Fire The Walrus

Here’s the thing about yesterday’s abysmal 27-6 loss to the Kevin Kolb-led Arizona Cardinals… We’ve seen this game numerous times before, throughout The Walrus’ reign of terror.

We saw it last year in Seattle. We saw it two years ago in Tennessee. We saw it the year before that in Dallas – twice in two weeks! – and the year before that in Baltimore. There was that Monday night game a few years ago, when Seattle came to the Linc and dismantled the Eagles, and the last season at the Vet, when Peyton Manning and the Colts ruined the Eagles’ perfect season at home.

Andy Reid’s career is littered with these games. Every single year, the Eagles show up extraordinarily unprepared for a game – usually looking ahead to a bigger game or a bye week – and get completely demoralized. Every single year it happens.

This week made total sense too. Going across country, following an emotional comeback win against the Ravens, with a Sunday Night matchup against the Giants looming… Of course this was the week they’d get waxed!

But the issues go so much deeper than that… There were other problems yesterday that should have been fixed a long time ago, yet they continue to persist.

Again, the playcalling, which was absolutely hideous. You know how Andy likes to choreograph the Offense’s first fifteen plays? Well, you or I could have done a better job than he did! Here’s how the Eagles started yesterday’s game:

• 1st and 10: Broken play, Vick scrambles for 3 yards.
• 2nd and 7: Incomplete pass.
• 3rd and 7: Incomplete pass.
• 4th and 7: Punt.

At least they were moving the ball against the Browns and Ravens before Shady coughed up the ball and Vick threw his first pick, respectively. This was just a hideous three-and-out start. After 14 seasons, you would think that Andy Reid has learned to establish the run in the first series of plays… Nope! He didn’t feel the need to utilize the backfield until, oh, about midway through the third quarter… You know, when they were down 24-3.

By the end of the first half, the run-pass ratio was 1:23, or something egregious like that. Andy called four – FOUR – handoffs to LeSean McCoy in the first half. Four. And of course, once he entered the second half down 24 points, he didn’t need an excuse to keep passing… And inexplicably decided to start running the ball.

Which leads us to another long-running Andy Reid coaching red-flag… Where was the sense of urgency in the second half?! Did The Walrus go into the locker room at halftime and tell his team to save their energy for next week?

In the third quarter, down 24-0, the team showed zero need to rush to the line, hurry up after plays or try for touchdowns instead of field goals(*). The team basically gave up. Maybe not as badly as last year’s debacle in Seattle, but still enough to warrant serious change in the coaching staff. Change that will never come.

(*)Hmmmm… where have we seen this before? Oh right! Super Bowl XXXIX. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Where’s the fight? Where’s the desire? Where’s the killer instinct and absolute NEED to win football games? Do you think Andy Reid would ever play tough football until the final whistle, like Greg Schiano’s Buccaneers(**)? No they wouldn’t!

(**)We mention this solely because we absolutely LOVED what Schiano called when the Giants went to kneel on the ball. THAT’S football! You play until the final whistle blows, and you try to win at all costs. Tom Coughlin is a whiny bitch. The other team was trying to get the ball, not hurt your pussy of a QB. Get over it, Coughlin… it’s football.

Hell, this team has so little fight in them, that they throw open palm slaps:

Look, we’re not trying to constantly repeat ourselves, but this is beyond insanity at this point. Nothing has changed. This is the same team it’s always been, with the same identity Andy Reid-coached teams have always had. Every season Bill Belichick tweaks his team to change their identity. In the early 2000s, the team was built around the Defense. By 2007, the team was an Offensive juggernaut with the ultimate deep threat in Randy Moss. Last year, he changed course and moved to a two-TE base set, that saw the Offense morph into an unstoppable beast (when its two premiere Tight Ends are healthy).

What has Andy Reid ever changed? Besides that ill-advised experiment with the Wildcat, he’s been running the exact same Offensive scheme since 1999. And the only thing that’s changed about the Defense is its demise in the wake of Jim Johnson’s death and the addition of the Wide-9. The rest of the NFL figured out how to beat Andy Reid years ago, yet he still trots out the same old tired bullshit year after year after year after year after year after year.

Much like we mentioned yesterday – in complete and utter disgust – this is Jeffrey Lurie’s fault. He has allowed Reid to continue this fraudulent, sham of a regime, simply because it hasn’t inversely effected his bottomline. Much like Roger Goodell’s stubbornness with the actual refs(***), why change something that’s broken and pisses fans off, when the money is still coming in?

(***)Who, let’s remember, aren’t that much better than their replacements.

That’s the only green that matters to The Half-Billionaire: the green color of money. Not the midnight green of the team he owns.

And so here we are… enduring yet another lost Eagles season. 8-8 won’t be good enough, so Andy will make sure to get to nine wins, and will be back to torment us for yet another year. Can’t wait to get blown out on the road next year in Green Bay, Minnesota, Denver or Kansas City!

If only the Lurie’s divorce could have ended like the McCourt’s…

Fire The Walrus.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 24th, 2012 at 8:01 am and is filed under The Day After, The Walrus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.