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Eagles looking like an expensive mistake

The only thing worse than a bad football team is a bad, expensive football team. After their appalling effort and miserable performance Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, the Eagles are just that.

Michael Vick gets sacked by the 49ers' Ahmad Brooks in the third quarter on Sunday. (Charles Fox/Staff Photographer)
Michael Vick gets sacked by the 49ers' Ahmad Brooks in the third quarter on Sunday. (Charles Fox/Staff Photographer)Read more

The only thing worse than a bad football team is a bad, expensive football team. After their appalling effort and miserable performance Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, the Eagles are just that.

Ultimately, that may prove to be Andy Reid's undoing. If you're thinking Jeff Lurie and Joe Banner are going to change head coaches in October, get over it. That's not how the NFL works, for the most part, and Reid's track record of fixing teams in midseason is, frankly, the only thing the Eagles can cling to at the moment.

Reid's teams have tended to get better as the season wore on. Those were different teams, with different players, and very different coaching staffs. This team looks different. It acts different. And it certainly smells different.

Watching this team collapse against the Niners, there was the unmistakable aroma of inevitability. This team expected to blow that lead, and it did.

"We aren't finishing games," cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha said. "It's not good going into the fourth quarter, late in the fourth quarter, and you've got a lead and you can't finish it off. Guys are pissed off right now. Everybody's embarrassed because we talked all week about a lead in the fourth quarter. You finish it. We had a lead in the fourth quarter, and we didn't finish it. It's tough."

Asomugha, the centerpiece of the Eagles' summer spending spree, is on his way to becoming an emblem for what's gone wrong here. He has not played well. He and fellow Pro Bowl corner Asante Samuel both played as if tackling opponents was not in their job description. That isn't rare in corners who are great cover men. Asomugha hasn't shown much sign of being one of those yet, either.

That free-agent binge got the Eagles a lot of attention in August. In October, it looks like a misguided waste of money and energy. Asomugha looks lost. Vince Young is a nonfactor. Ryan Harris is already gone. Ronnie Brown may be soon after he inexplicably threw the ball, a score, and potentially the game away.

Jason Babin and Cullen Jenkins, the defensive linemen, are the only free agents who appear to be earning their paychecks.

It is too soon to regret that other big contract, the one handed to quarterback Michael Vick, but all of the warning signs are there. Vick finished a game for the first time in three weeks, which was the one asterisk on those blown leads against the Falcons and the Giants. But even with the franchise quarterback on the field Sunday, the offense stalled while the defense delivered its most mind-boggling collapse yet.

Vick played just well enough to put up big numbers, fall short in the red zone, and turn the ball over again. He has not come close to looking like the quarterback who electrified the entire NFL in the middle of last season. That was the guy the Eagles had in mind when they agreed to pay him like one of the league's elite quarterbacks.

All of these decisions come back to Reid. So does a draft that produced players who can't get on the field or don't belong out there yet. So does the inherently flawed decision to promote offensive line coach Juan Castillo to defensive coordinator.

Can Reid fix this? A week after he promised to repair the team that crumbled against the New York Giants, he fielded one that looked even worse.

"Absolutely terrible job by myself and my football team today," Reid said. "In all areas, we were terrible today. We had a lot of yards, but we didn't punch it in. . . . Nobody is pointing fingers at anybody. We're all going to take a look at each other and look in the mirror a little bit and figure it out."

He added the familiar refrain: "I have to do a better job as the head football coach. It's my football team, and I have to do a better job with it."

Reid's team is a unique, as well as expensive, mess. There is proven talent at quarterback, wide receiver, running back, defensive line, and quarterback. There are huge holes on the offensive line, at linebacker, and at safety. The rookie kicker suddenly became a problem with two bad misses in this game.

That is a lot to fix. There is no Jim Johnson to take care of half the team. There is no Brian Dawkins to lead the confused defense, no Donovan McNabb to absorb the fans' ire and soldier on, no Jon Runyan or Tra Thomas to set the tone for the line.

There is, instead, a bunch of highly paid mercenaries with little or nothing invested in this team. Maybe because, so far at least, this team looks like a lousy investment.