chicago Bears or 1989 San Francisco 49ers, he will need to be able to lead that championship-winning drive. History has shown us that he does not do that. Accepting this, being happy with this, only lowers the ceiling for the team. Why should Eagle fans tolerate that?




In the end, Donovan McNabb did not have a bad game in Arizona. He did not lose the game. He is not the reason the Eagles lost the game. But given two minutes, a timeout, and a chance, he did not win it. He does not win it. That is his legacy.