On Anniversary Of The Week I Started This Blog, Andy Reid Reminds Me Why I Did

McNabb had 450 yards.

Jason Avant has a break out game.

The Eagles got a pair of redzone TDs.

Surely they won the game, right?

Not so fast. Thanks to horrible coaching by the master of it, Andy Reid truly did win the Battle of Inept Coaching. Being way too passive early in the game including not running a QB sneak during a 3-play series of down and goal at the 1 and then not going for it on 4th down despite never losing yeards combined with early failed redzone conversions and other field goal attempts when the Eagles should have gone for it on 4th down resulted in the loss.

Make no mistake about it, they deserved to lose that game. But make no mistake about it, they damn sure should have won it. The Chargers and Norv got completely passive on defense at the end of the game by playing a soft zone instead of bringing what was effective in the first couple of drives when the Eagles could not move the ball for the life of them.

Reid blew what would have been two critical timeouts in the 2nd half. And while the offense eventually got a rhythm, the Eagles 4-minute defense is just deplorable. They could not get the stop last week against Dallas and they failed to do so again until much too late this week against San Diego. As much as I hate to say it, the Eagles really do miss Jim Johnson.

Another thing they need to do: avoid penalites. Penalties killed so many drives that game it is not even funny. Bad discipline will kill you each and every single time, especially when you play as inconsistent as the Eagles like to do.

Just a terrible coaching performance by Reid wasting a stellar performance by Jason Avant who channeled his inner Miles Austin and a very good performance by Donovan McNabb who despite early struggles, threw for 450 yards and did not make any major mistakes.

Sean McDermott To Be The New Eagles Defensive Coordinator

Take a moment and reflect on what that headline is really saying. After 10 years, half of which included at appearances in NFC Championship games, and a Super Bowl appearance, Jim Johnson is no longer the defensive coordinator of the Philadelphia Eagles. The cancer and the rehab seems to have proven too much for Johnson to continue coaching the Eagles defense and to coach at the high level that we all know he is capable of. I wish Jim Johnson and his family nothing but the best in the future and I am sure that there is not a sane-minded person out there that would not do and feel the same, regardless of what team they support.

With that being said, though, I chose the more optimistic headline for a reason with that being that the Eagles have a whole lot to look forward to with their new D-coordinator, Sean McDermott. McDermott, as I'm sure most know, was an assistant under Johnson, was named the interim defensive coordinator over the spring when it was first announced that Johnson was getting treatment for cancer, and McDermott is essentially the last of the breed of original assistants under Jim Johnson. And while that sounds like a bad thing, believe me, it is anything but. Just take a look at some of the people that originally came from under the wing of Jim Johnson. For starters you have the current head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, John Harbaugh. Then you have Ron Rivera, who led the dominant Bears defense to a Super Bowl XLI appearance. Then there is Leslie Frazer, who vastly improved the Colts secondary as a coach of that secondary and that subsequently helped the Colts beat the Bears in the aforementioned Super Bowl and is now the defensive coordinator of the defensively dominant Minnesota Vikings. And I have not even gotten to the most well known ex-Johnson assistant, Steve Spagnuolo, who led the Giants defensive to a victory in Super Bowl XLII and is now the new head coach of the St. Louis Rams.

Despite being only 35, Sean McDermott's tenure with the Eagles actually predates the Johnson era, having joined the team in 1998. And while Johnson will be greatly missed by the Eagles and Eagles fans, I would be greatly surprised if there is even the slightest drop off in the play of the Eagles' defense. McDermott, without a doubt is the right guy for the job. Johnson, has previously alluded to, is all but Belichick-like in the way he grooms his assistants for future success and I expect no less out of McDermott and I have every bit of confidence in the world that he will deliver. The only concern I have about the Eagles defense is a personnel concern and that is how will the Eagles secondary hold up without Brian Dawkins, as no big-name replacement was ever signed in free agency and the Eagles did not use their early round draft picks on a safety (I believe Sean Jones is currently penciled in as a starter on the full side next to strong safety Quentin Demps).

McDermott gets Eagles defensive coordinator job (Philly Inquirer)

Coach K To LA?

How is this for a surprise? The rumor is being floated out there that everybody's favorite coach, Mike Krzyzewski (spelled correctly without any aids, BOO-YAH!), might leave Duke University where he became world-wide famous for taking a bunch of goody two shoes kids from many affluent suburbs in the northeast and mid-Atlantic and made them even more stuck up by bringing them down to Duke University, home of the stuck-up. Yeah, that Coach K. Well, it appears that he may leave Durham, NC for Los Angeles, California. That job in LA though is not a college job. It's a professional job. As in, Coach K may actually be the next coach of the Los Angeles Lakers! From Fox Sports.

To start, let's take a look at an intriguing rumor that has been persistently floating around in cyberspace:

That, within the next month, Mike Krzyzewski will take over as Lakers coach once Phil Jackson announces his retirement.

Giving some credence to this possibility is the fact that Kobe Bryant lobbied long and hard for Krzyzewski to take over when Jackson walked away from the Lakers bench back in 2004.

All kidding aside about Duke and Coach K, there is little doubt that Coach K is great at what he does as a basketball coach. That being said, though, I just don't think that I see him coaching in the NBA. He has literally become a staple of that program and while it certainly is a possibility and I have no idea what Coach K himself is actually thinking, I just don't see him leaving what made him what he was.

Besides, if Coach K leaves, who else would have the capability to tell Greg Paulus and all others like him to have no regrets when it comes to the Duke rite of passage of kissing a boy (and liking it)?

Doug Collins To The Sixers?

Well it looks like the Eagles might be interested in a candidate who is very familiar to people who saw the epic Bulls-Celtics series (and other NBA games on TNT). It's none other than Captain Obvious Doug Collins!From NBA.com

Collins was among a list of candidates floated to replace Tony DiLeo, who stepped down on Monday and returned to the front office.

"They know, I've talked to them like two or three times, they know what I've said," Collins said on Tuesday night from Los Angeles. "Whatever they want to do, they know where I am if they want to call."

After a 9-14 start under Maurice Cheeks, DiLeo replaced him on an interim basis. Philadelphia went 32-27 under DiLeo and made the playoffs.

Collins is 332-287 in a coaching career that includes stops with Chicago, Detroit and Washington. He hasn't coached since the 2002-03 season with the Wizards.

This team needs someone who is experienced and while I will admit to knowing very little about NBA coaches or how good of a fit Doug Collins is, anything is better than DiLeo who seemingly from all accounts I've heard from people who do watch the Sixers, was pretty much uneffective as a coach and it was one of those situations where the players were more on top of things than he was. I'd certainly be interested in seeing how Collins can change things up. I have good feelings about this move, then again, I would have a good feeling about a chimpanzee taking over the job mainly because anything is better than what the Sixers had under DiLeo. Yeah, I'd like to see this. Besides, the fact that I actually know who he is also gets me excited over it and something that I could watch and get into more than if they brought in someone I never heard of before.

Guess Who's Once Again An Eagle....

As if there wasn't enough things going on today, now there's this news from the Eagles. According to Les Brown of the Philadelphia Daily News, the Eagles have brought back a certain Quarterback. No, Koy Detmer is not coming back to once again be the holder. Or is brother Ty. No, it's not Randall Cunningham. It's not Mike McMahon. It's not Jeff Garcia. No, you're wrong if you think it's Bobby Hoying. If you had Doug Pederson, congragulatons! You're a winner!

A source close to the situation confirmed last night that Doug Pederson, everyone's favorite former Eagles quarterback, is returning to the team in a coaching role. It would seem to make sense that Pederson would coach the quarterbacks, replacing Pat Shurmur, who was just hired to run St. Louis' offense by ex-Eagles assistant Steve Spagnuolo. But indications are that someone else will coach the QBs and that Pederson might just replace "offensive assistant'' Mark Whipple, who left the Birds yesterday after 1 year on the staff to become the offensive coordinator for the Miami Hurricanes.

Definitley an interesting move. Hopefully he'll be a better coach than he was quarterback (am I the only one that remembers that Reid brought him in until McNabb was ready to start?).

And while his quarterback career was rather forgettable, I can actually get excited over this hire. He was seen by many during his playing does as a player-coach, so we'll see how he does, but I think he'll do just fine as a coach, whether it be QB coach, offensive assistant, or whatever ends up happening. And perhaps, that this is an indication that the Eagles are going to have some major shake-ups this off-season, I'm happy! That is, as long as they are the right moves (*cough*cough*Trade for Anquan Boldin and draft Beanie Wells*cough*cough*)

Doug Pederson Returning to the Eagles as coach (Philadelphia Daily News
Na Brown is Next! (Russakoff Rules)