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Posts Tagged ‘Shady McCoy’

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DON’T FIRE ANDY REID!!!!

In Philadelphia Eagles on February 14, 2012 at 5:12 pm

I know that I’m going against popular demand but I’m glad Andy Reid is here and I hope he stays another year until the Eagles win the Super Bowl. So bring on the comments, all haters are welcome, I’m ready for you. Here’s why I say Andy stays. Last season saw:

  • 3 new offensive linemen, Evan Mathis, and 2 rookies, Danny Watkins and Jason Kelce, that got a lot better as the season went on. Todd Herremans is a quality tackle and some say Jason Peters is the best in the game. They also had a new O-Line coach in Howard Mudd.
  • The O-Line development led Shady McCoy to Honolulu after a tremendous season both rushing and receiving.
  • A crazy season of DeSean Jackson antics and average play that will change next season. Jackson can be a great player again but he hurt this team.
  • Brent Celek and Jeremy Mackiln are good solid players. Jason Avant and Riley Cooper are serviceable reserves.
  • Injuries and turnovers to Michael Vick. You can’t help the injuries but Vick will protect the football much better next season.  The Vince Young experiment didn’t work and it hurt this football team. There was a new QB coach in Doug Pederson.

Overall I think this is a good, maybe great offensive football team if they don’t turn the ball over. Not many teams have these weapons!!

  • The defensive line was pretty decent. Jason Babin was a Pro Bowler. Trent Cole is solid and the guys in the middle, Cullen Jenkins and Mike Patterson did a decent job but some depth is needed up front. Jaqua Parker might have run out of gas but showed spurts.
  • The LB’s got better but need some major help. The Casey Mathews experiment didn’t work out, however he played much better later in the season. The jury’s still out whether he can be a full time player. I’d like to see them pick up a gap filler like London Fletcher a free agent from the Redskins and use the #15 pick in the draft on a LB, preferably Boston College’s Luke Kuechly. That would add some experience and toughness to the group that has to do a better job stopping the run.
  • The DB’s were a mystery. Nnamdi Asomugha was pretty bad. He was pretty a guarantee to get burnt at least once a game for a TD. That won’t happen again this year. Every team in the league couldn’t have been wrong on the guy. Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, Asanti Samuel, if he’s back, Nate Allen, Kurt Coleman, Jaquawn Jarrett, Josilio Hansen will be better next year.

Again there were an awful lot of new faces on defense. Add to that a new Defensive Coordinator, Juan Castillo, new DL Coach, Jim Washburn, new  LB Coach, Mike Caldwell, new CB Coach, Johnny Lynn, whose been replaced and new Safeties Coach Mike Zordich and not having any offseason practice time to get to know the new players and new coaches hurt this team badly especially early in the year.

  • The Special Teams added a rookie kicker, Alex Henery and a rookie punter, Chaz Henry to go with solid long snapper Jon Dorenbos. I can’t say you can upgrade from David Akers but these guys did a nice job.

 All of these things bring us to Andy Reid. Here are a few facts and figures for you to consider:

  • 5th Winningest Active Coach. Bill Belichick (175 wins – 17 seasons), Mike Shanahan (157-25), Jeff Fisher (142-20), Tom Coughlin (142-16), Reid (126-13).
  • Reid is 2nd among active coaches with 45 more wins than losses. Only Belichick is better with 78.
  • Reid is tied for 1st among active coaches for years taking his teams to the playoffs with Belichick with 9. Remember Belichick has coached for 17 seasons to Reids 13.
  • Reid has also coached the 2nd most playoff games and won the 2nd most playoff games to only Belichick.
  • Reid has been to 5 NFC championship games and 1 Super Bowl as Head Coach of the Eagles.
  • If Reid coached another 13 seasons with the same 126 wins, his 252 wins would rank him 3rd all time behind Don Shula and George Halas and 2 win ahead of Tom Landry. That’s pretty serious company.

 The only thing that is not on this Andy Reid resume is a Super Bowl Championship. The team is set up to make a run at the Super Bowl with the players they have and a possibly a few slight additions and there’s no one better than Andy to take them there.

E-A-G-L-E-S!!!!!

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Philly Pressbox Weekly Sports Update – 1/22-28

In Misc Philly Sports on January 29, 2012 at 8:40 am

A quick review of Philly Sports for the week of January 22

  •   We lost Joe Paterno – RIP
  •   We lost Andy Musser – RIP
  •   We said goodbye to Brad Lidge. 2008 was a great season. There’s nothing like being perfect.

We said goodbye to Wilson Valdez. No more 19th inning pitching wins.

Phil Knight –Enough said!!

We found greatness in Penn State, Kenny Jackson, Charlie, Pittman, Jimmy Cefalo, Todd Blackledge, Chris Marrone, Michael Robinson, Michael Mauti, Lauren Perrotti, Jeff Bast, Susan Welch, Kurtis Cleckner and Jay Paterno, Sue Paterno and the Paterno family.

The Phils welcome Juan Pierre. Could he be the leadoff hitter we need?

Congrats to Flyers Claude Giroux, Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell for making the NHL All Star team. Especially Hartnell making his 1st appearance in his 11th season.

Claude Giroux goes to the All Star break 2nd in the league in points

The Flyers go to the All Star break in 2nd place in the Atlantic Division 3 points behind the Rangers.

The 76ers finished the week 3-1 and lead the Atlantic Division by 4 games.

Congrats to Shady McCoy, Jason Peters and Jason Babin for making the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. A special shout out to former Eagle David Akers for another trip to Honolulu.

Temple (15-5) whipped St. Joe’s (13-9), 78-60 at the Liacouras Center. I wish those games were still at the Palestra.

Drexel is 17-5 and has won 9 in a row.

Penn is 11-9 and has won 3 in a row.

LaSalle is 16-6 and has won 3 in a row.

Villanova lost to Marquette falling to 11-12.

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EAGLES “STAY OR GO” FAN VOTE

In Philadelphia Eagles on January 8, 2012 at 9:02 am

Currently Philly.com is running the end of season fan voting for the Philadelphia Eagles. If you don’t know how it works, you log on and go through essentially the entire roster and choose if you feel the player should “stay or go”. Once you’ve voted on the player the current vote result is shown. There were 24 offensive players, 30 defensive players, 3 special teams players, 3 coaches, 3 administrators and a mascot listed. There have been between 2000-5000 votes cast so far, (you don’t have to vote for every player). I found the results very surprising. Here’s the breakdown.

On offense the fans want to keep ALL of the starters. This is the offensive machine that finished 4th overall in the league but generated a league high 39 turnovers. Here’s who the fans voted needed to “go”: Vince Young, Ronnie Brown, Steve Smith, Winston Justice, Julian Vendervelde, Jamaal Jackson and King Dunlap. That’s it!!! The fans even voted to keep Chad Hall, Mike Kafka and Owen Schmidt. I can’t say I disagree much with this list but keeping an experienced offensive lineman, Justice or Dunlap, is probably not a bad idea. Personally I’m torn over DeSean Jackson. I feel he let this team and fan base down by not playing hard and missing the Arizona game for disciplinary reasons. He’s a tremendous talent but needs to come to work every day. If a good trade for a 1st rounder was offered I’m not sure I wouldn’t move him. The fan base feels different with 74% of the fans wanting him back.

On defensive the fans want to keep 10 players that started most of the season. The only full time starter voted to “go” was Asante Samuel. Only 37% of the fans want him to return. We voted that Casey Matthews, who took an early season beating from the fans and media should stay along with former 1st round pick Brandon Graham. Here are the remaining defensive palyers the fans want to “go”. Some of these guys did contribute during the season to the 10th ranked defense in the league, Juqua Parker, Trevor Laws, Victor Abiamiri, Cedric Thornton, Akeem Jordan, Moise Fokou, Curtis Marsh, Brandon Hughes and Tom Nelson. Personally I like Parker, although he’s getting up in age. I also like Fokou and think I would keep him.

The  three special teams players listed, Alex Henery, Chas Henry and John Dorenbos were all voted to “stay”. Henery only missed 3 FG’s all season but 2 were in the 49er’s game that would’ve put the game away for us. Overall he had a great season. Both Henery and Henry are rookies.

So what we’re saying is that we are very happy with the team that has been put together. We want 24 of our 25 starters to return from a team that went 8-8 and missed the playoffs. What could we possibly be thinking? We’re thinking about the coaches and administration. 56.6% of voters call for Andy Reid to “go”. 53.9% of the voters call for Marty Mornhinweg to “go” and 75.1% of the fans voters call for Juan Castillo to “go”. Personally I think they should all stay. I’m disappointed in the 8-8 season but I still have confidence in Reid and like him as our coach. I think far too much blame has been placed on Castillo. Without making excuses for him he did have new postion coaches at DL, LB, corners and safeties. That’s an entire new staff to go with a new coordinator and a handful of new players. The lockout did hurt them. I feel they will be much better in 2012. On the offensive side of the ball I think Mornhinweg did a decent job that went bad due to the turnovers. For the first time in years the Eagles moved more to running the ball and utilizing the talents of Shady McCoy. I’d like to see them run the ball even more. Michael Vick was sloppy with the football early in the year before McCoy was established and the O-Line came together and it cost the Eagles games. That’s on Vick and some costly fumbles. As mentioned earlier Jackson’s lackluster effort at times hurt the offense. The offensive line improved greatly as the season went on. As far as the administration, 83.3% of the fans voted that Howie Roseman should “go” as the GM and 70.6% feel that Joe Banner should “go”. We have decided to clean out the major coaches and the administration that put together the team that has 24 of 25 guys that we want to keep! Jeffrey Lurie got a pass. 57.4% of the fans want Lurie to “stay”. Even Swoop makes the cut with 56.9% of the fans voting for him to “stay”.  

Please note that the voting is on-going, however, in most cases the splits in the votes are so significant that they won”t change much.  Final decisions on the coaching staff will probably come in the next week. Johnnie Lynn was fired last night and more changes could come but I don’t expect they will be major. Personally I think Castillo is safe but I could be wrong. As far as the players, I think we need to be looking forward to the draft to upgrade the players that we already like. The NFC East was down this year and the Eagles missed a golden opportunity to win the division and move on in the playoffs. They are a better football team than the Giants and the Cowboys but you have to win your games and not just talk about it. 2012 will be a better year. E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!!!

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