Quick, longtime Eagle watchers, what happens when you throw Reid a curve, do something that wasn't on film, start blitzing from everywhere, confusing a sub-laden line? Does he adjust, with slants and screens and a hurry-up approach, three-step drops, the odd draw play here and there, or does Reid just keep dialing up the plays he practiced all week, with the 47 progressions for McNabb to sort through?
We all know the answer there. As noted football expert David Byrne intoned, "Same as it ever was."
McNabb's reaction was every bit as unsatisfactory. He looked more mobile his first week back from the rib injury than he looked in Oakland. Is there something they haven't bothered to tell us about this? There were a few times when McNabb had all day to throw, against a secondary that was missing All-Pro corner Nnamdi Asomugha most of the game, after Asomugha got poked in the eye by fellow Cal alum DeSean Jackson. McNabb didn't find a receiver late on an improvisation, didn't take off to see if his feet could change the equation. He just threw the ball away. How very Matt Cassel of him.
This kind of game has come to represent a kind of Reid/McNabb offensive vortex, and it seems it will be with us as long as they are. It is impossible to overstate how sick of it the fan base is, which is why the angry e-mails poured in yesterday, insisting that the winningest coach in Eagles history and the franchise's all-time leading passer are chumps, frauds, chokers and charlatans.
Is this really the case? Of course not. But they aren't Super Bowl winners, either, and, obviously, games like this one make it seem extremely unlikely they ever will be, 11 long years into their joint tenure.
