Turkeys and Things to be Thankful for this NFL Season as an Eagles’ Fan

Turkeys:

After this year, these guys should be cooked. (Funny)

           Juan Castillo

Yeah, we've been scratching our heads, too.

This should come as no surprise to most of you because everyone (as always) is in an uproar about the Eagles. This time it just happens to be about the defense. Normally, the blogging twins are very patient about our coaches and personnel, but this time we are a little tired of this coach. Now, don’t get us wrong, we don’t blame Juan for everything…

Should Andy have named him defensive coordinator? Probably not.

Are the players on the defensive side of the ball playing to the best of their capabilities? No way.

We understand the guy’s passion and enthusiasm for coaching, and that is all fantastic, but he could have done that with the offensive line. It is just clear that the guy is in over his head, and maybe he shouldn’t be the one tweaking the defensive schemes of a good number of over-priced, big-headed defensive players that are struggling to find their way.

You have to know that there is a problem with where a team is headed defensively if a head coach (who just put a whole heap of faith in making you his defensive coordinator) is talking about hiring a ‘defensive consultant’ a few weeks into a season for help. Andy basically created a new position to fill a gaping void.

Yes, the defense has definitely played better over the past few weeks, but can we really say that this is scheming or is it finally just top quality defensive players playing up to their paychecks?

A big test will be this Sunday against a Patriots’ offense that will require more than just talent to stop. It’s going to require a good game plan, and we’re going to see if we’re going to get it.

            Kurt Coleman

Weird, it looks like he knew how to tackle in college... Wonder what happened?

Is anyone seeing a trend here on the defensive side of the ball for the Eagles?

Listing Kurt Coleman here should get one of two reactions.

1.     Kurt Coleman, why? He is in no way important enough to get a turkey distinction.

2.     Now that I think about it, he has been pretty awful.

Our thought process is following number two in the above reactions.

Go back through the Eagles’ games this year… How many times do you remember yelling at the TV (maybe the yelling part is just in our house) about how Kurt Coleman took a bad angle to a ball carrier, or couldn’t wrap up a tackle, or blew pass coverage and had you ripping your hair out? Our bet is that even if you didn’t realize it before –you are realizing it now.

This was even more apparent earlier in the year when backs like Michael Turner, Stephen Jackson, and Frank Gore were running free in the secondary with no one around to wrap anyone up.

For a guy that went to THE Ohio State University, shouldn’t we expect a little bit more?

Michael Vick/ Darryl Tapp

We really have nothing to complain about with these two guys. Michael Vick has not played as amazing as he did last year, but its not exactly easy to play an MVP caliber season every year. He was bound to ‘disappoint’ some people this year because it is hard to duplicate the year that he had in 2010.

Darryl Tapp has also been highly productive for Jim Washburn’s defensive line this year. He has 2.5 sacks in a reserve role and has a total of 17 tackles (11 solo). Since coming over in a trade from Seattle, he has proven to be a valuable asset for depth at the defensive end position.

So you may be asking yourself… why are they turkeys? HOKIES BABY! In case you are unfamiliar, these two played their college ball at our Alma Mater “Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University” which is more often called Virginia Tech. They have to be turkeys… that is what they were in college. Go Hokies! (#5 BCS)

Things to be Thankful for:

Brian Rolle

Such a handsome young man.

We bet you didn’t see this coming… A defensive player on the ‘Thankful for’ list?

This is one Ohio Stater that has lived up to his school’s billing.

Brian Rolle came into the outside linebacker role a bit later than he probably should have this year, but he has been a big part of turning around a defense that was hurting big time. He has been a factor in the running game which has solidified itself after the early going, and he has definitely been an impressive option for shutting down a pesky TE or two in the passing game that has plagued the Eagles in the past. We really haven’t had too many games this year where Brian Rolle was in charge in which the TEs went crazy against the Eagles.

Brian has had 33 tackles this year, 8 assts, 3 passes defended, and 25 solo tackles. While these numbers aren’t staggering in themselves, there are no stats for the amount of times he has been in the right spot to stop a runner or occupy a blocker – allowing someone else to be freed up for a tackle. He has been a pleasant surprise for a team that came into the year assuming that Casey Matthews was going to be its starting linebacker.

Not to mention that Brian is still very young. He is 23 years old and still has time to develop to become even better. Even if you’re sitting there saying that this season is over (which we don’t buy yet), there is still something to look forward to with this defense – we still have young players to build on.

Thank you, Brian. The city of Philadelphia should gather around their Thanksgiving day tables and say thanks for you.

Andy Reid

You Beautifully Jovial Man

Stop right there. We are sure that there are a bunch of smart comments coming out of everyone’s mouths about how crazy we are and how Reid needs to go.

If you’ve read this blog before, you know we completely disagree.

Andy has been a great thing for the city of Philadelphia and its beloved Eagles.

Don’t use the argument that we haven’t won a Superbowl under his tenure as our head coach because we can play that game too. There are plenty teams in the NFL that haven’t won a Superbowl under their current head coach’s tenure.

You know what else we can do?

We can name a bunch of teams that have turned over coaches year after year and have not been nearly as competitive or as well run as the Eagles. The Birds have been perennial favorites to win the division for years and have had Chris Berman pick them to win the Superbowl almost every year for the past 6 or 7 years.

The reason is the stability that Andy has brought into Philadelphia.

We’ve made this argument before, but the players love Big Red. Even when he has to hand out orders (for example, benching Desean Jackson), he has kept a great rapport with the players and they want to perform for him.

Can things be said about his inability to manage a clock? Sure.

Can things be said about his penchant for throwing the ball too much? Yup.

Is it possible that we need a change at the head coach position? Sure.

But right now, he IS the head coach of this team, and his contribution to our team over his tenure is immeasurable. So, sit back and give thanks for Big Red and just enjoy.

The Washington Redskins

We admit, on the surface, this looks like an odd addition to the ‘Thankful for’ list.

But think about it.

No matter how disappointing our year has been – our little buddies to the south always outdo us with disappointment. They started with such a bang this year and then slowly but surely declined to their old forms in the NFC East (actually, it was a pretty sharp decline right as they played the Eagles and we embarrassed Sexy Rexy).

It’s nice to have the stability and familiarity of those Redskins being awful.

Not to mention, we are almost assuredly going to be heavy favorites against the Redskins on Sunday, January 1^st at 1 PM on Fox (even if we are still lower than them in the basement of the NFC East).

Thank you, Washington. Your consistency in stormy weather has been a lifeboat for this football town. 

2 Seasons End in a Matter of Days

Funerals are a great place to pick up chicks at least?

Within the past week, there have been two seasons that have officially come to an end. One ended in a playoff run with a record setting season; the other ended in Week 5 of the regular season. While we here at 'continued success' are usually positive and optimistic, this week we can find ourselves in only one spot, the graveyard, as we bury two professional sports teams in the area.

The Eagles again have embarrassed themselves with another disgusting loss. 4 interceptions for an unlucky Michael Vick, one huge fumble by Jason Avant, and an encroachment that should get Juqua Parker removed from the team. This was a team with high hopes at the beginning of the year that just came crashing down. After showing some life in the 2nd half, led by Michael Vick, the team (especially the defense) found a way to give it away again while trailing this time. Brian Billick was spot on with his description of what happened. The timeout was called for that play in the timeout the Eagles' coaches explicitly said "DON'T MOVE," and yet here we are talking about another Eagles' loss. Although most of the blame at this point will be pinned on Parker, there were quite a few other hiccups that cannot be forgotten.

Avant, for being as reliable as he has been over the past couple years, really could not have given away more in this game. He seemed to be Mr. Butterfingers today and hurt the Eagles just as much as Parker did with that last boneheaded play. Hopefully he can make up for it the rest of the season.

Another factor is that even though the defense played better in the second half, this can't happen. You cannot give up that many points in any game and expect to win on any given day. The unit as a whole cannot tackle. When Youngstown States' own Donald Jones is breaking three tackles on a play, you know that you have basic fundamental problems. The missed tackles of the Eagles is leading to big plays. The Eagles' defense is essentially making every team that they face look like their offense used to look last year. Even though Juan Castillo has definitely not done a good job with the defense this year, he cannot get out there and tackle for his players. If they have any hope of reviving the season, this is the number one priority that needs to change.

So with this game, we here by bury the season of the Philadelphia Eagles. It was once a promising and upstart life that has now been  cast asunder. However, with death, comes new life. Thank goodness for us, the new life comes in the form of a very good Philadelphia Flyers team.

(This is not a story encouraging you to stop watching/rooting for the Eagles. Please continue to yell and scream at the TV as if we are still undefeated, but have the thought in the back of your mind that we may not be making the playoffs this year. Hey, it has been worse.)

Just so we are all aware, we still are hopeful the Eagles will go 10-6 or 11-5, and we will continue to sit in front of our TV every Sunday to live/die with the final score.

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.

They're not from Philadelphia, so it's OK

This is the first Flyers post on the blog, so it is something to celebrate, but it’s the only thing to celebrate about this story. This is a time to complain and be disgusted about The Media and other fans all over the world.

"We're going to talk about this briefly and not give it the attention it deserves because we can't dump on Philadelphia fans here."

Since the beginning of time, Philadelphia sports fans have been looked at as ravenous, mean, hateful, unforgiving idiots who don’t know what they’re talking about and are a black eye to all of professional sports. That stereotype is really the only one of its kind. We have done some questionable things in the past, but is it as justified as it seems? What have we done that is so wrong? Sure we “booed” Santa Claus, even though people seem to forget that he was drunk when we pelted him with those snowballs. We also threw a battery at JD Drew and cheered when Michael Irvin got carted off the field on a stretcher, but are we the only fans who have had some kind of indiscretion like that in the past? Lets look at some recent happenings of the exact same thing, which seem to have gone unnoticed.

The first one is a little less serious, but still something that was completely ignored. When Michael Vick got knocked out of the Falcons game with a concussion on Sunday, we don’t think we heard anyone mention that the Falcons’ fans in the building cheered. The whole stadium was cheering because number 7 was laying on the ground, bleeding out of his mouth, but yet, no one seemed to even talk about that. We think we can guess why, since they are “little old” Atlanta, just a bunch of good ole country folk “who don’t mean no harm, they just like to have a good time.” Still, shouldn’t this be just as upsetting as the Michael Irvin – Eagles incident? The Eagles fans started cheering early before they knew it was a serious injury and yet, it’s still talked about 12 years later like we are pariah and animals. Atlanta gets a free pass, because they have Samuel L. Jackson on their side (WHO ISN’T EVEN FROM ATLANTA, GO CHEER FOR YOUR HOMETOWN REDSKINS INSTEAD OF BEING A BANDWAGONER).

The second comparison is much more serious. As you can probably tell with the JD Drew talk that we brought up, we are going to be comparing this to the awful incident that happened to Wayne Simmonds, one of the newest Philadelphia Flyers, in London, ON Thursday night. Let us preface this by saying that JD Drew was a complete bum who deserved the hatred from Philadelphia. He would not sign with us because he knew he was not good enough to turn the team around and we rightfully hated him for it. On August 10, 1999 at Veterans Stadium, Drew had a battery thrown in his direction as a symbol of our hate. It didn’t even hit him, it was just thrown in his direction and there was no damage done other than a possible dent in the lovely Vet Stadium turf. Now fast-forward 12 years later to London, ON. Wayne Simmonds, who is one of only a handful of African American hockey players in the NHL, gets a racially charged banana thrown his way. First off, this is disgusting and should never happen in any way. These couple fans should be banned from ever attending another sports event again as punishment for what they did. The incident did get some media attention, but do you see anyone talking about those terrible Canadians now? A couple of knuckleheads throw a battery in the direction of JD Drew and it reflects on the whole population of Philadelphia, but something much worse happens in London, ON and nothing is even mentioned about the fans. Lets ignore those “sweet Canucks” and just assume it’ll go away in the long run because again, they’re not from that “awful, dirty” city of Philadelphia.

This is something that will probably never change when it comes to Philadelphia sports fans. We will always be looked at as a bunch of low-life, no good Neanderthals who are no better than blood sucking leeches draining the dignity from professional sports, but we are better than The Media gives us credit for. We are Philadelphia, wear it proud. Hopefully the remainder of our Flyers' posts will be about the team's domination.

Quite the OW-fensive Line Ya’ Got There…

First off, Sorry for the delay - this story was supposed to be out days ago, but because of Thunderstorm Irene (nowhere near as catastrophic as it could have been...) - the Blogging Twins haven't had power until tonight... Don't ask us why... but anyway...

"Guys, we talked about this. Please keep those guys away from me. That's literally your one job."

It’s no surprise that Thursday was a ‘coming out party’ for the Browns defense- and that was mostly thanks to our very young, inexperienced offensive line. They looked BAD. Not just bad, but BAD. We had two true rookies (Kelce and Watkins) and one guy that might as well be a rookie in King Dunlap (sweet name, but still only 14 games played in the NFL and only 5 starts – the name can only do so much). All of this led to one thing – our franchise QB spent a lot of time on his backside. Not to mention, it also led to two fumbles for Mr. Vick (one lost) and one interception (which luckily got called back because he got hit too hard by a Brown so the refs felt bad and overturned it).

But lets not beat a dead horse (too soon?)… Some positives DID come out of this whole situation for the offensive line:

1.     We continue to see maturity in Michael Vick. Although the man may have been battered and had internal bleeding following the game, he was calm, collected and levelheaded when asked about the performance of his offensive line. He was very clear and simply let everyone know that it was a rough night, but they did some things well and they are still young and learning. That’s a perfect response from a QB in that situation. The man just got done getting lit up because of poor blocking and he goes to bat for the line anyway. A less respectable player would have been a little bit edgier to say the least. To put it simply, Michael knew there was going to be problems early on and he is handling them gracefully. This is a good sign of his maturity in growing as a pro and as a leader in the locker room and on the field. To put it in short – he is acting much more mature than his offensive line is playing.

2.     Jason Kelce could have been worse. He didn’t communicate well in pass protection with Danny Watkins on numerous occasions and didn’t remember the snap count on every play (which coincidentally led to his entire offensive unit being guilty of a false start), but he is looking a lot like the Howard Mudd-esque offensive lineman that we were hoping for. He’s quick and tough and a good pulling lineman. Most notably on the 4^th and 1 play (TE around) that he got out in front of Cornelius Ingram and took care of his assignment quickly. It was also clear on his ability to get out in front of Ronnie Brown on a nice TD run that he had in the 1^st quarter. He also did a fantastic job in the screen game that the Eagles love to use. He got out in the open and used his speed to his advantage. This all makes a good base that Howard Mudd (the guru of offensive linemen) can definitely build on. We are hopefully getting to watch a future Jeff Saturday in the making.

(Wait for him to yell at Mario Williams. Yes, please.)

(R.I.P. Harry)

3.     This meaningless pre-season game gave Howard Mudd a chance to evaluate the entire situation and hopefully make changes that we will need to see happen for a more productive offensive unit. This first change came a few days ago as we had to see Todd Herremans get moved to right tackle to hopefully protect Mike Vick’s blindside. Jason Kelce, Danny Watkins, and King Dunlap were going to have a hard time learning on-the-job while all being right next to another rookie. The experience needs to be filtered throughout the whole line so that questions can be asked pre-snap and the veteran players can hopefully correct any weaknesses. Howard Mudd tried to leave Herremans and Jason Peters together where they were last year, but this little glimpse into that experiment has shown him that he has to switch some things up. Again, it’s just a meaningless pre-season game so it’s better to find this all out now. Hopefully this meshing of rookie and veteran will pay off.

It’s definitely a work in progress, but for right now, no need to panic. 

What did we learn from the "Dream Team's" first preseason game?

1. Jim Washburn is Amaz-ridic-unbelievable

Yeah thats right, he is so good we had to invent a new word just for him.

The most important thing that we learned on Thursday was that Jim Washburn’s capabilities as a defensive line coach may have been underestimated. Yes, you read it right UNDERESTIMATED, because as much as we talked about him in the offseason, the defensive line played so well that they made him look better than we could have ever imagined. From the very first defensive snap, you could see everyone on the line getting into their man and getting into the backfield. All 6 sacks were by our defensive line, but that stat doesn’t tell the whole story. The only way you could see the whole story is if you watched the game and saw how dominant this line was on every snap so its pointless to talk about it, watch the replay of the game Sunday at 3:00 PM on CSN and see how amazing it truly was. All we can say is, if this continues, you will see multiple Eagles’ D-linemen on the Pro Bowl squad and a defense in general that can dominate any offense, especially the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

2. Casey Matthews still needs a little work

"Owen, will you let me go already? Im trying to go make a play on the ball."

I think Matthews still has time to get sharp before the season, but he definitely showed some glaring weaknesses on Thursday. He did seem comfortable as a leader out there, which is a good sign, but the biggest thing I saw that needed help was his run stopping capability. On a lot of the running plays, you could visibly see Casey having a tough time shedding the block to get to the next level. He was staying engaged with the lineman so long that its easy to believe that if that continues, we could see some long runs breaking through the line. While this would be good because we could see some monster hits from Jaiquawn Jarrett on the RBs, it may lead to a lot of long touchdowns. We still firmly believe Casey is going to be a good MLB for the Eagles eventually, he just needs a litte more work with the coaches. But, don’t be surprised that if this part of his game does not improve, you will see some more of Jamar Chaney and other LB’s mixing in there. This is an all or nothing season, so don’t expect the management or coaches to wait too long for the kid to come around.

3. No Maclin, No Jackson, No problem?

"I derive most of my strength from my beautiful golden locks."

Let’s be honest, everyone wants Desean Jackson and Jeremy Maclin in the game, but did you see how good we were without our two superstar receivers? In that first drive alone, we had big plays by Avant, Chad Hall, and Riley Cooper. Cooper only had one catch, but he jumped up out of his seat like someone was about to cut his gorgeous golden locks. Avant made a solid catch in some traffic, which is what Philly phans have come to expect from him. Chad Hall is once again doing things that a guy his size maybe shouldn’t be able to do. He caught the ball in some tight spots and took a couple big hits. Vick did a great job of showing his inner Donovan McNabb by taking a lot of nobody receivers and still looking like an all-star quarterback. Of course we all want the two explosive superstars back in the lineup, but if for some reason we can’t get them back… we have a feeling we can survive without them.

4. Do we have a legitimate 3-headed monster in the backfield?

The middle one is Lesean and his right head man is Ronnie Brown. Dion Lewis is the third string guy on his left.

Okay, I know a couple people may call us crazy, but we think there is a legitmate chance that the three runningbacks that we have back there may be a new age trifecta of power. On Thursday, we didn’t see much from Shady McCoy, but we all know what he can do. The real things we saw were from Ronnie Brown and Dion Lewis. Ronnie looked like a healthy, explosive, between the tackles runner. He showed his speed and strength are still there and got pretty elusive on a couple plays. On the other hand, Dion Lewis was kind of a pleasant surprise. He showed good vision on the field, and for being a small guy, did a pretty nice job of picking up the blitz. He is the type of guy that can turn a broken play into a big gainer with his speed and athleticism. Now, we don’t anticipate Lewis getting too many carries this season, with a majority of the carries going to McCoy and Brown, but if there is a big change of pace needed, he might get a couple touches a game. If these three runningbacks all play up to the level they did on Thursday, look for a well-balanced offense that will scare opposing defenses in so many ways for the upcoming season.

5. New right side of the offensive line getting it done.

"I didn't realize how bad everyone else in the NFL was besides me."

In the first amazing offensive series for the Philadelphia Eagles, we don’t know if anyone else noticed, but the Eagles ACTUALLY converted a 3^rd and 1. AND it wasn’t by throwing or running some trick play out of the backfield, we just ran it straight ahead with Owen Schmitt behind Ryan Harris and Danny Watkins. If this doesn’t shock you, then you don’t know Eagles football very well. For the past several years, we have had a lot of trouble converting short yardage type plays, and within one game with our newly constructed offensive line, we convert on our first attempt. Harris and Watkins, if they didn’t before, now have a ton of confidence from Howard Mudd and Andy Reid to get the job done when need be. They looked like veterans who were comfortable and dominant throughout their time in the game. The whole offensive line looked like they are going to be tough for opposing teams to deal with all season and that no doubt comes from the addition of two sturdy pieces like Harris and Watkins. They were incredibly impressive and that means that Michael Vick stays off the ground and keeps sprinting this offense towards a Super Bowl.