Blame Game

I have already been mourning the death of the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles season since the team’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals, but what has happened this morning has really pushed me over the edge. According to many personalities in the National Media and the multiple footbal writers for the Philadelphia Inquirer, yesterday’s victory over the Dolphins was a triumphant and demolishing accomplishment that has the team believing again and still hopeful of sneaking into the playoff hunt. Multiple people wrote how Juan Castillo saved his job, for now, and the cries of “Fire Andy” will disappear until at least next week.

This is what got me totally infuriated.

Seriously??? The awful performance from both of those aforementioned coaches in previous weeks is the reason why the team’s victory on Sunday was such a huge momentous occasion! These coaches are the sole reason why this “Dream Team” season has swiftly flowed down the drain of Jeffrey Lurie’s toilet.

The truth is, everything negative that has happened to this team since the Packers bounced them out of the playoffs last season are either direct or indirect results of Andy Reid’s actions. He overlooked the direct affects that Juan Castillo’s promotion would have on the entire team and can be clearly explained in a simple cause-and-effect view of the Eagles’ series of unfortunate events:

Series of Unfortunate Events: The death of the 2011 Eagles Season

• January— Eagles hire renowned Defensive Line Coach Jim Washburn. This move was pretty great. Washburn was experienced and knew how to coach players to success. But, the Eagles most likely only signed him to attract the then-free-agent Jason Babin who played under Washburn in Tennessee last year.

• February— Since the Eagles decided they would most likely assume the defensive strategy of Washburn, called the “Wide-9”, Andy Reid and the Eagles front office realized they needed a Defensive Coordinator that could easily yield the floor to Washburn at times and be the figure-head of the Defensive staff that Washburn wasn’t capable of being. So, the front office promoted Juan Castillo from the position of Offensive Line Coach to Defensive Coordinator. The move was questionable but Castillo originally won over some doubters by arguing he had studied opposing defenses his entire career and truly knew what happens on the other side of the ball. (HAHAHAHAHA. What a joke!)

• July—Without thinking, the Eagles decided to bolster the positions that had big-name free agents available to bring the attention of the City away from the Phillies star-studded roster. Even though pick-ups of Babin, Cullin Jenkins and Nnamdi Asomugha were, and still are, great acquisitions, Castillo lacked the confidence and knowledge to stress to the front office that the team needed to improve its linebacking corps. Thus, the team’s linebackers were clearly going to be an unimproved weak spot from last season.

• Regular Season—The ignoring of the linebacking corps has resulted in multiple travesties:

1. Weak linebacking (obviously)

2. Terrible tackling on the outside and downfield

3. The overcompensation and ultimate poor play from other positions.

Asomugha isn’t playing his normal cover game because he has to constantly be ready to help out on runs and passes up the middle, the defensive line has to send players into coverage at times instead of rushing the passer, the safeties are can’t really help on deep passes because they’re too concerned with helping the linebackers and thus Asante Samuel can’t take more risks knowing if he gets beat nobody is behind him to help! This insanity on defense has given up way to many points and has then put the offense in a bad position trying to catch up which then leads to this:

• Michael Vick’s woes—When losing, Michael Vick over-thinks and makes more mistakes. This issue has directly resulted in him getting hurt, the decline of DeSean Jackson’s stats and production and ultimately multiple losses! When losing, Vick thinks that staying in the pocket and will help him improve his decision-making and will force him to play safe football, take care of the ball and get as many points as possible to help lead the team back into the game. But, he stayed in the pocket too long until the pocket collapsed on him like a drunk girl on Halloween. He also plays conservative and therefore is scared to risk the deep balls to Jackson fearing that he can’t waste any downs and knowing his defense will give up more points the second he and his offensive trot slugglishly off the field.

This entire serious of unfortunate events for the 2011 Philadelphia Eagles are results from the actions by Andy Reid and the incompetence of Juan Castillo. The chain of negative events that occurred this season is the reason why Reid and Castillo HAVE to be fired following this season. There’s an common philosophy that when an NFL franchise competes annually but can’t get over the hump and win a championship, the team needs to either get rid of its Head Coach or Quarterback. The birds already pushed Donavon McNabb into an end-of-career abyss and now its time to part ways with the guy who has come up short year after year after year after year after year. Yes, that’s the number of times Reid has failed to guide his team to a Super Bowl title after appearing in the NFC Championship Game. It’s time to stop blaming people and realize what needs to be done. There needs to be a culture change at the NovaCare Complex and in the home team locker room in the Linc. Thanks for your decade of hard work Andy, but it’s time for you to go and make sure you bring Castillo with you.

Don't Forget Joe Paterno's True Legacy

Clink the link below to get my opinion for Huffington Post High School on the entire Joe Paterno/Penn State scandal

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jake-fischer/dont-neglect-paternos-tru_b_1093538.html

It's Always Sunnier On A Bandwagon

Below is my blog post for Huffington Post High School about fair-weather fans. If you're as annoyed as I am by bandwagoners than you'll really enjoy this piece. Click here to check it out on the Huffington Post's site.

Within every competitive atmosphere exists a group of people who remain uninterested in that environment until a very interesting moment or event occurs. In the sporting world, the typically disinterested person who suddenly develops a “burning passion” for a team or player is more commonly known as a “fair-weather fan” or “bandwagoner”. Fair-weather fans exist in all aspects of professional sports and are always lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce on an opportunity to jump on a bandwagon. Over the past decade, the number of these so-called fans has been increasing all across America and there seems to be no limit as to what these people sporadically take interest in. For example, it has always been common for the teenage boy living in a suburb of a big city to one day become the biggest fan of that city’s football team once the post season begins. Today, however, fair-weather fans now even consist of American men springing onto the Women’s National Soccer team bandwagon during this past summer’s women’s World Cup. And, as the action of the October Major League Baseball playoffs intensifies, bandwagoners are at it again.

It’s very easy to weed out the true die-hard fans from a despicable crowd of fair-weather fans. However, it’s much more difficult to determine what kind of fair-weather fan a bandwagoner actually is. There are many different levels and categories of a bandwagoner; each consists of varying degrees of pathetic fake worship. Now, in order to shed light on the entire cast of fair-weather fans, I present to you (from most to least tolerable) the Levels of Fair-Weather Fans:

Level 1- “I was focused on another sport during the regular season”

The most tolerable fair-weather fan belongs to the group of people who claim that they were too invested in rooting for a different sports team to be focused on a second sports team within in the same city. Now, you may be thinking this is just an excuse, but most of these fans actually were dedicated to another sports team of the same city. For example, Joe the Schmoe was a dedicated basketball fan and didn’t have enough time to focus on the city’s football team all winter-long until the NFL playoffs began. Joe has known the football team’s record throughout the season, but can’t recall actual games or any meaningful player stats because he has just glanced through box scores in the morning paper. Joe’s friends probably invited him to watch a few football games over at someone’s house a few Sundays as well. However, Joe was too busy with going to the basketball team’s game or watching it at his house. Until one day, when the football team advances deep into the postseason, Joe asks his friends if he can purchase a ticket near them at the football team’s Conference Championship game. His friends, knowing that he is a true fan of their city’s sports teams at heart, respect his sudden passion for the football team, even if it did come a little too late.

Level 2- “I was really busy during the regular season”

Following the two-sport pickled fan, there are fans that are too pathetic to even come up with an excuse for not following the team during the regular season. Within sports fandom, just like school, work and amongst friends, the excuse “I was too busy” is just as cliché and false as the “my dog at it” defense. Unless the person was seriously devoting their time to earning a promotion at work, bringing their grades up or spending more time with their friends and family, there is no reason to be “too busy” to follow a sports team. Unfortunately, the people that might actually have a legitimate reason probably only make up 5% of the population of the fair-weather fans in this category. The “too busy” fair-weather fan also commonly complains that watching road games on TV is too boring to waste their precious free time. If this excuse is made, definitely expect the person to follow up that statement with some form of argument derived from “the team’s TV commentators are also annoying and uneducated about the game.” Well, the commentators are definitely a hell of a lot more invested in the team than they are.

Level 3-Fans who defend not wearing team apparel until the playoffs

Most High Schools across America are overflowing with students who are Level 3 fair-weather fans. In most towns, the residents tend to root for and become affiliated with the closest city’s sports teams. For example, a kid growing up in any part of Illinois is born and bred a Chicago sports fan. However, it is extremely uncommon to see an Illinois high school student walking down the halls rocking a Derrick Rose jersey in September or wearing an Aramis Rameriz jersey during the winter. Only true die-hard fans will sport an out-of-season jersey or team apparel during the off-season. The excuses for not-wearing out-of-season team apparel range from “I was wearing the in-season team’s apparel” to “I outgrew my old fan-gear” to “It was too cold to wear a jersey”. Yet, the Level 3 fair-weather fan is optimized by the guy sitting in front of you at a playoff game who still has the tag on his recently purchased jersey. True fans wear their team’s colors year round, and it’s really difficult to accept fake fans who buy team apparel after that team wins the championship or suddenly becomes good.

Level 4- The girlfriends of Die-hard fans

It’s not sexist to say that the majority of women are not true, die-hard, “Cut me open and see I bleed my team’s colors” sports fans. Even though there are female fans that have grown up most of their life supporting a sports team, too many women become passionate sports fans out of the blue. What’s the reasoning behind this phenomenon? Women who take up an interest in sports fandom to either impress their boyfriend or husband or to spend more time with that spouse. This latter reasoning does make sense. If a woman’s boyfriend goes to football games every Sunday and she wants to spend more time with him, then she should take full advantage of every opportunity to go to a game with him. But, when the girlfriend suddenly becomes a die-hard fan in order to impress her boyfriend, his friends or his dad, then a serious case of Level 4 fair-weather fandom should be diagnosed by a local doctor. Within a competitive atmosphere that often consists of arguments and heated sports discussions, men don’t want to be bothered with a girlfriend trying to impress them with her limited knowledge. However, if the woman does actually have a point, then her boyfriend’s peers will embrace her. So ladies, don’t get caught up in impressing your boyfriend with your sports knowledge. Understand the fine-line between attending a game, and ruining the sporting experience for your boyfriend’s buddies.

Level 5- Other team’s fan who claims to have always liked your team

Nothing is more irritating than a fan of another team who claims that your team is his “second-favorite”. In the world of true sports fandom, you can only support one team within each sport. And, your devotion to that team can only be influenced by the city you were born in or grew up in and by which team your parents root for. That’s it. So, when a person suddenly starts rooting for a team that doesn’t belong to the aforementioned categories, you need to bail. Don’t trust them, because they’re probably going to negatively influence your sports-rooting experiences. The worst example of Level 5 fair-weather fandom exists in New Jersey and Connecticut. Both states are commonly states that New Yorkers choose to raise their children in and ultimately bring along their infectious New York fandom into the state as well. For example, when a guy moves from Manhattan to a South Jersey Suburb to raise is children, he raises his children as New York fans living in a town that is heavily populated with Philadelphia fans. So, when the New York team is eliminated from playoff contention or the playoffs, the New Yorker’s son suddenly claims he’s been a Philly fan all along and that they’ve always been his second favorite team. The die-hards know better.

Unlike the Level 5 fair-weather fan, I’m actually a die-hard Philadelphia sports fan. I’ve cringed when my dad has thought aloud about giving up his 76ers season tickets and I’ve sat through Phillies games in third grade when the Marlins were coming into Citizens Bank Park and dominating. I’ve cried during losing streaks and cheered during winning streaks, but I’ve never hidden behind an excuse and sunk to the level of a fair-weather fan. Detroit Lions fans have always shown up to games during the team’s 19-game losing streak back in 2009. Today, the team is on fire and the fans are still there. But the fact that the Buffalo Bills have increased ticket sales this season doesn’t speak for good marketing and good business by the organization. It points directly at the fans that have suddenly become Bills supporters now that things are starting to look up. So to all those people out there who are jumping on bandwagons all across America: go home. You need to experience the bad times before you can truly appreciate the good.

Nowhere To Go But Up

During a Season 4 episode of CBS’s Two and a Half Men, Alan is faced with a second failed marriage. His devilish mother, played by Holland Taylor, comes to the rescue with some inspiring words of wisdom: “Short of contracting a flesh-easting disease, thing’s couldn’t possibly get any worse. You’ve hit rock bottom. You have no where to go but up!” Unfortunately, Andy Reidcould use these exact “motivational” words of wisdom for his pre-gamespeech on Sunday in Buffalo.

After a bevy of blockbuster off-season trades and free-agency signings, the Philadelphia Eagles were labeled by many as a pre-season “dream team”, the NFL’s Miami Heat, the cat’s pajamas, any other cliché for something awesome and a favorite to contend for the 2011 Super Bowl. Now, a quarter of the way through the regular season, Michael Vick has left two games due to injury, theoffensive line has committed stupid penalty after stupid penalty, the horrendous line-backing play has been detrimental to the entire defense and Andy Reid is still… Andy Reid. Although the team’s record could easily be a not-too-shabby 2-2 if it weren’t for the shanking leg and foot of Alex Henery, the Birds are an embarrassing 1-3 and were expected to have a record of 3-1 or even 4-0. They collapsed against the Falcons in the 4^th quarter with a failed thirddown conversion and terrible red-zone defense, they were destroyed by the Giants at home by the surgical arm of Eli Manning (REALLY????), and of course the aforementioned loss to San Francisco accredited to the rookie kicker Henery. But again, things can’t possibly get any worse, right?

On the bright side, the team’s high-powered offensive attack does rank within thetop ten of the entire NFL, and Vick is still standing on his own two feet by his own will. LeSean McCoy is running wild with 363 total rushing yards with a 5.5 yard average per carry and 4 touchdowns as well. DeSean Jackson, Jeremy Maclin and Jason Avant have all been sufficient and effective targets for Vick too. However, the team can’t consistently turn long drives into seven points. Henery has attempted 11 field goals, 7 from 30-39 yards, meaning the team has failed to convert on 7 red-zone and near-red-zoneopportunities. A team can’t win without puttingseven points on the board so often. Yet there is a silver lining. With each game, the offensive line grows stronger and more experienced. Over the next three weeks, the drive-crushing penalties the inexperienced lineman commit will decrease and Vick’s safety in the pocket should increase too. And, as long as Vick stays somewhat healthy, and Shady continues to bounce off tacklers and shoot through holes and gaps that seem physically impossible to bust through, the offense can’t possibly be as horrible as the defense is.

To begin, CASEY MATTHEWS IS NOT HIS BROTHER! He never will be, even if they have identical flowing hair that should be endorsed by head and shoulders. He’s not as fast, strong, smart or talented as his big brother, Clay Matthews either. His demotion to the bench was one of Reid’s only smart decisions since the pre-season ended, but Matthews might not even deserve to be on the Miami Dolphins’ bench. I know he’s only a rookie, but if this team has any idea of playoffs on their minds, Matthews cannot be in their lineup whatsoever. He’s not ready to be an NFL linebacker. The entire line-backing corps isn’t sufficient enough to compliment the team’s abundance of talent on the defensive line and in the secondary. With a straight up intimidating pass-rush and pretty good downfield coverage, the defense ranks 11^th in the League in opponent’s pass yards allowed per game. The only real chink in the so far pass defense armor has been the linebacker’s incapability to cover tight ends and Nnamdi Asomugha’s slow adjustment to the team system. But, Asomugha’s transition to

the Philly 4-3 system would be a whole without the linebackers tackling and pass protecting liabilities, which are also leaving the defensive line out to dry in this wide-9 system with no rush protection in the middle. This only leaves me with one glaring question: Why did the front office let Stewart Bradley go? He was still recovering from his ACL tear in 2009, and could arguably be fully recovered just about… NOW. Instead, the Eagles boast a starting linebacking corps of Brian Rolle, Jamar Chaney and Moise Fokou. That’s inexperience, inexperience and very little experience respectively. Even though they added big names to the defensive line and secondary, the front office totally dropped the ball on the heart of the defense.

1-3 is definitely not the place the Eagles were expecting to and wanted to be. In fact, Since the AFL and NFL merged in 1970, 370 teams began the season 1-3 or worse. Only 29 of those teams (7.8%) made the playoffs, only five of those 29 teams made it to the conference championship game (1.4%) and only one team made it to the Super Bowl (0.3%). The Eagles have dug themselves into a whole as deep as a whole dug to theChinese Basketball Association. The Birds’ schedule isn’t a walk in the park, but there does appear to be favorable matchups against a maybe-back-pedaling Bills team, the Redskins, who are yet to prove they are for real, Tony Romo’s Cowboys, the “Kevin Kolb Era Arizona Cardinals”, and then three-straight non-division games against the Seahawks, Dolphins and Jets. The Eagles are a very disappointing 1-3. However, with reality check game this upcoming Sunday and a somewhat favorable schedule, the team does have a chance to improve. After hitting the potential NFL contender “rock bottom” the Eagles really do have nowhere else to go but up. And, on the bright side, the Phillies are still alive in the playoffs…