His name is Defensive Coordinator Juan Castillo. If they get rid of this problem, they will likely win games. If they don't get rid of him, they will still probably win games and contend for the NFC East which is absolutely putrid this year.
If you can find a better, viable, realistic replacement for Juan Castillo, by all means, give him to me and an intelligent argument can be made to fire Juan Castillo in the middle of the season (something I hate doing).
Fire Andy Reid? They absolutely should NOT fire Reid. Not only has he done too much good for the club, but he is in charge of an offense so talented that they can turn the ball over five times (fault at a focus here) and still only lose by seven while having a chance to win at the end of the game. He has done wonders with Vick and has built teams through the draft. You don't be a consistent contender for a decade without that kind of stability. Now even great coaches run their courses with teams (see Jeff Fisher), but has that time come for Andy Reid yet? Talk to me after a couple years of not making the playoffs. Reid, despite some of his rather obvious flaws, is a good football coach and the best man to lead the Eagles at this very moment.
The Eagles have lost by 4, 13, 1, and 7. I can't help but think that even if the Eagles don't make changes, they will win games this year. The offense is explosive enough (my gosh they were a thing of beauty in the 2nd half against a good Buffalo team) and the defense is talented enough. And given the overall weakness of the division, yes, I still believe the Eagles have a realistic chance at winning the NFC East. If they can find a better defensive coordinator, then those chances might just increase significantly.
I didn't think I'd see the day where "Fire Andy Reid Now!" has become the biggest Reid (the man who has a nearly lifelong offensive guy as a DC) defender of any Eagles fan on the interwebz. It's like when Dennis Miller became a republican.
ReplyDeleteEagles will probably scrape to 9-7 and flame out in the postseason.
But hey, at least they robbed Arizona seeing how increasingly bad Kolb is playing.
By the way, Reid probably shouldn't go because of how he's transformed Vick into something he never was in Atlanta, but how many more seasons is he going to get a crack at winning a Super Bowl? Let alone reach the Super Bowl?
ReplyDeleteCastillo is terrible so you might as well get an interim. Or take Gus Bradley, because as bad as I think he is, at least he successfully bumrushed the team the Eagles lost to.
@ SSR: Maturity is a wonderful thing. ;-)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, my thinking is Andy Reid is an established good football coach (although he is prone to the rather obvious mistakes that we joke about all the time). If you fire him, who is his replacement going to be? There is no guarantee Cowher will want to come back, there is no guarantee Gruden or some other big names will come back, and I am not sure the Eagles franchise are in a state where their best move is to try and strike gold on a young assistant getting his first head-coaching gig.
Castillo has become an annoyance and if I am being honest, has probably surpassed that and is now a complete irritation. For goodness sake, Jarrad Page stunk up the day and missed tackles left and right for three quarters and it is only in the 4th quarter that Castillo finally yanked him from the game.
Didn't Reid make Castillo DC because he didn't want lose him, despite his lack of experience coaching defense? Doesn't that kind of move smack of arrogance?
ReplyDeleteThe only time I can think of a coordinator getting fired in the middle of a season was Jim Fassel as OC of the Ravens in the middle of the 2006 season. And even then, the Ravens didn't replace him with someone from the outside, Billick started calling the plays. I doubt any kind of change gets made this season.