Repeat after me: The Eagles are 1-0.
Or is that 1-and-oh!
It could have been worse. This team has specialized in playing exactly this kind of game over the years, and managed to lose them. At least they spared us that indignity yesterday, with a less than thrilling 17-16 win over the hapless Cleveland Browns.
That 17-16 is not the number you should remember from the game.
Instead, it is 56. That is not the number of curse words I dropped during three and a half hours of my life I will never get back.
No, that is the number of passes Andy Reid dialed up for Michael Vick.
You remember Vick, he’s the starting quarterback who played all of 12 snaps in two preseason games, leaving both with injuries. Vick did not play at all in the final two exhibitions. Instead Reid apparently decided to use yesterday’s opener in Cleveland as Vick’s preseason.
Don’t hang this ugly encounter on Vick. Yes, he was awful, throwing four interceptions and looking very much like the old Falcon who made horrible decisions, poor throws and mediocre results.
This one should hang around Reid’s neck like an anvil.
There really was only one question I kept asking myself during this ugly affair that may have set the NFL back decades.
What must Eagles owner Jeff Lurie have been thinking? It was just a week ago that he was telling his coach and quarterback that a repeat of last year’s 8-8 debacle would be unacceptable.
Reid and Vick promptly decided to play the same old song. “Pass” the Alka Seltzer, Jeffrey.
The Eagles have maybe the best weapon in all of football. And his name is not Vick. Nor Jackson. His name is LeSean McCoy. Know how many times he carried the ball in the third period yesterday? That would be zero. You can’t make this up.
Much was made in the preseason about whether or not Vick would be able to stay healthy, and if he would alter his style of play accordingly.
Neither was in evidence yesterday.
In a word, Vicky looked rusty, very much like a quarterback who played almost not at all in the preseason. He threw four interceptions, and a fifth that would have sealed a loss was dropped in the end zone on the play before the winning TD pass.
More than that, Vick just played awful, making poor decisions, displaying happy feet and making rookie mistakes like throwing back against his body for an interception.
So what was Reid doing dialing up 56 pass plays? Especially when it became clear in the 1st quarter that the Eagles offensive line was a sieve, with Vick either running for his life or getting hit on every pass attempt?
If the Eagles didn’t have an alternative, it would still be questionable. The fact that Reid continues his pass-happy ways despite having the best back in football in McCoy is simply unexplainiable.
Reid will try again today. Hopefully he’ll do a better job than he did after the game yesterday, when he actually offered a few kudos to the Browns. If the Eagles had been playing almost any other quarterback yesterday other than Brandon Weeden, they’d be 0-1.
Time’s yours, Andy.
Actually, maybe we should be asking how much time Andy has left.
How about it Jeffrey? Unacceptable? Yeah, that would pretty much cover it.
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