John Smallwood | Maybe the Birds simply need better players
IT COMES AS no surprise that Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg takes full responsibility for the Birds' failure to score points.
The Buck Stops Here principle is standard procedure for Eagles coaches.
So when pressed about
quarterback Donovan
McNabb's comment that he was "definitely not the whole reason why" the Eagles are sputtering with a 3-5 record, Mornhinweg did not bite.
"I'm not going to comment on other people's comments," Mornhinweg said. "I haven't seen them. The offense is my responsibility, period. It starts with me."
But the process ends with the players on the field, and somewhere between Mornhinweg's
vision of what should happen and the players' execution, something has gone terribly wrong.
Earlier in the season, the
Eagles kept saying they were only a hair away from things clicking in stride.
Now, it's the halfway point, and instead of getting things right, that hair-thin line has grown to be the size of the Afro Julius Erving sported back in the day.
After a modest step forward in a 23-16 win against Minnesota, the Eagles' offense went right back into the nest in Sunday's 38-17 whipping at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys.
The offense is still disjointed; McNabb still looks disheveled, and the end zone still looks like the forbidden zone.
Training camp, four preseason games and eight regular-season games should have been enough time to come up with answers if any were to be found.
Yet, except for that 56-point
aberration against the Detroit
Lions in Week 3, this offense has been nothing like the high-scoring, dynamic unit everyone
predicted.
"In many of the important
statistics, we're just under or as good or even better than we have been last year or in 2004," Mornhinweg said. "The two problems that we've had are down in the red zone and sacks.
