Properly Target Your Hatred

Remember the preening Miles Austin.  The pointing Mike Jenkins.  The egomaniacal Jerry Jones.  The dice-rolling nickel back.  

Remember the dancing.  The decades of our-shit-don't-smell America's Team-ism. 

Remember just how damn annoying Philly-based Dallas fans have always been and will always be.

Remember all that, then understand that as putrid as this performance was today by our Eagles, they're not the enemy here.  Nor are their fans.  Dallas is.

And next week, we better kill them.

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Before I talk about anything else, I want to bring up Jeremiah Trotter.  I've been pushing for him to have more of a role for weeks.  He's the only legitimate middle linebacker left on this team, and while it's true he can't cover Jason Witten, that's an attribute he shares with 10 other guys on this defense.  Meanwhile, all he does do is fly around and blow up plays.

I'm tired of watching McDermott try to plug in one more non-MIKE after another in that position, with none of them showing any ability to actually read and then stop the run.  Get Trot in there and have him do his thing.  Game plan around his limitations, sure, but at least he's an actual linebacker.

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Speaking of McD, is this the week the local sports media finally stops treating him with kid gloves?  I realize he has a tough job replacing Jim Johnson.  And this defense certainly has some talent holes.  But it's playoff time now.  There are no rookies left, and that certainly applies to the coaches too.  And yet he's still dialing up game plans that make no sense.

You DON'T have the horses to play Dallas' O straight up.

You DON'T have a defense that plays well on its heels.

And you DON'T have a choice when you're playing Tony Romo -- you have to put him on his butt, even if you give up some plays doing it.

So why are we coming into this game playing vanilla schemes?  This isn't the Pro Bowl, Coach, you're actually allowed to blitz.

It's great that we finally turned up the heat in the second half.  My question, though, is why did it take so %$#ing long!?!

Try to put your guys in a bit better position to make plays next week, dude.

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The only redeeming feature of today's game is that it doesn't end the season.  We still get another crack at these guys next week.  Hopefully, our guys were embarrassed enough by today's effort that they actually show up next week.

The problem, though, is that we just brought the New Orleans Saints into play.  The bye week, the home game, that all would have been nice, but the number one late-season priority was avoiding being the sacrificial lamb that gets to play the Saints after they're coming off their bye.

We just blew that.

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Today was a weird kind of snowball game.  It wasn't a complete Giants-esque collapse, but the final score wasn't close.

The weird thing, though, is that the Eagles really could have won this game.  It wouldn't have been pretty, but they left enough plays on the field that could have turned the tide if they'd made them.  McNabb and his receivers, in particular, missed a bunch of chances.

We might get stomped again next week, but there was nothing about this game that suggested we can't beat these guys.

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I realize I said the same thing after the first game, but that's just consistency.

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If I could make one tactical suggestion, it's that McD needs to fire up some better fake blitzes.  Romo kept getting his guys to the line early, making a hard count to see how our guys moved, and then adjusting accordingly.

Let's screw with him a little.

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As a final note, look on the bright side, if the Eagles lose their first playoff game this year, you're going to be a lot less upset than you would have been three hours ago.