Suffering

Comfort ye my people.

Gosh, for pro-football's best fans, it has been a rough time at the Linc lately. It is hard to order the amaranthine debilitating home losses: the Monday Night wipeout versus Seattle, the choke job against Dallas last year, the choke job versus the Giants this year. Now this mess. Gosh guys, couldn’t we save one of these disasters for the road?

A pro team’s season isn’t “over” until the seventh loss- but with "quarterback" Jeff Garcia, at Indianapolis and a Monday Night with Carolina suggest that terminus is coming, and coming right quick. Look, with McNabb they were a .500 team- maybe nine wins. Maybe. And, even say, the Colts, without Peyton Manning, aren't seven win good. So any sort of renaissance is very problematic. Oh well, at least this isn’t Washington- and Joe Gibbs is not picking up his prescriptions here. And looking at the New York Post this morning, I’m not exactly sure the Giants are convinced they might be better if their quarterback got hurt.

To be honest, I am a little at a loss. Last year, it was straightforward. Even with Donovan, the Eagles were amiss. His injury gave the franchise an excuse to play what young players that they had stockpiled. They certainly had a lot to fix: d-tackle, outside LBs, strong safety, o-tackle, center, wide out. Some of the guys they plugged in either could play or showed a little promise. Consequently, the Eagles replaced eight players in the rotation with guys in their first contracts. And they were undoubtedly a little better- up from six wins, say .500 probably - and a whole lot younger than 2005.

Unlike 2005, the Eagles entered this year as a rebuilding year. Whatever young players the Eagles think can play are already playing. So, post-injury 2005 was straightforward: bench vets, play youth, be hopeful. Post-injury 2006: well, the youth is already playing- so you keep playing said youth and keep evaluating their ability to help the franchise rebuild the product.

McNabb getting hurt makes the rebuilding season less interesting- and yes, it would have been nice to sneak “a team a year away” into the play-offs this year.

But aren't the Eagles doing what they should do? Shouldn't they have moved eight guys out- particularly on both lines for younger guys? Aren't both lines better- and project to improve more? Aren't the Eagles better & clearly younger now than 2005? This is what rebuilding looks like- some of its bitter.

Two things for the off-season are apparent though. First, the back-up quarterback role around here changed Sunday. Prior to this injury, it was an emergency guy- a player to get you through a handful of games. Now McNabb has missed significant time three of five years now- and he's never going to make 25 straight starts ever again. So that second quarterback has to be expected to play 25-30% of the snaps over the next four years. And he has to be affordable because of the money the quarterback position already ties up. Cheap and can play? That means first day draft pick.

Second, I get this feeling the Eagles are more than a little stale, mawkish perhaps, in their thinking. A lot of their advantages in the early 2000 NFC East- managing the cap, where to take what type of positions in the draft, developing a young quarterback, etc.- have closed up. No one has brought a new thought on capitalzing on Donovan, plying this roster of defenders, etc. in like forever. They can’t fire or demote Banner or Reid- or add a new mind to the power structure. So I bet the coordinators are changed this winter, and game-day power restructured. There is just too much vapidness, and things are a little too jejune for my taste.