Power Play in Philly: Andy Reid Gets More Control over the Eagles

Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times reports this morning that head coach Andy Reid was ready to "walk away from the Eagles if he didn't get more personnel control, and now he has it."

Farmer links this episode to the recent flurry of activity we've seen coming from Eagles headquarters. As I wrote earlier this week, the Eagles have had a fantastic start to the offseason. The team locked up their own core guys and traded for DeMeco Ryans to shore up their weak linebacker corps. 

One other fascinating tidbit is the fact that Reid apparently wanted to jump into the Peyton Manning sweepstakes. Manning, however, was reportedly less than thrilled with the idea of facing his brother Eli twice a year. As a result, substantive talks never really took place. 

Of course, now the word is out, Reid is in full spin-control mode and issued a statement on the matter a little while ago:

"We look into everything, as all teams do. And I have the highest regard for Peyton Manning. But as I said publicly last month, that wasn't the direction we were heading in. Michael is our guy." 

Yeah, Michael is your guy—because you couldn't get someone else. 

Reid went all-in with Michael Vick two years ago and rode a wave of exciting play to a home Wild Card Game where his team lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Packers. 

In 2011, after defensive coordinators league-wide had a good year's worth of film on Vick in Philadelphia's offense, Reid saw his star quarterback come back down to earth. Not only did Vick struggle to stay healthy behind a suspect offensive line, but all the weaknesses that haunted him as the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons came back to the forefront. Among these, the most problematic being a dangerous inability to diagnose the blitz pre-snap. 

Obviously, one of the best quarterbacks ever at reading defenses, both pre- and post-snap, is Peyton Manning. It's not surprising that Reid, an old quarterbacks coach, wanted to work with the best in the business, kick the tires and see if Manning would be interested. 

The Eagles coach wants to get back to a Super Bowl and many of his latest moves should help. Would Manning have put him there? Would the Eagles have been a better team with Manning at the controls than with Vick? Andy Reid seems to think so.