Reid should have punted instead of piling on Akers

Andy Reid is almost never candid. Now we know why. Unjamming a foot that big from a mouth that large must be a daunting task.

For more than a decade, Reid has refused to speak his mind, choosing instead to repeat the same mind-numbing talking points. Why stand beside the truth when it's so much easier to lean on comfortable crutches?

His news conferences have more often than not doubled as forced public lobotomies. He coughs. He grumbles. Before you know it, your brain has switched off and little puddles of drool have formed at your feet.

It is the way things have always worked with Reid, much to our frustration. That briefly changed after the Packers playoff game when he was asked about David Akers missing those kicks. For some reason, Reid chose that moment to abandon his usual bland rejoinders.

Akers missed two field goals against Green Bay, and the Eagles lost by five. Reid was asked about that, and he shocked a lot of people with the rare and brutal honesty of his answer. In retrospect, that was a bad idea.

"We can all count," Reid said. "Those points would have helped."

For once, Reid didn't hold back. But given what we now know, he would have been excused, just that once, if he had.

What the rest of us only recently learned is something Reid knew in advance of the Packers game: On the Friday before the Eagles faced Green Bay, doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia told Akers that a malignant cyst in his 6-year-old daughter's left ovary needed to be removed. The news had to be a nightmare.

There is football and there is real life, and it isn't hard to figure out which matters more. As far as football is concerned, I've never quite understood Philadelphia's fanboy fascination with Akers. (I wrote a column about that shortly after the Packers game.) But what Akers and his child and their family are going through is independent of that and far more important. Your heart breaks for them. How could it not?

Which brings us back to the game and Reid's remarks and what has become a very messy situation. From a football perspective, Akers picked a terrible time to have a bad game. He wasn't the only one to perform poorly, but his mistakes were significant. To Akers' credit, he hasn't made any excuses.