Eagles: Front Office Hiding In Back Room
Philadelphia Inquirer Sports Columnist Bob Ford writes about the Eagles, the Phillies, the Sixers and the Flyers.
Eagles: Front Office Hiding In Back Room
Bob Ford, Inquirer Sports Columnist
The Eagles dressed 46 professional football players for Thursday’s twilight special in CenturyLink Field in Seattle, and it’s fair to say that the 43 of them who made their way onto the field didn’t have a great game.
The exact failures in the 31-14 loss have been picked over like the parking lot trash consumed by the great flocks of gulls that collected outside the deserted stadium when the night was over. The Eagles didn’t tackle well, they didn’t run the ball effectively, they committed too many turnovers and they were being put through their paces by a collection of coaches often working at cross purposes.
By this point in the season, the players see that the mistakes brought about by faulty or too ambitious schemes are not being addressed. Instead, the coaching staff is sticking to a bad plan the way a faithful diner stays with a favorite restaurant long after the chef is dead and the health department has pasted flyers on the door. The players are being used poorly and they know it.
That much is obvious. What is more difficult to decipher is whether the Eagles would have been good under any circumstance this season, or if the combination of turnovers (an incredibly bad minus-13 on takeaway/turnover), injuries (mostly Michael Vick, but Jeremy Maclin, too; and earlier this season, the mess on the offensive line) and some plain, old bad luck (some of the turnovers were night-of-the-blue-snow weird) sentenced them to a record that looks far worse than the actual merit of the team.
It might be for the 2012 season to decide that one. If the Eagles come back with essentially the same core, and essentially the same staff and philosophy – oh, yes, that certainly is possible – then judging the oddity of 2011 will be easier.
A real concern, however, is that the Eagles, as presently constructed, just aren’t that talented, and that the bulk of the roster is made up of average or below-average players whom the player personnel department has misjudged as something more.
For a handy example, look at the three players who put on a uniform but didn’t play a single snap on Thursday: Brandon Graham, Mike Kafka and Steve Smith. This isn’t meant to pick on them, but there they were, taking up uniform space and contributing nothing.
Graham, a defensive end, was the first-round pick in 2010. He didn’t do much during his rookie season and, before he tore his ACL at the end of the year, he had all but disappeared. They even tried him on the inside, at tackle, to little effect.
This season, he was on the PUP (physically unable to perform) list until Nov. 7, played sparingly against Chicago and Arizona, was inactive the next two weeks, and then dressed but didn’t play against Seattle. Maybe the front office and personnel departments – who recommend the picks to Reid for consideration – get a pass here because of the injury, but if a guy’s dressed, he’s healthy. If he’s healthy and he doesn’t play, and he was a first-round draft pick, you messed up. If there’s another way to look at that, let me know.
Kafka was another 2010 draft pick, in the fourth round. In all probability, he was projected as a backup, not someone who would develop into a starting NFL quarterback. Nevertheless, the coaching staff doesn’t appear to have enough confidence in him – after nearly two years of observation and coaching – to put him in a game when the starter (in this case, Vince Young) is incapable of doing anything but get you beat.
Then there is Steve Smith, who the Eagles signed during their binge of training camp transactions. He’s a former all-Pro, but was coming off an injury and surgery. Still, the organization’s judgment was that they were smarter than all the teams shying away from Smith. And on a night with the season’s survival on the line, on a night in which Jeremy Maclin couldn’t play and Riley Cooper was a starting wideout, on a night like that, Steve Smith couldn’t get on the field for a single snap. Nice signing.
Anyway, the point is that, as bad as Reid and his staff have done this season, he might not have much to work with, depending on how you judge the roster put together by the front office tandem of president Joe Banner and general manager Howie Roseman. The two drafts conducted by Roseman since he took over after Tom Heckert, Reid’s guy, was forced out, have been awful and could get worse, depending on which direction Danny Watkins and Nate Allen go.
I went into greater depth on this subject, and the shameful way the front office has let Reid absorb all the public blame, in this Saturday column in the Inquirer, and link it for you here because many of you don’t flip on the computer to check out Philly.com over the weekend. Too bad for you. There’s good stuff here every day.
Now you’re back at work, however, and the boss is out on a call somewhere and, well, you just can’t read enough about the Eagles at the moment.
Sure Andy regrets not having any bridge players from better days. No Dawkins, no Westbrook, no McNabb, no Trotter. Front office had there hands in the Dawk non-signing. As the announcers of the Broncos game said, "eagles really would love to have Dawkins back"! When you look at the number of BUSTS that this front office (which includes Reid) has made over the last 4 years, it is easier to see why they are 4-8. Think about Stacey Andrews. Chris Clemons. Vince Young. Ernie Sims. On and on.— JBP- Wonder if Michael Vick would give Lurie a interst free loan for the back taxes owed the city from the $40M he stole from the gold standard piggy bank? — jwatson
- Not any? LeSean McCoy is at least as good if not better than Westbrook. Landing a headliner QB like Vick while not having a top 5 draft pick is damn near impossible these days, yet we took advantage of the situation and managed it. The corners have been replaced twice with all-pro replacements during Reid's tenure. The D-line has been consistently good-to-great with only a couple off years.
You make a good point about Dawk, Trotter and the O-line, though the O-line always needs time to gel. And if you remember, the great O-line we had was not all that good initially, it took a good season and a half for it to gel. As far as Dawk and Trotter, well Dawk is a once in a lifetime aberration (in a good way for the team that has him, obviously), and they came close to replacing Trotter with Stewart but Stewart kept getting freak injuries.
I think the issue is not that the Eagles are not replacing the top line guys adequately, they are not replacing the journeymen types with players who can make a play when the ball comes their way. Especially on defense and special teams (i.e. backup players).— mkk9772 - Sure they are hiding in the back room; counting their profits, money scammed from dopey fans that are willing to buy into their "Eagles Ponzi!"
How is that, fans and their money pay for this team, the players, the stadium -tax dollars YOUR MONEY- the more the fans are willing to shell out, the more profit Laurie and Banner make...with the fan's money, not theirs....the team is already worth more then twice what they paid for...they are running in the black and fans keep them there. 52 years and countin, with a wiat till next year promise....that is the scam, the ponzi and product that the fans invests in.....dopes!— STEPHEN1988 - You can't make "chicken soup" with out the chicken. The Eagles could be coached by Vince Lombardi and the defense would still stink.— HappyBob
- Howie seems more interested in trading down than finding quality football players. Howie seems to think he is a day trader playing the stock market. No impact players drafted in 2010 or 2011.— zeke128
get a real GM. roseman isn't qualified to carry modrak or heckert's jock— oliver north- I guess they said all they had to say in their pre-season interviews when they were congratulating themselves on a job well done and basically engraving their names on the Executive of the Year awards.
Maybe they should've given those interviews on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean with a huge "Mission Accomplished" banner hanging in the background.— PinkstonsStrengthCoach - Draft Baylor's QB Griffin in the first round next year. After all, he is a mirror image of Mc Nabb, Vick and Young. All fast, innaccurate and dumb. That's what we eagle fans have become accustomed to since the Mc Nabb draft. Plus, it appeals to that 52% of the philly population that is minority. ( Hmmmm, Juan Castillo as defensive co-ordinator). Nah, they wouldn't do that, would they?— Phil Checchia
- I don't know but the implying of your mirror image is that Griffin is afro-american? I've been saying that Reid needs to be admitted to Dr.Drews celebrity rehab for his obession/addiction to afro-american QB's before he can start working on his cheeseburger problem. — jwatson
- He is going to finish his Master's Degree this year. Baylor academically is the best of the Big 12. Dude is not dumb. — coloradoeagle
- No, colorado, you're missing it. He's black. So it follows that he must be dumb, you know, like 52% of the philly population. This is what those two extremely worthy gentlemen are trying to say. — auntesther
- The premise of this column is completely wrong. Name one time Reid was not given exactly what he wanted by mgt. in his 13-year career. Begin with signing McNabb, through a bunch of failed draft choices, going to T.O when they needed to "get over the hump" and to the Super Bowl after losing early in the playoffs.
Right up until this season Reid's had the total support of the owner and the front office. They went along with promoting Castillo, bringing in a lot of free agents that don't play together and draft picks that have flopped. All of this is Reid's handywork. Lurie, Banner, Roseman gave Reid more support than almost any other NFL mgt. team would have. Does Ford actually believe Reid would have lasted 13 years under Jerry Jones ownership? In Green Bay where the fans own the team and GB is tendering another IPO? In New York? In L.A., or any other major media outlet?
Have you ever heard Lurie, Banner or Roseman defend a coward like Jackson who short arms the ball, won't catch in traffic or return KOs? Reid continues to do so even though Jackson is a cancer in the locker room (shades of T.O.) Have they complained publicly about linebackers, safeties and cornerbacks that can't or won't tackle? No, mgt. has done none of those things because it would undermine Reid in the minds of the fans and media.
This team and its decline is traceable to only one individual: Andy Reid, who, if he had any pride would resign immediately after game 16 and save Lurie from "eating" the remaining two years of his contract.— 1republican - It would be nice to get a new defensive coordinator and a new GM, but something tells me it will take two bad years to make those changes not just one, especially if, with Vick back, the Eagles finish strong -- which I think they'll do. Young was just awful.— fgdavis
- Can someone in the press ask Banner if he minds that his nickname is "Nickels"?— fmMD
