The Season Isn't Over

Wow, I expected the day-after coverage to be pretty negative, but between the message boards and the newspapers, someone should be flagged for piling on.  I think you can blame this reaction on three things.

The first is obviously that the Eagles defense really did get manhandled last night.  They deserve most of the scorn being heaped their way. 

The second is that Eagles fans/writers haven't yet come to terms with how bad these guys are.  You throw around terms like "effort" and "heart" to explain away bad performances by talented players.  The truth of the matter is just that too many of these guys aren't that talented, or as in the case of Jeremiah Trotter, are simply over the hill.

A lot of people seem to feel that if these guys would just try a little harder, the defense would solve its problems.  That ain't it.  I can play Kobe Bryant one-on-one as if my life depended on the outcome, but he's still going to whip me 11-0.

It may take a few more games for reality to sink in, but last night should have demonstrated that when it comes to ability, our defense is no match for one of the league's top offenses.

The third and final point is that I think perhaps people don't recognize just how little Jim Johnson could do last night facing Peyton Manning.  Typically, if a team starts running all over your defense, a coordinator is going to start bringing up safeties and concentrating more guys around the line of scrimmage.  The problem is that you can't do that with Manning.  If he sees a stacked front, he'll just audible to a pass play that more likely than not is going to burn you.  So all night the Eagles were hesitant to put more than seven in the box (one of whom was often Sheldon Brown, since they played so much nickel), which ended up being a recipe for disaster in stopping the run game.

I'm not saying this is actually a good run defense.  It's a terrible run defense.  But a big problem last night was that they faced a Hall of Fame quarterback who would have killed them had they overloaded to stop the run.  No matter how great everyone thinks Tony Romo is right now, that's not going to be a problem the Eagles have to deal with from here on out.

There are lots of people calling for Jim Johnson's head right now.  I understand the frustration, but I think it's mistaken.  He clearly doesn't have enough talented pieces with which to work.  Look at his decision to play so much nickel last night.  He practically had to because his linebackers are so limited in coverage.  If the Eagles had come out in their base defense against the Colts, how many people think Manning wouldn't have exploited the linebackers' weakness in coverage?  Anyone?

Furthermore, we can look around the league and see that it's really talent, not coaching, that determines how good a defense can be.  Look at the Colts, for pete's sake.  They brought in Tony Dungy because they wanted to fix their defense.  It's going on five years and the Colts' D still isn't that good.  Same thing with Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati.  And Dom Capers in Houston. 

Maybe JJ has lost a step on the rest of the league.  I'll admit it's possible.  But those who claim to know for sure that he should be fired have to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, he's still got it but his players don't.

However, with all of that said, this season isn't over.  Look at the remaining schedule.  It's all NFC teams and the only squad playing particularly well right now is Dallas.  Few teams have the thunder and lightning offensive approach that so bedeviled the Eagles last night.  If the defense can just hang on a little bit, given what we saw from the offense last night, four wins from here on out isn't out of the question. 

So hold off with the obituaries, folks, there's still some football left to play.