Philadelphia Eagles

Reconnecting with Philadelphia

/ Greg / Leave a comment

I am back from a six day mixed work/vacation trip to a city that has its tentacles pretty deep into me.  It’s no secret my love for Philadelphia.  Years of traveling down there for work have me and the city more than casually acquainted, though it was far from love at first sight.  Philadelphia and I are familiar, so to speak. The kind of familiar where we can finish each others’ sentences, but not so familiar that the spark of spontaneity is missing when we see each other.

This trip was a mix of some old favourites and great new experiences. Some of the old?  A cheesesteak at Jim’s (in my highly researched opinion, the best in Philly), a couple of pints at Tria and a Flyers game. The new?  The revelation that was a sandwich at Paesano’s while touring south Philly, a remarkable meal at Zahav, and experiencing part of an Eagles game sitting among fast friends at a neighbourhood bar.

Speaking of my beloved Eagles, a  highlight of this trip was a last day surprise.  At the conference I was attending, I got to meet and chat with Jason Avant, one of my favourite Eagles.  He was nice enough to sign a picture for me, chat about the game from the night before and even spend some time swapping stories about our respective experiences in Quebec City and Montreal.  Me being thrilled at this chance encounter is a massive understatement:

Me and Eagle Jason Avant

Philadelphia… we’ve know each other a while, but you keep managing to surprise me in the greatest ways.

Eagles 2012 report card

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Last year when I wrote my Eagles report card for 2011, I said simply that the season was a failure.  If that was the case (and it was), then I’m not sure how to describe what transpired in 2012.  Colossal failure?  Total embarrassment?

Truthfully, I could see this coming.  Well, maybe not 4-12 coming, but a bad year nonetheless.  Yes, I know I “predicted” the Eagles would be NFC East champs, but even I admitted I was picking that with my heart, not my head.  Preseason, the early indicators of a sub-par season were there.  I had serious doubts about QB, the offensive line was missing it’s top player, and there were too many questions on defence to count.  With my vision now 20/20 after 16 games, here’s how I saw the Eagles performance, position by position, and in some cases, player by player for 2012. Continue reading →

Eagles and NFL review – week 8

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Sitting at 3-4 after an embarrassing 30-17 loss to Atlanta, the main question for the Eagles is “Where do we go from here?”  With five division games remaining on the schedule, they’re by no means out of a playoff race, but there are some trends and hard questions to be asked.

The first question – Is this really a talented team on offence?  Continue reading →

Eagles and NFL in review – Week 3

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There really isn’t much positive to say about the Eagles loss to Arizona.  As a fan, all you can hope for is that it’s just “one of those games”.  Now three games into the year, I’m not so sure this is a one-off performance, especially on the offensive side of the ball.  There were a number of worrying signs:

  1. Michael Vick – I said at the start of the season that I expected this year to be a referendum on his future tenure as QB and so far it’s not going well.  The two 4th quarter comebacks notwithstanding, he’s still making the same poor reads, he’s holding onto the ball far too long and he’s a turnover machine.  Vick will always be a high risk / high reward type QB.  Those tend not to be the guys you win championships with.   His durability also has to be called into question.  He was hit more than 15 times against Arizona and more than half of those were his own fault.  His performance vs. the blitz was awful.  Top QBs welcome the blitz and make big plays.  Vick was 5/21 and sacked twice when blizted.
  2. Continue reading →

Eagles and NFL in review – Week 2

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Two weeks. Nine turnovers. 2-0.

It doesn’t really compute, but after the 24-23 win over the Ravens, the resolve of this year’s Eagles is impressive in the early going. That resolve is going to be tested even more in the coming weeks with the season ending injury to their best offensive lineman. Here’s what I saw in Sunday’s dramatic win:

4th quarter comeback #2: Vick hasn’t been a clutch late game performer in his career with the Eagles, but led a long game-winning TD drive for the second week in a row. Very encouraging.

Balance returns to offensive play calling: The Eagles called more runs than passes, and although the run game statistically didn’t deliver exceptional results, the threat of the run opened up large areas in the middle of the field for Vick/Celek to take advantage of. The Ravens pass rush was relentless and Vick took a number of big hits, but the threat of the run game (and Vick’s scrambling) kept the rush just enough at bay to allow for bigger plays down field.

Continue reading →

Eagles and NFL in review – Week 1

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That was an ugly win. The Eagles did just about everything in their power to give away a week 1 game against a very inferior opponent, but pulled out a last minute TD drive to start out on the positive side of the ledger. Here’s what I saw, moving from bad to good:

Vick: Four interceptions, three of which were of the “cover your eyes bad” variety. He looked rusty, and my hope is that this was a week of him shaking off the lack of pre-season preparation and not a sign of a continuation of his turnover prone ways. Perhaps more troubling is his decision making tendency of always looking for a big play. Many times against the Browns there was at least one check-down receiver wide open who he ignored. He’s got to start taking the easy yardage that defences are giving him.

Continue reading →