The Good Birds in 2011

I can’t truly complain, scream and yell right now about this disappointing Eagles season considering I already recognized the death of the 2011 Birds. So with that, I’d like to take a few paragraphs to recognize the few bright spots over the course of this season.

1. Jason Babin and the rest of the Defensive Line

Th The reason for Babin’s success is pretty clear: He loves hitting the quarterback and in his boy, Jim Washburn’s, system, Babin is able to put his head down and just viciously penetrate the pocket. That strategy led to 18 sacks for Babin and fans saying that he only cared about sacks. However, he forced a game-saving fumble against the Giants and his helmet broke Tony Romo’s finger and arguably cemented the Cowboys’ ultimate monumental end of season collapse and loss to the Giants yesterday. I’d say that’s a pretty well-rounded and successful player. Also, Trent Cole, Cullen Jenkins combined for 16.5 sacks. Washburn and his D-Line were the only consistent bright spot on Defensive this season.

2. 2. Shady McCoy

McCoy had probably the greatest season of any Eagles Running Back in franchise history. Some notable stats: 1,309 yds, 4.8 yards per carry, 17 touchdowns, 48 catches, 315 receiving yards and 3 receiving touchdowns. That’s straight-up ridiculous! After such a great breakout season, Shady now looks like a perennial pro-bowler and contender for the league-rushing crown for the next 5-10 seasons.

3. 3. Jeremy Maclin and Brent Celek

In the passing game, there wasn’t too much to be proud of with the injuries and constant struggles from Michael Vick and DeSean Jackson. In fact, Maclin and Celek were probably the only two consistent performers in the aerial attack all season. Maclin boasted 859 yards and 5 touchdowns off of 63 catches and most likely would have eclipsed the milestone 1,000-yard season if he didn’t miss 3 games late in the year. Celek reestablished himself as a top tight end in the league by notching 811 yards, 5 touchdowns on 62 catches for himself. If Vick can stay 90-100% healthy for 12 games next season, both receivers should improve on this season and possibly aim to get into the pro-bowl.

4. 4. Jason Peters

Before this season, my constant joke was, “Jason Peters is as attracted to False Starts and Holding penalties as he is to twinkies”. He’s still fat (and I have NO idea in the world how he played Tight End in College), but he had a terrific season this year. Last year, he made the pro-bowl but his selection was scrutinized because he sort of received the honor for shaky reasons. If you watched any of the Eagles SNF games on NBC, you would’ve heard Chris Collinsworth and his tebowner gawking at Peters’ footwork and blocking ability. Collinsworth, along with multiple ESPN, NFL Network and Rotoworld.com writers believe that Peters might be the best Left Tackle in all of the NFL.

5. 5. Eagles fans not murdering Juan Castillo

I listen to 97.5 The Fanatic with Mike Missanelli almost every weekday in the afternoon while driving. After listening to the astounding number of enraged fans who call up and vent about how awful Juan Castillo is as a Defensive Coordinator and how they “don’t know what they’re gonna do if he isn’t fired soon”, I’d like to congratulate all of the Eagles fans who were absolutely infuriated by Castillo but refrained from committing homicide.

6. 6. Steve Spagnuolo being fired by the Rams.

While we’re on the subject of Defensive Coordinators, the St. Louis Rams fired Spagnuolo as their Head Coach only a few hours ago. For those of you who forget of Spags is, he’s the man who helped sustain Jimmy Johnson’s defense for the better part of a decade and was the Defensive Coordinator of the 2008 New York Giants Super Bowl team. If you haven’t faced reality already: Andy Reid will be back as Eagles Head Coach next season. So, let’s just pray and hope the front office fires Castillo and hires Spagnuolo as Defensive Coordinator.

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…