It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Awesomest Of Times

There are some topics that are simply far more fun to discuss on the heels of a four-game winning streak.  What follows is one of them.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that one of our goals here is to provide something original every (week) day.  It doesn't have to be something huge and complicated -- although we like those things best -- but it should be an argument or piece of information we're not seeing anywhere else.  We don't always get there, but that's what we're shooting for.

A second piece of our, uh, like, mission statement and stuff, is that we recognize things are, in the words of Andy Reid, never as good or bad as they seem.  That's why we're sort of obsessed with DVOA, since it attempts to account for competition effects and provide a true measure of how well a team is playing.  That's why we used to do the rewinds, since they give us an opportunity to take a second look at the dominant themes that come out of each game and see if they're actually supported by reality.

And that's why, most importantly, we always have something like this chart somewhere in the back of our minds:

Look, we all care too a bit too much about this stuff.  That's why we're here, writing, commenting and talking about this stuff, when we could really be off doing something more productive, like playing video games or writing bad novels. 

Unfortunately, the downside of caring a bit too much is that everything that happens with the team gets magnified ... a bit too much.  So when McNabb plays kind of mediocre-ly and the Eagles lose, all of a sudden we have to go through the whole "he sucks" soap opera again.  Conversely, when the team's ripping off four game winning streaks, the defense can get absolutely torched by an offense they really should know pretty well by now and still the reaction will be that we should all just relax, because bad games happen to good people.

If the Eagles had played the exact same game Sunday night, but Sheldon Brown had been tripped up after scooping up that fumble (plausible) and DeSean Jackson's return had been called back for an illegal block (more than plausible with an officiating crew that was actually awake), I guarantee "don't worry, be happy" wouldn't be the city's current mood.  (Ok, assume away the Halladay thing too.)

Which is to say, sorry MYJ, but the tackling issues have been there all year.  And even without the Giants' game factored in, the "weighted" numbers are going the wrong direction (-6.2% vs. -10.5% before they do this week's update).  And our defensive coordinator is still outsmarting himself (same Les Bowen link as above):

Mikell said that defensively, the difference between this encounter with the Giants and the 40-17 victory at the Linc on Nov. 1 might have been that the Birds worried too much about New York countering what the Birds had done that day, when Eli Manning netted only 215 passing yards, while under constant pressure.

"We might have focused a little too much on trying to disguise things instead of on trying to kick somebody's butt," Mikell said.

(Sort of wondering how many times McD's going to have to go through this before he learns that lesson.  Hopefully the charm is the second time -- not the third.)

Does this mean the Eagles suck and they're horrible and we should also just give up on the season?  No, of course not.  But for the sake of all our sanity (and our spouses'), we would do well to mind the gap between those two lines above. 

Crashing off that peak can be a real bitch.