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. 

Philadelphia 1 - New York 1

On a showdown day when Philadelphia was pinned against its old buddy New York, the games were split 1-1. The Phillies ended their 8 game nauseating skid with a nice 9-4 win over Mike Pelfrey (the crybaby) and an Eagles’ full out collapse versus the New York Giants losing 29-16. We can take a quick look at each of these games.

Phillies 9   Mets 4

The Phanatic wins again. What a character.

This game was an overall great sign for the Phillies in what could be the exact lineup in Game 1 of the NLDS. The offense was put together and seemed to click on all cylinders with Hunter Pence in the 3 hole and Victorino giving Howard some protection in the number 5 spot. Obviously with the 9 runs everything seemed to be smooth. There was timely hitting, 2 out run production, and some power shown with Pence’s 2 run homerun in the first inning. It was a huge confidence boost for an offense that looked sluggish and out of sorts as of late with most regulars getting some rest. Defensively, there were no errors and Roy Halladay did what Roy Halladay does best. He was a strike-throwing machine with almost no flaws. He left after 6 innings with only four hits allowed and a shutout still in tact, but Charlie wanted to rest him up for next Saturday. The only thing that was troubling from this game was the bullpen. Worley came in and gave up a run in the 8^th, but Bastardo seemed to come unraveled again, giving up 3 runs in the 7^th. Other than that, it is a pheel good day for the Phillies who hopefully let the Braves sweep them so we can avoid the hoT hOt Hot Cardinals in the first round (We are not kidding).

Eagles 16 Giants 29

"I thought I remembered you guys making some kind of upgrade in the offseason? Must have been mistaken."

This game was awful in more ways than one. Not only did our defense look absolutely atrocious the entire second half and first quarter, but we have more injuries that can do nothing but hurt us moving forward. First, the injuries that are incredibly significant are (obviously) Michael Vick’s broken right hand and Jeremy Maclin’s hurt hamstring. Vick may be done for a couple weeks, which could lead us to a Vince Young/Mike Kafka competition for #1 this week. That could be interesting to see who starts and if we can win with all that talent, but a B lister at quarterback. The severity of Maclin’s injury is not known as of yet, and even though he is an important part of our offense, we can survive without our second number 1 receiver. Now, to the pathetic game by the defense and offense overall. First, the offense was actually pretty effective most of the game, and only looked hindered when Vick got hurt and had to leave the game. The only thing we have to rip on them for is the pitiful short yardage situations. It was something that appeared to have been corrected as of late, but after a performance on the goal line that would have made Reggie White roll over in his grave, fans were left scratching their heads. The inability of the line and the running game to take advantage of those situations will kill a team’s entire season in the long run. The defense, where can we even begin? The linebackers are such a joke that it is hard to put a finger on whether or not they were worse against the run or the pass. Chaney is a better MLB than Matthews, but Matthews still seemed to be a liability on the outside. One prime example is when he looked lost in coverage on the 40 yard passing TD to Brandon Jacobs in the first. Aside from this, the defense needs to learn how to tackle. Due to a lack of tackling, they made VICTOR CRUZ look like an All-Star and helped Bradshaw extended numerous drives in the game. With all the money spent on the defensive side of the ball, the LBs should have been addressed. The thought that strengthening every other position would help hide the weakness at linebacker obviously didn’t work out. This needs to be corrected or else this season is going to be just as bad as these last two weeks have gone.

Philadelphia is still winning.

In the grand scheme of things, we will still unfortunately give New York the win overall seeing as the Mets still took two of three from the Phillies this weekend and the Giants game was a huge surprise. In a 16 game season, a loss to a division rival is far more devastating than a late September win over a terrible opponent in a 162 game season. Even though New York won this battle, by our records, Philadelphia is still dominating in the war about 1,000,000 to 1 so they can go back to sucking their thumbs at night and dreaming of one day being as great as the city of Brotherly Love.