Stupid Giants

The Eagles loss- as beaten into our heads by the relentless media- was pretty noisome. It is so very hard in the NFL to leave a game like that, one where you are leading by 17 points well into the second half, on the table. A team like the 2004 Eagles- a team that had legitimite eleven win, twelve win aspirations- would be near wrecked. A home division loss goes a long way toward costing teams division titles, byes and home play-off games.

But the 2006 Eagles are not that team anymore.

The key for moving off the mediocre treadmill in the NFL is to find a game plan- a formula- that your team can replicate successfully ten to twelve times. For example, we play very stingy defense so keep the score in the teens and don’t make mistakes on offense. Or we can’t stop anyone and play in a Dome- so let’s sling the football, get it to thirty-five points and damn the occasional turnover. And the Eagles haven’t figured that rubric out yet.

So, although this loss to the Giants is bad for an eleven win team, maybe it is not so bad for a six win team looking to re-define itself. The Giants are the best team in the division until proven otherwise- and they needed a miracle fumble, dumbness from our young players and overtime to win this game.

So, the Eagles campaign: Up From Hopeless- seems done. Better, while they are not there yet, they are increasingly a team that ought to flirt with .500- plus and possibly make the play-offs, which would be great for a team re-building with an eye toward 2007 and 2008. The Eagles effortlessly cruised by Houston. McNabb is great- and amidst the wreckage of the Giants’ affair the Eagles did hang almost 500 yards of offense on a solid NFC defense. The quarterback is back to being a true, healthy all-pro, the wide receivers might actually be a net plus, and the old Eagles’ horror show- the interior offensive line- is the best, most athletic and healthy, of Reid’s tenure. But that old pre-TO formula that Philadelphia tried to execute Sunday afternoon- get to 20+ points and a one-score plus lead and turn it over to the defense to protect- just isn’t going to work here.

The defense is simply not proven- not a group that can be reliable counted on to protect a lead. So Reid needs to change the “old” formula: 20+ points isn’t enough any more, and sending the offense out to do nothing more than not turn it over, while protecting a lead, is no longer a pragmatic, smart option.

The new, young defensive line had eight sacks and bottled up the Giants’ rushing attack- but made key mental mistakes and wore down well before the overtime. The linebackers are just flat-out bad against the pass. Coupled with the loss of one starting corner, this creates a bad domino effect: the nickel corner starts, the dime corner is now the nickel- and moving Brian Dawkins up to linebacker (none of the LBs can simply cover anyone) in nickel situations puts yet another back-up defensive back at safety on the field.

That is three back-up DBs out there Sunday, protecting a lead against a Giant team with capable receivers, needing to throw down two scores in the fourth quarter. That is not exactly a recipe for success. No wonder the Eagles’ were ill-disciplined and confused in the secondary.