Bob Ford: Another not-so-super Sunday for Eagles coach Reid

Andy Reid said he would watch the Super Bowl and then, first thing Monday morning, it will be back to work trying to get the Eagles into the next one.

In that way, Super Bowl Sunday, not Feb. 2, has become Groundhog Day for Reid. Since the Eagles made it to the championship game seven years ago, Reid has always been free on that day to study the teams that survive to the final round.

What will he see this year that separated him from walking the sidelines where Bill Belichick of the Patriots and Tom Coughlin of the Giants will control their teams? Bad breaks? Bad coaching? Bad performances from players of whom he expected more?

Reid isn't big on introspection, but he said he took apart the past season and came to some conclusions. One of the conclusions was that he can still do the job to the best of his ability, something that was seconded by the owner. That those abilities have not yet won a championship is frustrating for everyone involved. Barry Switzer won a Super Bowl and he couldn't coach a dog to scratch itself.

It must be particularly galling for Jeffrey Lurie to once again see the Patriots and Belichick in the Super Bowl. Lurie grew up a fan of the team and tried to buy the Pats before he bought the Eagles. Instead of enjoying another championship ride, Lurie found himself defending his decision to keep Reid for a 14th season and making excuses for his coach's poor performance in news conferences.

Winning makes that sort of thing unnecessary. If New England wins on Sunday night, it will be Belichick's fourth Super Bowl championship, and no one cares that his news-conference demeanor makes Reid seem like Fred Rogers in comparison.

How long Lurie will continue to believe in Reid makes for popular parlor conversation, but despite the current wisdom that - this time for sure! - the coming season is especially crucial, that might not be the case. Reid never has two clunkers in a row, and if the team shows progress, well, what's an owner to do?

"As close as Jeffrey and I are, as close as Joe [Banner] and I are, I understand that the bottom line is to win football games," Reid said Tuesday. "That's why I'm here, to win football games and win a Super Bowl. I'm not afraid to stand up and look that in the face. I think [Lurie] sees, going forward, we have an opportunity to do some good things. And so I'm speaking for him, but that's why I think I'm sitting here at this time."

Winning a Super Bowl isn't easy, and Reid is just one of the 26 active head coaches who have never achieved it. Of the six who have coached a Super Bowl champion, what did they have that Reid didn't? Having the best team helps, but that didn't get Mike McCarthy and the Packers back to the big game this year.

Maybe the difference between Reid and Belichick, who can tie Chuck Noll for championships (four) in the Super Bowl era with a win Sunday night, is as simple as the difference, say, between Donovan McNabb and Tom Brady. Just the simple good fortune of having a transcendent star arise on your roster. (And if it were brains and not luck that boosted the Patriots, why did they select Brady in the sixth round of the draft and keep him only because they started the 2000 season with four quarterbacks?)

Coaches who don't produce championships rarely last as long as Reid. Among active coaches, only the now-reactivated Jeff Fisher has more wins and the same number of Super Bowl rings. Reid has won 126 regular-season games, which places him 24th on the all-time list. He leapfrogged Dick Vermeil, Mike Ditka, Sid Gillman, and Jim Mora in 2011 and is poised to pass Weeb Ewbank and Hank Stram in 2012. Those are good names and that's an awful lot of wins. It's also, heading into Reid's 14th season, an awful lot of waiting.

"I'm not a very patient person when it comes to winning. That's why we're in this business. We want to win every game," Reid said. "There's no more pressure than there has been. . . . I know how the fans feel. I understand that. There's a frustration. And so my point is, we're going to bust our tails to get it right. That's where I'm at."

For this Super Bowl, however, where he's at is right with the rest of us, sitting in front of the television watching two other coaches go at it. If it is any consolation, he isn't very happy about it, either.

There must be something about Reid that keeps him coming back for more, and something about him that influences the owner to keep bringing him back.

It could be stubbornness or sheer habit, but more likely it is the dogged belief that all this work, all these teasing wins, for all these years, can't really add up to so little.