Through some incredibly fortunate dumb luck, I was scheduled to attend some business meetings in Redmond, WA which coincided with my Eagles playing the Seahawks in Seattle.  A couple of clicks through Ticketmaster and I had myself a seat about 10 rows up in the upper deck on the 35 yard line:

I’ll write more about my experience at the game in a later post, for now I’ll concentrate on the game itself.

Eagles reach a new low

The 31-14 final score flattered the Eagles.  Among the problems in this game:

1. Vince Young is an atrocious QB.  Three of his four interceptions were horrible (one came on a deflected pass that was more his receiver’s fault).  The game clinching TD for Seattle came when he was picked off on a screen pass.  What was terrible was that *I* knew that a screen pass was coming based on the formation the Eagles lined up in.  Unfortunately, so did one of the Seahawks linebackers who stepped in front of the pass and returned it for a TD.

2. Tacking – Really, there wasn’t any.  Marshawn Lynch ran for 150+ yards, many of those after first and second contact was made.   His first TD was a symbol of the Eagles defensive softness.  He should have been tackled by about 4 guys, but kept the pile moving until he shook free for the TD.

3. DJax – The seat I had at the game provided a great perspective on his complete lack of effort all night long.  Numerous times he just jogged through his routes showing no effort.  He missed downfield blocks which would have resulted in longer gains for his teammates.  He looks completely disinterested in playing.  The Philadelphia media is awash in stories that he should have received a contract extension earlier in the season which shows a complete lack of understanding of human motivation.  For my money, the Eagles and DJax can’t part ways soon enough.

4. Really, running the football is an option – For me, this is a dead horse I wish I could stop beating.  How McCoy only has 17 carries in this game is beyond me.  Just give him the $^&*$#@ ball already. 

5. Game management – A couple of items of note: (1) The lack of pace in the hurry up offence with the Eagles down 24-7 then 24-14 was perplexing.   Still very much in the game, they were using most of the :40 clock to get their plays off, reducing their chance of mounting a comeback; (2) Andy Reid elected not to call timeout inside of 1:00 left in the first half.  After a Seahawks FG, the Eagles were only left with less than 0:30 to get points – it could have been twice that; (3) In an obvious punt situation in the 4th quarter, the Eagles couldn’t get the right guys on the field in time and had to burn a valuable timeout.  These three are symbolic of troubles in game management that have plagued my team for years.  Reid should really have an assistant coach to whom he delegates all time-related decisions.

All that being said, it was a great experience to see the game in Seattle.  The Eagles were so bad that I didn’t feel any urge to stand up and cheer, which likely helped me return to the hotel with all my teeth (ok, a bit of an exaggeration – Seattle was by far the friendliest stadium for visiting fans I’ve been to so far).

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I was stuck with only regular broadcast TV in my Seattle and Redmond hotel rooms on Sunday, so only got to see parts of a couple of games.   This also affected my snack lineup – this is what I could scrounge up from a very sketchy corner store close to my hotel:

Here’s what I saw from the few games I got on TV:

Steelers – Bengals:  Cincinnatti is losing steam and it’s tough to see them hanging on for a playoff spot.  Pittsburgh laid a good beat down on them.  The most encouraging thing I saw for the Steelers was the play of James Harrison.  After injuries slowed him earlier in the year, he looks like his old self, and that means trouble for any offence they go up against. 

Packers – Giants:  I watch enough football  that I’ve got strong held opinions about the ability of each of the officiating crew (yes, I need help).  Jeff Triplett’s crew officiated this game, and they’re normally horrible (and Triplette just looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing most of the time). However, in 4-5 extremely close calls, they got all of them right.  (Note: The day after the game, there was a still photo published that showed the crew should have awarded the Giants a TD that they ruled as an incomplete pass – so maybe not as strong a game as I first thought).  As for the game itself, it was one of the top 3-4 games all year.  Great back and forth action, exceptional plays by both teams and a few lead changes down the stretch.

Lions – I only saw about 25 minutes of this game and saw them commit 3 really dumb penalties (including one player shove an official).  That team is really one of the most undisciplined teams after the whistle, and with their actions over the past 2 weeks, will only draw more attention from officials until they clean up their game.

With the time difference out here on the west coast combined with some evening conference activities, I completely missed the Monday night game.  Looking at the game recap on SportsCenter this morning, it doesn’t look like I missed much.

I love traveling, but I’m very happy that week 14 will see me back home with Sunday Ticket, Red Zone, dual TVs and gourmet snacks.

It looks like week 12 put the final nail in the coffin of my Eagles’ playoff hopes.  Yes, they’re still mathematically alive, but since I can’t explain in 20 seconds or less the scenario in which they can make the playoffs, I’m considering this year’s hopes dashed.   With a heavy heart, here’s what I saw in week 12.

Eagles

Inconsistency at every position was the undoing of this team.  Inconsistent coaching/play calling, pass coverage, run defence, offensive execution, and the list goes on.  The game against the Pats put a very bright light on most of the Eagles flaws.

Play calling – The Eagles lead the NFL in rushing yardage and have the league’s top rusher, but McCoy only got 10 carries in this game.   Before they got behind by 18 points, they were already pass-happy, and that was with their inaccurate backup QB.   Reaching 1st and goal from the 5 in the first half, they called three passes and ended up settling for a field goal.  This has long been a bone of contention with Eagles fans, but this year, with an offensive line and a running back the envy of most in the league, it’s inexcusable.

DeSean Jackson – This was his worst game as an Eagle with 3 dropped passes, including 2 dropped TDs.  A number of times you could see him develop crocodile arms and play to avoid contact.  He’s played himself out of the monster contract he so desired. The only question is how much of a distraction he becomes for the remainder of the year.

Nate Allen – A high round draft pick last year meant to shore up the Eagles safety position after the release of Brian Dawkins, he had a brutal game.  Welker’s first half TD was a result of him biting on a run fake and leaving Welker uncovered.  He took bad angles all game on tackles and looks uncomfortable covering anyone.  He’s been a complete bust this year – makes me wonder how this team would have fared had they resigned Dawkins 2 seasons ago for his leadership – he’s looked pretty good in Denver for 2 years now.

Discipline – One sign of a good team is a consistent absence of penalties.  On Sunday the Eagles committed a wealth of penalties due to mental errors (offsides, illegal formations) that show the team isn’t prepared to play the game.  This is a trend that has been getting worse over the past 3-4 years.

Everything else – The team (with a few notable exceptions against the Giants and Cowboys) has looked lethargic and soft all season, and perhaps never more so than against the Patriots.   So much went wrong in this game that I won’t take the time to break it down.   It was brutally clear that the Eagles don’t measure up to the better teams in the league.  The picture below sums up the game pretty well.

Steelers – After the 13-9 win over the Chiefs, half of my household is still dreaming of a Super Bowl.  The Chiefs played great defence and held the game in the balance long enough for a late potential game-winning drive.  Ultimately, the Steelers weren’t threatened by a Chiefs offence that committed 4 turnovers.  It was an ugly win, but lets them keep pace with the other leaders in the AFC.

49ers-Ravens: This was a great old-time defensive struggle.  I love games like this where both teams battle for every yard of field position all game long.   I know I tend to focus on the offensive and defensive line play in most games, but that really was the key to the Ravens win.  Their DL harassed Alex Smith all night and gave him no time to throw.  It was a surprise as the 49ers OL had looked really strong the whole season.

Broncos-Chargers: The Chargers are the AFC’s Eagles.  It looks like their season is over after this uninspiring game.  I didn’t watch much of this game until the 4th quarter and overtime.  Although it didn’t affect the outcome of the game, Norv Turner committed another boneheaded time management mistake in overtime (not calling timeout with about 1:00 left to save time for a game-winning drive try if Denver missed their upcoming field goal attempt, letting the clock wind down to about :33, then calling a timeout to “ice” the Denver kicker – only, the play clock was about to expire: that would have resulted in a Denver penalty which would push the kick back another 5 yards). 

Suh:  The Lions need to accept some responsibility in what has become a player out of control.  Suh got a 2 game suspension this week for stomping on a player in their Thanksgiving Day game.  What needs to be acknowledged is the role the organization has played in enabling this behaviour.  The Lions are coached by a complete hot-head who taunts players, officials and opposing coaches during games.  He’s validated previously dirty play by Suh for two years and now, in the heat of a playoff push, is without one of his top players for two games (not to mention that the penalty during the game resulted in a Packers touchdown which helped decide that crucial game). 

Looking ahead to next week, I’m going to get to see my Eagles play the Seahawks in person in Seattle on Thursday night (flights and a 90 minute Continental Airlines connection at Newark willing).  Here’s hoping for a beautiful night for football and an entertaining game.

Into week 11 and you can start to see the playoff scenarios unfolding.  By the end of the Monday night game, a couple of teams virtually locked up a playoff spot (Packers, 49ers), a couple of teams saw huge damage to their hopes (Jets, Bills) and a few teams solidified their positioning for the final 6 game push (Ravens, Pats, Cowboys, Lions).  Week 11 is the last week with byes in the schedule, so starting next week, everyone’s playing every week.

Snacks:  For the early game, I made an Indian-themed dip to go with tortilla chips.  The recipe was from Madhur Jaffrey’s “Indian Cooking” book (an exceptional resource).  The dip is a mix of corn, potatoes and tomatoes with mustard seeds, cumin, cilantro, mint, garlic, green chili, cayenne pepper and coconut milk.  I first had this at a wine tasting at Bishop’s Cellar a couple of years ago and since then it makes an appearance 1-2 times a season:

With the spice, sweet and sour flavours in the dip (and about 3/4 of a bunch of mint left over in the fridge), I took a week off of beer and made mojitos to accompany the afternoon of football.

Eagles re-cap

With the 17-10 win over the Giants, the Eagles keep their post season dreams alive for at least another week (they’re still on life support, but the patient didn’t get read his last rites on Sunday).   It was a typical Eagles-Giants game – some controversy, a few crazy plays, mistakes and a lot of physical play made it a real treat to watch.   Here’s what I saw in the win:

1. Offensive line – Although they struggled to open holes for the running game, that was more a function of the Giants committing an extra defender to stop the run to challenge the Eagles to put the game in Vince Young’s hands.   The O-line kept Young clean most of the night and gave him time to pick out his targets.  In particular, Jason Peters was a monster.  No one got around the left side last night on the Giants pass rush.  He’s been underwhelming in his time with the Eagles until this year.  You can really see the effect of new coaching on his technique.  He’s made the Pro Bowl during his tenure with the Eagles (not deservedly in my opinion) and will again this year.  Good to see Canadian Danny Watkins doing a solid job at RG.  They’re not running a lot to his slot, but he was excellent in pass protection last night.

2. Defence – Games are won in the trenches, and this one was a great example.  Although the Giants OL is pretty bad, give the Eagles DL credit for completely dominating them.  They, along with solid efforts from the LBs, plugged every hole in the running game and chased Eli all night, creating the fumble on the last drive which helped the Eagles hang on for the win.  The defence overall gave the Giants fits.  Samuel and Asomugha played tighter press coverage and covered well most of the game (with the exception of Asomugha giving up the TD to Cruz in the 4th – that was poor coverage and a misread of a route).  Hanson (subbing in for Rogers-Cromartie) looked like an upgrade with his coverage and tacking abilities.  I think he earned some more playing time.  Jenkins was probably the team’s best player last night and hustles all over the field for a big guy.

3. Vince Young – He looked really shaky (3 interceptions, 2 his fault) until the 4th quarter.  On the final drive, there was some magic as he kept making plays.  He’s an inaccurate passer, but the team rallied around him for a game winning TD.  He got the win, and at this point in the season, that’s all you ask your backup QB to do.  His receivers made a few outstanding catches, including one by Avant on a 2nd and long where he caught the top of the ball with his finger tips.

4. The drive – Tied at 10 with a bit more than 11:00 left in the game, the Eagles went on an 18 play almost 9:00 drive for the go-ahead score.  They converted 6 3rd downs on a variety of play calls (misdirection trap run for Brown, passes to Jackson, Harbor and Cooper, a QB sneak by Young and the game winning TD pass to Cooper).  The entire offence was clutch on that drive that really saved the season (for now).

5. Holding a 4th quarter lead – The Eagles have led in the 4th quarter of 9 of their 10 games.  After a bad string of blowing leads, good work by the offence and defence allowed them to win this one after entering the 4th up 10-3.

6. DJax – DeSean Jackson is a frustrating and exhilarating player to watch.  He got off to a lousy start.  On a punt where the Giants punter out-kicked his coverage, Jackson ran around and let the coverage come to him (for a 5 yard loss) rather than heading straight up field for at least a 10 yard gain.  Later in the 1st quarter, he was wide open behind coverage but Young under threw him.  He made no attempt to come back to the ball to break up an interception.  Later still in the 1st, after a wonderful reception for a 50 yard gain, he flipped the ball at a coach on the Giants sideline and taunted their bench.  The penalty for that boneheaded infraction nullified the play.   In the last 3 quarters, he got his act straightened out and made a number of big plays receiving and one on the punt return to setup the Eagles first TD.   I’m not sure the Eagles are going to keep him around next year.  Although he’ll make huge plays, he’s not consistent and is quite the diva when things aren’t going his way. 

7. Prognosis going forward – I have absolutely no idea.  I’ve given up thinking I have any clue what this group will do week to week.  They would have to win out to get to 10-6 and I’m not sure if they can play consistently enough to do that. 

Other things I noticed this week:

Tebow – Feeling very wrong about my preseason prediction that he wouldn’t see the field this year.  Hard to believe the Broncos are in the running for the playoffs.  The magic has to end soon, right?

Bears:  For the first 3 quarters their offence was electric.  Great play calling and excellent execution kept the Chargers defence off-balance.  I don’t understand their fake punt call late in the 4th quarter, but the failed attempt didn’t come back to cost them.   The news after the game that they’ve possibly lost Cutler for the rest of the regular season is very troubling.  Most of what they achieve in their passing game is because of throws Cutler is uniquely able to make.  I expect to see teams take away Forte the rest of the year and challenge the Bears (and Caleb Hanie) beat them with the pass.  They don’t have a very tough schedule, but it will be a slog to win enough games to get a wild card playoff spot.

Time management head-scratchers (part 1): Although there are a finite number of permutations for end of game clock management (when to use timeout, when to use challenges, when to get out of bounds to stop the clock or stay in bounds to keep it running), there is always at least one team to screw up the fundamentals every week.  This week the prize goes to Norv Turner and the Chargers.  With 2 timeouts and 2 replay challenges left late in the 4th quarter, it appeared the Bears may have fumbled (contrary to the call on the field).  Turner in his wisdom did something very stupid – he called timeout – and then he challenged the call.  Why is that stupid?  If you’re going to call timeout there, you may as well just go ahead and challenge the call.  It’s unlikely at that point in the game you’re going to need both of your challenges.  An incorrect challenge costs you a timeout, but at least you took a chance on a close call.  Instead, Turner called timeout to get a closer look at the play and then decided (against overwhelming video evidence shown during the timeout) to challenge the play.  When the video replay upheld the call on the field, Turner was now out of timeouts (the first one he called + the one charged to him for an unsuccessful challenge) and out of challenges (you can’t challenge if you don’t have any timeouts left).   A complete moron move that shortened a close game by 40 seconds for the Chargers via the loss of the timeout.  This behaviour permeates that team – they have a significantly lower than normal team football IQ and it costs them a game or two every year.

Time management head-scratchers (part 2): Much less idiotic and obvious, but demonstrating the importance of high situational football IQ – In the Browns-Jags game (I’m embarrassed to admit I actually watched the last few minutes of this), with just under 5 minutes remaining, a Browns player ran for a long gain then casually sauntered out of bounds stopping the clock.  With the Browns up 4 points and driving for a potential clinching TD or to extend their lead with a FG, it was important for them to keep the clock moving with the lead.  Stepping out of bounds stopped the clock;  in essence, it lengthened the game by 40 seconds for the Jags.  Fast forward to the end-game scenario and the Jags had a number of chances to score a game winning TD (and that was an entire lesson itself in horrible game management by Jacksonville) with less than 30 seconds on the clock.  When you’re ahead in the game, don’t make dumb decisions that add time for your opponent to mount a comeback.

This was the first week of Thursday night football and was a reminder that if/when we move from Halifax, we’ll need to find a more NFL friendly time-zone (I think Central would be best).  The 9:30pm start times are tough on someone who likes his 8 hours of sleep.   First things first, let me get my Eagles rant out of my system…

It took an amazing plate of chicken nachos and guacamole to make me feel better and rouse me from a stupor after watching the Eagles lay a complete egg against Arizona.   They’ve now fallen to 3-6 with almost no chance of making the playoffs.   In order of frustration, here’s what I saw in this game and what it means for the rest of the season:

1.  The Eagles were playing a team with a mediocre backup QB and one bona fide wide receiver.  Why on earth they continued to allow Fitzgerald to be covered by a rookie safety or a 4th string DB is beyond me.  For stretches of the game (including the last 2 drives of the 4th quarter), the Eagles did not have Asomugha covering Fitzgerald (according to play charts, he only had coverage on him for 20 of 46 passing plays).   This is football 101 stuff that my team continues to get wrong every week – completely inexcusable.

2. Vick (and his $100M contract) is now 7-9 with 18 interceptions in his last 16 games.   Although spectacularly brilliant at times, he’s an inaccurate passer who plays loose with the ball.   On Sunday, he looked terrible (on Monday it was announced that he played the game with two broken ribs, so that may have had influenced his performance) – missing wide open receivers and was throwing into the wrong places with 4 passes picked off (1 overturned by penalty, 1 overturned by video review).   Yes, he was missing his top 2 WRs for most of the game, but there are still other weapons to use.  Which takes me to…

3. Play calling – The Eagles were the top running team in the league going into the game yet McCoy only touched the ball 14 times (and only 6 times after the break, even though the Eagles led for most of the half).   This is turning borderline insane with this coaching staff continuing to make the same dumb tactical mistakes week after week.  When your top 2 WRs are banged up, how about calling a shorter passing game, mixing in runs, trying end-arounds and reverses to loosen up the defence?

4. Coaching – The Eagles are probably the first professional football team to take an offensive sub-specialty assistant coach and promote him to defensive coordinator.   The result: this defence for most of the season has looked lost with guys out of place at key times.  I can accept a team without talent not performing well, but it’s frustrating to watch a relatively well stocked team look this aimless on one side of the ball.  Not to beat a dead horse, but what possible explanation is there for not having Asomugha defend Fitzgerald all game long?   Asomugha’s strength is lining up on one guy and taking him out of the game.  You can’t let the only guy on the other team that scares you beat you.

5.  Overall personnel and mentality – I hate to say it, but this team is far too much of finesse team (my nice way of saying they’re soft).  There’s not a killer instinct in the bunch.   The offense has a wealth of individual talent, but lacks the glue players that can win a game when the other team (or weather, or luck) takes away your skill positions.   Right now, the Eagles can’t win games in multiple ways as evidenced by…

6. …. how can 5 of the 6 losses be after holding 4th quarter leads?   Right now the defence can’t win a game.  The offence can’t come from behind on the final drive to win a game or get that extra score to put a game out of reach.  There’s nothing exciting on special teams that can turn the tide the Eagles’ way.  Their game plans aren’t innovative or surprising.  This team can’t win a game when a few things don’t go their way.  Last year when the Steelers were without their starting QB, they managed to win 3 of 4 games with an altered offensive approach.  On Sunday, the Broncos won a game with only 2 pass completions all day, tailoring their approach to the talent at hand.  The Eagles for the past decade have largely been a team that doesn’t do well when there are a few hiccups in game plans, situations, injuries/personnel etc. (with the notable exceptions of the 6 game stretch after McNabb broke his ankle in 2002 or when Garcia took the Eagles to the playoffs after a McNabb injury in 2006). 

To date, this has been one of the more frustrating seasons I’ve watched.  I’m not sure that wholesale changes are in the future given the organization’s preference for measured moves, but Reid and his coaching staff are starting to feel like Jeff Fisher with the Titans last year – at some point, you wear out your welcome if you can’t deliver.  I understand you can’t get to a Superbowl every year, but to have the same chronic weaknesses keep you from that goal for 12 of 13 years is something that can’t be ignored.

Enough of that, here’s what else I saw this week:

Chargers-Raiders: If ever there was an example of an offence going south after an injury on the offensive line, this was it.  McNeil (LT, Chargers) goes down, and the rest of the game saw Rivers scrambling with no time to throw.  This game wasn’t as close as the score and has helped set up a really interesting second half of the year in the AFC West.  It’s a lousy division, and I have no idea who’s going to win it which will make for some interesting games down the stretch.

Saints-Falcons:  The talking heads are all criticizing Mike Smith for going for it in OT on 4th an inches from the Falcons 29.   They didn’t make it, and a few plays later they lose the game.  Who knows what happens if he elected to punt, but challenging his team to go win a game on offence is in line with his overall coaching philosophy.

Ravens:  Their performance against the Seahawks is the reason I don’t have them as an elite AFC team.  They’ll likely make the playoffs, but will flame out somewhere before the Super Bowl.

Lions-Bears:  The Lions were dominated, but why did they punt to Hester?  First punt to him – 29 yard return that he almost broke for a TD.  Any reasonable coaching staff orders the remaining punts to be kicked into the 4th row of the stands.  What do the Lions do?  Second punt kicked in bounds to Hester who returns it for a TD.   Mind boggling.

49ers: I love that they win playing smart, old fashioned football.  The onside kick was a great call in this game and shows good film study of the Giants tendency of their “up men” to leave early on kicks. 

Texans:  A bit of a prediction – I don’t see all of the doom and gloom for them now that Schaub is lost for the year.  I think Leinart can be a reliable QB and he’ll have the benefit of an excellent running game and a very solid defence.  It’s always devastating to lose a starting QB for the year, but I can’t think of another team that would be better prepared than the Texans for this situation.  That being said, this doesn’t help their Superbowl hopes.