Come Sit In My Lap And I'll Tell You A Story

As both Derek and Sam have noted, I spent this past week in the Himalayas, and thus have been guilty of a dereliction of duties on the Delicious/ Twitter/ Nonsense/ Lifestyle/ Soccer beat here at IgglesBlog.  I'm pointing at my chest with both hands, Donovan McNabb-style, right now.  This one is on me. 

I'll do my best not to be too boring with the details, but if you'll just hop up on Uncle Andy's lap, I'll give you the quick summary.  Essentially, it was a week of work travel in Europe, but with sundry technical difficulties, including but not limited to a dodgy Paris hotel whose Internet connection didn't work, a brainfart from yours truly where I left my power cord and adapter in a conference room in Paris (which I figured out shortly after boarding the Eurostar to London), and my laptop's decision to have the screen backlight intermittently fail the week that I'm in Europe and far, far away from tech support.  At one point, I was sending apologetic e-mails to coworkers (as well as Derek and Sam) from the internet-enabled TV in my London hotel room.  (I've even omitted the bit where I also left my glasses in my hotel room in Paris.)  All in all, this was not an easy week.  But we're home now, and we're ready for some Eagles football.

(As part of my weekly pre-game routine, I like to watch both The Donovan McNabb Show and The Andy Reid Show on PE.com, my favorite bits of which are the interviews with each of the title characters.  The interviews are obviously filmed early in the week, but they inevitably include a question of comment from Spuds with a clause that suggests otherwise: "After such a great week of practice," "Now that it's Sunday," etc.  It's comical.  Also, it seems really hard for Spuds to fit in the same shot with Big Red, especially when Andy has the legs spread in the mesh shorts like that.  Spuds might as well just sit in his lap.)   

Thoughts and comments on today's game and week away from the Eagles' media:

Brent Celek and the jersey depth chart.  While the Celek deal is old news at this point, there were a couple comments on what the deal does to his jersey ranking.  I took a tough look at it, and I'm not sure that I would actually change much on that.  I had him at #4 two months ago, behind Jackson, Cole, and McNabb.  Kind of tough to unseat those guys, right?  If anything, you would say that the extension was already priced into his ranking back then.  The guy who probably needs to move up that list is Jason Avant (likely at Samuel's expense?), though I'd feel better about pending an extension (because if there's no extension, then someone will need more masking tape -- thanks to Lee C. for the pic).

I'm no longer waiting for Guffman in re: Michael Vick.  The distance between the local and national media is never so clear as when the ESPN guys try to sell us (as they have the past two weeks) that this could really be the week that Michael Vick explodes.  Right. Is anyone around here still waiting for the big reveal with Vick?  I went into the season firmly convinced that Big Red had all sorts of tricks planned for Vick, but right now it looks like we're just waiting on two tentative quarterback draws and a crappy incompletion each week.  And really, that's fine.  I've moved on.  If he does something cool or interesting against his old team, well, bully for him, but I'd really prefer to see the proper offense on the field as often as possible, thank you very much.      

What do we know about the Falcons.  Birds' fans got good news this week with the announcement of injuries to the Falcons' two best offensive players, and that's been the pre-game summary headline of the Falcons (that, and something to do with the Birds' third-string running back).  While I'm never disappointed to hear that the Eagles will be playing a backup QB, a quick review of Football Outsiders and Advanced NFL Stats reveals that we should perhaps be more interested in the Falcons' defense.  FO has their D 25th, and Advanced NFL Stats have them 30th.  Yikes.  There should be points on the field. 

Extra bit of stats for those of you who read the item above and thought we might see a balanced attack today.  FO has the Falcons' pass defense 29th and their rush defense 12th.  Andy Reid has been smiling about that since Monday.  Let's just hope Donovan spends extra time stretching his shoulder this morning.  (Also, I'm suddenly intrigued by the idea of someone on the Eagles staff tampering with the stats and handing Andy Reid a scouting report with the numbers reversed.  Lead him not into temptation, that sort of thing.  It would be like when they told him that the entire city had run out of General Tso's chicken and he would have to have a Lean Cuisine for dinner.  Judging from the shot of him in his mesh shorts above, it wouldn't be a bad week for that either.  What happened to that diet, Big Red?)   

Do the Gods owe Mike Smith one?  This seems like the sort of game that will tell us a lot about Mike Smith as a coach.  Will his team play hard for him in the absence of offensive stars?  Will he have a gameplan that allows his guys to succeed?  All indications are that Smith is fairly competent; this shouldn't be a walkover.  Also, karma kind of owes the Falcons for that weird call on the punt last year at the Linc.  

Sartorial concerns.  This couldn't be older news, but I'm really bummed out that the Eagles insist on wearing the black jerseys exclusively with the white pants these days.  Wikipedia tells me that they haven't worn the black jersey-green pant combo since the final game of the 2004 season (which I attended, which now seems oddly appropriate since I'm so passionate about that look).  The black shirt-white pant combo just isn't very Eagles; the only green involved is on the helmet, and that isn't quite right.  On the rare occasion that I fire up Madden, I almost always opt for the Birds in the black shirts and the green pants.  Also, when is the NFL going to go to colored shoes?  Wearing black shoes is played out.  Let's see the Birds in green shoes.   

Speaking of the black jersey.  I had mine on when I landed in Paris on Monday, and was forced to wander the streets while I waited for a hotel room.  The French typically do a good job with the haughtiness, but let me tell you that they really get their haught on when some half-dazed jackass walks off the redeye and into a brasserie in his black Trent Cole jersey and demands steak and coffee from the garcon.  Note that I also managed to get into an argument with some middle-aged guys from Philly at a tapas joint in Mayfair (the real one, not the one I used to play in soccer as a young Bustleton Bengal) in London because I didn't feel that their Philly fandom was appropriately calibrated.  Essentially, this dude tried to give me the speech about how the Phillies represent everything that's good and right with sports, while the Eagles are choke artists who "don't understand the city."  This guy also butted into my conversation with my boss to start with so that he could namedrop which colleges his kids had attended, thus I felt pretty justified laying into him a little.  My boss was appropriately horrified.  Just beautiful to see that Philly charm on the road!  

U, S and A.  Wow.  Double WOW.  TRIPLE WOW.  The United States of Freedom draws England in each team's World Cup opener?  This is glorious.  There's just so much to say here, so I'll try to keep it brief:

1.  Overall, this isn't a terrible draw for the US.  They know what they're getting with their seeded opponent, and didn't end up with a scary team from Pot 4.  Not too much to complain about.  That said, it's the World Cup, and you have no idea what's going to happen out there.  It's only three games, and our sample sizes for teams are very small.  They're all tough games.   

2.  You know how the Philly media can be kind of tough/ excessively scrutinize the Eagles?  Right.  Imagine that the England soccer team faces something like that, only about 1,000 times worse.  Their media is pretty feisty to start with, but when it comes to the England team and the World Cup, the hype machine gets completely out of whack.  Much like we're all convinced that the Eagles will win the Super Bowl every summer (at least I am), the Brits believe that England are "clearly" one of the top teams in the world and are in the mix for the final every year (despite results which say otherwise).  And the hype clearly weighs on the team.  The UK media have already declared this an easy group, which means nothing short of perfect will be acceptable.  And certainly they're not going to lose to the freakin Yanks at a game that they invented!  This all means that England will be facing "Donovan McNabb starting an NFC Championship Game at home" levels of pressure on June 12, only with the entire country involved.  This is one of those moments where nobody caring about soccer in the US really works for us. 

3.  To avoid conflict, I'll keep my opinions to myself regarding Americans who support the England national team in the absence of any hereditary connection.  Sneak preview: I think it's seriously effing lame. 

Other Philly sports news.  I can understand not mentioning the Flyers firing Stevens anywhere on the blog, but not a word about AI?  Are you going to make me post his high school football highlights again?  You are, aren't you.  Fine.  I'll do it.  No, it's fine.  There you go.  I hope you're happy.  BTW, he wore #10 in high school.     

Someone needs Rick Pitino to sleep with a waitress on a table.  The Tiger Woods drama gives me hope that someday, someday, we'll get that long-awaited Andy Reid or Donovan McNabb sex scandal.  It can happen!  It's not too late!