Game 8 Thoughts

a slow start to the game, which wasn't a complete surprise considering next week's measuring stick game against the division leading giants. it took a while for the team to get in sync, but once they did, the game was never in doubt.

- mcnabb's day in a nutshell -- terrible start, hot middle, conservative end. he's streaky, we all know that, but westbrook or no westbrook, if mcnabb isn't on, the offense goes 3 and out. he ended the day 28/43 for 349 with 2 TDs and 1 INT, which isn't shabby at all, but it definitely could have been better. still, if there is such a thing, i'd rather have him save his A game for the hated giants.

- dawkins looked old and awkward trying to tackle koren robinson, but ended up with a solid game overall, breaking up a couple of passes and making some hits. he can still make plays when he gets there in time.

- middle of o-line still getting stuffed on short yardage

- i don't want to kick him while he's down after taking one for the team, but brent celek made a number of catches yesterday that lj probably would not have made. in addition, celek protects the ball better, so i didn't get the usual lj smith agita when celek turned around ran downfield. i don't know how good he's going to get, but honestly, he is already better than littlejohn ever was.

H-U-G-E game looming against the giants folks. the birds opened up as a 3 point favorite but it seems like people are already betting the giants. the line hasn't moved, but the eagles -3 is listing at +105 on sportsbook.com. mid-season home game. put up or shut up time birds!

Various Thoughts on Phillies

don't have a lot of time today, so i'll just throw out some things kicking around in my head

- charlie manuel -- i think his ability to bench rollins (reigning league MVP) without tearing apart the team or losing rollins was a significant contribution to this championship. the day he pulled that move off, he won me over as a fan forever. how many other managers could have pulled that off? bobby cox? maybe torre? certainly not bowa or leyland. in addition, virtually every button he pushed in the playoffs was the right one. it was uncanny.

- pat gillick -- i took some heat last season when i mentioned that gillick is one of the biggest reasons why i got my love of baseball back (that he had turned a sour and grumpy team into a team that genuinely enjoyed each other and the game), and i stand by that. he may not have made a ton of big ticket moves during his time here, but boy did he fill the roster with guys who got the job done.

- head wade -- head is going to get some credit for the nucleus of this team, but there is no chance that the phillies would have one a series if head was still the GM. first of all, head wouldn't have been in houston to give away brad lidge for nothing. second, there is no way that head would have given away bobby abreu for nothing (which i still maintain was critical to changing the team personality). third, head could never have assembled this pitching staff, and pitching is the biggest reason why the phillies won this title.

- jamie moyer -- instrumental to helping cole reach his potential. another move head would likely not have made.

- cole hamels -- did cole mention that his wife just turned 30? cole is what, 24? is there a story there? was she his babysitter as a kid or something?

- jimmy rollins -- thank you to whoever got jimmy to stop swinging for the fences every at bat. big difference between falling off balance and over home plate after every swing and his balanced line drive swing.

- this core is young enough that they should be contenders for 4-5 more seasons!

- hopefully this opens the floodgates and some of the other teams start winning. the 1980 phillies were part of the golden age of philadelphia sports. dare we hope for the start of another golden age? am i being greedy?

- the heads up play by chase utley should go down as one of the greatest postseason defensive plays ever

wow. i can't stop smiling.

At Last Our Long Regional Nightmare is Over!

philadelphia phillies -- 2008 world series champions

feels pretty good to say.

Pinch Me

up 3 games to 1 with hamels coming up? is this really happening?

Jamie Moyer!

the combination of a clutch start by jamie moyer and some really good fortune (perfect umpire assignment and a miraculous fly-out that was a home run off the bat) has the phillies leading two games to one in the world series. wow!

how is it possible that they're leading this series when the team is 1 for 953 with runners in scoring position with the 1 being an infield single that didn't actually score a run? that has to be a good sign, right? it can't continue forever.

ryan howard finally starting to look like he's getting his timing back.

jimmy rollins finally starting to take good swings and no longer taking huge off-balance hacks.

carlos ruiz staking an early claim for world series mvp.

keeping my fingers crossed, but things are looking ok so far. i mean, the phillies haven't even played well yet.

i'm not even that upset by the bad call on the crawford bunt because i feel like it only evened out the fact that the rays didn't score two on the longoria non-homer. how the heck did that ball not go out of the park?

three am and i'm too wired to sleep... go phillies!

World Series!

huge game tonight. if the phillies are to win this series, i believe hamels must win tonight's game. it feels odd to say that considering it's only the first game of the series, but the nights that hamels pitches will be the only games of the series where the phillies have the better starter on the mound. (you could argue that myers is more talented than shields, but he certainly hasn't pitched better than shields).

i think the phillies definitely have a shot at this, but they have to get off to a good start tonight.

go phillies!

NFL Trades

i wasn't expecting them to get him, but i can't help but be disappointed that the eagles weren't able to/chose not to add tony gonzalez to the roster. i'm not sure what really happened given that i've heard a number of conflicting reports:

- the chiefs were never really going to trade him and all the teams that inquired were never given specific demands

- the chiefs were asking for a 3rd and teams were offering 4th and 5th round picks

- the chiefs were asking for a 2nd rounder

but i'd surely have paid a second or third for gonzalez (especially given that the birds have an extra first round pick next season). sigh.

i'm not sure what the decision point here was, but i think these are some potential lines of thought:

1) the eagles consider themselves to be championship contenders already and didn't feel that gonzalez was an upgrade over littlejohn

2) the eagles do not consider themselves to be championship contenders given how the roster is shaping up this season so are looking ahead to building around kolb with all the extra picks next season

3) the eagles do not consider themselves to be championship contenders with the roster as constructed but also don't think that gonzalez will be enough to push them over the top

4) the eagles thought gonzalez would be an upgrade but the asking price was way too high

it is not possible that the eagles are thinking that they are championship contenders based on the way the season has played out so far. certainly, i think they can be among the handful of good teams in the league if they "play to their potential", but they clearly have a weakness at tight end and gonzalez is both a better blocker and receiver than anyone on their roster.

so i'm thinking it has to be one of the last three and i'm really starting to think that number 2 is what is really going on. the way the cowboys won the superbowls under jimmy johnson was to stock up a ton of high draft picks and have them all grow up together around a young QB.

i think it's definitely possible that andy's been gearing up the birds for the post-mcnabb era and trading for an almost done gonzalez doesn't fit into that plan.

-------

regarding the cowboys trade for williams, my reaction is... meh.

a) williams is only a good wideout. he's not a true number 1 and certainly not a difference maker

b) this is not the NBA where the team that gets the single best player wins every trade. in the NFL teams that trade multiple picks for a single player generally lose out on that trade.

c) i think the biggest outcome of this trade is that the cowboys look to be ready to cut bait on me-o

Game 6 Thoughts

the eagles keep the season alive with a come from behind win over a team they should have dominated. meh.

- special teams are killing this team, and it's not just the eagles inability to make field goals (or keep other teams from scoring TDs during your field goal attempts). it's the insanely bad luck the birds have had with other teams kicking 50+ and 60+ yard field goals against them. is there such a thing as field goal defense? if so, the birds have had historically bad field goal defense the last few seasons.

- defense played well at the end of the game, but got generally pushed around for most of it. blech. what happened to brodrick bunkley? he's the single biggest liability on defense right now. he's terrible and getting pushed around like a little girl. he is not the same player he was last season.

- mcnabb played pretty well, all things considered. he had a nice 2 minute drive at the end of the first half that he won't get credit for because of the block for TD. threw a couple of TDs, one on a nice fade to hank baskett. threw one pick that people seem to be blaming on LJ, but he had another one that patrick willis dropped, so i'm not absolving him.

- the eagles lead the league in drops. again. i really don't think you can discount the negative impact that mr. drop has on this offense. every good thing reggie brown does is more than negated by how inconsistently he catches the ball. i'd really, really, really, really like to see baskett ahead of him on the depth chart.

- kudos to correll buckhalter who had a heck of a game. he played a huge part in this win, but i think one play in particular highlights the difference between buck and westbrook. on the last play of the first quarter, the birds threw a screen to buckhalter to the right with herremans and max-jean leading the way. max-jean made a nice cut block and completely eliminated the defender. at this point buckhalter turned on the jets and accelerated past herremans, ultimately being tackled for a 25 yard gain. i believe westbrook would have gained significantly more yardage or possibly have scored on this play because he'd have slowed down and gotten behind todd instead of zooming past him. so a net positive play, but one that highlights some of buckhalter's shortcomings -- lack of patience and having only one gear.

- gcobb is reporting that the eagles are one of the teams interested in tony gonzalez. should we dare to dream?

Same As It Ever Was

apparently, the eagles lead the nfl in drops, no surprise. so far, the offense looks much better than they have the last few weeks. some of it i'm sure is that the niners defense isn't as good as the bears and redskins.

however, some of it is that reggie brown is not on the field.

Game 5 Thoughts

yuck! what a waste of a day. trapped in a stadium watching your team get completely manhandled by the other team. have we been watching this game on repeat basically for our whole lives?

the game was won and lost at the line of scrimmage. their lines dominated our lines. it's as simple as that. can't win if you can't block. can't win if you're getting blocked.

better wideouts, better rbs, better qbs might have helped, but wouldn't have won the game. the redskins won today because they had vastly better lines on both sides of the ball. it was the exact same reason why they won last week against the cowboys. i thought that last week's game was a bit of an aberration for the redskins based on emotion, but there was no emotion yesterday. just a consistent ass kicking for the whole game.

what especially sucked yesterday was that the skins play the type of offense i enjoy the most -- one based on power running to set up the pass. no trickery. no dink and dunk passing. no bs complexity opening room for more mistakes. just consistent physical football. power sweep left. power sweep right. power runs up the middle. tic tac toe.

i heard people bitching on the way out of the stadium that andy reid isn't creative enough. that's 100% wrong. andy reid is too creative. too many plays on his card. too many mix and match options in the worst coast offense. too many fancy frills in his finesse approach to offense. the redskins undressed the eagles not because their coaches were better or they out-thought the eagles. the redskins won because they were physically superior all game. they had better players on both lines of scrimmage.

on offense -- is it possible that shawn andrews is the most important player on the team? this team can't do anything on the ground when andrews is out.

on defense -- did anyone have a worse game than brodrick bunkley? i swear i saw a redskins o-lineman pick him up and eat him like he was a piece of gravy soaked bread. he was being pushed 2-3 yards downfield on every play i watched him.

rather than list out the gigantic list of awful things the eagles did yesterday, i decided to try to keep things positive. so here are some things that are more enjoyable than being an eagles fan:

- eating tacks for breakfast
- dropping bowling balls repeatedly on your feet
- falling down the stairs and landing head first in a tub of legos
- drinking chewing tobacco spit
- getting shot in the eye with a nail gun
- getting your hand stuck in the garbage disposal while it's on

at least i got to listen to the phils on the radio.