The Only Two Certainties are Death and Taxes... And Eagles Winning after Bye Weeks

Uncle Sam is ready to shoot if you say one more bad word about Andy Reid... or America.

This is now the 13^th season in Andy Reid’s career and he has received a lot of criticism over that time, some of it was warranted, but a lot of it has been uninformed fans who do not look at the bigger picture. However, through all of this, one thing has remained certain: Andy Reid will always win after a bye week. Like “Death” and “Taxes”, this has become an absolute certainty that you could very well stake on the life of your first unborn child. We’re not sure exactly what it is, but Andy has the antidote for what ails his players and no matter rain or shine, they come out after a bye week playing their best football of the season. This year was no exception as our boys came out and lit up the Cowgirls 34-7 and those 7 points came at a time when the outcome had already been decided. Let’s look at the certainties from this Eagles’ team that can now go along with “Death and Taxes”.

1.     Andy Reid’s Team will win after a bye week.

Still dominating all these years later.

 Okay, we already stated it once, but we just thought that we would emphasize this for you. Reid’s Eagles are now an unbelievable 13-0 after a bye week in the regular season. If you add his postseason resume onto that, he is a sterling 16-0 after a bye week. He takes the opportunity and gives his players one of the most important things that are needed during a grueling 17 week season and that is rest. Rest from the wear and tear of hitting every day, rest from all the media questions, and most importantly just rest from football is exactly what the players need. Even though the players love playing football on a daily basis, just the chance to not think about it for a short period of time is welcomed and appreciated. They have a week to have a life outside of football and recharge their batteries both mentally and physically. No matter how much criticism Big Red gets, he is a players’ coach and after the week long break, the players love him even more.

2.     Lesean McCoy is one of the best RBs in the NFL

'Nuff Said.

You can argue with us all you want, but this is another unquestionable truth. Lesean has gone from a borderline second round draft pick in 2009 to a superstar in this league in a matter of 2 short years. He is leading the league in yds/attempt at 5.6 (And yes, this does not included hacks like Demarco Murray who have less than half of the attempts Shady has had this season), second in the NFL in TDs and Rushing yards to only Adrian Peterson who by the way has not had his bye week yet. Shady only trails AP in TDs by 1 (Shady: 8 AP: 9) and in yards rushing by 44 (Shady: 754 AP: 798). So as long as McCoy doesn’t quit football this week for some odd reason, he’ll be your leader in both categories after our game Monday night vs. the Bears. He may not be the best receiving RB in the game (Matt Forte with 419 yards WOW), but he still holds his own with 138 yards (Note: Why would we need to throw it to him when we have amazing receivers, an underrated/underused tight end and he is so effective running the ball. The Bears have no receivers or tight ends so it is more warranted). Finally, the biggest thing here is that even though he handles the ball like a fake Kardashian/Humphries marriage (No care at all, haha topical humor), he has no fumbles on the year. As much as he does for the team, he doesn’t hurt them, and as the Eagles have learned this year (Jeremy Maclin, Jason Avant) that can sometimes be more important. Shady McCoy has cemented himself in as the most important part of this team and not only one of the biggest weapons at runningback, but in the ENTIRE NFL at ANY position. 

3.     The Philadelphia Eagles really can be THIS good.

You’re right, this is not a great certainty, but it is a true statement so accept it anyway. After weeks of playing opossum, the Philadelphia Eagles are starting to mold into the form that we hoped they would be at all year long. The missed OTAs and training camps did set them behind a great deal with new schemes to implement, new FAs that were added, a couple key rookies being put into the mix, and three new coaches one of which was taking on a defensive coordinator role for the first time. Now with all this extra time to absorb the material, the team showed up and played one of its most complete football games since the thrashing of the Redskins last year, and even then our defense didn’t play that well. Anytime you beat a team 34-7 and outgain them in yards 495 to 267 AND beat them in time of possession 42:09 to 17:5, you can call that a good ole fashion beatin’. Throw on top of this that the Eagles’ were not projected to be that much better AND that this was the in-divisional rival Cowboys and you can see how impressive this win is. If this team can continue this from week to week, we can’t wait to see what they do to the turnover friendly Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football. This game could be over in the first quarter! All that being said, it was nice to hear things after the game from veterans like Nnamdi Asomugha that the defense is finally “feeling comfortable” giving the sense that we can expect performances like that for many weeks to come not that everything has been situated. As we have seen in the past, many times it is not how you start a season, but how you finish it, and this team has a lot of those characteristics. A team with a lot of hype that cracks at the beginning of the season, but after breaking down the colts, they can get built back up into strong powerful clydesdales (sorry for the awful analogy but you get the picture). The bad beginning may actually help them to stay more focused, stay hungry, and have the long, sustaining playoff run that we all hope they can have.

This may not be a certainty, but we just want to throw in there how good the linebacking corps has looked after a couple slight alterations to the lineup and the defensive alignment. There have been some things that have helped, but Jamar Chaney is really starting to look good and comfortable at that middle linebacker position. He went out against Dallas on Sunday night and recorded 7 tackles and one pass defended, this is good for a lot of players, but especially good when we are talking about the Eagles’ linebackers. Every game that goes by he gets more comfortable and looks as though he can become a solid playmaker out there for the defense. They are not perfect yet, but they keep getting better.

We kind of feel bad for beating them after seeing this... We didn't realize... you know

The Eagles look like they are hitting their stride as we reach the midway point of the season. Make no mistake about it, the Eagles’ schedule is still tough and there is no guarantee that this team is making the playoffs, but we now have hope. We have hope that if this team can continue to play like this for the rest of the season, we may actually be able to win most of those games, make the playoffs and maybe go a little bit farther, which is a lot more than we have been able to say over the past 7 weeks. So enjoy what we have right now because at the end of this season, like so many others, hope may be the only thing we have left.