Les Bowen Q&A, Part 1

Readers of IgglesBlog are certainly familiar with Les Bowen of the Philadelphia Daily News. Les writes the Eagles beat for the Daily News as well as the Eagletarian Blog with Paul Domowitch (link here, feed here – but I assume you’re reading it already) on Philly.com and has long since been our favorite amongst the local press (and not just because he's been kind to us in his column). Les manages to ask tough questions without resorting to demagoguery, and always seems to have a sensible, literate and even-handed take on the Eagles (especially when folks like yours truly are having sports-feeling meltdowns).

Les graciously agreed to answer a few questions from IgglesBlog about his job covering the Eagles, the relationship between the press and the team, and what’s it’s like to be writer in a town that’s this excited about their football team. This thing actually got a bit lengthy, so we’re splitting it in two. Today’s edition covers the end of last season, the dynamics of Andy Reid’s press conferences, the year-round passion of the fans, his taste in web sites, and the name of his fantasy baseball team. Enjoy.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how surprised were you when the Eagles qualified for the playoffs in Week 17? For me, it was a 17. Had you already moved on, mentally? (I had.) Did you already have ideas for end-of-year wrap-up stories? What were they? Be honest.

Going into the day, I had not moved on ... I thought there was a decent chance the Eagles would win, and even though Tampa was heavily favored, I knew the Bucs had really struggled down the stretch. I got to the Linc early and was watching Tampa Bay-Raiders on the press box TV. When Tampa went up 10 points in the fourth quarter, I turned my thoughts to season wrapup, because I felt I had to; nobody was going to want to read a lengthy game story about a meaningless game. While I was doing some online research and thinking about what I wanted to write to recap the season, Oakland started coming back. Pretty quickly, I put all that end-of-season business on hold again. I realized that the ending of that game would figure heavily in whatever I wrote. I was sure, when the Eagles charged out of the tunnel a second after Jeff Garcia was sacked on fourth down, that they had been watching on monitors and waited. I was later told that wasn't the case, that it was just one more unlikely coincidence in a day full of them.

What would I have written? Hard to remember. Something about how offensive inconsistency doomed the season, I think. I don't think I was going to advocate trading McNabb, but I might have advocated changing coordinators and changing a lot of personnel.

There seem to be occasional flare-ups/ moments of tension between the local press and the coaching staff, especially Andy Reid. Sometimes this manifests itself in press conference dust-ups, which then might lead to unkind words in the paper regarding the content of said press conferences. But then, at the end of the year, Andy Reid at least seemed to acknowledge that you were all in the same business together (in response to your na-na-na-na-na question, which I thought was pretty solid). How much of Andy's Sphinx routine do you think is just gamesmanship (say as little as possible lest you reveal too much) versus the "arrogance" that he's always accused of? (By the way, I don't really get the arrogance thing, but that's just me.)

Yeah, I'm with you on the "arrogance."

I have become "that guy" at the press conferences, the one most likely to take fire from Andy or raise a ruckus, but I don't dislike him as a person and I don't think he dislikes me. "Arrogance" is a little off the mark, I think. It's more stubbornness. I don't think he thinks he's perfect or infallible or anything. What he does think is that he has to do things a certain way, that he can't deviate from that at all, ever. Part of that "way" is not revealing much. It's paranoia, and it's his discomfort with talking off the cuff. He wants to give scripted answers. He's afraid he's going to say something that gets taken out of context or misconstrued. He lacks verbal dexterity, and he knows it, and that scares him. In this regard, he is absolutely nothing like his mentor, Mike Holmgren.

Andy can't/won't explain much of anything to you, which is horribly frustrating, and leads to occasional outbursts from those of us who have to try to get answers from him. But as a guy, he is not a nasty, unpleasant person, like, say, Bill Belichick.

Are you ever shocked at the level of interest in the Eagles? Even as the Phils are few weeks from defending their World Series Championship, articles speculating about the Eagles' draft still trump the Phils in popularity ("Most Viewed") on Philly.com? Shouldn't we have gotten bored by now?

This is what I'm counting on to keep me gainfully employed during turbulent newspaper times. God bless these crazy-assed people.

It is amazing. It's something that comes up from time to time, when Philadelphia sports writers gather. It wasn't really like this, when I moved up here from North Carolina in 1983. The Marion Campbell years, I would have said the Phillies were as big a deal as the Eagles, and the Flyers, then in the Mike Keenan era, weren't far behind, with the aging Dr. J and young Barkley-led Sixers on the Flyers' heels. Now, it's no contest, World Series title notwithstanding.

I think part of it has to do with the burgeoning popularity of the NFL in general, and frankly, the burgeoning popularity of gambling on the NFL. I think Buddy Ryan coming along just as sports talk radio was finding its legs here had something to do with it.

But however you account for it, the breadth and depth of Eagles interest is amazing. I wrote a story this week about Jack Ikegwuonu, a story I'd normally wait for minicamp to write, but I'd gotten at least half a dozen e-mails or blog comments asking about Jack Ikegwuonu, when the Eagles started making changes in their secondary, so I decided to write it now. Jack Ikegwuonu!

Sometimes it gets overwhelming. I really do think part of the vitriol every offseason about the Eagles' approach to free agency is that fans want to be entertained by their team, 12 months a year. Most of them know that the Daniel Snyder approach to free agency doesn't work, but they don't care. They're like the carnivorous plant in "Little Shop of Horrors". "Feed me!"

What's the Les Bowen morning round-up of newspapers/ web sites? Which web-only sources make the list (other than IgglesBlog, OF COURSE)?

For other papers, I go to an aggregator, theredzone.org, which has NFL stories from around the league. I look to see what you have up and what's on bleedinggreennation. Then I like to see what new and perverse nicknames for Joe Banner the message board folks at Igglephans have coined. I hate to admit I check Pro Football Talk, because the only thing growing faster than its popularity is the ego of the guy who runs the thing, but it is a handy reference. Not much that comes up doesn't end up on there pretty quickly, for better or worse. I look at NFL.com, ESPN.com (whose NFL stuff has really suffered during Len Pasquerelli's illness), The National Football Post, SI.com, and this time of year, Scout.com. I enjoy the700level.com and Deadspin. For fun I check Kissing Suzy Kolber,which is either unreadably gross and perverse or really, really funny, if it's the day for the Peter King parody.

A lot of beat writers probably spend more time on this than I do. It's a weakness, I know, but most days I really don't care what the Giants writers are writing, as long as it doesn't affect me.

Do you play fantasy football? As a loyal reader, I'd get a big kick out of the Inky/ DN sports staff playing fantasy football and posting the results on the site.

My stock answer there is that I lost interest quickly when I discovered "fantasy football" did not involve envisioning Salma Hayek wearing nothing but shoulder pads and cleats.

Many, many years ago I was in a Rotisserie Baseball league. My team, the Bowen Arrows, finished last. I am not enough of a stat geek for that sort of thing. My 15-year-old son Dan is an avid fantasy football player. He's always eager to tell me about his team. I am equally eager to tell him that I really don't care. But God Bless the people who do.

What do you think about the data-heavy fan sites that have sprouted up in the past couple years? At what point does Football Outsiders (or Cold Hard Football Facts) have to be a part of your vocabulary as a journalist?

I have checked both of those out. I don't want to be like the baseball guys, many of whom tried to ignore sabermetrics even as Bill James played a role in the ascendance of the Red Sox.

But I do think football is more of a TEAM sport than baseball, and that you have to be really careful. If you're telling me K.C. Joyner really understands Lito Sheppard's exact coverage responsibility on a particular play, and can evaluate it numerically, vs. Sheldon Brown's coverage, even though Lito might have been covering T.O. and Sheldon might have been covering Miles Austin ... well, OK. But I really don't know. I don't want to be one of these puffed-up "I know what's important and I don't need these geeks to educate me" type guys. But I have a lot of questions about reducing play at most positions to a row of numbers. I'm not sure it works.

Though we'd love to ask you which guys on the team are the biggest jerks, we appreciate that answering that question might make your job marginally more challenging. So who are the three best interviews/ most reasonable fellows on the team? Who are the guys that the fans don't know but should? By the way, as someone who's downstream of all of this and for whom these people only exist as characters on a TV show, I can only assume that Sheldon Brown is the coolest guy on the team.

First, Sheldon -- right away, as a rookie, he was wise beyond his years. I think, though, as time has gone on, reporters have come to lean on him too much, kind of like overplanting a piece of land, the yield diminishes. I don't go to him as much as I once did, for that reason.

Three best interviews? Well, Brian Dawkins is gone now, but I never respected anyone more, as a spokesman and as a man who seemed to live what he preached. Quintin Mikell seems to have learned a lot from Dawk. When his play picked up last season, Darren Howard suddenly became affable and engaging. Jon Runyan's a guy who always calls it like he sees it. Of course, he really isn't on the team right now, either. Trent Cole isn't considered a great interview, because the words kind of come spilling out every which way, syntax be damned, but what he says seems to come from the heart, which is the way he plays, too. I think if Kevin Kolb ever becomes the starting quarterback, reporters will regard him as a straight shooter.

One question from Derek: Can you shed any light on what the situation is with Tony Hunt? Obviously he was a poor fit here, but it still seems strange that a former third-round draft pick and major college standout can't catch on to another, more run-focused team. Is there a back story there? Something that's keeping him out of the league? (Please don't just say he's not any good. You'll break Derek's heart.)

I honestly don't know. He showed he had talent in that Carolina perseason game. He never seemed overly enthusiastic, the kind of guy whose personality was going to get him signed -- kind of moody, chip-on-the-shoulderish. Terrible fit for the West Coast offense, no knack for receiving or blocking, makes you wonder what the hell they were watching that they drafted him. I think quickness is an issue.

Tune in tomorrow for Part 2.