This Is What I Mean

When I say people's perceptions are overly influenced by the result on the scoreboard, this is what I mean:

Credit to McNabb
His final numbers were okay at best. Not poor, but not much to cheer about either. However, we saw McNabb manage the game in a way he hasn't all year. He didn't take bad sacks, he threw balls away when nothing was there, and he did a fine job using his legs to avoid pressue and even make one big play. He still checked down a ton, he still threw a ton of incompletions, he was off target at times... but the fact is when you play smart and manage the game well you can still win despite those things. I really liked his mentality today.

That was Jason's assessment of McNabb's performance today on Bleeding Green Nation. 

Now here's what he thought about last week:

The offensive problem
The problem was Donovan McNabb was not seeing any open receivers. Whether he was not seeing them because none were open or whether he just wasn't finding the open guys I do not know. A few times FOX showed replays where they showed one or two guys covered but we never actually saw. Maybe if someone was at the game they could give us their thoughts on that. The one thing I do wonder though is how there were open receivers the last two weeks but none this week. The Giants were without both starting safeties and most Giant fans will tell you it's not as if they have shutdown corners anyway. Someone needs to answer the question why the QB was looking downfield and not seeing anything. It's the most important question facing this offense and maybe this team headed into this offseason.

And here's a statistical comparison of the past two weeks:

I'm not intending to criticize Jason for what he wrote.  I think most people would agree -- broadly speaking -- with most of what he said.  And this will not be the most egregious example of this phenomenon once everything's said and done.  Jason's just good at getting his posts up fast.

It's just interesting that when the offense scores 13 points and they lose, McNabb's a goat.  When they score 10 and win, he's one of the heroes.  Even if the stats suggest he played better the first week.   

Comments

[BenZ]

yeah, it's amazing how winning colors things. I think I said something about that a while back. This team most certainly is a "hair off"... If we win that game vs. Green Bay in week one, this is a very very different season-- I think momentum and confidence play a huge roll in this crazy thing.

[BrianS]

Last week, against the Giants, it seemed like there were more opportunities that McNabb didn't take advantage of. It seemed like he was holding the ball too long.

I thought yesterday he got the ball out more quickly (did anyone else get that impression?), but there were just fewer plays to be made overall. The Dallas D played pretty damn well, too. (And pretty damn dirty - f**k Dallas).

But I don't mean to argue -- you're 100 percent right. If the Eagles had lost 13-10, no one would be praising McNabb today.

Yesterday's game reminds of those close, sloppy wins against the Giants in 2001 and 2002. No offense, defense keeps the Eagles in it by keeping the score low. McNabb does just enough to win and his hailed as a hero. But without those 4th quarter comebacks, those are remembered as ugly losses.

The result is what seperates a "gutsy" performance from a "sloppy" or "disappointing one"...see Romo's game vs. Buffalo. Instead of "what a horrible game" it's, "look how great Romo is because he was able to come back from that and lead his team to a win."

[BrianS]

Last week, against the Giants, it seemed like there were more opportunities that McNabb didn't take advantage of. It seemed like he was holding the ball too long.

I thought yesterday he got the ball out more quickly (did anyone else get that impression?), but there were just fewer plays to be made overall. The Dallas D played pretty damn well, too. (And pretty damn dirty - f**k Dallas).

But I don't mean to argue -- you're 100 percent right. If the Eagles had lost 13-10, no one would be praising McNabb today.

Yesterday's game reminds of those close, sloppy wins against the Giants in 2001 and 2002. No offense, defense keeps the Eagles in it by keeping the score low. McNabb does just enough to win and his hailed as a hero. But without those 4th quarter comebacks, those are remembered as ugly losses.

The result is what seperates a "gutsy" performance from a "sloppy" or "disappointing one"...see Romo's game vs. Buffalo. Instead of "what a horrible game" it's, "look how great Romo is because he was able to come back from that and lead his team to a win."