Just another Groundhog Day with Andy Reid
IT'S THE QUESTION we get asked most, especially when Mondays follow Sundays like this past one. People ask why bother attending Andy Reid's day-after press conference when your why and how questions invariably invoke "just because" answers, when you invariably leave the room with less enlightenment than when you entered, that ol' Groundhog Day feeling once again.
IT'S THE QUESTION we get asked most, especially when Mondays follow Sundays like this past one. People ask why bother attending Andy Reid's day-after press conference when your why and how questions invariably invoke "just because" answers, when you invariably leave the room with less enlightenment than when you entered, that ol' Groundhog Day feeling once again.
Joe Banner said it best years ago, when he issued his definition of insanity as repeating the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result. Yet there we were again yesterday, each trying to formulate that question that could not be answered with a yes, no, or we'll see, to somehow unearth that dam-breaking question that will release a flood of explanations, muting perhaps the fan frustration about a grossly underachieving 3-6 team.
A frustration that Reid again claimed yesterday to understand, even as he once again stoked it with vanilla answers to specific questions.
"Surrender Andy," read the latest edition of a banner situated across the entrance of the Eagles' NovaCare practice facility and through midday no Eagles player this time around had intimidated its removal. After another Sunday fourth-quarter, homefield surrender - this time to a two-win team - to do so would seem to invite further ridicule, especially as questions about the Eagles' game-day toughness are revived.
Or maybe, deep in the recesses of their minds and what's left of their hearts, the players too have doubts about Reid's effectiveness going forward, especially inside the current Reid-Banner-Howie Roseman management dynamic that one of the team's tainted stars, Asante Samuel, recently likened to a fantasy-league operation.
In one of these Mondays earlier this season, Reid spoke about how the NFL is all about games decided by seven points or less; that good, bad and great fall inside such margins. Well, in the 10 seasons before Jim Johnson passed away - discounting Reid's first season as a mulligan - the Birds were 42-32-1 in such games. They are 6-10 in the two seasons since, including a 1-5 mark this year.
Just as Sean McDermott before him, Juan Castillo has earned the bull's-eye he now wears via some mind-numbing breakdowns and faulty designs. Rather than use the shutdown cornerback that was the talk of this helter-skelter offseason on Sunday, he used a rookie to cover Arizona's Larry Fitzgerald for the winning fourth-quarter drive to the 1-yard line. It marked the fifth time this season his defense has surrendered a lead, and most of the time they have done so spectacularly.
But in each of those losses, an offense that stubbornly clings to its herky-jerky passing mentality has kicked the door open for those comebacks, including this past Sunday. Whether they were aware of Michael Vick's two broken ribs or not, Eagles coaches should have recognized by then that he was playing more like John Skelton than John Skelton was and adjusted accordingly.
A comical back and forth yesterday made possible by Reid's unresponsiveness began when the coach was asked if Vick's injury affected his accuracy.
"I'd probably say that it had something to do with it," he said. So the very next question asked if he would rather had Vick tell him about the injury so he could make an informed decision in play-calling. Reid answered, "Listen, he did some good things. We were in a position to win the game and I don't think it came down to him right there."
That position to win the game ended with Vick grossly overthrowing and being picked off. I don't know how it could have come down more to him right there. But as Boon said about Bluto in the movie "Animal House":
"Forget it, he's rolling."
Castillo didn't call for four straight pass plays to start the fourth quarter, clinging to a seven-point lead. He didn't order up four straight passes the next time the Eagles had the ball, this time with the score tied at 14. It wasn't his play-calling or personnel that limited LeSean McCoy to two fourth-quarter carries. On a day when DeSean Jackson was benched and Jeremy Maclin was on the sidelines with a shoulder injury.
It's nothing new of course. It's Groundhog Day . . . again. When asked about it, Reid said, "In hindsight, maybe we could have given him the ball more." Truth is though, he's not getting paid for his hindsight. That's our job.
Maybe it's that, or the penalties, and the mind-blowing ways in which they incur, but the last two seasons have had a certain Kotite-esque air about them, as if no one really knows what has gone wrong, what is going wrong or how to really fix it. If the season ended today, what would they address first?
The linebackers?
The offensive line?
The defensive coordinator job? Again?
Would you even examine an overall philosophy that often seems flawed in its design? That seems more pronounced as Reid goes farther down the road without Johnson, and his knack for covering his messes?
It's sure going to make for some interesting Sundays the rest of the way.
Mondays?
By now we all know too painfully the answer to that.
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