Strike Three

The irony is that what we're witnessing is a total organizational breakdown. Andy Reid can blame the offensive coaches as much as he wants; the losses over the past three weeks have uncovered serious problems throughout the organization.

The players and coaches have been wildly inconsistent.  

The personnel team consicously assembled that group of linebackers, but they're also the folks who selected first and second round draft choices who aren't even good enough to beat out the sub-replacement level veterans ahead of them.

We're all generally OK with the cap and contract team, but they're the ones who still haven't worked a deal out with DeSean Jackson, a situation that's affecting him on the field.  They're also the guys who -- along with the player personnel group -- decided it made sense to allocate 19 percent of our cap to the cornerback position and 2.5 percent to the linebackers.

And as for the two at the top -- Lurie and Banner?  They signed off on what now appears to be the most damaging and delusional organizational decision since the day they chose to play hardball with Terrell Owens.

This is not about Juan Castillo the person.  I've never met the guy, but enough of his current and former players have said enough good things about him that I'm inclined to take them at his word.  Great coach, hard worker, really cares about the guys on his unit.

If this assessment is even half true, Castillo deserves tremendous thanks for everything he's done for this organization, best wishes in all his future endeavors, and a classy separation that preserves whatever dignity is still available to someone who so completely and utterly has fallen flat on his face.

The decision to make Castillo the defensive coordinator was unwise.  It was clearly so at the time and nothing we've seen since then has made it look better.  Reid made a stupid choice and his bosses made an even stupider decision to let him go ahead with it.

Coaching in the NFL is really, really hard.  Even the best coaches can fail if they're not in the right situation or they're not ready for the task they've been given.  There was never any reason to believe that someone so completely unprepared for this role would be able to succeed.

It's time for Castillo to go.  Hell, it's past time.  Last week's debacle against the Giants should have been enough.

But for the people who matter, it wasn't, which means we blew another big fourth quarter lead and wasted yet another superlative effort by a quarterback who looks to be living on borrowed time.

Time's yours, Jeff and Joe.  What are you going to do?