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.
