Turnovers happen, sometimes in bunches, and it is mostly nothing more than bad luck. Oh, well. A new defensive coordinator and a completely new scheme, combined with seven new starters and no offseason isn't going to work out very well - or at least very quickly. Oh, darn.
The players are right, as far as it goes, but that is like attributing a plane crash to a loss in altitude. There are a lot of factors that have caused the obvious failures, and to assume that the last two weeks have solved all the issues is as shortsighted as was wanting to implode the entire organization after the Dec. 1 debacle in Seattle.
In getting wins against Miami and the New York Jets - two teams with lackluster offenses and neither with a "plus" ranking in takeaways - the Eagles have been able to stay alive in the divisional race and tell the tale of their miraculous healing. If the NFC East weren't so comically awful, this charade wouldn't play very well, but the Eagles are living in a neighborhood in which all the yards are untended, so theirs doesn't stick out as embarrassingly as it might.
It was the Giants' turn to be the butt of divisional jokes last weekend, which they accomplished with a 23-10 home loss to the Redskins. With a win, the Giants would have eliminated the Eagles, but they weren't up to the task.
"I expected quality, quality execution and we didn't get much of that," an exasperated coach Tom Coughlin said after the game.
Among the many things that must happen for the Eagles to win the division, they must now hope for the Giants to be very bad one week and then very good the next. The Giants have certainly shown this capability, but to hope for it on cue - and in the proper order! - is asking a lot.
