Iggles Blog - Philadelphia Eagles Blog

When Did We Become the Stupid Team?

Good teams don't beat themselves
The Eagles consistently beat themselves
Therefore, the Eagles are not a good team  QED

We've known from the beginning that this Eagles team would be a work in progress.  What is just now apparent, however, is that this little rehab project might actually be a full-scale fixer-upper. 

Good teams find ways to win.  Bad teams find ways to lose.  Puzzlingly, this Eagles team does both.

This is clearly a talented team.  The offense looks awesome for long stretches.  The defense is adequate and improving.  And if they ever run out of foot-bullets they're going to be hard to beat. 

But all this is obvious to anyone who's been watching these guys all year.  The more interesting question is why.  Why does this team keep self-destructing?  And what can they do to stop it?

Unfortunately, I'm all out of answers right now.  But I have a few theories to introduce:

1. Youth.  Obviously you can't blame every mistake on the young guys (see Barber touchdowns #1 and #2), but the litany of mistakes includes a lot of boneheaded plays by guys without much experience.  Drops.  Fumbles.  Running into the punt returner.  Too many men on the field.  A few ill-timed missed blocks.  Because some of the same faces have been around for awhile now, sometimes I forget that this isn't a veteran team to the extent it was three years ago before Reid started turning over the roster.

Solution: Game experience.  And tough love.  Quickly.

2. Lack of fire.  On offense, the Eagles play happy, go-lucky "family football."  On defense, the scheme requires players to be "under control" and analytical.  Given that this is still football, there's a distressing lack of anger out there. 

In fact, the Eagles have had only one game this season where they matched the intensity of their opponents.  (And a player who couldn't get up for the Cowboys game wouldn't have a pulse.)

I really don't think this is a coaching thing.  At this level, there's not much call for big pre-game or half-time speeches.  It's on the players. 

I think it's possible that too many of these guys have adopted Donovan McNabb's "play loose and happy" approach without understanding that none of them are McNabb.  It's time to make a change.  And the only guy who can make that happen is McNabb -- the other leaders on this team don't have the stature needed to pull it off.

Solution: It's up to McNabb, backed up by a few other veterans, to explain exactly what the point of this season is and to make the young guys realize they haven't won anything and the only way things are going to change is if they start coming to play, every down, from the beginning.

3. Poor situational coaching.  Look, I'm not putting this on Reid.  He'd need to have three more losing seasons in a row before I'd even start thinking maybe he'd lost his touch.  But there is a disturbing pattern here: something bad happens in a game, the coaching staff acknowledges the issue, fixes it, and it stops being a problem.

But shouldn't these guys be catching this stuff before it happens?  Given McNabb's history, when Reid gives him the play call with 10 seconds left in the half, shouldn't he mention that the throw has to go into the end zone?  Shouldn't ball security be a priority before all these guys start putting it on the ground?  Below the coordinator level, are the assistants up to par, or have the staff defections over the last few years started to bite?

Solution: I'm not in a position to evaluate these guys.  But perhaps Reid should be.

All in all, I just don't know.  It's the end of a long, crummy day and the Eagles are 4-3 and none of this makes any sense.  Realistically, can the Eagles go 7-2 from here on out to take the division?  Yes, they can.  They could even go 9-0 if they could just find and fix all the leaks in their game that keep killing them each week.

But if the same team keeps taking the field, they're going to waste a lot more performances like the one Westbrook put up today and be lucky to finish out 5-4. 

Time to start kicking some butt, Andy.

Deja Vu

Full recap to come later, but I just want to point something out right now:

OCTOBER 22, 2006

Bryant's 62-yard FG gives Bucs 23-21 win
By Aaron Knox
Philly.com Staff

Finally, the Eagles missed a chance to tie the game late in the first half on an inexplicable decision by McNabb in the final seconds.

The Eagles drove 74 yards in 50 seconds to reach the Buccaneers 6 with 9 seconds to play in the half, including a 20-yard run by McNabb and a 29-yard scamper on a screen pass by Brian Westbrook.
With no timeouts, the Eagles opted to take one crack at the end zone before bringing on David Akers for a short field goal attempt.

But McNabb instead threw to tight end L.J. Smith at the Bucs 2, where Barber -- who else? -- wrapped him up with five seconds remaining. McNabb had no chance to spike the ball and time expired.

It marked the first time all season the Eagles, who entered the game with the NFL's top-ranked offense, failed to score in the first half.

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OCTOBER 24, 2005

Eagles Notes Clock mistake on Reid's watch
By Bob Brookover; Inquirer Staff Writer

It was easy to forget the end of the first half after all that happened at the end of the second half yesterday at Lincoln Financial Field.

The Eagles would be wise to remember how they whiffed on an opportunity to put points on the scoreboard as time expired in the first half of their 20-17 victory over the San Diego Chargers.

"I blew it," Eagles coach Andy Reid said. "I called a route that I shouldn't have. I should have put all of the receivers in the end zone, and I didn't do that. That won't happen again."

The abridged version of what happened: With the Eagles out of time-outs and just 10 seconds left in the first half, quarterback Donovan McNabb and the offense were given one more shot at scoring a touchdown rather than settling for a field goal. It was first and 10 from the 13.

The one receiver who didn't run an end-zone route was tight end L.J. Smith, and he's the man McNabb found with the football at about the 5-yard line. Smith fought for another yard before being taken down, and then the Eagles scrambled to get to the line of scrimmage.

McNabb spiked the ball with one second left in the half, but not all of the offensive players were set, resulting in a false-start penalty that ended the half.

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January 18, 2005
Eagles Playback
The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Taking the blame"

Reid took the blame for the Eagles' failure to put up points before the end of the first half when McNabb inexplicably threw a pass over the middle to running back Dorsey Levens with 10 seconds and no time-outs remaining.

"I have to do a better job with that and keep all of his throws in the end zone," Reid said. "I could have given him a better play than what I did. I gave him a play with underneath routes. It wasn't smart on my part."

Maybe not, but McNabb has to know he can't throw anywhere other than the end zone, too. And there were receivers in the end zone.

Eagles / Buccaneers Game Preview

I'm already on record saying there's no way the Eagles are losing to a team quarterbacked by Bruce Gradkowski.  No matter how "competent and unafraid" the guy has looked so far, he's still a rookie, starting his third game, against a motivated -- not to say, pissed off -- Eagles defense.

So since I'm always criticizing everyone else's crystal balls, I thought maybe I'd put my own butt on the line with 10 non-gimme predictions for this week's games, five for the Eagles/Bucs and five for the rest of the league.

1. The Eagles win by at least two touchdowns.  The line for this game is five or six points, even though the Bucs average 12.4 a game and the Eagles put up 29.8 of their own.  The defenses have almost the exact same scoring average (PHI - 20.7, TB - 20.8).  I don't see this being close.

2. Jon Gruden will have his quarterback throwing early and often.  Cadillac Williams has 205 yards rushing in his last two games.  Everyone expects the Bucs to try to rely on Williams running the ball this week to slow up the Eagles pass rush.  Won't happen.  Gruden zigs when everyone else thinks he's going to zag.  First-half run/pass ratio this week of 40/60.  (For the season, TB is at 52/48.)

3. Michael Lewis will start the game.  The Eagles' coaching staff isn't really into sending struggling players a "message."  They're more concerned about trying to rebuild the guy's confidence.  Considine might also be out there, but so will Lewis.

4. Eagles linebackers get their first sack of the season.  The Eagles defense has 23 sacks this season, two by Michael Lewis, the rest by the line.  The last time Jim Johnson unleashed the hounds, the defense brutalized Drew Bledsoe and played with a fire we didn't see last week.  Don't expect the linebackers to be sitting passively in their zones against Tampa Bay.

5. Finally, forget anything the Eagles coaches might have said about trying to control the ball more on offense.  There might be some situational adjustments -- like actually running the ball on second and short for a change -- but there's no way these guys are giving up on the big play.  Within the first two series, McNabb throws at least one pass that travels at least 30 yards downfield in the air. 

6. For the rest of the league, start with Oakland, where the favored Cardinals hand the Raiders their first win of the season.  You don't just bounce right back from a loss like Monday night's.

7. Carolina gets embarrassed by Cincinnati.  Every week in the NFL there's some team that people get too excited about because of recent performance.  This week it's Carolina.  Cincy's actually favored in this game by a field goal, but my guess is that it's nowhere near that close.

8. Washington upends the Colts at Indy.  Peyton's boys are favored by nine in this game, but this is a bad match-up for the worst run defense in the league.  I think the Redskins can play keep away with the football just enough to keep the Colts offense off the field.  It all comes down to the fourth quarter.  Can the 'skins defense keep a last-ditch drive from reaching the end zone?

(So how, you might ask, can I pick Washington here when the Colts are 5-0 and I've already said I don't think the Redskins are any good?  Well, I think Indy sucks too, but they just haven't been exposed yet.  Every season there's at least one former powerhouse team that manages to start strong despite some major issues, simply because the rest of the league hasn't figured out how weak they are yet.  I think the Colts are this year's version of that team.)

9. Joey Freaking Harrington outplays Brett Favre.  Sigh.  Just retire, dude. 

10. Vanderjagt costs the Cowboys the game on Monday night.  And then Bill Parcells' head explodes, right there on the sideline.

The "Weak" Part of Our Schedule

I can't count the number of times I've heard or read some doomsayer concluding a rant about all the problems with this year's team by saying, "and they're ONLY 4-2 against the WEAK part of their schedule."

Look, I understand why Philly sports fans are a negative bunch.  It's not like I've forgotten Mitch Williams or those NFC Championship games, although I'm too young to bear the scars of '64. 

But there's a difference between being a critical fan and being a knee-jerk critic.  And this "weak" part of the schedule stuff is very much in keeping with the latter. 

So far this season, the Eagles have faced the #4 (Cowboys), #6 (Giants) and #7 (Saints) scoring offenses in the league.  And no, that's not because they got to play us.  The Cowboys would actually be leading the league if you took out our game and the Saints and Giants both scored near their averages.  All three of these teams look like legitimate playoff contenders.

The Eagles' defense has held down the bad offenses they've faced just fine, unless you really think those garbage time points scored by the 49ers when our backups were on the field were indicative of anything.

Yes, our defense has shown some vulnerabilities, one of which I talk a little more about if you scroll down one post.  But check out the two remaining undefeated teams if you want to see some weak schedules.

The truth is that preseason schedule evaluations are pretty meaningless once the real games begin.  Not too many people expected the Saints to be 5-1 after their first six games.  And a lot of people -- though not everyone -- expected much more out of the Redskins this season. 

Right now, if you look at the rest of the Birds' schedule, their remaining games are against teams with a collective winning percentage of .500 (counting Washington twice).  That isn't much of a jump over the 15-17 record of the Eagles early season opponents.  There do appear to be some tough games in that mix, but it's looking less and less like the murderer's row so many were expecting in August. 

So maybe it's time to move on to the next topic, like how unfortunate it is that the Eagles keep "playing not to lose when holding a lead, rather than playing to win."

See?

Questions at Linebacker

As I watched Brian Urlacher single-handedly destroying the Arizona Cardinals' offense during the fourth quarter on Monday Night Football this week, I started having fantasies about how he would look in midnight green.

How much fun would it be to watch a guy like Urlacher playing behind the Eagles deep, talented defensive line?  They soak up all the blockers, he keeps getting free kill shots.

Of course, this is one fantasy that won't be coming true any time soon.  Like the Phillies making the playoffs, but even more so.   

The Eagles just don't think linebackers are that important.  Under the salary cap system, teams only have so much money to spread around.  On the defensive side of the ball, the Eagles believe you get more value out of big money spent on cornerbacks and linemen.  Linebackers get what's left after everyone else is finished eating. 

Consider a couple of factoids, gleaned from this indispensable site where you can find all the Eagles' salary cap information:

• Donovan McNabb, Darren Howard and Shawn Andrews each have higher cap figures than all seven linebackers on the roster combined.
• It's true that Howard and Andrews both received big bonuses this year with their new contracts, but if you take away Chris Gocong (on IR) then you can add Jevon Kearse to that list as well.
• In all, 10 players have higher cap numbers than the team's highest-paid linebacker (sigh... it's Dhani).  Number 10?  That would be David Akers.  The kicker. 

Now not everyone is willing to accept the obvious.  But when your rebuttal involves the words "Nate Wayne" and "Dhani Jones" (and you left out "Keith Adams" and "Mark Simoneau") you're already got some ground to make up.

It's the "Money Ball" approach to crafting a roster.  And for the most part it has worked pretty well.  But it's hard to watch the success New Orleans had last week with a game plan that seemed to focus on attacking the Eagles' linebacking corps and not wonder if maybe it's time for a mindset change. 

Yes, the Eagles have invested some high draft picks in linebackers in recent years.  Unfortunately, a lot of those guys (e.g., Gardner, Caver) didn't work out.  Of course, at other positions, when the high draft picks don't pan out, the team goes out and tries to sign high-powered free agents to close the gap (Jevon Kearse, Terrell Owens, Darren Howard and the runs at LeCharles Bentley and Javon Walker all come to mind.)  But when it comes to linebacker, the team has no problem picking through the free agent bargain bin or drafting another (cheap) young guy. 

I'd like to believe that the Eagles have turned the corner on their situation at linebacker.  Through the first six games, Matt McCoy has looked like a player out there, although his recent inability to stay healthy highlights the risk of playing those fast, under-sized guys at that position.  I'm also intrigued by Omar Gaither and Chris Gocong, two of this year's draft picks who might have a future in this league.

Unfortunately, recent history suggests that at least one -- and maybe more -- of these guys won't pan out.  One of the big problems is that the scheme run by defensive coordinator Jim Johnson is tough on linebackers. McCoy had so much trouble figuring it out last year that he couldn't get on the field, even as Jones and Adams were stinking the joint up.  One of the reasons the Eagles seemed to be so high on Gocong is that he graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in biomedical engineering, which certainly seems more rigorous than, say, "sports management." 

But when a guy like Shawn Barber comes in -- twice -- and immediately starts contributing on the field, it certainly suggests that proven veteran talent and savvy, rather than rookie confusion, might be the way to go.   

I haven't given up on this defense yet.  With Lito back and the change at strong safety I think they're going to start doing a better job cutting down on the big plays that have really hurt them.  And I also think Johnson is going to figure out how to scheme around his limitations at linebacker to stop the bleeding there.

On a team with $9+ million in cap room, however, it might have been nice to sign at least one linebacker that forced the other team to do the scheming...

Holy Toledo, It's the Polish Rifle

In three seasons as the starting quarterback at the University of Toledo, Bucs' rookie Bruce Gradkowski accumulated almost a thousand yards rushing, an impressive display of running prowess that should come in handy on Sunday when he faces an Eagles defense known for tearing rookie quarterbacks limb-from-limb.

This Sunday, October 22, 2006, Gradkowski will be making his third start since taking over for the badly injured Chris Simms.  On October 22, 2005, Gradkowski tossed three touchdown passes en route to beating the Bulls of the University at Buffalo, which should be great preparation for what he'll see against the Eagles.

According to Gradkowski's wikipedia page, he's nicknamed the "Polish Rifle."  As far as nicknames go, that's certainly better than B-Grad.  On the other hand, Ron Jaworski isn't even dead yet.

Look, it's entirely possible that the Eagles aren't as good as they think they are.  Maybe the reason Reid doesn't run as much as he could with a team that has posted the third-best yards-per-rush mark in the league is because he thinks he can only be effective with the run by surprising people, rather than because he's worried about over-work for Westbrook and Buckhalter, or the mental lapses of Moats. 

Maybe the defense really isn't any good, even though the numbers as a whole aren't that bad other than the fact that they are on pace to give up 56 of those killer 20-yard-plus passing plays.  And maybe smart coaches like Gruden have figured out that the best way to beat this defense is with quick passing to negate the deadly pass rush, like it's a problem for the Eagles that their defensive line is so good that other teams are forced to overhaul their offensive game plans to keep their quarterbacks alive and Jim Johnson just hasn't seen enough football in his day to figure out what his next move should be.

Maybe all of this true.  And maybe a Buccaneers' defense that is currently on pace to give up more points than the much-maligned Iggles defense has enough pride to step up on Sunday against a familiar old foe in McNabb and the Eagles.  But there is no way -- none -- that a rookie sixth-round draft pick protected by a rookie right guard and a rookie right tackle and complemented by the league's 28th-ranked rushing attack is going to beat the Eagles this Sunday in Tampa Bay. 

Maybe next time, Chucky.

Eagles Clock Management Appraisal

I'm not always sure how much good it does to call attention to smart local stories about the Eagles, since if someone actually manages to find this blog, there's a really, really good chance that they have also been able to find a link to, say, the Inquirer's sports page.

But I want to call out this Rich Hofmann piece in the Daily News as a nice quantitative look at the Eagles' clock management this season.  It's a great example of a column that breaks some new ground, rather than simply recycling a few convenient lines of attack.  Some highlights:

"Because the truth is, the Eagles have been much better at clock management this season - despite having to burn four timeouts Sunday in the din of the Louisiana Superdome. And the truth is, nobody is perfect in the NFL at the timeout thing, despite our expectations, and especially not in domes...

Outdoors, teams burned 1.17 timeouts per game last week. Indoors, they burned 2.38 timeouts per game - more than double - and it was 2.75 per game for the road teams indoors. It is a fact of life in the NFL, even if nobody wants to acknowledge it as they stand there with their arms folded...

[T]he crowd noise was a real factor, and there is something else: Reid and the Eagles really have cleaned up a lot of those problems this year...  The Eagles burned only seven timeouts in the first five games - and three of those were in the closed dome in Houston in Week 1, and one was on a failed replay challenge against Green Bay. This time-management stuff really has not been an issue this year."

Now the only question is who put those statistics together.  Was it an editorial research guy or the Eagles' PR staff?  I have an idea...

Downtown Reggie Brown

Back in August, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post titled "Should the Eagles Trade for Todd Pinkston."  The gist was that Eagles fans were getting all excited about Ashley Lelie, whose career numbers were only somewhat better than Pinkston's and who would have played a pretty similar role in this offense.

The funny thing is that Lelie's name came up again as I was doing some research for a piece on Eagles wide receiver Reggie Brown.  Through six games, Brown has an interesting stat line:

	Rec	Yds	Avg	TD	Long
Reggie Brown	21	412	19.6	4	60

That's a whole lotta yards on not that many receptions.  Just for fun, I extrapolated his numbers over a 16-game season and then went looking for a receiver in recent years who had a similar season.  Guess who came up:

	Year	Rec	Yds	Avg	TD	Long
Ashley Lelie	2004	54	1084	20.1	7	58
Reggie Brown	2006	56	1099	19.6	10.7	60

Lelie didn't play much his first year in the league, but in 2003 he started 10 games and showed enough promise that by 2004 he was the starter opposite the venerable Rod Smith.  Brown might have been on a similar path, but last year's TO blow-up accelerated his participation in the offense and he ended up starting in 11 games.  This year he's a full-time starter.

Now I don't think there's any way Brown sustains this kind of pace.  That 19.6 yard-per-catch number is particularly high.  And once Stallworth comes back healthy, there may not be enough passes to go around to all the Eagles weapons, no matter how much Andy likes to throw. 

Nonetheless, it's an interesting comparison.  Of course, that season Denver also had Rod Smith catch 79 passes for 1144 yards.  I wouldn't mind having an Eagles version of him on the team this year...

Ball Control is a Two-Sided Coin

It's pretty funny that Andy Reid's Eagles, who for years were criticized for having a "dink-and-dunk" passing game, are now being criticized for relying too much on the long ball as an offensive weapon.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the phrase "Monday Morning Quarterback" dates back to at least 1932.  That might also have been the last year the Eagles ran the ball often enough to satisfy local fans and sportswriters.

The forward pass was legalized from anywhere behind the line of scrimmage in 1933.

The theory here is that taking too many low-percentage shots downfield leads to too many short possessions and concedes to the opponent the time of possession battle.  And as everyone knows, time of possession, controlling the clock and a fourth-quarter power rushing attack is how you win ballgames in this league.

Or is it?  Check out the time of possession and rushing ranks for the 13 teams that had at least 10 wins in 2005:

Interesting, isn't it?  Four of last year's playoff teams finished in the bottom half of the league in time of possession, including the team with the best regular season record and the NFC Champion Seahawks.

The teams ranked 2nd, 3rd and 4th in TOP all missed out on the playoffs.  The Kansas City Chiefs, who won 10 games and finished third in TOP and fourth in rushing yards per game -- and hence did everything "right" -- ended up on the outside looking in.

The Chicago Bears, who were built around a punishing defense and control-the-ball running game ... finished 25th. 

Want more evidence that TOP is overrated?  How about this chart, showing the Eagles TOP rank for every year since 2001:

Notice a pattern? 

Here's the really crazy thing.  Even if you're convinced that TOP is absolutely critical for long-term success, fans are blaming the wrong guy.  Yes, the Eagles are taking a lot of shots down the field.  But it's not like there's only one guy running a pattern.  If McNabb decides that the deep receiver isn't open, he generally has three or four other options where he can go with the ball.  If everyone ran short routes all the time, it wouldn't be a very difficult offense to cover.

But it's not McNabb's fault either.  In fact, it's not the fault of anyone playing or coaching offense for this team.

It's the defense.

Ball control is a two-sided coin.  Yes, teams will have high TOP numbers if they run the ball a lot, simply because the clock is going to keep moving while the offense is on the field.  But what really matters isn't how many minutes you have the ball, it's whether or not your defense can get the other team off the field. 

So far this year, that isn't happening.  Take a look at one more graph.  It's the last one, I promise.  Again going back to 2001, this graph shows the number of offensive and defensive plays each year for the Eagles:

The 2006 numbers are projected based on the first six games.  It's immediately apparent that our offensive plays are within historical trends.  It's simply not the case that the Eagles aren't running enough offensive plays every game or that they're "too dependent" on the big play (whatever that means for a team scoring almost 30 points a game and averaging a ridiculous 6.6 yards per play).

The problem is that the defense can't get anyone off the field.  That's why the Eagles are having trouble holding late game leads.  That's why the offense can't go conservative.  That's why Reid can't just milk the clock in the second half to try to shorten the game.

Until the defense is fixed, if the Eagles are going to beat good teams they need to outscore them. 

So back off Reid -- but go start bothering Jim Johnson. 

Eagles / Saints Game Recap

For good or ill, I am an Eagles fan.  It goes too far to suggest I live and die with this team, but it's fair to say you can probably tell how the Eagles performed by my mood on Monday morning.

I'm not alone in this.  A number of studies have been done on the psychology of sports fans, including a famous one that found male fan's testosterone levels dramatically rose (or fell) if "their" team won (or lost) a big game.

My wife has gotten into the habit of taking the dog for a looong walk as she sees the clock roll down to zeroes with the Eagles on the wrong end of the score.  And after a bad loss, it's tough for me to watch the later games, even when they're more attractive match-ups than Denver vs. Oakland. 

All of which is to say, I take Eagles' losses pretty hard.

So why don't I feel so bad about this one?

Heaven forbid I'm getting some sort of perspective about the proper place of sports in life as I get older.  Thankfully, given that I'm still furious with the Phillies every time I flip over to Fox to catch some October baseball, I don't think that's it. 

It certainly helps that this wasn't a division game.  And New Orleans is a tough place to play right now.  This is also a pretty good team, although I wouldn't be the least bit scared facing them again in the playoffs.

I think the key is that since we started watching these guys in the preseason, it's been apparent that this team was -- in the best sense -- a work in progress.  With two new starters on the offensive line and a stable of young or new-to-the-team receivers, I fully expect this offense to be much different, and better, by November. 

It goes even deeper than that, however.  Last year's debacle wasn't just about TO, it was about a team that had gotten a little stale, a little predictable and a little soft.  A healthy McNabb would have been enough to paper over most of those problems, but in his absence the issues became undeniable.

No matter how hard Coach Reid drove his guys in training camp, it takes longer than a month or two of practice to forge the character of a team.  Especially with so many young guys out there who weren't really part of things the last time the Eagles clawed their way up the mountain.  I also expect to see that killer edge develop more as the season progresses.

Finally, these guys still aren't healthy.  Stallworth and Hood are both key contributors who aren't on the field.  Lito looks pretty close to 100 percent but they're still obviously being careful with Westbrook.  That's a Pro-Bowler, our top pure cover man, a first-round WR and our most explosive offensive weapon.  The Iggles are clearly going to be better when they're all running around healthy.

So while all losses are bad, this one doesn't appear to be particularly damaging.  The Eagles still lead their division, the team avoided any major injuries and they simply got outplayed, not exposed.  There are clearly some issues that need to be addressed (yes, Michael Lewis, but he's not the only guy on the defense who should be feeling the heat), but overall, I think these guys are still on track.  Fortunately, this isn't college football, where one loss in October can ruin a season.

The bandwagon rolls on, but we'll pull over at the next rest stop to see what that funny noise in the back is.

.............

As for this game, the Saints pretty much did exactly what they needed to do to beat us:

1. Capitalize on this being a let-down game for the Eagles.  Clearly this team didn't come out with the focus, energy or game plan that it showed last week against Dallas.  The effort might have been good enough to beat a lot of teams in this league, but not this year's Saints at home.
2. Take away the big play.  The Saints were not wholly successful in this, giving up the big touchdown to Reggie Brown and another long completion to LJ Smith.  For the most part, however, they kept Westbrook in check and their two safeties didn't give the Eagles a chance to get much going downfield.  A couple of big drops -- or at least non-catches -- didn't help the Eagles much, either.
3. Beat us on special teams.  Reggie Bush didn't have a huge day against the Eagles, but that late first-half muff by Wynn -- after Moats ploughed into him -- gave the Saints a cheap touchdown that ended up being the difference in the end.  I have to say, Wynn started out strong in his return with the Eagles, but right now I really miss Reno Mahe back there.  It's not fun when your overriding thought watching your punt returner is "don't fumble, don't fumble, don't fumble."

I'd take away the "smash us in the mouth" thing, because I don't think the Saints were more physical out there, even if we had trouble stopping a clearly hobbled Deuce McAllister in the second half.  But I would add a #4, which is quickly becoming the accepted way to attack the Eagles defense:

4. Take the defensive line out of the game and attack the linebackers and Michael Lewis in coverage.  Green Bay was the first team to really take this approach, hitting the Eagles again and again with three step drops that negated our pass rush.  Dallas didn't do this, either because they thought their line could take care of our pressure or because they didn't think Bledsoe could execute it.  New Orleans went right back to it, calling lots of quick pass plays and also using the Denver-Atlanta-Etc. QB boot action to get Brees out of the pocket and away from the pass rush. 

(I actually think Jim Johnson really needs to take some of the blame for that particular issue.  If Jevon Kearse had been playing in this game, Brees wouldn't have been able to roll right without the Freak making his life miserable.  Without Kearse, the Eagles needed to do something schematically to shut this down.  We never adjusted, so Brees just kept rolling to his right, biding his time and completing easy passes.  I'm not sure why we never tried to guess right by bringing some outside pressure on that side.)

Teams are clearly attacking Michael Lewis in coverage now, but he isn't the only one out there struggling.  In the first quarter the Saints kept hurting us with swing passes to Bush on the outside.  Once we adjusted to that, Brees picked apart our linebackers over the middle. 

Unfortunately, the secret is now out.  Quick tempo passing games disrupt our pressure and give our coverage guys fits.  This is something we need to get straightened out. 

.............

Other thoughts on the game:

• The feeding frenzy around a struggling player is one of the least attractive aspects of passionate fans everywhere, but particularly in Philadelphia.  It's one thing when the guy is legitimately a jerk (Terrell Owens), or a wuss (Todd Pinkston) or seems to care more about living the life than playing the game (Pat Burrell), but Michael Lewis hasn't shown himself to be any of those things.  Yes, something has to be done because he's really hurting the team, but no matter how much you care about the Eagles, I guarantee you this is killing Lewis more than it's killing you.  Maybe a good rule: rip the play, not the guy.
• Is Trotter slipping?  He's still leading the team in tackles, but he's not having the impact he used to.  I understand he's being used differently, since the Eagles actually have a defensive line that can stop the run these days and we don't have to run-blitz him every down, but Trot just doesn't seem to be playing downhill and making plays in the backfield like he used to.  Is this age, scheme or something else?
• It's good to have Lito back.  Once our top three cornerbacks our healthy and we can get Sheldon Brown back in the slot where he can mix things up again, this defense is going to be much harder to pass against.
• Is the Eagles offense analogous to a baseball lineup that features nothing but home run hitters?  McNabb is doing a great job throwing the deep ball, but if guys aren't catching it or the other team focuses on taking it away, what's our Plan B?
• Reggie Brown is looking more like the guy we thought he could become last year.  He was much more assertive yesterday after the play of Baskett and Avant made it clear to Reid we needed to start going to Brown.  The spread-it-around offensive approach is great when it works, but I think every quarterback needs a go-to guy he can be sure is going to a) get open and b) catch the ball when the stakes are highest.  If Brown can keep playing like he did yesterday, he could be that guy.
• Speaking of maturing players, LJ Smith looked more like a veteran out there yesterday.  His numbers weren't huge, but I really liked the way he was carrying himself and the way he stepped up with a couple of tough catches.  It's guys like Brown and LJ who make me think this team is just going to keep getting better.
• Matt McCoy's game-by-game tackle stats: 7-2-2-7-1-3.  That isn't consistency.  Yesterday he was practically invisible.  With these undersized guys, one always has to wonder about how they'll hold up over the course of a full season.  We've seen it before with Simoneau, who played great early but couldn't take the pounding and wore down as the season progressed.
• Interesting that William Thomas is the tackle playing great while Runyan is the guy who seems to be slipping.  Winston Justice might get to play his natural right-side next year after all.
• Sometimes it's hard to tell just how fast those big guys are, since all the little guys are darting around out there.  But did you notice how slow Scott Young was in getting out to block for Westbrook on a screen after he came in temporarily for an injured Shawn Andrews?  Big Baby would have destroyed a guy that Young couldn't even get to in time. 
• Hollis Thomas: Six tackles, one sack.  Darren Howard: Three tackles, zero sacks.  I didn't see that coming.
• Mark Simoneau: One tackle, one assist.  Pretty much saw that coming.
• Maybe -- I'm not saying anything for sure, but maaaaaybe we should have drafted some more talent at linebacker rather than stockpiling so many guys on the offensive and defensive lines that we couldn't play all of them.  (In four years, when Justice and Bunkley both make the Pro Bowl, I never suggested this.)
• Sure glad we activated Sam Rayburn to showcase his trade value.  Guy had a huuuuge impact yesterday.
• Coach Harbaugh, can you please work on having your guys down punts inside the 10-yard line this week?  Dirk Johnson had two touchbacks that could easily have been stopped from heading into the end zone.
• Terrell Owens, five catches, three touchdowns.  "Here's your lollipop, now shut the hell up."
• Finally, why on earth did Jim Johnson go with such a weak defensive front when the Saints faced a third-and-one with just over two minutes left?  My tivo cut off before that part of the game so I can't go back and watch it, but I swear we had only six guys in the box and might even have been in nickel on that play.  Brees handed off to McAllister for a five-yard gain and the game ended right there.  Given that he's a coach and all, I thought that decision was even worse than anything his players did on this day (except maybe the 12 men on the field thing).

Next up, Tampa Bay.  Time to get this nasty taste out of our mouths against an old, familiar foe.