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.

Kafka to the rescue! ... Maybe

"Have no fear, Kafka is here!" ::Sound of speed::

There have been a lot of reports going back and forth about whether or not Vick will start this weekend versus the once mighty Giants, now reduced to nothing more than ShEli Manning. After his full participation in practice today, it looks as if he has passed all the tests and barring any setbacks, should start on Sunday. Which, don’t get us wrong, is amazing because we have our star quarterback on the field, but would have it been so bad to see young Northwestern grad Mike “The Stunna” Kafka on the field versus a depleted Giants defense? In just about one full quarter of play, Kafka was 7/9 for 72 yards and looked pretty composed considering the high pressure situation. He led the team on a long drive at the end of the game that could have potentially won the game if “that which we will not speak of” hadn’t happened to Jeremy Maclin. On top of that, he looked like a solid starting quarterback that could read a defense and make an accurate throw. Lets just think about how that could benefit us in the long run…

Possible Positives

Mike Kafka starts, has an amazing game, and we beat the Giants on Sunday. His line looks something like 300 yards on 25/35 passing with 2 TDs and an INT.

What could possibly come from this?

1.     Mike Vick gets an extra week to rest his head so that we are sure there are no lingering effects and he can continue to have an MVP type season.

2.     The second positive that could come from this is our piece of mind knowing that we have a solid backup quarterback for Vick going forward and in the event that he does get hurt in future games, we know that we have a cheap backup that can perform well enough to lead a team to victory.

3.     This would be the best possibility that could come from the game. If Kafka has an amazing game, and in some way is needed to play again in the future due to an injury, and has another amazing game, what could this do? Well, to be perfectly honest, with the respect that coaches have for Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg’s ability to develop a QB, what do you think could happen? Also, consider the fact that a solid starting QB in the league is really hard to come by and evaluate. Answer: Kafka could essentially turn into huge trade bait. We could potentially get great value for him in a bad QB draft year. With the intelligent guys that we have running the GM’s office, don’t think they haven’t thought about this already as a possibility to help the Eagles add more pieces in upcoming years. This could be yet another score for Eagles fan based on an Andy Reid underrated draft pick.

Notable Negatives

Remember when this guy was supposed to be good? We all saw what happened to him.

Mike Kafka comes out and has a pretty bad performance overall. He shows how nervous he can truly be and has an extremely forgettable game with maybe 200 yards passing on 20/45 passing with 1 TD and 2 INTs. Obviously with a performance like this, it would mean a loss to the Giants.

What could possibly come from this?

1.     Obviously this would put us in a bit of a hole in the NFC. We would start off 1-2 on the season and 0-1 in the NFC East. Although we would be able to rebound with the kind of talent we have on this team, it wouldn’t be easy. Our strength of schedule is pretty high this year and the end of the year is the worst part of the schedule. We have to face the Patriots and New York Jets, as well as the Cowboys, Giants, and Redskins all in the last 7 weeks of the season. Most of those are at home, but they are still tough games no matter where you play them.

2.     Kafka’s confidence is hurt and potentially does not rebound. He goes on to continue performing poorly and is out of the league in the next couple years, not being able to catch on with any team… NOT EVEN THE SEAHAWKS! This would not only suck for Kafka, but also the fans of talented, good looking, quarterbacks everywhere.

As you can see, there are a lot of different positives and negatives that could come from starting Kafka this weekend. It seems at this point like this is just going to be all a bunch of ‘what ifs’ because Vick looks like he is going to play. However, if  “The Stunna” comes out and has an amazing game, this could lead to amazing things for the Eagles. No matter what happens though, lets just hope we destroy ShEli and his team of misfit toys.

Brandon Jacobs is the dumb polka dotted elephant incase you were wondering.