The One In Which Andy Reid Settled For Moral Victories

Well, Andy was wrong.  He faced multiple opportunities today to go for touchdowns and instead settled for field goals, gambling that his defense would at some point make some stops and the offense could keep piling up points.

Nope, didn't work.  And while some weeks we can say, "Well, I wouldn't have punted, but you could make a case for it," that's not how things work this week.  Because when you settle for field goals in those situations, you really need to win.  If you don't, you sort of look like a wuss who has zero confidence in the team he built.

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Last time I said something similar?  This beaut.  Unless the league decides to overturn the result on the field because they nab eight Chargers using steroids on Monday, I don't think we'll be eating the same crow this year.

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Right now, this is just not a well-coached team.  You can make a lot of excuses as to why -- lots of rookies, too many injuries and no Jim Johnson -- but none of that changes anything.  This team commits too many dumb penalties, blows too many assignments, wastes too many timeouts, misses too many adjustments, calls too many bad plays, and makes too many bad calls in the red zone to be anything else.

It's time for Andy to have a heart-to-heart with his coordinators.  And by "heart-to-heart," I mean "tear a little ass."  The constant, mind-numbing, idiotic penalties just have to stop.  I'm more inclined to cut McDermott a little bit of slack -- the patchwork linebacking corps was clearly hard to work with today -- but Daisher has no excuses. 

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Honestly, the only good thing about this game?  The eight-point loss means all the folks parading those "Reid's record in games decided by seven or less" stats might realize that their arbitraty cutoff line should really be eight, since that's still a one-score game.

The worst thing was clearly Westbrook's new concussion.  I feel bad for Brian.  This is a crummy way to end a career.  But this news is almost as bad for the rest of the team, because it means the cavalry's not coming any more.  You're going as far as you can with MacJax, McCoy, Celek and Avant.  Since it's still 2009, that's not that comforting.

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I'm really just not sure what to think about this season.  We saw last year that it's pointless to give up on these guys before they're mathematically eliminated, but these guys have thrown up some stinker performances this year.  Losing to the Cowboys because they played better than you that night?  Ok.  Losing to the Raiders?  Not ok.  Letting the worst running attack in the league blow you off the ball all day?  Also not ok.

Feeling like you have "have to blitz" and not double-covering Antonio Friggin' Gates on the game-deciding third down?  Not.  O.  K.

There's a train of thought right now that says we (as fans) should probably just give up on this season, because we're clearly not an elite team and the combination of too many injuries and not enough experience means we're probably a year away.  Why bother getting all worked up?

The problem with that argument is that you never know what "next year" will bring.  How great did everyone feel about this year after the NFCCG loss last year and then the excellent, talent-stocking offseason?

So as long as the Eagles are playing meaningful games, we'll have to keep caring.

Not, if we're being honest, like we could have helped ourselves anyway.