December 8, 2008
Ok, so you’re an Eagles fan, sitting in a pub, sipping a beer (or some non-alcoholic drink), while watching your beloved Philadelphia Eagles play against the New York Giants, in a game that the Eagles desperately needed. You’re beginning to wonder if Andy Reid has actually been listening to you, the fan.
You notice that the Philadelphia Eagles have started the game actually running the ball. Yep, the Eagles coaching staff has in fact instructed Donovan McNabb to turn around and hand it do his Pro Bowl running-back, Brian Westbrook. It is then, that the frustration begins to build.
For the better part of 14 weeks, you have been begging, pleading with Eagles head coach Andy Reid to run the football and for the majority of those 14 weeks, he has not.
When the weather forecast in Cincinnati called for high winds and awful throwing conditions, you watched Reid and his coaching staff send Donovan McNabb back 60 times to pass. When the Eagles needed to convert on a fourth-and-one against the Chicago Bears, you observed them do nothing to establish the run and then fail on that fourth-and-one, because they figured that running the football is like turning on a light-switch, it is always there when you need it. You also got to watch the Eagles play terribly on offense against the Baltimore Ravens, bench their starting quarterback for not correctly carrying out their faulty game-plan, only to watch head coach Andy Reid put in the young and unseasoned backup quarterback, Kevin Kolb. You then got to see him throw a game-clinching interception that was returned for a touchdown, all because Andy Reid figured that passing the ball was a far better option than using that big offensive-line that everyone is always talking about, to grind out two yards. Yep, you got to see all of that from your Philadelphia Eagles recently.
It is enough to make an Eagles fan scream in anguish until there are no more vocal cords left.
Sure, while the thought of beating the New York Giants is enough to warm the hearts of any Eagles fan, the way that the Eagles won their last two games is utterly frustrating. Instead of watching Sunday’s game with glee, you along with other fans of the Philadelphia Eagles sat confused, asking yourselves, “where had this been all season?”
As you sit there, probably drinking a newly served beer (or, of course, something non-alcoholic), rather than you and other surprised Eagles fans giving each other hi-fives, each big run from Brian Westbrook was followed by beer and nacho-muffled yells of, “if they had just done that against the Bears or the Bengals, they wouldn’t be nearly out of the playoff race!” Then with that realization, you slump back into your chair, throw your arms up in the air in disgust and let them drop, flailing by your sides.
Indeed, instead of celebrating heartily for a victory over the New York Giants, you had to be reminded of just how they got to a desperation game in the first place. You had to think back to when they had refused to run the football, only to watch their quarterback start game after game with incompletion after incompletion. You had also heard plenty of times from football experts that throwing the ball way too much can lead to inconsistency on offense.
Indeed, being an Eagles fan this season has been very frustrating.
Let’s be real here…
Many Eagles fans like yourself sat there watching the game with frustration, because you could see what everyone else could see: up to this point in the season, the Philadelphia Eagles have thrown the football way too much and run the football way too little. You can see that the game of football is not rocket science and that the better teams in the NFL have good rushing offenses. You just cannot understand why the head coach of your favorite football team cannot see these same, glaring things.
Still, as an Eagles fan regardless of how frustrated you are because of what Andy Reid sees, or does not see, you have hope.
You believe in your team, because that is what fans do when a team wins. You are optimistic that maybe the last two dominating performances against teams with winning records will bring forth more game-plans that feature the run. You are hopeful that Reid will help his quarterback, who seems to be erratic throwing the ball early in games, by simply allowing him to hand it off to his running-back.
As you finish your second beer and munch on that bowl of pretzels from the bartender, you are encouraged that the coaches who drew up Sunday’s strategy will actually draw up more that are just like that one. You see that running the ball more and using that mammoth offensive line to plow holes for your “all-world” running back to run through, is way more effective in an NFL game and maybe Andy sees it too.
More than anything else though, you hope because after 14 weeks of complaining that the Philadelphia Eagles should run the ball more, maybe Coach Reid is listening to you, the fan. Something he hasn’t done for a very long time, especially the first 14 weeks of this season.
