Bill Conlin: Watching Phillies, Eagles games didn't go exactly according to plan
THEY WERE good plans, mine and Andy Reid's. The Eagles would throw Jim Johnson's latest blitz packages at gifted but still inexperienced Redskins quarterback Jason Campbell and stuff the run. Donovan McNabb and back-in-the-saddle Brian Westbrook would establish order and control. The Eagles would win a low-scoring game from the team that shocked the Cowboys at home last Sunday, restoring a semblance of order to an NFC East that found the Eagles running fourth once more.
Right from the jump, Andy's plan worked like a Krieger Swiss chronograph.
Steve Falk
Eagles kicker David Akers looks on as his teammates leave the field following a failed field goal attempt in the first quarter against the Washington Redskins in an NFC East division matchup at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA on October 5, 2008. (Steve Falk/Staff Photographer)
But while McNabb took the Birds on that first possession, a methodical, 80-yard march in 12 diverse plays to seize a 7-0 lead, my plan was going up in cyber-smoke.
My plan was to have my media dining-room Tastykake and eat it, too. Watch the
Eagles game I was assigned to cover without missing a pitch by the Phillies, who were playing a possible Game 4 clincher in Milwaukee. Due to somebody in a high place overdosing on stupid pills, both the Eagles and Phillies games were teed up just after 1 p.m., a happenstance as rare as total eclipses of the sun. In fact, the Phillies' 6-2 victory over
Milwaukee ended just 30 seconds after the Eagles were counted out in a stunning 23-17 loss to Washington.
OK, just the Phillies being in two postseasons in a row is total-eclipse-rare by itself. But the odds of a clinching game overlapping the quasireligious rite of an Eagles home game . . . well, you're talking lottery odds.
But I had it covered. Or so I thought. The Eagles were deep into Andy's scripted opening drive when Jimmy Rollins led off the Phillies game with a homer to right off Brewers starter Jeff Suppan. You were probably still cheering at home when Westbrook slashed
9 yards for a score.
There was no time to savor this historic confluence, however. Some evil cyber-Genie had firewalled my beloved Slingbox in a bedroom at home. I was supposed to be noting the touchdown that led to a 7-0 Eagles lead at the same time I was watching J-Roll providing the Phillies with a 1-0 lead on their way to the champagne-tossing jubilation of their first division series title ever and first postseason series win since 1993.
Both the Eagles and Phillies use a really neat wi-fi system in their playpens that has made the technology of getting the news into and out of a press box faster than a speeding bullet.
Let me hasten to add that the Eagles were blameless for my dilemma. The same program that blocks most streaming video from potentially intrusive outside sources also zaps annoying pop-up ads and anything else that might impede gigabyte-stained wretches from speeding their prose to the newspapers and their dot.com offspring.
"We have no idea," a Birds spokesman said. "We'll have to check it out."
Nor was the wi-fi guy aware there was a problem. "I guess we would have to see if we can open a port on your Slingbox," he said. I prefer sherry . . .
Just make sure it's served the next time the Phillies are going for a title and the
Eagles are kicking off around 1 p.m.
So all I was able to match up, thanks to an excellent ESPN.com game tracker was that just as Pat Burrell was slamming a three-run homer and Jayson Werth was following with a solo shot to give the Phils a 5-0 lead in the third, the Eagles and Redskins were in the first-half, 2-minute warning timeout.
Electronically thwarted, but fortified with the psychic wiggle room of the Phils' five-run lead, it was time to return to the Eagles plan, which had gone to hell in a hand basket.
"Don't worry, it's still early," has a hollow ring when, after Week 5, your lock of a playoff team, your Super Bowl contender, is 2-3.
And let's save Andy Reid the trouble of
restating the obvious like a warped CD with the laser beam tracking in the same groove. No, you didn't do a good job yesterday. Yes, you have to do a better job of putting your players in position to win.
The real shock, however, was that the
Eagles went against the Redskins leading the NFL in fewest rushing yards allowed per game, 53.8. They had not allowed a touchdown in their home victories over the Rams and Steelers.
But holy jumping Jeff Lurie, the Redskins outrushed the Birds in the second half, 131-17, and 203-58 overall. They ran the ball 44 times to 18 and had a 10-3 edge in rushing for first downs.
Linebacker Stewart Bradley seemed to have the most concise explanation.
"I think they mixed it up a lot and came right at us," he said. "They had two backs and widened everything out. [Clinton] Portis has good vision, so he was able to find a seam."
Seam?
On an afternoon when they were outrushed 203-58, the Eagles' run defense was all seam. *
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