First off, I would like to thank the Ravens for putting Eagles fans out of their collective misery. Now that we know the playoffs are over, we don't have to spend the rest of the season biting our nails only to have our hearts broken at the end. And better yet, we can now enjoy Thanksgiving with our families without worrying about getting home in time for the game against Arizona.
On to Reid. I knew it would happen eventually and he finally did it. Reid finally made Donovan McNabb the scapegoat for all of his own shortcomings, and in the process he threw away the game and the season just to make a point about nobody's job being safe. Only a complete moron would pull his starting quarterback at halftime of a 10-7 game with the season on the line. Was Donovan playing well? No. But the defense was playing well and they were THREE POINTS DOWN!!! That's not the time to make such a drastic change when you still have a shot at the playoffs! Who in their right mind would throw an inexperienced quarterback to the wolves like that against a defense like the Ravens? Did Reid honestly think Kolb would provide a spark? Please. It was nothing but a desperate move by a desperate man who has simply run out of answers.
Most coaches get better with experience but Reid has regressed (a delay of game penalty when you're running a no-huddle offense? Really???). He makes mistakes that rookie head coaches make. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing anymore and it's painfully obvious that things will never get better as long as he's the coach. Yes, he brought us several successful seasons, but this is a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league and he will now have missed the playoffs for three out of the last four years. At some point you have to realize that it's not working anymore and that it's time to move on. I wish Lurie would show some guts and fire him tomorrow. The season is already lost anyway, so what's the point of keeping him around? Let Jim Johnson take over. Even if it's just for the rest of this season, he has earned the opportunity to finally be a head coach in this league. If Lurie lets Reid keep his job after this embarrassment, he's an even bigger idiot than Reid.
As for McNabb, he is not blameless in what has become of this dismal season, but no quarterback is going to be successful in a system that requires you to drop back to pass 60 times per game while paying nothing but lip service to any semblance of a running game. I really don't want him to go, but perhaps a change of scenery is what he needs. In any event, it looks like the cabal of McNabb haters in Philly will finally get its wish after this season. If this is indeed the end of the McNabb era, I wish him well. I am sure that he will start somewhere else next year and have tremendous success . . . and those same McNabb haters suffering through a 4-12 season with Kolb at the helm will rue the day he left.
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By the way, real classy, Reid, to not even tell your quarterback to his face that he's being benched. As much as McNabb has done for you and this franchise (but especially for you), he deserved better than to hear the news from some lackey, you coward.
An ideal scenario would see the Eagles keep McNabb and get him a new head coach. Not likely to happen though. Too bad. Eagles fans have suffered enough.
I don't know what more Reid has to do to get fired. Last year he entered the season without a punt returner to disastrous results. This year he entered the season without a fullback to similar results. He has never surrounded McNabb with great receivers except for the one year with TO. His offense is so predictable that opposing players say they know what's coming and commentators are jokingly predicting what plays he's going to call. But Lurie should especially be fuming over what Reid did yesterday. He flat-out threw the season away in a moment of panic unbefitting an NFL head coach. He raised the white flag and it was obvious in the second half that the team quit on him. That will surely affect Lurie's wallet for the rest of this season as attendance plummets.
I am now convinced that McNabb is the reason that Reid has been so successful. His greatness has masked Reid's deficiencies all of these years. And now that McNabb is no longer capabale of winning games by himself, Reid is being exposed for the fraud he is. I still believe McNabb can be one of the top QBs in the NFL if you surround him with players and an offensive system that gives him a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen here. We're going to have to watch McNabb succeed somewhere else next year, and it sucks.
It's going to be an ugly rest of the season. It was obvious that McNabb's benching was not well received by the team based on their demeanor after the game and their performance during it. And I know McNabb is livid over it. He tried to be diplomatic yesterday, but it was obvious how angry he was when he made comments like "that was a tough situation to put Kevin in against that defense." For McNabb, that's equivalent to going off on Reid.
The team may play hard Thursday for McNabb, but if he gets benched again, it's over. We will be witnessing the end of the Kotite and Rhodes eras all over again.
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