What the rumor of Reid's departure reveals

DALLAS - As a "report," this wild notion of Jon Gruden replacing Andy Reid wasn't even worth acknowledging. The reaction to the report, however, is worth thinking about in the way we study the myths and folklore of other cultures in order to understand them.

This Gruden thing made no sense, yet it went viral in a matter of a couple of hours. It was as if people wanted so badly to believe it, they willingly overlooked the unreliability of the source - Kyle Eckel's Facebook page? Really? - and the sheer lack of logic behind the whole idea.

Ron Jaworski, Gruden's Monday Night Football booth partner, awoke Monday morning to a series of fervent text messages. Was it true? What had he heard? Jaworski had driven Gruden to Dallas-Fort Worth airport the night before so Gruden could catch his flight.

To Tampa.

And no, he's not returning to the Buccaneers.

All of this wishful thinking says something about Reid and his stewardship of the Eagles. Once again, the Super Bowl has come and gone. Once again, it was another team, another group of fans celebrating a championship. The Eagles' drought since the 1960 title is at 50 seasons.

Green Bay's Mike McCarthy stood at the podium for the traditional day-after news conference. This year, he is the font of wisdom, the man with all the answers. Last year, it was Sean Payton, another ex-Eagles assistant. The year before that, it was Mike Tomlin.

The question before the court is whether it is harder or easier to picture Reid at that podium now than it was three or five or 10 years ago.

The trends are not encouraging. Tomlin won a Super Bowl in his second season as a head coach and returned in his fourth. Payton took one of the league's most luckless franchises, the Saints, to a title in his fourth year.

McCarthy is in his fifth season with the Packers. He reached a conference championship game with Brett Favre at quarterback, managed the transition to Aaron Rodgers, and got his team to the mountaintop after a brief step backward. During this postseason, McCarthy and his staff, including venerable defensive coordinator Dom Capers, were 4 for 4 with their game plans. The Packers jumped out to double-digit leads against all four of their opponents, including the Eagles.

More troubling, McCarthy and Payton are from similar coaching backgrounds as Reid. Like Gruden, they are offensive coaches with reputations for staring at tape until their eyes burn, looking for an edge. Like Gruden (and Reid, at first), they balanced their staffs by hiring experienced defensive coordinators and turning that side of the ball over to them.

There is a pattern here. Reid fit that pattern up until 2005. Now, 12 years into his tenure, he does not.

It is a brutal job, being head coach of an NFL team. It takes a toll. There's a reason so many of these guys go full-bore for a few years, have their best success, and then get out, one way or the other.

Bill Cowher is the great outlier that everyone likes to compare Reid to. He was in Pittsburgh for 14 seasons before finally winning a Super Bowl. When he did, the Steelers were rightly praised for their patience and foresight in standing by him. And if Reid does find his way to the day-after news conference podium, Jeff Lurie and Joe Banner will get a lot of credit for staying the course.

But what if he doesn't? What then?

Steelers safety Ryan Clark was beside himself after Sunday night's loss.

"I would rather not come here than come here and lose," Clark said. "We're no different from the other 30 teams that weren't here. All the adversity, all the work we put in, it was all for nothing."

Time will soften his outlook a bit. The Steelers had a very good season. Getting to the Super Bowl ranks as an accomplishment. But his all-or-nothing attitude was refreshing. It helps explain why the Steelers were back in the game two years after winning the Lombardi Trophy.

Do the Eagles have that edge? It felt like it during the first half of Reid's tenure. As disappointing as those near-misses were, they were signs the team was doing what it took to compete for a title every year.

It has been six years since Reid's Super Bowl appearance. That's longer than McCarthy, Tomlin, and Payton have had their jobs. He has lost in the first round of the playoffs the last two years. He responded by changing quarterbacks last year and defensive coordinators this year. Instead of a Capers or hot young assistant, he is selling his players and fans the promotion of his offensive line coach.

Maybe it will all come together in the next year or so. Every Eagles fan hopes so, but Gruden-mania suggests many of them don't believe so.

How Reid Stacks Up

Coach               Years       Playoffs       Super Bowl

Mike McCarthy   (GB)      5         5-2            1-0

Sean Payton (NO)         5         4-2            1-0

Mike Tomlin (PIT)         4         5-2            1-0

Andy Reid (PHI)       12       10-9            0-1