Reid Looking for a Faster Start

You won't find exactly those words anywhere in today's press conference, but I think that's the clear between-the-lines reading of why Reid is going to play his starters some this week against the Jets. 

Reid's answers:

On the pros and cons of playing the ones: "More reps [is a pro]. It's just a little bit of time before we play our first game, so a few reps aren't going to hurt."

On whether he is leaning towards playing the ones in the game: "I'm not leaning any way right now. We will see how I feel once I get there."

On why he would play the starters in this game when he usually hasn't in years past: "It seems like a long period of time [before the first regular season game]. I wanted to get those guys into the third quarter in this last game and ended up pulling them out at halftime. It's just something to evaluate, the number of plays they have had."

That's all well and good, but I'm guessing this is really the core point:

On the perception that the ones have taken more reps this preseason than the past: "I just wanted to accumulate plays and give them an opportunity when they come out against the Rams where we are sharp."

The Eagles have been notoriously slow starters under Reid (the upside being that they're usually strong finishers).  But with the division as tight as it is right now, Philly can't be throwing away games against weaker opponents like the Rams under the assumption that they'll just make it up later.  I like it.

Of course, if one of the starters gets hurt on Thursday, there will be holy hell to pay for Andy.  Millions of Eagles fans will have known all along that this was the wrong move. 

One last point, this feeds directly into Gabe's unified theory of Andy Reid's arrogance -- that is, he can't be that arrogant, since he's always willing to change when confronted with new data that says the old ways led to sub-optimal results.

Comments

[jeff]

I Trust In Andy

[Gabe from BountyBowl]

It's true! Andy Reid learns and adapts his behavior! Like when the dinosaurs learned to work the doorknobs in Jurassic Park (only the dinosaurs were much smaller than Andy).