While it might not be important that a team wins its first exhibition game, it's always important how a team performs, and getting whipped, manhandled and pushed around in the National Football League is something no team ever wants to have happen - especially one with Super Bowl aspirations.
"All in all, it was not a very good performance," Eagles coach Andy Reid said in one of the most upfront declarations of his nearly decadelong tenure in Philadelphia. "That's from the first unit all the way down to the last unit."
That's the sickening reaction you get when your offensive
linemen get treated like revolving doors; your defensive linemen get stood up like tackling dummies; your quarterbacks get tossed around like rag dolls; and your 6-5, 265-pound punter, who made his previous living by roughing it up without pads in Australian Rules Football, gets dropped on his behind from a blindside hit.
"Really, really solid start," Ravens coach Brian Billick said. " . . . I was pleased with the way the guys handled themselves in their first outing. There was some real hitting going on."
It was a onesided beat down, with the Ravens continually kicking the Eagles out of the roost.
I can vividly recall any number of highlights of Ravens defenders blitzing through offensive linemen to make the evening miserably painful for Eagles quarterbacks A.J. Feeley, Kelly Holcomb and Kevin Kolb.
While it might be true that the Birds didn't spend much time preparing for Baltimore's aggressive blitz packages, the extraordinary beating the Eagles took at the line of scrimmage makes you wonder about the toughness and physicality of the offensive line.
Conversely, I can think of only a few plays from the Eagles' defense that stood out.
