Where Do We Go From Here? part 2

feedback from part 1:

On the flip side, I don't believe that only "football people" like Andy Reid, John Madden, and Howard Eskin know the real score. I used to believe in experts and insiders when I was really young. Life teaches otherwise. At some point you realize that we're all pretty clueless deep inside.

Is it really that difficult TMG? Really? None of us can postulate logically why this team is underachieving? God bless your eternal optimism, but 5-4-1 ain't good, it's average, which is exactly what type of team they have.

wow, there is a lot packed into these two paragraphs.

1. Re: "football people" and whether or not we can postulate logically why this team is underachieving.
   
   my statement that we can't truly identify the real problems as outsiders isn't based on our lack of football knowledge or that the football insiders are the only ones who can make a valid assessment. it's more fundamental than that. as outsiders, we don't know what the plan for each play was, so it's simply speculation (or postulation as bumble notes) about what the true nature of the breakdown is. let's take two examples:
   
   - on a play earlier in the year, jason witten catches a pass down the seam for a touchdown with brian dawkins trailing. after watching the play live and on replays, it sure looked to me like dawkins should have been responsible for witten and looked slow and tenative in reacting to witten's route. subsequent interviews by dawkins and JJ indicated that dawkins was covering for a teammate who had blown his assignment. so what was the real breakdown there? was it what we saw as outsiders? was it what was revealed in the interviews? were the interviews intended to shield a once great player on the downside from critcism?
   
   - on a critical third down a few games ago, the eagles faced 3rd and about 9 yards. mcnabb dropped back to pass and threw short to a receiver for a gain of about 7 yards, forcing a punt. whose fault was that? was the play designed to throw short, counting on deeper routes to clear out the middle allowing the receiver to gain the extra yardage after the catch? was the original intended receiver covered forcing donovan to check down? did donovan make a terrible read and throw to the wrong guy? was the play call predicted by the defensive coordinator?
   
   i don't doubt that we can all identify when a team is playing well or when they aren't and i don't doubt that we can objectively or subjectively look at players and evaluate whether or not they can play. i do doubt that we can identify what the real micro problems are regarding things like: playcalling, assignment breakdowns, and game tactics.
   
   what we can evaluate effectively are macro problems: team consistency, in-game strategy, time management, and player development.
   
   ed is right that insiders aren't the only ones who are capable of assessing properly, however, it is often true that insiders are the only ones who possess all the information necessary to make a valid assessment.



2. Re: believing in experts. i tend to disagree. there definitely are experts in the world who know what they're talking about. what undermines the notion of experts is the fact that some/most people who hold a title or position that would classify them as an expert, aren't truly experts. truly being an expert means you have a combination of training, experience, and critical thinking ability that enables you to accomplish things that most people couldn't even dream of doing -- in the world of sports/medicine, i consider james andrews (the ACL doctor) to be one of those people. most doctors, football coaches, college professors, etc. have training and experience, but most also do not combine it with enough critical thinking ability to be true experts.



3. Re: 5-4-1. i didn't say that 5-4-1 was good. my statements were -- "5-4-1 is not terrible" and "they are close to being a good team". i think both of those statements are true simply because the football team has a winning record. i'm not disagreeing that the team is playing like sh*t, but doesn't the fact that they're playing like sh*t and they still have a winning record indicate something? you can't have a winning record and have: a terrible coach, a terrible defense, a terrible staff, a terrible QB, a terrible o-line, a terrible d-line, and terrible/injured running backs. something has to be going right. right? i mean take emotion out of it. if you take 5-4-1 at face value, you'd say that's a team in the upper part of the middle of the league. if you add the context that the team is like terribly, you'd probably lay the "underachieving" label on them. so my point is really, that from an objective standpoint (taking my dislike for the worst coast offense and finesse football out of it), that the eagles continue to be close a good football team and the stats indicate a potential upside exists.

with that context in mind, i think i've come to this conclusion about the eagles (and it runs counter to my previous opinion on andy as a drafter, but is in-line with some of the other comments).

it's all the talent. this team simply does not have enough talent across the board and that lays on the head of andy reid the GM... (part 3 coming, i'm breaking this up for time availability reasons, not as an attempt to be dramatic)

BTW - $10 tickets for sixers games in november and december. i'm heading down to tonight's game with my son.

Where Do We Go From Here? part 1

eagles nation is all riled up. everyone has opinions on what needs to be done to "fix" the problems and make the eagles a contender again, and while that is cathartic, none of us really have any clue what the real problems are. i have my own opinions, but i think a productive start to thinking about next steps is first reviewing the situation -- as always, i'll try to set aside the fact that i hate the worst coast offense and andy reid's finesse approach to football and stick to facts.

the eagles are 5-4-1 and they play in the toughest division in football. while i am horribly disappointed that they got held down and *ssraped by the giants and then threw up another clunker against the horrible bengals, their record right now is not terrible. repeat, 5-4-1 is not terrible. it's terrible only in relation to the expectation that people had coming into this season -- that the eagles would be very good and a likely playoff team.

statistically, the eagles breakdown like this:

- total offense - 6th
- points scored - 6th
- penalties committed - 6th (interesting to note the giants are terrible here... if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin' at work perhaps?)
- penalty yards - 11th
- turnover diff - 14th
- third down pct - 24th

- total defense - 7th
- points against - 8th
- penalties against - 16th
- penalty yards against - 23rd
- third down pct - 4th

- total DVOA - 3rd
- offensive DVOA - 11th
- pass offense - 10th
- rush offense - 19th
- yards per drive - 14th
- points per drive - 7th
- TDs per drive - 10th
- INTs per dirve - 9th
- defensive DVOA - 5th
- pass defense - 9th
- rush defense - 3rd
- yards per drive - 5th
- ST DVOA - 18th
- QB - 7th/7th
- RB - 18th/19th
- WR - 22nd/2nd (baskett)
- TE - 15th/3rd (celek)
- OL - run blocking 21st, pass blocking 8th
- DL - run stuffing 8th, pass rushing 3rd

- nfl efficiency - 1st

ok, so the eagles offense stinks on 3rd down, the wideouts suck, and the o-line can't run block. we knew all those things already, but overall, this is the resume of the pretty good team. (also, before people start latching onto it, 3rd down success rate does not tend to correlate highly year to year. last year, the eagles were top 10 in 3rd down conversion pct).

so what does this tell us? by itself, not much unfortunately. one thing it does show is why the eagles think they're pretty close to being a good team -- it seems that they are. so why does their record continue to lag behind their stats? i have a couple of theories...

Game 10 Thoughts

aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Ready for End of Andy Reid Era

is andy reid a bad coach? looking at it objectively, the fact that he has a .620 winning percentage after 9+ seasons seems to indicate no. the fact that many of us consider this 5-4 team a failure also indicates no. expectations are high for big red, and rightfully so -- he's set his own bar pretty high.

he makes some head scratching mistakes and isn't a dynamic thinker, but in order to compile the record he has, he's done more good things than bad. no, the question is not whether andy reid is a good coach or a bad coach -- he is a good coach.

discussing that issue takes the focus away from the real issue --andy reid is fundamentally not a good match for this team or for this fanbase or me. i've written plenty of times about my dislike of the worst coast offense, but it goes even beyond that. this is a finesse team, built with finesse players on both sides of the ball. losing is one thing, getting embarrassingly manhandled several times a season is a completely different beast. i can't stand a team that gets physically overmatched.

why is the team built like it is? why is this big red's philosophy? it almost seems like the andy reid/jim johnson combo is trying to build artificial handicaps for themselves. andy reid is a good evaluator of talent (as we've discussed here, here, here, here, and here), but i'm really starting to think that he believes that size is not a talent.

many sports have weight classes. want to know why? because a good big guy always beats a good little guy. a good big guy probably beats a great little guy. in order for the little guy to win, he has to be much better than the big guy. it's a fact of life. why then do the eagles insist on building a middleweight team to compete for the heavyweight title?

i touched on it a bit in my game 9 thoughts, but here are some comparisons:

Position	Eagles	Giants	Redskins	Cowboys
RB	5-10 / 203	6-4 / 264	5-11 / 223	6-0 / 221
WR	6-0 / 186	6-5 / 232	5-10 / 200	6-3 / 218
WR	5-10 / 175	6-3 / 203	5-10 / 190	6-3 / 220
TE	6-3 / 258	6-6 / 253	6-3 / 249	6-5 / 266
DE	6-3 / 270	6-5 / 274	6-4 / 252	6-7 / 299
DE	6-2 / 250	6-5 / 265	6-4 / 266	6-4 / 305
DT	6-0 / 292	6-4 / 306	6-4 / 320	6-3 / 300
DT	6-2 / 306	6-4 / 317	6-3 / 311	6-4 / 298
S	6-0 / 210	6-1 / 215	6-2 / 213	6-2 / 206
S	5-10 / 203	6-2 / 210	6-0 / 200	6-5 / 208

these are taken from each team's official website. i've listed some of the positions that stick out to me, i'm not omitting positions that run counter to my point, just trying to keep the list manageable.

the eagles field the smallest player at their position almost across the board -- and several of the eagles players are overstated. i know this is very common in professional sports, but the eagles have more reason to do it than others because they field midgets all over the field. goodness knows i enjoy watching midgets as much as the next guy, but not on my professional football team! i've highlighted in red the positions where guys are listed bigger than they appear or have mysteriously grown an inch or two in their 20s and 30s.

i know that the eagles believe that speed wins games, but why can't they get full sized fast guys? seriously, did the giants look any slower than the eagles last night? (though who could tell because our guys were on their backs all game).

i'm ready for the end of the andy reid football era not because he is a bad coach, but because his philosophy and style are making me start to lose interest in professional football. with andy reid, winning is the only enjoyment you get out of watching a game. by design, the fans get nothing else.

andy doesn't let you in on what he's thinking. andy doesn't address reasons why things are happening. andy chooses to play the infernal worst coast offense. andy chooses to field a team giving up inches and pounds at almost every position on the field.

those are all his choices and are his choices to make. however, he has to lie in the bed that he makes. if he's going to choose to build a boring team and display a boring public persona, he must understand that winning and losing will be the only criteria. you can get away with some extra losses if you are entertaining. by design, andy's teams cannot.

i'm not ready to watch another rebuilding effort -- and that is where we are headed with the eagles loading up for the kevin kolb era -- led by andy reid. i can't take it anymore.

his teams lack size and physicality on both sides of the ball -- even his superbowl team was a finesse team. his offense bores me to death. i'm ready to move on -- and remember, this is coming from a fan who is constantly accused of being a reid apologist. i'm ready to move on.

Game 9 Thoughts

we need to discuss coaching and the andy reid era in general, but i'll separate that into its own post.

this one will be solely devoted to the horrible slow death we watched again last night. redskins, giants, pretty much any power running team. the only reason the eagles managed to stay in that game is because of mcnabb. his final numbers weren't terrific, completing less than 50% of his passes, but those were also skewed (once again, sigh) by the number of hideous drops. mcnabb made plays to try to win this game and almost no one else on the team did. if you swapped the QBs, this would have been a blowout win for the giants. mcnabb in his prime with a real running game would have been scary.

- what the fudge jj? against dallas, you leave brian dawkins in single coverage against me-o at the goal line. slant -> TD. last night, you leave dawk in single coverage against burress. slant -> TD.

- bunkley was getting pushed around again last night, but he definitely gave it all he had. i saw pretty consistent effort from him. unfortunately, he's our "big" defensive tackle where on most teams, he'd be the small, quick guy.

- brian westbrook is a spectacular player, but not a great one. great running backs get you consistent yards, especially after first contact. westbrook has gotten bigger and stronger, but he does not gain significant yardage after first contact. since you can stand him up and stop him in his tracks once you get one hand on him, he's not suited to being an every down back. what is leroy hoard doing these days?

- trent cole was literally picked up and thrown to the ground on the third and long play where the eagles forced the first giants punt of the night. literally picked up and thrown to the ground. not by a double team. by one guy. not just knocked off his feet. picked 12-18 inches off the ground and thrown down on his side.

- their starting wideouts are 6-5 and 6-3. our starting wideouts are 5-9 and 5-11. that's not why we lost, but does anyone see a running theme here?

- chris gocong has physical tools, but is still too tentative and doesn't play "downhill". he runs into tackles rather than running through tackles. by now he should be getting more comfortable in this defense. where is the high motor guy we saw in his college films? high motor defensive end becomes tenative linebacker, not a surprise. the giants moved kiwanuka back to d-line as an injury replacement, but also because he sucked as a linebacker.

- this isn't why they lost the game, but in a key sequence of plays. the manning over the los pass was overturned (for people who saw this on TV, was there really indisputable evidence he was behind the line?) , demps was facemasked on the ensuing kickoff but didn't get the call, and jacobs wasn't facemasked on the next possession but that was called.

- anyone else notice that cole hamels came out wearing an aj feeley jersey? burrell came out wearing 5, which makes sense, but hamels chooses 14 over 36 or 20? great pitcher, odd guy.