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. 

Greatest Eagles' Back of All Time?

Okay, we know what most of you are thinking right away when you hear this.

“Duce Staley!” 

“Ricky Watters, obviously.”      

            

 “Rod ‘HeHateMe’ Smart!”

And while all of these are absolutely phenomenal guesses, none of them are correct. There are only a few names that can really be in this conversation: Wilbert Montgomery, Brian Westbrook and… Lesean McCoy. Now we know that it might be a little early to throw McCoy’s name out there, but his stats so far have been eye popping to say the least. So let’s analyze the early careers of these three players just to give you an idea of just how good Shady can be.

In Wilbert Montgomery’s first two full seasons as the Philadelphia Eagles’ starting running back, he racked up 2,732 rush yards on 597 attempts for an Yds/carry avg of 4.6. On top of that he added 75 catches for 698 yards and between running and receiving he had 24 TDs. As you can see, he had a promising start and obviously finished with a pretty impressive NFL career overall.

The next guy to take a look at would be a young Brian Westbrook. Brian’s first two full seasons as an Eagles’ starting runningback came in 2003 and 2004 where he had only 294 carries for 1,492 yards an average of 4.9 yards/carry. But let’s not forget, this is in the midst of the Andy Reid West Coast offense so his receiving numbers are really what make him stand out from the pack. In those first two years, Westbrook caught the ball 110 times for 1,035 yards and in total had 20 TDs. The receiving numbers for those two years were ridiculous. He had so many screens and flares thrown his way that those plays were basically running plays anyway that he may have turned from nothing into something. Being alive during the Westbrook era, we also remember the amount of excitement he put into each and every Eagles’ game no matter when he touched the ball. This is a true sign of one of the greatest runningbacks in a teams’ history.

Finally, we take a look at the early career of Lesean “Shady” McCoy, who by the way, after only 2 cumulative seasons in the NFL is already 16^th on the Eagles’ all-time leading rushers. Now in order to make this work, we had to take the cumulative of two seasons with Shady which means 4 games in 2009 that he started while Westbrook was hurt, so bear with the numbers a bit. In almost two full seasons (in the Andy Reid pass happy offense) he has had 467 carries for 2286 yards which is a solid 4.9 yds/attempt. His receiving numbers in that time span show 139 receptions for 1023 yards. He also has 21 total TDs in that time span as well. So as you can see, his game is not far off of the other two Eagles’ legends. Plus, Merrill Reese says his name really cool so that has to put him up there amongst the elites as well. At this point, proclaiming him as one of the all-time great Eagles’ runningbacks isn’t wrong it’s just a little premature at this point considering he still has a long career ahead of him, but he is still young. Shady still has a large amount of growing and maturing to do and as long as he can stay healthy, he is going to end up being not only one of the greatest Eagles’ runningbacks of all time, but maybe just maybe one of the greatest Eagles’ players ever.

Take it away, Merrill...

Good luck not getting goosebumps...

Final thought: 

For those of you still saying Rod ‘HeHateMe’ Smart, you have passed the test that was the correct answer all along. He is indeed the greatest Eagles runningback of all time no matter what the stats or uneducated fans will lead you to believe. Keep strong and one day, Rod and you will get the recognition you all deserve.

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.