McNabb's Return

It looks like it should be an easy Eagles victory on Sunday when Donovan McNabb returns to Philadelphia for the first time since becoming the Washington quarterback. Looking at McNabb and Andy Reid’s history, though, I think McNabb’s team will leave Philly with a double-digit victory. I’m thinking something along the lines of 27-17. Any other result would tell me one of two things: either McNabb really is done or the Eagles team is as much emotionally invested in beating McNabb as he is in defeating them.

Both McNabb and Reid are entering a game they’ve played many times. For the Washington quarterback, this is the game after people started to wonder if he really is the guy, if he still has it. Typically, this game becomes one of McNabb’s two or three best of the season. He looks great in this game. His passes are accurate in this game. This is the type of game that makes people think McNabb is one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL. He usually immediately follows this game with two or three duds in a row, but this game is almost always his.

McNabb played games like this a lot during his years as an Eagle. If we begin in McNabb’s third season, the year after his first playoff run, we can see how he responds when the hometown fans and media begin to doubt him:

November 29, 2001 The Eagles were coming off a bad loss at home to Washington, which dropped their record to 6-4. The next game was Thursday night game in Kansas City. The Eagles won easily while McNabb threw for 269 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 1 interception. His quarterback rating that night was 112.5. over the next three weeks, the Eagles went 2-1 while McNabb completed less than 55% of his passes.

September 16, 2002 The Eagles blew a double-digit lead in a bad loss to the Titans the previous week. McNabb followed that loss with a great performance in Washington while leading the Eagles to a thirty-point win. McNabb followed this win up with a great performance against the Cowboys. Then he had six bad games in a row.

November 17, 2002 The Eagles won four of the six bad games McNabb played. The final game, however, was a blowout loss at home to the Colts. The whispers about McNabb started popping up again. In the following game against the Cardinals, he completed 80% of his passes and threw for four touchdowns. Unfortunately, he broke his foot in that game and missed the rest of the regular season.

September 28, 2003 It’s easy to forget this now, but the Eagles lost the first two games at Lincoln Financial Field. They scored a combined ten points in those games to begin the season 0-2. The Bills were 2-0, including a 38-0 win over the Patriots. Few gave the Eagles a chance in Buffalo, but they won easily. After that game, it would be another month before McNabb threw for more than 200 yards in a game.

December 27, 2003 A week earlier, the Eagles blew a home game against a bad 49ers team that diminished their chances at gaining home field advantage throughout the playoffs. In the regular season finale in Washington, McNabb led a blowout victory by completing 72% of his passes for three touchdowns and no interceptions. The ensuing playoffs were not good, though.

November 27, 2008 This Thanksgiving night game against the Cardinals came on the heels of a 0-2-1 stretch for the Eagles. McNabb had been benched at halftime of the previous game. If this game had been played on Sunday instead of Thursday, McNabb probably would not have had the chance to start. He did start, however, and completed 69% of his passes for 4 touchdowns, no turnovers, and a 121.7 rating. This game is the one outlier, as McNabb only had one bad game the rest of that season.

McNabb had many other games like this. I identify the 2004 game in Dallas after the Eagles were blown out in Pittsburgh, the 2006 game in San Francisco, the Detroit game in 2007, the 2007 game in Washington, the 49er game in 2008, and last year’s game in Chicago.

This is his pattern; this is what he does. Doubts rise, he plays magnificently, and then he falls back into his normal routine. I’ve seen it a dozen times or more. Now the fans in the District get a chance to see it, too.

For the Eagle head coach, this is the home game against a lesser team immediately following decisive road victory that greatly increased his team’s confidence. Eagle fans will tell you they always dread this game. They often lose this game. When they do win, it’s always closer than it should be. By my count, when Andy Reid’s Eagles have a home game against a team that finishes the season no better than 8-8 the week after a blowout road victory, they are 4-4. Two of those losses happen to be to Washington teams that ended up 8-8.

Maybe Michael Vick and the Eagles young skill players can overcome these trends. If McNabb has anything left, however, he will show it this weekend.

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.