Joe, Another Eagles Implosion

by Duf Anything and Everything

I heard on the Stern show yesterday that Joe Frazier was in hospice after discovering he had liver cancer.  Today the news came that Smoking Joe checked out, that was sudden.

I have clear memories of his big fights in the 70’s with the likes of Ali, Ken Norton and George Foreman.  In more recent years I became reacquainted with him via his appearances on the Stern show.  He was borderline unintelligible with his speech in his later years, a testament to the joys of getting punched in the head a few thousand times.

I never would have thought that Ali would outlive Joe.

I really hate Monday night Eagles games.  They run far too late, it is quite a chore for me to stay up until the end.  Plus since I dropped cable a year ago I no longer get ESPN.  In order to watch the game I have to use a shady website that streams the broadcast.  Last night I was watching via a Canadian TSN feed.

The video quality of the feed doesn’t look particularly good on the laptop screen.  You can imagine what it looks like when it is blown up to fit a 73 inch tv,  it’s whatever the polar opposite of high def is.

The game started off poorly.  In less than 2 minutes Matt Forte already had 50 yards of rushing.  The Eagles defense looked like it reverted back to it’s swinging gate form displayed for most of the season.    The Bears seemed to be really dominating the Eagles on both lines, opening huge holes when on offense and hitting Vick constantly on defense.

Eventually the Eagles managed to slow the Bears and came up with a big fumble return for a touchdown shortly before half time to tie the game at 10-10.  I figured it was safe to go back and take my shower.

I come out and hear the game still going on.  I look out and see the Bears on on the goal line! WTF happened, I ask Ali?

She said the Eagles defense actually had forced a punt and dipshit Desean Jackson did his all too common run backwards instead of forward deal and wound up fumbling the ball.  Even with that fck up the Eagles defense held on 3rd down until a bullshit roughing call.  Babin was clearly shoved into the QB but the refs blew it.  The Bears took advantage and scored a momentum killing touchdown.

The Eagles came out strong in the second half, scoring two touchdowns, establishing a 24-17 lead.  That was right about when I fell asleep for good.  Those were the last points they scored.  I was not all that surprised to see this morning they blew their 5th late game lead of the season and went down in flames 30-24.

I am glad I didn’t have to bear witness first hand to the latest collapse.  It’s just so frustrating that a team with this much talent can’t sack up and make plays when it matters.

There are a couple goats.

Of course the defense, which seemed like monsters against the Cowboys got blown off the ball against the Bears.  Their linebackers pictures are found in the dictionary when you look up “mediocre”.  The vaunted secondary gets burned far more often than you would expect as well.

DeSean Jackson.  Yea I have a bit of extra venom for him since I wasted a high round fantasy football draft pick on him but it doesn’t change the fact that he is overrated.  I think it is clearly established he isn’t even the number one receiver on the team anymore, Maclin is.  For every good game Jackson has, there are two or three where he basically disappears and does nothing.

I can’t tell you how many times he has tried that “I’ll just run backwards and outrun the defenders” bullshit only to have it wind up being an epic fail.  Someone needs to shake him around and tell him this is the NFL, people are almost as fast as you are, dumb ass.

Finally, how about the Linc?  The Eagles built this beautiful facility and have a pretty awful record there since it opened.  Why exactly do the Eagles play so poorly on their own home turf?  I don’t really know.  I have been there a couple times and it seems like the fans still get loud, albeit possibly not as loud as the fully enclosed Vet was.

Maybe the players feel pressure from a fan base  that is starved for the ultimate winner?  Maybe Andy spends too much time eating the cheesesteaks when they are home and not enough time working game plans?  Maybe the Linc is haunted?

Whatever the reason is, the Eagles have no tangible home field advantage at all (who can forget all of those NFC championships lost at home)

Well the bottom line is now the Eagles have to come close to running the table the rest of the way.  If they miss the playoffs the only bright spot could be it would make dumping the Fat Man once and for all a remote possibility.  With this much talent there just is no excuse to perform this way.