It's All Downhill From Here

As Eagles fans, we've been lucky over the last decade to witness such consistent success. Other than 2005, we've avoided watching a team just spiral out of control. Unfortunately, that's all changing now.

In hindsight, this was completely foreseeable. Andy Reid deserved to be fired after the 2011 season. His decision to go with Juan Castillo was indefensible (morbid humor), and the personnel holes were inexcusable. Lurie kept Reid around, though. That alone was probably a bad move, but he compounded his mistake at the same time by issuing an ultimatum for improvement. 8-8 wasn't going to be tolerated this season, and while we can debate the specifics, some combination of winning the NFC East or a playoff game is probably the bar Reid has to beat.

For many observers, myself included, that kind of ultimatum was comforting at the time. Lurie wasn't issuing a blank check to Reid. He was setting a standard and giving him one last chance. The problem that I didn't consider (and Lurie probably didn't either), is what happens if Andy can't reach that bar? What happens if he realizes, say, six games into the season, that his job is about to go down in flames?

Maybe he would fire his defensive coordinator, the right move but too late. Maybe he would start seriously considering starting a rookie quarterback to give the Eagles "a spark." And that might cause his starter and team leader to give up, even though he was far from the team's biggest problem. Maybe the rest of the team would smell the desperation and respond in kind. Change becomes a reason to trash people anonymously, and adversity becomes a reason to give up.

As a generic football team, you wouldn't count them out at 3-4. Not yet. But all indications are that this team has entered a death spiral. Morale is at an all time low, and desperation is peaking. The bye magic is gone. The coordinator change didn't work. The lame duck head coach will try anything. The offseason roster purge looms. They've even lost Dave Spadaro. 

It's the end times.

Photo from Getty.

Are The Falcons A Scary Opponent?

At 6-0, Atlanta is the only undefeated team left in the NFL. At least on the scoreboard, that's perfection. The Eagles, with their 3-3 record and series of close games, are far from perfection. So should we just chalk Sunday's game up as a loss and move on?

I wouldn't. For an undefeated squad, the Falcons look relatively unimpressive. Not bad, for sure, but nothing special. Football Outsiders ranks Atlanta 8th in overall DVOA., with the 10th-best offense and 11th-best defense. Why the difference between performance and record? Look no further than the teams they've beaten:

• Kansas City (1-5)
• Denver (3-3)
• San Diego (3-3)
• Carolina​ (1-5)
• Washington​ (3-4)
• Oakland​ (2-4)

Not a single team above .500.​ It's been the 29th-most difficult schedule by DVOA in the league. You go through the numbers and nothing really stands out as being special about this squad, other than their ability to avoid turnovers. The passing game looks dangerous with Roddy White and Julio Jones, but it ranks below both the Giants and Steelers. Run game isn't going to frighten anyone. On defense, the pass coverage looks solid (Vick: beware Asante Samuel), but they are suspect against the run.

​Plus, I have a reasonable amount of confidence in Andy Reid after the bye. I know there are other factors at play, but his record with two weeks to prepare is untouchable. He's won every game after the bye for 13 years, plus all three division playoff games where he also had the extra week. That's a full season of undefeated post-bye play. Tough to ignore.

On top of that Reid preparation time, the Eagles also have the addition-by-subtraction in the defensive coaching ranks. Todd Bowles has pledged to be less predictable in his play calls than Juan Castillo. I like the sound of that coming out of a bye. Matt Ryan is going to have a tough time preparing for coverages he can only guess are coming at him.

​All in all, I'm surprisingly optimistic about the inconsistent Eagles potential to upset the Falcons.

Photo from Getty.​

31 Other Teams Didn't Have This Problem

Judy Battista, The New York Times:

Another victim of the lockout: the Philadelphia Eagles, who might have looked a lot more the way they did Sunday night if their off-season haul of free agents had been able to work together during a normal season. Instead, it has taken nearly two months for the Eagles to find the form that was expected of them.

Rob Maaddi, Associated Press:

It took time for the new guys to get acclimated and returning players also had to adjust to a new defensive coordinator and new offensive line coach without benefit of minicamps because of the lockout.

Nick Fierro, The Morning Call:

Watching how the Philadelphia Eagles pulled together vs. Dallas Sunday night, Washington two weeks earlier and the second half of the Buffalo game a week before that, it’s not hard to conclude that they’re now where they thought they’d be going into the season had they not been locked out all summer.

Also known as cognitive dissonance between this and this.

By the Numbers: Showed Me

In previewing week eight, I called the Cowboys match up a “show me” game. In other words, show me something that should give some hope that the Eagles can actually accomplish what will be an uphill battle to the playoffs.

They certainly didn’t answer all of my questions, but the 34-7 trouncing of the Dallas Cowboys was nothing if not proof that the Eagles can play at an elite level. Let’s break down the win.

7 = Number of receptions by Brent Celek, more than in the last three games combined. Jason Avant also had a big day, as Michael Vick torched the Cowboys over the middle of the field. Celek noted after the game that Dallas often lined up in deep Cover Two formations to prevent the big pass play. The formations worked, in a sense, but the Eagles picked them apart underneath those safeties.

185 = Rushing yards for LeSean McCoy on 30 attempts. Only three Eagles in history had more rushing yards than McCoy in a single game. Only three times has a running back received more rushing attempts in Andy Reid’s 12 years as head coach. McCoy is not only quickly convincing the rest of the NFL that he deserves to be included in the conversation about the best running back, but he seems to have already sold Reid. 58 carries in the last two games means Reid took my humble advice and, well, ran with it. (It also helps to have Jason Peters back.)

1 = Embarrassed coach. Rob Ryan, after the game: “I got out-coached, out-everything. It’s all on me.”

13 = Straight wins after the bye for Reid. Looked like he was one step ahead of Ryan the whole game.

100% = Eagles “Drive Success Rate.” Football Outsiders says that the Patriots have the highest rate in the league of drives with either a first down or touchdown, at 79%. The Eagles accomplished that on every drive Sunday night. The offense also converted more than half of their third down chances for the first time this season since week one.

88% = Cowboys “Drive Success Rate.” Oddly enough, the Cowboys offense also scored well against this metric. Of course, only in their final two drives did they manage to reach a third set of downs.

9.3 = Rushing yards per attempt by DeMarco Murray on 8 carries. The Eagles defense had a great day, its best against a quarterback not named Grossman. But there were still some problems that didn’t look fixed. Murray had no problem gashing the defense when he had the ball in his hands. Poor tackling was still an issue from Jamar Chaney and others. Kurt Coleman also allowed a ghastly 70 yard touchdown pass to Laurent Robinson.

Perhaps the truest thing that can be said about Sunday’s victory was that the Eagles won the way they are built to win. This team was constructed to jump out to big leads and then force the opponent to comeback against a relentless pass rush and Pro Bowl cornerbacks. Howie Roseman and Reid essentially had this performance in mind when they made all those offseason changes. We’ll see if that revived blueprint can hold going forward.

Photo from Getty.

"Trick or Treat"

Redneck Cowboys fans? Really?

Week Eight
Dallas Cowboys @ Philadelphia Eagles
8:15 pm ET on NBC

Sizing Up the Dallas Cowboys

Last night, I hunkered down in the film room (read: NFL Game Rewind) and watched the last two games of the Eagles’ week eight opponent, the hated Dallas Cowboys. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. The team is 3-3, including three fourth quarter letdowns. Most of the press I’ve stumbled across about the division rival has been disparaging at best.

But I came away from those two games and an examination of the stats with an entirely different perspective: the Cowboys are a pretty good team.

Let me start with the objective stats from Football Outsiders. Dallas excels in a number of areas. They are third overall in team defense, and first in adjusted line yards allowed by the front seven. On offense, they’re only 30th rushing the ball, but are eighth though the air. Having the fifth-best adjusted sack rate helps, as does Tony Romo’s overall stellar play. He has had some untimely interceptions in losses to the Lions and Jets, but he’s still fourth in quarterback DVOA, the highest rate of his career. Romo’s yards per attempt and QB rating are right in line with where they were before his injury-shortened season in 2010.

Subjectively, the Cowboys looked very solid against both the Patriots and Rams in the last two weeks. St. Louis was a pushover, with A.J. Feeley starting and basically no one interested in tackling, but Dallas didn’t mess around. They had few mistakes, racked up the yards, and got a breakout rushing game for the first time this year. Dallas also played an even, closely-fought game against New England that Tom Brady pulled out with a last minute touchdown drive.

Andy Reid always wins after the bye. Always. 15-0 including in the playoffs. But this one won’t be easy. The Cowboys have all the weapons to beat the Eagles this Sunday: a solid quarterback, playmakers at wide receiver, tight end, and out of the backfield. They have a physical, blitz-happy defense.

Most games from here on out are “must win” situations for the Eagles, because they can’t afford more than two additional losses if they still want a real shot at making the playoffs. This one is more of a “show me” game. If the team really wants to give me hope that they can pull off a turnaround, a solid game against a good team like the Cowboys is where they need to start.

Photo from Getty