Andy Reid: QB Genius?

The pending QB controversy (Kolb vs. Vick) got me to thinking. Is Andy Reid a QB genius? I mean how the heck did we end up with 2 quality QB starters in a league where barely half the teams can trot out a viable QB on a week to week basis.

At first blush, it's valid to say Reid lucked into this position. Vick was a quality QB for a number of years in this league so there's no reason to think he wouldn't be. Well, if that was the case then why were the Eagles only team to take a flier on him? You can't tell me it was all a character issue as there's a number of teams out there who collect problem children (ahem, OAK). And there are a number of teams who desperately needed QB help last year. So were 31 head coaches wrong or has Reid improved Vick?

Take a look back over the past 10 years and there always seems to be a competent #2. Is this luck or something more? I decided to look at the stats of all the QBs that have played for Reid and broke them down into Reid Career and Non-Reid Career numbers. For the sake of comparison, I've excluded all non-QBs from this analysis and any QBs who only played for Reid. I've also excluded McNabb as 6 games in WAS is too small of a sample size. I'll fully admit that the sample sizes for all these other guys are also quite limited, but hey. At least we've got some different numbers to debate.

	Player	Att	Comp	Yds	Comp %	Yds/Att	TD	TD %	INT	INT %
Non-Reid Career	Koy Detmer	181	97	1011	53.6%	5.59	5	2.8%	5	2.8%
Non-Reid Career	Doug Pederson	295	167	1486	56.6%	5.04	5	1.7%	10	3.4%
Non-Reid Career	A.J. Feeley	346	191	1893	55.2%	5.47	11	3.2%	20	5.8%
Non-Reid Career	Jeff Blake	3204	1809	21585	56.5%	6.74	133	4.2%	98	3.1%
Non-Reid Career	Mike McMahon	308	135	1709	43.8%	5.55	10	3.2%	13	4.2%
Non-Reid Career	Jeff Garcia	3488	2148	24228	61.6%	6.95	151	4.3%	81	2.3%
Non-Reid Career	Michael Vick	1730	930	11505	53.8%	6.65	71	4.1%	52	3.0%
Reid Career	Koy Detmer	173	87	933	50.3%	5.39	5	2.9%	9	5.2%
Reid Career	Doug Pederson	227	119	1276	52.4%	5.62	7	3.1%	9	4.0%
Reid Career	A.J. Feeley	309	181	2177	58.6%	7.05	16	5.2%	14	4.5%
Reid Career	Jeff Blake	37	18	126	48.6%	3.41	1	2.7%	1	2.7%
Reid Career	Mike McMahon	207	94	1158	45.4%	5.59	5	2.4%	8	3.9%
Reid Career	Jeff Garcia	188	116	1309	61.7%	6.96	10	5.3%	2	1.1%
Reid Career	Michael Vick	109	65	885	59.6%	8.12	7	6.4%	0	0.0%
Reid – Non-Reid Career	Koy Detmer				-3.30%	-0.19		0.13%		2.44%
Reid – Non-Reid Career	Doug Pederson				-4.19%	0.58		1.39%		0.57%
Reid – Non-Reid Career	A.J. Feeley				3.37%	1.57		2.00%		-1.25%
Reid – Non-Reid Career	Jeff Blake				-7.81%	-3.33		-1.45%		-0.36%
Reid – Non-Reid Career	Mike McMahon				1.58%	0.05		-0.83%		-0.36%
Reid – Non-Reid Career	Jeff Garcia				0.12%	0.02		0.99%		-1.26%
Reid – Non-Reid Career	Michael Vick				5.88%	1.47		2.32%		-3.01%

Of the 7 QBs above, it looks like 3 were clearly better (Feeley, McMahon, Vick), 3 clearly worse (Pederson, Blake, Detmer), and Garcia virtually unchanged. Blake only had 30 more attempts after leaving PHI so you could argue that there wasn't much Reid could teach him at that point. Ditto Garcia. Pederson did better after leaving PHI, so that kinda blows that theory. Feeley and McMahon were playing for really bad teams outside of their PHI career (MIA, DET) so their numbers can be spun the other way. Detmer only hung around as long as he did because he could hold for Akers not so much for his passing acumen.

So the numbers don't seem to point one way or another. My gut tells me though that he does more with less than about anyone else out there. Or maybe it's a system thing.

Time For Some Respect?

I'd call this a very nice win against a team that several pre-game analysts were calling the best team in the NFC. I liked how they jumped out to a decent lead, then never really let the Falcons back into the game.

What I liked:
Kolb looked very good. Decent throws with the INT being his only big mistake.

Play calling from Reid. He did a lot of good things early to keep the pressure of 4. Then going back and faking the end around and going deep to Maclin.

Run defense kept a very good running team from doing much. Part of this may have been getting up 14 points quick, but they still kept running the ball and never got much going.

What I didn't like:
Stop with the penalties for crying out loud. Even Kolb got into the act this week.

Jackson's injury. Losing him for any period of time could really crimp this team.

Inability to kick FGs. Bumble needs to stop saying good things about him.

3-2 Win on the Road

This is such an odd team. Three wins on the road, two losses at home. We now have a 3 way tie for lead in the NFC East and the pre-season Cowboys are not among them.

This thing is so wide open, it should be a really fun season to watch. Especially since this is the Any Given Sunday season of any season in recent memory. No one stands out in the NFC. No one has played a solid 5 games. I don't even think anyone's played a good 4 games. And if anyone has, it's probably been the Lions who are now only 1-4.

People will continue to talk about the QB position mostly as this season goes along, but this defense has got to be the bigger concern. I really like what McCoy's doing and Maclin's having a decent run of games so it doesn't really matter whether Vick or Kolb is in there. This D has got to get better though. They're making Alex Smith look good for crying out loud. Yikes.

P.S. Since the Eagles won, I guess we'll see no traffic on this blog. See y'all after the next loss!

Really Good Vick Interview

Saw part of this in the airport this morning. Part 2 is very good:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d81b02b19/article/humbled-vick-taking-his-second-chance-and-running-with-it

Ya Still Gotta Believe

From my 9/23 post:

"So 70% of the time, Reid manages to get to the playoffs. And only once in those 7 attempts does he go one and done. That's a playoff win 60% of the seasons for those keeping score at home. Anyone care to guess how many playoff wins the Eagles had in the 30 years before Reid took over? The answer is 5. Total. Or 1 playoff win every 6 years. Or half what Reid's has in the last 10 years."

This team is 2-2 and leading the NFC East. Do they need to play better to make the playoffs? Damn straight they do. Are they likely to do so? History says yes they will.

Several comments about the game:

• Nice to see the standing ovation for 5 (or at least the replays since I missed the 1H)
• This team's going to need 5 starting caliber QBs by the time this season's over the eay things are going.
• As poorly as Kolb played, McNabb didn't play any better.
• The penalties. Oh, the penalties. I swear I'm going to break some expensive electronics if they keep this up.
  

Records After Bye Weeks

Good stuff from the Dallas Morning News (Reid's 14-0 including play-offs):

Team after the bye week

NFL teams with their post-bye records and current streaks:

Team	Record	Streak
Philadelphia	17-4	11 wins
Minnesota	17-4	4 wins
Dallas	16-5	5 wins
Denver	15-6	2 losses
Buffalo	14-7	1 loss
Tennessee	13-8	4 wins
Chicago	13-8	1 loss
New England	12-9	6 wins
Indianapolis	12-9	5 wins
Pittsburgh	12-9	2 wins
Green Bay	12-9	1 win
Miami	12-9	1 loss
Kansas City	12-9	3 losses
Atlanta	11-10	1 win
NY Jets	11-10	1 loss
St. Louis	11-10	1 loss
Washington	11-10	2 losses
San Diego	10-10	1 loss
Arizona	10-11	1 win
Baltimore	9-5	2 wins
Tampa Bay	9-12	3 wins
New Orleans	9-12	1 win
Detroit	9-12	2 losses
Oakland	9-12	7 losses
San Francisco	8-13	6 losses
Carolina	7-8	2 wins
Jacksonville	7-8	2 losses
Cleveland	6-10	1 loss
NY Giants	6-15	2 wins
Cincinnati	5-15-1	1 win
Seattle	5-16	3 losses
Houston	2-6	2 losses

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/football/cowboys/stories/100310dnspogoosecenter.16e47c7.html

Ya Gotta Believe (aka Why No Love? - Part 2)

That was a decent win on the road though the competition wasn't anything to write home about. It was nice to see the defense play lights out like that. Offense could have been a bit more consistent, but there really isn't too much you can criticize about that game. The o-line improved a bit, fewer penalties, and better special teams play all helped out.

I think the important thing is that they didn't look past this game to next week. Now you might say that's an easy thing to do, but it's not. Look no further to our next opponent. WAS lost an ugly game to STL yesterday by letting a rookie QB hang 30 points on them.

I think this is a playoff team. Looking at how the rest of the division has started the season should give us all more hope than before. 10-6 might just win the division. So until the games prove us wrong, I think ya gotta believe.

Why No Love?

I think this could be a playoff team no matter who the QB is. I keep coming back to the question: Are they really that much worse than the 11-5 they were last year? It's not like Reid has a history of missing the playoffs. He has a history of not winning the Super Bowl, but you can't say the guy doesn't make it to the post season.

A history lesson:

2009 11-5, playoffs loss in round 1
2008 9-6-1, loss in NFC Championship game (2 wins in post season)
2007 8-8, no playoffs
2006 10-6, loss in 2nd round of playoffs
2005 6-10, no playoffs
2004 13-3, loss in SB (2 wins in post season)
2003 12-4, loss in NFC Championship game (1 wins in post season)
2002 12-4, loss in NFC Championship game (1 wins in post season)
2001 11-5, loss in NFC Championship game (2 wins in post season)
2000 11-5, loss in 2nd round of playoffs
1999 5-11, no playoffs

So 70% of the time, Reid manages to get to the playoffs. And only once in those 7 attempts does he go one and done. That's a playoff win 60% of the seasons for those keeping score at home. Anyone care to guess how many playoff wins the Eagles had in the 30 years before Reid took over? The answer is 5. Total. Or 1 playoff win every 6 years. Or half what Reid's has in the last 10 years.

This is what boggles my mind. I'll give you all the clock management issues, inability to run the ball, yadda-yadda-yadda, etc. But at some point don't you have to look at THAT track record and say, "I don't know how he's going to do it, but Reid's going to figure out a way to get this team to the playoffs."

Given how much crap 5 got over the years, I know you're not going to tell me it was all McNabb all those years and Reid was just along for the ride. Banner's great cap management (front office never won a game)? It must have been Dawk (oops, not on the team last year)?

Akers has been the only other constant over the years so it must have been all those FGs he's kicked. That's the only other logical conclusion you can draw. Personally, that seems a lot more illogical than Reid is a great head coach and deserves the benefit of the doubt.

No QB Controversy Here

Vick in, Kolb out even though he's healthy. Gotta say I'm a little surprised based on everything Reid has said before. This is your guy and he's done after less than a half of football? Seems a bit quick to me.

The flip side is that Vick has been playing well. He's got his burst back. Nice touch on deep balls (i.e. hitting DeSean in stride for his TD). Picking up positive yards when the pocket disintegrates.

I think the more interesting thing is the timing of this announcement. Any other team would've given you the "we'll make a decision by game time", while Reid comes out and says he's making the switch on Tuesday. I guess JAC was going to prepare for Vick anyway s

I think this decision also shows Reid's flexibility. I'm not sure how many other coaches would have made this decision this quickly. Kolb's the QB of the future, Vick's only signed through this year. I think a lot of other head coaches would've stuck with Kolb for a loss or 2 before making the change. Nice to see quick decision here. This shows the team that it's all about the Ws and not about any agendas. This probably does more for team chemistry than anything else.

Now let's see them get another win.

Game 2 Review

This is one of the most frustrating teams I've seen this side of Rich Kotite. Stop with the penalties! Stop with poor kick coverage teams! Stop with the 80 yard rushing TDs!

I was close to breaking stuff during the 1H of this game. My wife had to take my son outside because I was stomping and grunting and making other loud noises that was upsetting him.

A win on the road is always a good thing, but ARGH!!!!!!!!

My Thoughts on Game One

i went into game 1 worried that the eagles were going to be on the wrong end of a 31-13 game against the team i thought was the best in the nfc coming into the season. my hope was that they were going to be able to keep it close and show some things and not get blown out in the opener. i wasn't expecting them to win. i wasn't even really hoping they were going to win, i just wanted them to keep it close and show some potential.

these were the some of the specific things i was hoping to see in the game and watching for:

- kolb to show his trademark accuracy while being quick and decisive
- the refashioned d-line to consistently get pressure on rodgers without having to blitz
- stewart bradley to have decent change of direction skills as he recovers from his knee injury
- nate allen to have a good feel for the game and show some inkling that he may one play be half the player dawk was
- jamaal jackson to bring back some stability to the o-line with his ability to call the right protections

what i got was dreck. don't let the 7 point loss fool you. there were some good performances, but the game i watched makes me concerned that it portends bad things for this team in the future. it's only one data point, so i'll reserve judgement until we see some more but yuck! i really didn't like what i saw.

kevin kolb looked exactly like he did in the preseason. afraid to make a mistake and not at all comfortable with being the man. best case is that he's putting way too much pressure on himself and needs to relax and get comfortable. worst case... this isn't an aberration and what we saw last season was a result of playing bad defenses at a time when kolb had nothing to lose. kolb has looked bad all preseason. he's making bad throws and making bad decisions and has been doing it all season. i know it's still early, but he's a huge question mark and it's concerning.

the o-line wasn't playing all that well. i know, it's an obvious statement, but if kolb is going to be the starter. it's a huge... HUGE concern. there were at least 5 times in the first half where kolb was either sacked or forced into a hurried throw that don would easily have been able to avoid. mcnabb was amazing at keeping a play alive and kolb has none of that. zip. less even than eli manning. unless this o-line magically transforms into the second coming of the hogs, i have trouble envisioning how kolb is going to be successful.

this loss was not GAMEPLANNER andy reid's fault. it was COACH andy reid's fault... but i repeat, this loss was not GAMEPLANNER andy reid's fault. he had the perfect gameplan for easing kolb into his first start. almost every play call in the first half involved short routes and easy throws. there were no deep routes. how do i know this? because i kept complaining all first half that there were no deep routes. don't buy the garbage you hear on the radio about andy's poor gameplanning. it was an execution problem --> kolb <-- not a gameplanning problem.

however, COACH andy reid is at much fault for the loss. he is still the same ineffective gameday coach we've come to know over the years. HOW CAN YOU NOT CALL A QB SNEAK THERE?!?!? that fat f*ck is giving me a brain aneurysm with his stubborn refusal to employ the QB sneak. i swear, i can feel it growing in my head every time i see him call a pass or line up the qb in freaking SHOTGUN formation on 4th and inches.

there were a lot of things to be happy after the game -- d-line play, nate allen, michael vick -- but if kolb is the QB i don't see how he's going to be successful without a better offensive line... and if he's not successful there is no way the team will be successful. no matter how good the rest of the team is... QB play is 60% of the game.

vick looked great, but let's see what he does in a full game against a gameplan designed against him. still, with our o-line, vick's elusiveness gives him a better chance to be successful than kolb.

who knows, maybe andy the developer of QBs can turn vick into a legit nfl QB. i just wish that GM andy would hire a real coach to guide the team. to borrow a line from the godfather, we need a war-time consigliere and andy reid is no war-time consigliere.

Moral Victories Don't Count

You want the bright side? Your team loses 4 starters in the first half to a team you're not expected to beat anyways and you only lose by 7 points. Especially considering 1 of those guys is your starting QB. Think about that for a second.

Bumble, now toss in your criticisms (all valid): 1) horrendous penalties, 2) special team breakdowns EVERY time GB touched the ball, and 3) poor play by Kolb in 1H. And they lost by 7 points. They were down 1 score. They didn't get blown out by a team most people see going on to a SB. They didn't get blown out to said potential SB team after losing your starting QB, racking up penalties like they're going out of style, and giving your opponent great field position with cruddy special teams play.

There are no moral victories. This goes down as a loss. But this realistically wasn't a game they were supposed to win. They kept the game within reach and had a shot of pulling off the upset in the 4th quarter. I'm not saying we should feel better about this team after this game, but we certainly feel worse.

More later. . .

GB at Eagles Preview

Man this is going to be a tough game. Lots of people think GB are going to make the SuperBowl this year (and they may) so a really tough game out of the gate.

Why I think they're going to win:

• Great talent at the WR position. This rookie Cooper finally gives us a tall guy for the end zone fade routes, which we haven't had in forever.
• Defense should be better than last year.
• Team's starting off fairly healthy.
• Home game.

Why I think they could lose:

• First game of the year and this team always starts slowly.
• GB is a top notch opponent that can put up 40 a week.
• Kolb will probably take a couple months to really hit his groove.
• O-line has been very injured and hasn't played together yet this year

Basically, I'm cautiously optimistic that they'll steal a game here. Would be happy with them just keeping it close. Would be very disappointed if they get blown out. I think they'll do enough to pull it out though.

I Could Not Say It Better (But I've Tried)

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/walkthrough/2010/walkthrough-mcnabb-deniers

7th Best Team - huh

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2010/2010-dvoa-projections

Another reason why I love FootballOutsiders. These guys always seem to have the Eagles highly rated. And while their ratings may tend to be on the high side, they always seem to end up much closer than anyone thinks going into the season.

Two really interesting things struck me: 1) Special teams are projected to be best in the NFL and 2) all NFC East teams are projected to be in the top half of the league. Going to be a tough, tough year.

It's on like Donkey Kong

Settle down, people. This blog isn't quite dead yet. But the off season finally is. Woo-hoo! I love my Eagles. I love reading about them. I love reading about football in general. But discussing them before the real games start is just not that appetizing to me. Fake Life (http://scrapplelog.blogspot.com/2009/11/fake-life.html#links) = cool. Fake Fake Life = not cool.

Well, the eternal optimist is back and I see great things for this year. And by great things I'm talking about 9-10 wins and another playoff berth. The naysayers will trot out their normal excuses for why this will be the case and this team will once again prove them wrong. I've never understood all the haters. This team has as much chance to win as any other and more than most.

I'll be back to break down week 1 later on in the week. Hint: it's nice when the other team's entire secondary is out of action.

Preseason Game #1

The first 3 rules in preseason football is that this doesn't count. Especially vs. a team that they're going to play again in September. So any type of analysis that we do is worthless. That said, here's my worthless analysis:

1) Kolb looked OK. There were a couple decisions/plays that he could have done better with, but overall his play didn't cause me any concern.

2) Vick looked very, very good. Nice reads, good throws, quick feet. He looks like a starting QB.

3) Starting defense looked good, but tough to tell whether it was them looking good or JAC looking bad.

4) I liked the Cooper kid though he did end up dropping a ball later in the first half.

Silence is Golden

I've become a big fan of DeSean over the past several years because he's a legit big play WR in this league. I'm becoming a bigger fan by the way he's handling his discomfort with his current contract. Some people may quibble with him not talking to reporters. I don't mind this though. Better to say nothing than to say something wrong. And neither him nor his agent are saying anything wrong right now.

The media these days can twist even the most innocuous of comments into the most profane of statements. Kudos to DeSean for going about this the right way.

2010 Season Debate

I think there's 2 primary uncertainties facing the Eagles this year: 1) The play of Kolb and 2) The play of the defense as a whole. Both of these are fairly large question marks. Kolb's not played a whole lot and the defense was atrocious last year. OK, maybe they weren't that bad, but they were a decent way below average.

Kolb
I see this as the lower of 2 issues facing this team. This issue will get most of the play in the media because the QB position is always the out-sized focus and because the McNabb trade. But we've seen a bit of what he can do last year and he was at worst an average QB in his 3 games. 2-1 W-L, 4TDs vs. 3INT, 64% completion record, 7.7 yd/att, 148 yd/game. And this was in limited duty. I think over a full season he's likely to do better than these numbers given he's been running with the ones all off-season. Also, while the fans may not have seen a lot of him before, the coaching staff has seen him every day for 3 years now. Given how highly Reid values the QB position, there's NO WAY he's making this switch unless he's sure Kolb's going to be better than average.

Defense
I tried to pick a specific position/area of concern here, but I'm more worried about the whole than the individual positions. Maybe my concern is more about the D Coordinator. It just seems like the positions themselves have decent talent outside of LB, which is probably better than it has been in recent years. If everyone can stay healthy. They seemed to underperform their talent last year. Never able to get the stop they needed. And couldn't force nearly enough FG attempts. They didn't go out and get any real talent this off-season. Their coaching staff is still the same. So it's hard for me to see a big jump in improvement, which I think will be necessary to take some of the pressure of Kolb. While I think he's going to be decent, he'll be a lot better with a better defense.

Eagles tickets are here!

You know the season's about to start when the season tickets finally arrive. I have no idea why it takes them so long to get them mailed since they know about the games for like 6 months. Might be a way to deter counter fitting.

I am very disappointed they went with the fan pictures on the tickets as opposed to player/couch faces. Really? I don't follow the team because of the fans. Put the players' pictures on the tickets. And JJ should definitely have been on one of the tickets for crying out loud! A travesty in my opinion.