Eagles still in must-win mode
IT'S A LITTLE harder now to find pressing problems to wring the hands over, in the wake of last week's 34-7 Eagles destruction of the Dallas Cowboys, but that is indeed why they pay us the big bucks.
IT'S A LITTLE harder now to find pressing problems to wring the hands over, in the wake of last week's 34-7 Eagles destruction of the Dallas Cowboys, but that is indeed why they pay us the big bucks.
Today's topic: Their past two games, against Washington and Dallas, the Birds played as if their season depended on the outcome, which it probably did. They head into tonight's game against Chicago sitting at 3-4. Is the season still on the line? Not to the extent it was before Dallas.
Five losses is a lot in the first half of the season for a team with playoff aspirations, but next week is a home game against struggling Arizona, you brush yourself off and win that one and you go from there. Would it be hard to envision, with a loss tonight, how the Eagles could finish 10-6, which tends to be the minimum for playoff participation? Sure it would. But if the Bears prevail, nobody is going to write that the Eagles' season is over. (Though we might look back in January and say this was the one that sealed it.)
Point is, is the sense of urgency the same? If Jason Kelce snaps the ball into his own backside tonight, the Eagles up 14-0, Michael Vick in the shotgun, does Vick launch himself through the air like Superman to dive on a possible red-zone turnover, the way he did against Dallas?
If you ask this to players and coaches, the answer you get invariably is "yes."
"I don't think we're looking at anything different," right tackle Todd Herremans said, as the Birds prepared for the Bears. "We won two games in a row. Big deal. We've definitely got to win more than that to do what we want to accomplish. It definitely feels good to get a win or two; we'd like to keep it going. Everybody remembers how terrible four losses in a row felt. We don't want to go back there."
Defensive coordinator Juan Castillo was asked if it's easier to be Juan Castillo these days, even given that he said a few weeks ago he had no idea people were calling for his head, was only worried about fixing things, etc. Can he exhale now?
"We're always trying to get better, and there's always problems to solve," Castillo said. "That's just part of the job . . . It doesn't change. Like DeSean [Jackson] said after the [Dallas] game, we're happy that we won, but we're a 3-4 football team. We all know that right now. Our goal is to get to 4-4, and every day improve in our fundamentals."
A few players mentioned what Herremans referenced - you blow this game, in which the Eagles are favored, you bring back all that bad karma from earlier in the season.
One of the hazards of starting out 1-4, losing at least two games (Atlanta and San Francisco) you had no business losing, given large second-half leads, is that you have whittled away your margin for error. Win two big divisional games in a row, you might think you can relax a bit. But you probably can't.
"I don't know that the season isn't riding on this game," strongside linebacker Moise Fokou said. "To us, every game's a must-win . . . We're used to winning here. We pride ourselves on being a good team . . . If you relax, then we're right back to that old team, when we were losing.
"We had the stigma of being the 'Dream Team' early in the season. What good did that do us? We've kind of stepped back, taken opponents 1 week at a time, and tried to get a 'W.' "
Wideout Jason Avant concurred.
"Just as easily as you can go on a winning streak, you can go on a losing streak," Avant said. "Once you're a pro, you should have urgency every week . . . I think when you're playing from behind, it can give you a certain kind of energy, but at the same time, you're a pro, and you've got to go out every week with focus and concentration. I don't think it has to do with our record; we're just trying to beat the Bears."
And, of course, there was resistance to the idea that the Eagles have reached their potential in these two wins.
"If any person says he played the perfect game, he's lying," LeSean McCoy said. "There's always room for improvement. Little stuff. You might have a good game, but there's things you could do better. This [Dallas] game, there's some stuff I missed - easy stuff. I look at myself like, 'Man, how did I miss this?' "
It might help a little that the Eagles had their bye week between the Washington and Dallas games, and then had an extra day between Dallas and Chicago. They'll have a short week to prepare for the Cardinals, but really, if you wanted to pick a team on the November schedule to have to face on a short week, that would be the one.
It also might help that the Eagles are home, in the Monday Night Football spotlight. MNF might not be as big a deal to fans as it was 30 years ago, but for players, who know all their peers are watching, it still looms large.
"It's Monday night. You know you're the only game on," Vick noted.
THE PICK:
The Bears have been able to beat the Eagles three of the last four years, often in infuriating ways. Who can forget the game at the Linc four years ago, Brian Griese quarterbacking Chicago, unable to score a touchdown all day, down 16-12 with a minute and 52 seconds left, pinned to his own 3? All Griese did was engineer an 11-play touchdown drive, capped by a 15-yard touchdown pass to Muhsin Muhammad. Good news for the Eagles is that Griese won't be on the field tonight. Neither will safety Sean Considine, who gave up the TD catch. But Jay Cutler is; he managed to sprinkle four TD passes among his 14 completions against the Eagles last year, which contributed heavily to a 31-26 Chicago win.
All that history I just recounted aside, I'm taking the Eagles. I think they showed strong improvement from the Washington game to the Dallas game, and are just hitting their stride. They're healthy and they're at home, in the national spotlight. Back-to-back blowouts would be a lot to ask-Chicago's front seven are probably too good for that to happen-but I think the home team gets to 4-4.
PREDICTION:
Eagles 30, Bears 21.
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