Too Bad About Those Domes

We saw again yesterday why it's such an advantage for the Eagles to have Donovan McNabb when the weather turns bad.  Most quarterbacks, when they throw the ball deep, (have to) put a fair amount of air under the ball.  Not McNabb.  He can throw those balls 35 yards down the sideline on a rope, taking the wind pretty much out of play.

Of course, like everything with McNabb -- and sports -- this is a good news / bad news situation.  In normal conditions, "on a line" may not be the optimal trajectory for throwing a ball that far downfield.  If you put a bit more air under it, you probably enlarge your margin of error, assuming you have receivers who can go make a play on the ball.

How many times have you heard an announcer say, "If he'd only put some air under that one ..."

But when the weather is lousy and the winds are blowing 10-20 mph, suddenly those deep lasers are a huge advantage.

This is part of why I disagree with writers like Domo:

Thumbs down

To the NFL owners' Super Bowl advisory committee, of which the Eagles' Jeff Lurie is a member, for giving preliminary approval to the Meadowlands Stadium Company to bid for the 2014 Super Bowl. Hey, I have no problem with putting Super Bowls in cold-weather cities, as long as those cold-weather cities have a dome to play the game in, like Indianapolis, which is hosting the 2012 event. The Giants' and Jets' new palace in the North Jersey swamp doesn't have a roof. More than a quarter-century ago, the Eagles' late owner, Leonard Tose, came up with the crazy idea of trying to convince his brethern to play the '87 Super Bowl in Philadelphia. Gave it his best shot, but couldn't get enough votes. The game was awarded to Pasadena, Calif. The day of the game, a foot of snow fell in Philly. What are you thinking, people?

And why, exactly, is the snow a problem?  Because it messes up a lot of rich people's travel plans?  Who cares?

Football is a winter sport played in practically all conditions.  If your quarterback can't handle a little wind -- well, too bad, Giants fans.

Unfortunately, at this point, weather's pretty much done being a factor.  Even if we can sneak past Minnesota for the #2 spot, it's not like a team with Adrian Peterson and Brett Favre is ill-equipped to play outside.  The Saints could always stub a toe, I guess.

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So now that the offense is unquestionably rolling, most of the concerns have shifted over to the other side of the ball.  It's a legitimate worry.  The defense isn't playing as well as it did last year, or even as well as it did earlier in the year before all the linebacker mix and match.  The question then becomes, is this defense good enough to win a Super Bowl? 

As a cosmic level, no one knows the answer to that.  But as a thought experiment, let's look at the standings to see which teams are truly contenders.  Someone could make a late run, but for now, here are all the teams at least 9-5:

Indianapolis Colts - 14-0
New Orleans Saints - 13-1
Minnesota Vikings - 11-3
San Diego Chargers - 11-3
Philadelphia Eagles - 10-4
Arizona Cardinals - 9-5
Cincinnati Bengals - 9-5
Dallas Cowboys - 9-5
Green Bay Packers - 9-5
New England Patriots - 9-5

If you just look at points allowed, the Eagles are behind every team on that list, other than the New Orleans Saints.  So that's not so good.  But as we've discussed before, points scored/allowed really isn't a complete measure of a unit's performance, since it doesn't account for things like offensive turnovers, special teams and other game situations.  There's also only a field goal's separation between the Bengals and the Eagles.

What happens if you look at other measures?  If you go by yards, only three teams are ahead of the Eagles (Green Bay, Cincy, Minnesota).  Three teams also in yards per pass attempt (GB, Indy, Cincy).  Two teams in yards per rush (GB, Cincy).  Two teams in third down conversion percentage -- surprise (Minny, AZ). 

Anf of course, the big one, DVOA -- just Green Bay.

In fact, take a look at the offensive DVOA rankings for a bit.  Even the weighted numbers, which put more emphasis on late-season performance, aren't ... actually that awesome.  The Eagles are eighth of the nine contenders, just like they are in the traditional stats (ahead of only AZ and Cincy).

Are we worrying about the wrong side of the ball?

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McDermott had a good gameplan this week.  Now we need a few more of those.

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In honor of LeSean McCoy's record-breaking season, here's a blast from the past for your personal amusement.  When I re-do those charts this summer, there are going to be a lot of new colors.

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If we trade Sheldon Brown, it better be with a Super Bowl ring.  He's playing way too well to dump for pennies on a dollar and he's, unfortunately, too old to throw much more money out.  Hopefully he's content with a lifetime achievement bonus.

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The comments on this Eagletarian item are like the perfect encapsulation of philly.com commenters.  Except for "P Even."  That's a rather rational observation.