So Joe Paterno is going out on his own terms – assuming his terms are as a tone-deaf, misguided enabler of the most abhorrent behavior ever attached to a sports entity of any kind.

The news that Paterno has “decided to retire” at the end of this football season would have been a headline grabber in any of the previous 10 years.  It is an absurd afterthought in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky grand jury report. Retire? At the end of the season?

Fine. Then Penn State University president Graham Spanier should – no, must – suspend Paterno for the remaining games of the 2011 season. Say it’s pending the internal investigation necessitated by the grand jury charges. Say whatever. Just stop Paterno from making another public appearance as head coach of your football team.

Oh, and will he’s at it, Spanier needs to do three more things: suspend assistant coach Mike McQueary for the same reason, decline any bowl invitation that might come Penn State’s way, then finally resign his own office.

It’s over. Just accept that. It is past time to start scrubbing away this stain before it spreads even a little bit more. Spanier, Paterno, Tim Curley – these men have forfeited the right to be part of the solution. They have violated the trust of the university, its students and alumni, and the taxpayers of the commonewealth who support the entire enterprise.

Paterno’s announcement that he’ll retire is a charade. His contract was set to expire anyway. Was there some chance he was going to get a contract extension? Of course not. It was a given that Paterno was finished when the season ended. That’s not good enough anymore.

Paterno can’t coach Saturday. He can’t coach again. To do so would be to mock the suffering of Sandusky’s alleged victims. That was the effect of the idiotic student rally in Paterno’s support Tuesday night, and it would be even worse if this madness is allowed to continue for another minute, another day, another game.

It’s over, Joe. Not in December, but now.

The other problem with absolute power — after it corrupts absolutely — is that it leaves its wielder with nowhere to transfer blame. That is why Joe Paterno’s cover story in this disgraceful Jerry Sandusky situation just doesn’t hold up.

Paterno is Penn State. He is the king there. The king doesn’t pass the buck up the line because there’s no one up the line to pass it to. If you accept that the 2002 incident described in the grand jury report on Sandusky was the first Paterno ever heard of his longtime assistant’s sex crimes —and that’s an enormous if — it was up to Paterno to take charge and make sure the allegations were reported.

A young graduate assistant comes to the legendary head coach after witnessing another longtime assistant coach doing something that horrific? Sorry. It is not acceptable or even credible that Paterno tossed the matter over to athletic director Tim Curley and let the whole matter slide.

Because he did not do the honorable thing then, the only honorable thing now is for Paterno to resign. Not at the end of the season. Not after going to another bowl game. Not after adding a few more wins to his record career total. Paterno must resign immediately if he or the university he loves have any chance to scrub away this stain.

It was football-as-religion that gave Sandusky the license to behave as he allegedly did. It was football-as-religion that led to what looks like a deliberate coverup by the university, its police and the athletic department. Football-as-religion must not be allowed to govern Paterno’s actions now.

How can he teach his players a game plan for Saturday’s home game against Nebraska? How can he insult everyone, especially the alleged victims here, by insisting on football-only questions at his press conferences? How can he call plays or decide on third-down strategies as if nothing ever happened?

He has been doing that for almost a decade, at least, knowing what he knew. He can’t possibly think it’s acceptable to keep doing it.

From here, it sure looks as if Sandusky’s “retirement” from Penn State was orchestrated after he was accused and investigated of inappropriate contact with a young boy in 1998. It sure looks as if the graduate assistant who reported seeing Sandusky rape a child in a shower in 2002 was rewarded with a permanent staff job for not taking the matter beyond Paterno.

Is that far-fetched? Read the grand jury presentment and tell me anything is more far-fetched than that. If all of these allegations are true — and there are too many witnesses and too many disturbing patterns to dismiss them — then Sandusky felt completely comfortable raping children in the Penn State football facilities. He did almost nothing to conceal his crimes. And let’s not kid ourselves that Sandusky just started doing this suddenly in the 1990s. This is merely what this investigation turned up for this grand jury.

And we’re supposed to believe the man who rules State College like a pharaoh knew nothing? And that when he was told, he figured someone else would handle it, then forgot all about it?

It just doesn’t add up. Paterno’s absolute power allowed him to remain head coach for years longer than anyone expected. He can’t be head coach any more because that same absolute power makes his cover story look ridiculous.

The Eagles are unstoppable. After Sunday night’s primetime humiliation of the Dallas Cowboys, we can all be certain of that much.

Just as we were certain the Eagles were unstoppable last November after Michael Vick’s epic performance against Washington on Monday Night Football.

Just as we were certain the Eagles were unwatchable after they blew three consecutive fourth-quarter leads earlier this season.

Say what you want about Andy Reid. In his 13^th season as head coach, his team is absolutely unpredictable. These Eagles are capable of beating any team in the NFL, especially themselves. They can look inept and, well, ept in consecutive weeks. It’s as tough to get a handle on them as it was for them to get a handle on the football in Buffalo earlier this month.

A defense that couldn’t stop Buffalo or San Francisco shuts out the Cowboys. An offense that fizzled in the red zone and turned the ball over for weeks scores on its first six possessions. A turnover-prone quarterback is almost perfect in piling up a 24-0 halftime lead.

It wasn’t quite the once-in-a-lifetime performance Vick unleashed in that 59-28 romp over Washington last season. After that, Vick’s name immediately was included in every discussion about potential MVP candidates. Reasonable people wondered – out loud! -- whether it was possible for any NFL defense to stop Vick, DeSean Jackson, LeSean McCoy and the rest of them.

 Vick had finally married his breathtaking ability to a hardworking approach to preparation. Just like that, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning were yesterday’s heroes.

Except, of course, that Aaron Rodgers was the winning quarterback in the Super Bowl. Vick and the Eagles turned out to be quite stoppable, losing their final three games. The last was a playoff game against Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers.

The unstoppable Eagles became so stoppable, in fact, that Reid replaced his defensive coaching staff and made radical changes in the team’s approach to offensive line play. There followed a spending spree to infuse talent onto the roster.

Expectations spiked again, almost as high as they were after those thrilling wins against Washington and the Giants a season ago. Surely the Eagles had the talent to dominate in the lockout-hobbled NFL.

Then they were 1-4 and expectations had crashed through the floor again. Surely Reid would be  fired. Surely his decision to promote his offensive line coach to defensive coordinator was the final straw. It was as if every decision Reid made was a beautiful hand-rolled Cuban cigar, and every single one had an explosive charge in it.

So we knew they were great last year. We knew they were great this summer. We knew they stunk three weeks ago.

What do we know today?

Not much. We know Reid’s bye-week magic formula still works. He is 13-0 in the games after the Eagles’ bye. Considering the opponent and the stakes, and the sheer one-sidedness of it, Sunday’s may have been the most impressive of those 13 wins.

But does it mean the ship is righted? No more than that Washington game proved Vick had been transformed into a quarterback-god.

There are some similarities that might explain this. It came to light afterward that some of the Washington players had been talking trash to the Eagles before that game. They were thus inspired to inflict a beating so humiliating that veteran defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth said it looked like the Eagles were compiling “BCS points. They should be ranked No. 1 now.”

Of course, it was Dallas defensive coordinator Rob Ryan, in the grand tradition of his father, who offended the Eagles this time. Ryan called the Eagles “the all-hype team” and promised the Cowboys would “beat their ass.”

For those of us who remember Buddy Ryan’s “Greg Bell, my ass” quote before the Rams’ running back ran for 124 yards and a touchdown in a 1989 playoff game, this was especially amusing.

The Eagles may indeed be the all-hype team. Time will tell. But the scoreboard said Eagles 34, Cowboys 7 Sunday night.

The problem with this sort of motivation-by-perceived-slight is that you can’t rely on it week in and week out. There wasn’t any of this stuff in those boring seasons when Reid’s teams consistently won 11 or 12 games and went deep into the playoffs. Those Eagles were just professional, tough and determined to find ways to win. Yawn.

It is possible the Eagles have figured things out and are about to bark on a strong run to the postseason. The state of the NFC East certainly makes that possible.

It is equally possible that the Eagles will be terrific some weeks and terrible other weeks, that Vick will wear down as he did last year and that expectations will soar before crashing cruelly once more.

Mirage or shimmering pool of Super Bowl hopes?

Dive in at your own risk.

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. – It turns out we were all wrong about the Eagles after last week’s collapse against the San Francisco 49ers.

It could get worse. And it did.

After another week of tinkering by Andy Reid and his staff, the Eagles turned in a truly lousy performance against the Buffalo Bills. They avoided another blown fourth-quarter lead by turning the ball over, falling behind early and failing again and again to make tackles.

Then they added a fourth-quarter knife-in-the-gut by rallying from 31-14 down to 31-24. But a possible game-tying touchdown drive ended when Jason Avant coughed the ball up for a final, game-clinching turnover.

The wheels are off. The Eagles are 1-4 and reeling. They have one more game, on the road at Washington next Sunday, before staggering into their bye week.

The bye has often provided Reid an opportunity to tweak his team in preparation for a playoff push. At this point, the goal has to be fielding a competent offense and defense. There was neither on display at Ralph Wilson Stadium Sunday afternoon.

Quarterback Michael Vick took another pounding and responded by throwing three first-half interceptions. The man who boasted that no defense could be devised to stop him and this potent offense was right. The Eagles do a good enough job of stopping themselves.

The defense was no better. Fred Jackson ran freely through the Eagles secondary, and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick had no trouble finding open receivers. The Bills were able to take advantage of the Eagles’ mistakes, and the Eagles generously gave them plenty of chances.

There were a couple of real howlers. After an interception by linebacker Jamar Chaney, the Eagles had the ball at midfield with 39 seconds left in the half. It goes without saying that they had no timeouts left. After one completion and a Vick scramble, the Eagles spiked the ball to stop the clock with 13 seconds. They were at the 26.

Vick underthrew an open DeSean Jackson on second down. The clock stopped with 8 seconds left. Reid decided to take another shot at the end zone. Vick dropped back, held the ball a few beats and threw it out of the end zone. The clock showed zeroes and the Eagles had squandered a chance for a field goal.

To open the second half, the Eagles tried a daring onside kick. Unfortunately, they failed to wait until the referee signaled that the ball was in play and they had to kickoff again.

The Eagles’ second-half comeback attempt, though thwarted, showed what some desperation can do. Vick broke off a 53-yard run to set up a 10-yard touchdown run by LeSean McCoy. He found DeSean Jackson for a fourth-quarter TD, then drove the team down for a 35-yard field goal.

The defense, which offered little resistance early, clamped down. The Eagles took the field with a chance to drive for the game-tying score. But Avant turned it over one last time.

For the final insult, the Bills faced a fourth-and-inches at midfield with 1:23 left. They lined up as if going for it, but everyone in the stadium knew they were just trying to draw the Eagles into a penalty before punting. Everyone except defensive end Juqua Parker, who jumped offside and killed the Eagles’ final hopes.

It was a bad, bad loss in a string of bad losses.

But no worries. Reid and his staff will get back to work this week. Things can’t get worse.

Right?

The Eagles are officially in freefall.

Andy Reid’s team, which came into the season with Super Bowl aspirations, is a mess right now. Forget the scoreboard, where the Eagles blew a 23-3 lead to lose 24-23 to the San Francisco 49ers. The real story is on the field, where Reid’s team looked disorganized and at times disinterested.

A week after Reid said he would fix the problems that plagued the Eagles in come-from-ahead losses to the Atlanta Falcons and New York Giants, the very same problems cost them this must-win game against the lowly 49ers.

Turnovers. Michael Vick threw another interception. Wide receiver Jeremy Maclin fumbled away the Eagles’ last chance to salvage the game.

Red zone misery. The Eagles struggled inside the 20 again, the lowlight being Ronnie Brown’s ingenius decision to throw the ball out of a pile at the 1-yard line. The resulting fumble cost the Eagles at least 3 points in a one-point loss.

Poor tackling. The Eagles safeties and linebackers continue to believe they are devastating hitters who can decleat an opponent with sheer power. They’re not, and they again bounced off opponents who continued running with the ball.

Collapsing defense. After blowing fourth-quarter leads in Atlanta and at home to the Giants, the defense began its weekly disappearing act in the third quarter.  The Niners scored two touchdowns in the third, then capped the comeback with an all-too-easy score with 3 minutes left.

Worse still, the Eagles’ highly hyped, highly paid cornerbacks played as if tackling opponents was not in their job description. Asante Samuel and Nnamdi Asomugha both appeared to give up on big gains by the Niners.

Those recurring problems were joined by some fresh new worries. Rookie kicker Alex Henery, a fourth-round draft pick, missed two routine field goals in the second half. Either of those might have been the difference between losing and winning.

The Niners were not exactly a powerhouse coming into this game. Their defense was among the worst-ranked in the league. But they were able to blitz Vick, manhandle the smallish receivers and generally abuse the center of the Eagles offensive line.

So the Eagles are 1-3 after opening the season with a victory in St. Louis. Their three-game losing streak makes them a combined 1-6 in their last seven games, including a playoff loss to Green Bay.

In the Niners, the NFL schedule gave Reid a perfect opportunity to fix some of the major problems that have plagued this team. Instead, the Niners gave him one of the worst and most dispiriting losses of his 13-year tenure.

There is a lot more to fix and, with road games against surprisingly good Buffalo and Washington teams coming up, little time to fix it.

Video: The Inquirer's Phil Sheridan and Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch preview the NLDS between the Cardinals and the Phillies.

There is a percentage of a chance that Jeremy Maclin will not be at his best this season, at least not right away.

There is another percentage  of a chance – 100 percent, actually – that it doesn’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.

In a truly bizarre summer for the Eagles, it turns out they had two players coping with the possibility of life-altering, even life-threatening physical ailments. As public as Mike Patterson’s on-field seizure was, that’s how private Maclin’s brush with a cancer diagnosis was.

Patterson was diagnosed with an AVM, a condition in which blood vessels in the brain tangle and can cut off the oxygen supply. There appears a very good chance the defensive tackle will return to football.

The Eagles say now that Maclin is fine and should be able to play by the season opener in St. Louis on Sept. 11. That is unabashedly good news. Not so much because he can run slant routes again, but because it means the doctors’ suspicion that he had lymphoma turned out to be unfounded.

The most important thing for both of these young men is their health and their quality of life. Football, which gives them the chance to make bags full of money and enhance that quality of life, is a bit lower on the priority list.

It would be great if Maclin can return without any impact on his performance. But the strain of months spent in the agony of uncertainty – Do I have cancer? – can not be good for anyone. And then there was the virus that apparently made Maclin feel unwell enough to seek diagnosis in the first place. Finally, there was the laproscopic removal of a lymph node last week, done to test for lymphoma.

Back in 1998, when he was going to be the Eagles’ No. 1 quarterback, Bobby Hoying had an appendectomy during the offseason. He then had an abscess in the area of the surgery. A lot of things went wrong for Hoying and the Eagles that year, but one of them was the impact of his offseason illness. Hoying never really regained his strength.

Maclin does not have to be the starting QB. He is one of many wide receivers, several of whom are really talented. There should be no pressure on Maclin to be at his best until he feels his best. If that takes a week or a month or all season, so be it.

Maclin had every right to ask for privacy while he was learning about his condition. But he should understand that the absence of information naturally led to speculation and discussion. He is an important player on a team with Super Bowl aspirations. He seemed to get that when he chose to grant his first interview on the subject to an NFL rightsholder, Fox Sports.

The speculation reflected anxiety about this team. Nothing can pop the balloon of high expectations quite like a bunch of injuries. And there’s something unsettling, especially if you’re prone to looking for omens, about two starters being sidelined with potentially grievous medical conditions.

So it is good news on every count that Maclin has been cleared of the worst possibility. And it is promising that Patterson is back with his teammates and talking about returning to the field.

Somehow, after this, hamstring pulls and high ankle sprains will be a relief.

 OK.

THAT is a plan.

Early Thursday, with rumors swirling all over the NFL about Nnamdi Asomugah’s destination and a hundred other players, some cretin logged onto this here blog and wondered about the Eagles’ much vaunted post-lockout plan.

Was Jason Babin really supposed to get us excited?

Well, a day later, that same cretin can log on and issue a mea culpa. By signing Asomugah, who is by all accounts the top free agent available, the Eagles front office delivered on its promise. And while Andy Reid’s description of Joe Banner and Howie Roseman coming out “like wild men” is bound to elicit chuckles – “wild” is not the first word that springs to mind about either of these guys – there is no getting around it.

The Eagles had a definite plan. They acted on it. They’re probably not finished yet. The team is much, much better.

Asomugah. Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie.  Babin. Donald Lee. Vince Young.

I’m not that big a fan of the Babin signing, based on what we saw of him two seasons back with the Eagles. But if he is really transformed by defensive line coach Jim Washburn, and with this array of talent at corner, the pass rush should be miles better. (And yes, Asante Samuel may well be out of here; but DRC and NA might be the best tandem in the NFL.)

Somewhere, Sean McDermott is calling Larry Bowa and commiserating. His defensive talent was to this group as Bowa’s starting rotation was to Doc, Cliff, Cole and Roy.

Another adjustment: Said in Friday’s column that DeSean Jackson’s contract should be in the $10-12 million range for annual value. That’s about where Asomugah’s is. Might have to tweak D-Jax down a million or two. Sorry, kid. Corners get more than receivers, at least in this corner of the NFL.

One last thought:  Asomugah chose the Eagles. While I have never been a huge fan of the Michael Vick signing, and while I can’t get past the bottom line that he basically had an average McNabb season in 2010, you have to think he’s part of the allure here. A lot of players watch the Monday night game, and you can picture Asomugah sitting in front of his flat screen, watching Vick light up FedEx Field, and thinking, “I wanna play with that guy.”

Just a thought.

We know, or at least we were told, the Eagles had a comprehensive plan they would launch the moment the NFL lockout was lifted and roster moves were possible.

What we can’t know, and likely will never know, is whether that plan is being executed effectively or if the mad rush of events has rendered it obsolete. Whatever happens, Andy Reid will assure that the Eagles “will be fine there” and that everything is, in the words of the Emperor from Star Wars, “exactly as I have foreseen.”

Albert Haynesworth is a Patriot. Reggie Bush is a Dolphin. Ray Edwards is still unsigned. Charles Johnson went back to Carolina. Seattle acquired Tarvaris Jackson instead of driving up the market for Kevin Kolb. Quintin Mikell got a stunningly large deal from St. Louis, which is coached by former Eagles assistant Steve Spagnuolo.

Meanwhile, the Kolb-to-Arizona trade continues to be in the works, we think, and the Eagles signed DE Jason Babin, a guy they let walk after one humdrum season here. Babin, 31, presumably will be more effective (and younger?) under new defensive line coach Jim Washburn.

What to make of the moves so far?

The Mikell deal is most intriguing. He was a solid player and key leader here for his entire career. The Eagles clearly felt like he was on the downside as they’ve kept trying to younger (without getting any better) at the safety position. Spagnuolo, who knows Mikell very well as his former position coach and who has since won a Super Bowl as defensive coordinator of the Giants, clearly thinks the guy can still play.

The worry for an Eagles fan: that Mikell, like oh, say, Jason Babin, was less than effective because he was playing in the defense of the since fired Sean McDermott. Babin blossomed under Washburn in Tennessee last year. If Mikell does the same in St. Louis, where the Eagles happen to open the season, then Reid and Howie Roseman are going to look very short-sighted. That’s pertinent because they’re also deciding whether Stewart Bradley, Ernie Sims, Dmitri Patterson and others are expendable.

The Eagles had no real control over Haynesworth and Bush. They were traded. Washington may have deliberately moved Fat Albert to New England in order to prevent a tearful reunion with Washburn. Chances are, the Eagles’ interest in Bush was a product of the media’s abhorrence of a vacuum.

But in my years covering the Eagles, they’ve always had a kind of checklist approach to doing business. The first order of business Monday and Tuesday was to learn the new rules governing the salary cap and player transactions, then to sign undafted rookies, then to arrange the move to Lehigh University for training camp. Next was to sign their draft picks, next was to finalize a Kolb deal, next came free agency.

The fact they signed all but two of their draft choices on Wednesday supports the idea they were working their way down that list. There’s no way to know if they missed out on any free agents or other trades because of that approach – they’ll never tell us if the Plan didn’t work – but it bears watching as this uniquely frantic week plays out.