One Week Later, Same Ole' Birds

December 2, 2007

By Mike Santa Barbara

Is anyone out there surprised by the outcome of Sunday’s game against the Seahawks? Where are all those A.J Feeley supporters now? Two weeks in a row Feeley has lost the game for the Eagles with stupid mistakes. Think anybody is missing Donovan McNabb now? Chances are that Donovan will practice this week and play on Sunday. However, it won’t matter who starts at quarterback for the Eagles next week, because in all honesty their season is over.

Last week against the Patriots A.J Feeley seemed to play well and made two mistakes. Apparently he didn’t learn from last weeks failure. Throwing four picks this week three of which went to Seattle middle linebacker Lofa Tatupu. Right from the beginning it looked as if the Seahawks knew where A.J was going to throw the ball every time he dropped back. In two games A.J has thrown seven interceptions, that’s one more then Donovan McNabb has all season long. Thanks to Feeley the Birds spotted the Seahawks a quick 14 points. Putting your defense in bad positions all day will catch up to any NFL team. However, even after taking a short lived lead in the 2nd half it looked as if the Eagles were playing from behind all game long.

A.J Feeley proved Sunday why he’s a backup in the NFL. And Feeley may have proved why he may soon be a former quarterback in the NFL as well. Looking deeper into last week’s game against the Patriots Feeley really didn’t play all that well. Andy Reid and the rest of the coaching staff developed a good game plan and put A.J in a position to succeed. Keeping the play calling difficulty down also kept the likelihood of Feeley making a mistake down. The Seahawks prepared for that style of play calling, knowing that Feeley was going to throw short slant routes almost all day. Their defense took that play away and Feeley continued to throw the ball into Seahawk player’s hands.

Feeley is not alone in this edition of “the blame game.” The coaching staff has to be held responsible for some of this as well. And by responsibility I don’t mean “I didn’t put guys in the right positions to make plays.” How is it that this team played so differently against the Seahawks after playing so well against an undefeated Patriots team? The Eagles went into the game last week feeling they had no chance, backs against the wall. All week long they saw no weaknesses and nothing they could exploit during preparation. So they came in with nothing to lose and played like the old Eagles. This week was a lot different, you have match-ups you want to exploit and going into the game you have an idea of what you want to do. Only problem is that style doesn’t seem to work anymore and it’s beginning to run a bit thin with the Philly faithful. The complaints are always the same, clock management, run to pass ratio, and not getting pressure on the quarterback. Nothing has changed and neither have the results.

Contact Mike Santa Barbara at MikeSBPhillyPurge@yahoo.com