Done

'94 Eagles are right up there. They were 7-2, finished the season 7-9. During the season they crushed the eventual SB Champ 49ers 40-8.

That was the end for Kotite.

I don't know how anyone can think this isn't a complete coaching failure, and it starts with Sirianni.  He hired the coordinators after exhaustive interviewing   and replaced his defensive coordinator mid-season with someone who apparently tried to change the schemes. 

Do you give him a mulligan for that?  Do you keep a coach who has antagonized and infuriated almost every other team and fan base with his immaturity on the sidelines, watches his offense become stagnant, predictable and impotent, and his stable of blue chip players devolve from elite to average in a month without having any answers?  This was a coach who was one of the most aggressive in-game coaches in the league until the 49ers backed up their whining with a complete humiliation and showed the roadmap to everyone.

I get that Sirianni took the Eagles to the SB last year and came close to winning, but how much of that was the players and coordinators?   Did the HC get credit for something others accomplished?  Their problems this year started with the Pats, went unresolved despite their record and got worse with adversity.  Do you keep the CEO and have Howie hire new coordinators, keep Johnson and his staff and replace the defense, just hire a new DC, or wipe the whole slate clean?

I'm guessing Nick stays, replaces both coordinators (hopefully experienced and proven) and Howie has veto power.  Hopefully soon.  I'd like to see guys who were outstanding coordinators who failed as HC - like Dan Quinn - but I'm not asking for much.

You guys had a rough year after going to the Super Bowl, and you've still made the playoffs. I think it's a little premature to be talking about firing your head coach.

I think we'll see Monday night what's what. Yes, the Giants game was painful to watch. But everyone knew it didn't mean anything as the Cowboys were thumping the W's in real time. They were up 21-10 at halftime and hung 14 more points on them in the third quarter. They were favored by what, 12 or more points? It's not hard to see how motivation could be a problem in that situation. Then your QB gets hurt and . . . ok, let's just mail the rest of this one in and save our strength for next week.

So if they come out on Monday night with their hair on fire and smoke the Bucs . . . that will tell me something about their leadership and their individual commitment to winning. If not? Well . . . pass me a torch.

Fair point.  It just seemed that this game in particular pushed some folks over the edge, and that seemed unreasonable to me.  i think that the energy of the team and the outcome of Monday's game will tell us a lot about how thorough any housecleaning needs to be.

Did the coaches check out too?  That would be the unforgivable.

I’ve waited days to see if time has given me any perspective. Very little unfortunately.

It’s Thursday AM and as of now, we’re still 3 point favorites and the Bucs earn you $130 on a $100 bet if you bet them to win Monday. That means everyone has had time to digest the film and what happened and still has determined that they are better than TB on the road. It’s obvious that we can’t handle the blitz, and we’re going up against one of the best blitzing defenses in the league, yet still significant favorites. IMO, that Bucs win earlier in the year was our best, so maybe those matchup advantages will hold. We out yarded them something like 475 to 175, which was significant.

As ugly as this is, I don’t think you can fire Nick. You can sure as hell gut the coordinators, but Nick is like top ten in winning % all time at this point in his career. He deserves the chance to work it out. Who that is any good would take this job after we fired two SB coaches in a few years? Probably nobody worth their salt.

Part of the problem was the false results early on. I heard this at the time, if you input our yards and turnover differentials for each game when we were 10-1, and based on that, compute how many wins we should have at that point, our record should have been 6-5. That’s the level we were playing at. Obviously, all hell broke out after that point. On the better side, before heading into last weeks game, if you remove turnovers, our expected yards per play versus actual was 3rd in the league, the same ranking as last year and slightly better raw numbers. On offense, that points to turnovers as the main reason. I know not the most encouraging but still something.

There’s no roses stats for the defense.

The scary historical reference was the 1981 Eagles. We lost the SB the year before, came out 9-2 in 1981, and then the wheels fell off. We ended up 10-6 I believe and lost a home playoff game to the NYG and the infamous Wally Henry fumbles. Soon after, Vermeil burned out and quit and it was down hill for years. Hopefully we’re not there. Nick doesn’t seem burnt out.

The only thing I got is that yours truly bet the Bucs money line at +130. That normally predicts good things for the other side, so we have that going for us.

My son said it best right after the game. He said he hoped that we played Monday night so we don’t ruin his weekend of playoff football. Another positive !

Let’s all hope we turn it around Monday with a convincing win, and after LAR beat DET, we go to DAL for a second round game rematch which should energize the troops.

We all can hope, right?

I hope Rick is ok.

His impassioned fandom post before the New Year fell on deaf ears , similar to Nicks recent speeches.

Hope the poor guy didn’t jump from the Walt Whitman.

Maybe he’s going to Tampa?

Let’s hope we have a win to give us some hope next week.

Careful there!!  Only bet what you can afford to lose.  If you win the $135, you *might* be able to get a nice dinner at the Outback (or maybe Ruby Tuesdays) for you and the Mrs, depending on how many margaritas you order. 

The thing that makes sports great in general, and the NFL in particular, is the unpredictability of it all.  I thought the Browns and Flacco were gonna smoke the Texans earlier today.  WRONG!  I thought the Chefs were going to be dominating the Dolphins by halftime - wrong again!  It's all very compelling, and it's why live sports can generate such confiscatory ad revenues on the Tee-Vee.

So I'll have the popcorn ready Monday night, and we'll see what we see!

Mayfield is 100% starting.  Book it.  

We're going to get fucking smoked.

Funner fact: The Houston Texans now have more playoff wins since 2002 than the Cowboys, AND a popular new QB. If Jerry doesn't figure out what the problem is, and fast, he's going to find himself owning "that other team in Texas".