Rich Hofmann: QB switch puts Reid on the hot seat
IF THE EAGLES do not make a run in the playoffs this season, Andy Reid is on the clock in 2011. He has to be, after this. What once was an intricately planned debut season for Kevin Kolb is now, apparently, a win-at-all-costs race to the finish with Michael Vick.
IF THE EAGLES do not make a run in the playoffs this season, Andy Reid is on the clock in 2011. He has to be, after this. What once was an intricately planned debut season for Kevin Kolb is now, apparently, a win-at-all-costs race to the finish with Michael Vick.
Reid is coaching like a man in a hurry. From here on, he should be viewed as such.
Naming Vick as the Eagles' starting quarterback is not crazy. It is just wrong. Everybody has eyes, and everybody can see that Vick has exceeded all expectations in the six quarters he has played this season. Everybody also can see that the Eagles' offensive line is getting blitzed senseless, and that Vick has the athletic ability to make pass rushers miss better than Kolb. There is no argument there.
But pretending that you can shred a carefully prepared, months-in-the-making transition from Donovan McNabb to Kevin Kolb so quickly - and pretending that you haven't scarred Kolb in the process - is just that: pretending.
I know I'm using poor English, but this is beyond shortsighted.
Based on the reporting I was able to do last night, there are no cracks in the organizational armor. Reid has his story and they're sticking to it. That is, that this was not something Reid was noodling about while Kolb and the first offense labored this summer during the exhibition games, or even when Vick played well after Kolb received his concussion in the opener against Green Bay.
Rather, this all happened as a result of Vick's excellent work against those behemoths from the NFC North, the Detroit Lions, who have won exactly two games out of their last 35 as a franchise. Reid thought about it after that game, and then he thought about it some more, and then he decided - so goes the story.
And even though this decision resulted in some rather significant collateral damage - to Kolb's psyche, and to his reputation in the business, and to anyone's ability to trust the shelf life of Reid's words beyond the next three-point win against a lousy team - there is no evidence of any dissent among the biggest decision-makers in the building.
In fact, according to a source, owner Jeffrey Lurie, president Joe Banner, general manager Howie Roseman and Reid all gathered last night at the NovaCare Complex to sing songs and toast marshmallows upon the conflagration that resulted when they set fire to the $12.25 million they're paying Kolb as McNabb's anointed successor.
I know I'm using poor English, but this is a waste.
If Reid and the Eagles think Vick is going to have a better season than Kolb would have had, you can respect their expertise. But that isn't what this year was supposed to be about. This was going to be an inflection point for the franchise, a transition season - and everyone's expectations were tempered accordingly.
But, well, so much for transitions and for temperance. Just win, Andy. Just win.
They just spent the offseason turning the historical page from McNabb to Kolb. In that one,
Reid began the process with a very lawyerly statement saying McNabb was his guy, only to have to flip-flop later on. He obviously has stopped caring about contradicting himself in public.
Anyway, they spent months building up Kolb as a worthy successor to the player who was the face of the franchise for the last decade. Now, stunningly, after one game against the Detroit Lions, they have fallen in love with somebody else. With that, the face of the franchise is now Reid's two faces. What are any of us to believe anymore?
We're not trading McNabb.Again, just to make this clear: The decision to go to Vick is justifiable on pure football grounds. Or, well, put another way, it had better be justifiable on pure football grounds. Vick had better lead this football team into January, and maybe deep into January. Reid had better be right about that part - because that is the only way this can be rationalized in the end. A hearty 9-7 record does not come close to making this sensible.
We're entertaining offers.
Kolb is No. 1.
Vick is No. 1.
My sister.
My daughter.
My sister.
My daughter.
I know I'm using poor English, but this is really on Andy Reid now.
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