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Phil Sheridan: Eagles' QB switch masks real problems

While the Mighty Wizard dazzles and distracts us with fiery news flashes and puffs of green smoke, let's take a little peek behind the curtain.

"If I'm the bad guy, I'm OK with that," Eagles coach Andy Reid said earlier this week. (Michael S. Wirtz/Staff file photo)
"If I'm the bad guy, I'm OK with that," Eagles coach Andy Reid said earlier this week. (Michael S. Wirtz/Staff file photo)Read more

While the Mighty Wizard dazzles and distracts us with fiery news flashes and puffs of green smoke, let's take a little peek behind the curtain.

There sits Andy Reid, a man forced to make jaw-dropping quarterback decisions because, frankly, he doesn't have the magical powers necessary to fix the football team he's constructed. Why address the cracks in the foundation and the gaping hole in the wall when you can create a diversion with Michael Vick and Kevin Kolb?

We have seen this before. See if you notice a pattern.

In 1985, a panicked Marion Campbell benched Ron Jaworski after an ugly season opener and inserted rookie Randall Cunningham into the starting job. Three losses later, Jaworski was back under center.

In 1994, Rich Kotite finally pulled the plug on Cunningham and threw Bubby Brister into the starting lineup. Brister lost his only two starts.

In 1998, Ray Rhodes opened the season with Bobby Hoying as his starting QB. After 21/2 games, Hoying was out and Rodney Peete was in.

The pattern: Those were the final seasons for each of those three head coaches. The details vary. None of those three situations is identical to the current mess or to each other. In each case, it turned out the quarterback shell game was a desperate ploy, a last-ditch attempt to salvage a season, a job, a reputation.

In this case, the Eagles have spent a lot of resources - money and draft picks - to build the second Reid generation. After divesting himself of the final relics of his first batch - Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Brian Dawkins and the rest - Reid didn't even try to hide his delight as he prepared to unveil his newer, presumably better version of the Eagles.

Kolb was the centerpiece. An ingeniously reconfigured offensive line would give the young QB time to deploy all those speedy, talented receivers and backs. A young, athletic defense would swarm opposing teams, wreaking havoc and creating turnovers. It was going to make everyone forget all about McNabb and all those near-miss seasons.

Except here we are. The offensive line redo is a botch. The defense has allowed 59 points in two games, including a white-knuckle collapse against the lowly Detroit Lions last Sunday. And Kolb, the centerpiece, has already been tossed on the scrap pile among Hoying and assorted Detmers.

Before you say two weeks is too soon to judge anything, let's synchronize our watches. We're talking about 12 years, not two weeks. This team is the product of years of planning, arguably starting with the decision to trade a first-round pick (which became Anthony Spencer) to Dallas and take Kolb early in the second round of the 2007 draft.

Think the Cowboys would trade Spencer for Kolb today?

At his best, Reid had a championship-caliber roster that was being reinforced by prescient drafting - the high point being '02, which brought Westbrook, Lito Sheppard, Sheldon Brown and Michael Lewis before there was real need at their respective positions. That approach led to four NFC championship games and a Super Bowl appearance.

Since then, there has been a marked drop toward the middle of the NFL pack. The drafting of Kolb was the signature move in Reid's attempt to make a seamless transition once McNabb's time came. It can be endlessly debated whether the Eagles jumped the gun on that (they did, helping another division rival in the process), but that would have been pretty much academic if Kolb had been as good as promised.

The point is, the current situation has to be seen as the consequence of this series of decisions. Instead of adding talent around McNabb with that first-round pick in '07, Reid chose his now-discredited successor. Instead of building a sound offensive line through good drafting, Reid resorted to a quick and expensive fix that saw millions squandered on Shawn and Stacy Andrews and, arguably, Jason Peters. Instead of gradually replacing aging defensive stars, the Eagles keep trying to patch holes.

Remember the promise of that young, athletic defense? It is now an excuse.

"That [inconsistency] is going to happen with a young defense," coordinator Sean McDermott said. "I understand that."

In his 12th season, then, Reid has an offensive line too unreliable to protect Kolb, an undersize defense that lacks the aggressive edge that defined its predecessors, and millions of dollars in the bank accounts of men who won't be on the field in Jacksonville on Sunday.

He has a team that fell behind the wretched Detroit Lions, came back, then nearly squandered a big lead in the fourth quarter. When he watched the tape, he saw that Vick - who was never part of any plan - was the only reason the Eagles won that game, or even had a chance.

It would take a real wizard to correct all those other problems. The man behind the curtain took the easier choice.