Phil Sheridan: Andy Reid deserves to stay

Until there is a Lombardi Trophy gleaming in a display case in the NovaCare Complex lobby, words won't mean a thing.

The words Jeffrey Lurie says won't convince skeptical fans that it was a good idea to extend Andy Reid's contract. The words of Reid's harshest critics won't penetrate the franchise's inner sanctum and change a single mind. Even the words on Reid's contract don't mean all that much (although the numbers do).

In 1999, Lurie hired Reid because he believed that the relatively unknown assistant coach from Mike Holmgren's Green Bay Packers staff had the right plan to build a championship program in Philadelphia. In 2009, after all that has and has not happened on Reid's watch, Lurie still believes that Reid gives him the best chance to hoist a Lombardi.

"Our No. 1 priority by far is to win a Super Bowl," Lurie said.

"Our energy is put into winning a Super Bowl," Reid said. "That is, I think, probably every coach's and every player's dream in this league. That is what we're striving to do."

"Everybody in this building wants to win a Super Bowl," quarterback Donovan McNabb said.

There is no rational cause to doubt them. But rational thinking has been bludgeoned into some twisted logic during a run that includes five conference championship games with no Super Bowl titles.

Fans and reporters frustrated by the absence of the Lombardi Trophy often accuse Lurie and the Eagles of being satisfied with falling short - of striving to be competitive and therefore profitable rather than striving to win it all.

With all due respect, that idea makes no sense.

It would be impossible to build a team that went to five NFC championship games in eight years unless you were trying to win the Super Bowl. That's like saying NASA's goal was to build launching pads and rockets, not to get to the moon. Try getting into space without them.

"You can't win a Super Bowl unless you're in line to be in the playoffs and be in that championship game," Lurie said. "That's the only path there is."

Another example: The Eagles would have won a Super Bowl by now if it weren't for Reid, McNabb, or both. That one ignores the indisputable fact that they've only been so close, so often because of them - as close as was the beloved Dick Vermeil (but more often) and much closer than was the mythologized Buddy Ryan.