Bleacher Report - Articles by Andrew Hamilton

Will the Real Philadelphia Eagles Please Stand Up!?

Andrew Hamilton — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:10:00 -0500

Here is a trivia question: How many NFL teams called the "Eagles" have played in Philadelphia since 2004?

The answer? Two. One amazingly dominant team that knocks off the NFL darling (and molly coddled) New York Giants, which we will call the "Good Eagles," and the other Eagles team?

One sad, underwhelmingly inept team that fights tooth and nail to eek out a tie against one of the worst teams in the NFL. We shall call this Eagles team the "Evil Twin."

This "tale of two teams" in Philadelphia isn't unique to this season alone, mind you. Oh no, this two-headed monster has reared its ugly mug(s) for four-years running.

It just seems that because the Good Eagles win so big, the Evil Twin Eagles seem to go unnoticed. Overrated? Possibly. Underperforming? Definitely. But of course, which team you see each Sunday all depends on which Sunday you choose to watch them play.

I, sadly, try to watch them every week so the great disparity of good and evil is quite apparent to me. Let's recap these last few years to see if we can pick up on a trend.

2005 season

Evil Eagles ruled this season. Win/loss record 6-10. Brad Childress leaves the team at the end of the 2004 season to coach the Vikings. He is replaced by Marty Mourning-wig. Apparently, Andy Reid was so impressed by Marty's 5-27 record with the Lions that he just HAD to get him on board the team to develop a very predictable, inconsistent, and underperforming offensive squad.

Marty really rose the occasion and accomplished all three tasks with amazing quickness. The self-destruction of this season was blamed on Terrell Owens' implosion and attempted suicides etc., but really, he was just a big fat distraction. Not in the way you were told in the sports press: "a distraction to the team, to the coaches" etc.

Rather, he was a smoke and mirrors "scapegoat" to distract the fans, from recognizing the real problem that lay in the fundamental operation of offense. Toward the end of the season, Andy Reid admitted to 'interfering' a bit too much and not allowing Marty to make the play calling.

He promised to turn more of the offense over to Marty. Phew! Thank God! Now we can see Mourning-wig's five-win-27-loss genius in all its glory. A couple other side notes here.

The Eagles were 26th in penalties this year, which is a sure sign of nothing other than poor preparation, and poor preparation is nothing other than poor coaching. And let's not forget,McNabb started the season playing like crap against the Falcons, then fantastic against the 49ers, then a couple games later, like crap against the Cowboys. Then, wouldn't you know it, injured for the final six games.

The truth is, he played like garbage for the four games leading up to this injury. People seemed to overlook that and would give the excuse, "This is just a different team without McNabb." No, it's just as inconsistent without him as it is WITH him. We just win half our games by three points instead of 30.

2006 season

Good Eagles showed up slightly more than the Evil-twin Eagles during this season.

The win/loss record was 10-6. McNabb got off to one of the best statistical seasons of his career, and despite all those wonderful yards and touchdown-to-INT ratios? We were, you guessed it! Five wins and five losses! Then, wouldn't you know it? Injured, out for the rest of the season.

Here come the excuses, "This is just a different team without McNabb." "He is the heart and soul of this offense." All due to his tremendous statistics. In my not-so-humble opinion, keep the yards and stats, give me the wins, which is exactly what McNabb's backup gave us, five wins and one loss.

Yep, we were definitely a different team without McNabb, with Jeff Garcia coming off the bench, we won consistently! Garcia, a good veteran backup came in and saved our bacon.

Garcia led our 5-5 team to a division title and the playoffs. We beat the Giants in the wild card...then lost to the then-NFL darling (and NFL referee favored) Saints, of course, due to inept coaching, clock management, and predictable play calling.

To thank Garcia for his heroics, he was shown the working end of Reid's boot with the door slammed shut behind him. This is more smoke and mirrors, fire the backup QB, not the incompetent Offensive Coordinator.

Now, instead of firing Mourning-twig for a RIDICULOUS offensive scheme, Reid decides to pick up A.J. Feely at the end of the 2006 season! Ol' 19 for 42 1 td 4 int himself.

Apparently Reid was REALLY impressed with Feely's 61.7 passer rating at Miami and just HAD to get this clown back on the roster, get rid of Garcia, promote Mr. 19 for 42 1 td 4 int up to No. 2 QB on the squad. Whose call was this?

Mornhinweg or Reid?

Some side notes, again: The Eagles were 30th in the league for penalties this season, not to repeat myself but, penalties equal bad coaching plain and simple.

2007 season

The Battle of the Evil Twins put the win/loss record at 8-8. This season was the best representation of what the Eagles have been over the last four seasons—a perfect .500 record.

This was a season where the Evil Eagles and the Good Eagles would alternate showing up from week to week with blowouts one game, and then amazingly BLOWN out the next game.

Again, this is starting to be typical of 5-27 Mourning-ball. McNabb was healthy this entire year, but would throw for 381 yards in one game, then the Evil Eagles would show up and he would throw for 158 yds.

Sound familiar? It should, it is EXACTLY what has happened all year in 2008! Never mind the inconsistent play, coaching, etc, here come some more excuses: "Rust" - McNabb has been out so long!, "Recovery"- it sometimes takes 100 years to recover from a blown ACL, and/or "Receivers" (lack thereof).

Never mind the fact that McNabb is throwing passes into the dirt and eating sack after sack because our receivers couldn't get open, and when they could, McNabb couldn't find them.

Nope, none of that taken into consideration, it was all due to rust, recovery, and receivers. One excuse after the other. When, in reality, there were never any adjustments made on the part of our offense to counteract things that defenses threw at us this year.

There were still horrendous moments of clock mismanagement and a very predictable offensive scheme. Please remember, the Evil Eagles had us at five wins and eight losses after 13 games, the Good Eagles had to show up and FIGHT to win the last three games of this season just to get us back to...you guessed it! .500!

In all fairness, we went from 30th in penalties in 2006 to 18th in 2007, nothing to write home about, but an honest improvement (we really couldn't have done worse in this area than we did in '06).

2008 season

8-7-1. Like the previous seasons, we started out with a BLOWOUT of St. Louis (one of the worst teams in the league) and then went on to lose three of our next four games. In the area of penalties, we slipped back to 25th (as of Week 16) and judging from how sloppy this team played against the Redskins this week, they will probably slip even further.

After making progress in 2007, we are now back to where we were in 2005, with regards to being one of the most undisciplined teams in the league. Two full years of a healthy Donovan McNabb and yet, still we have won as many games as we've lost.

Where are the excuses now?

There aren't any. We have the talent, we just don't have the leadership. So today, I watched my beloved Eagles eliminated from the playoffs by a VASTLY inferior team in the Washington Redskins (inferior fans as well).

So what do we do now? Do we trade away our first-round draft pick for the third year in a row? Or do we keep it and draft a Defensive Tackle that amounts to nothing? Announcers, and football fans that I've talked to, are "surprised" by the inconsistent play of the Eagles and of McNabb.

But as I've pointed out, there are no surprises here. In fact, there are no changes here in the mediocrity of our offense over the last four years.

As I've mentioned before, keep the statistics and points scored, none of that matters, its about wins and losses and sadly, because on any given Sunday (a very horrible movie), the Evil Eagles or the Good Eagles can show up, and the result is a demon-possessed team that has lost as many games as it has won over the last four years: 6-10, 10-6, 8-8, 8-7-1.

What is the answer?

Fire Mornhinweg and get a good offensive coordinator. The window isn't closing on the Eagles; it has shut. Begin the rebuild, and keep an eye on Andy Reid, if all he can produce is a .500 squad with the best players in the league, then maybe it will be time for a change.

Even Holmgren reached a place where he could only do so much with his teams. Reid was one of the best we ever had, but something desperate has to be done for him to maintain his respect and reputation among Eagles fans.

Where Do Philadelphia Eagles Fans Come From? Part Two of Five

Andrew Hamilton — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:16:00 -0400

I had no idea how quickly this answer would come to me. Part one consisted of boyish dreams, newfound identity, a new group of heroes, and immediate success with a football team.

Part two would be a rude awakening.

It doesn't take much for a "fan" to suffer through great success. In fact, here in Vegas, we have a name for people that always bet the favorites: frontrunners. Most young fans start out this way, and I was no different.

However, the rite of passage into ANY fanbase would have to be the endurance of defeat and undying support in the face of failure.

At 14 years of age, I would find myself completing this rite, right away.
The 1981 season had a few upsides. My new team would go 6-0 right out of the gate and although the "dynasty" tag was not really thrown around in those days, there were a lot of Eagles believers back then.

Wilbert Montgomery would have one of the best seasons of his career, rushing for 1,400 yards and receiving another 500+ yards. We also boasted the No. 1 defense, led by third-year linebacker Jerry Robinson.

Jerry Sisemore was the lone representative of the offense that year in the Pro Bowl. Defensively, Jerry Robinson, Frank Lemaster, Charlie Johnson, and Roynell young would all make trips to the Pro Bowl. However, long before the season ended, my Eagles' season ended.

It all started to come unraveled around mid-season. The Eagles would lose six of their last 10 games to finish 10-6, only to be eliminated in the playoffs by the dreaded and all-evil Giants (with a defense led by a rookie kid named Lawrence Taylor).

It was a deflating end. The offense was snubbed in the Pro Bowl, despite having the fourth best rusher (and fourth best offense) in the league.

My old Raiders buddy, who was wallowing in the joy of a Super Bowl victory over my team, was now bitterly enduring a 7-9 season. The team name-calling began. Just about any derogatory reference for homosexual was retrofitted to the name Philadelphia.

Normally, I suppose I would have caved and safely move on to a team that was winning at the time. Cincinnati? San Francisco? I couldn't do it. For some reason, the childhood attacks galvanized my support for the team. I survived the onslaught and would utter those five magical words for the first time (of many times): "Just wait till next year."

Now, as a fledgling NFL fan, I didn't know much about draft prospects or anything even close to that. But I knew that our pick, No. 20, was not the best position to be picking from, and the guy we got was named "Mike Quick" and repeatedly, I heard announcers say, "His name is Quick, but he is anything but quick."

Little would I know that this first-round pick would be my only light in the dark cave of the seasons that would immediately follow.

They started the 1982 season with one loss and one win, and then they ended the 1982 season. The strike would shorten that year to nine games. My beloved Eagles, whom I SWORE would be back in 1982, came back from the strike to go 2-5, end up with a 3-6 record, and find themselves eliminated from playoff contention for the first time in four years.

What went wrong? It's hard to say. The coaching staff would claim, correctly, that the Eagles never really played good football from the middle of the 1981 season.

Dick Vermeil, my new hero, would quit and utter a phrase that would become a mainstream idiom; he claimed that he was "burned out."

Out came the detractors, more childhood name calling, and for me, I just learned to ignore it. I blamed it on the weird strike and guaranteed this team would be back next year! (There I go again.)

By this time, I was nearly 15 and had abandoned my childish plastic-helmet collection. Gone was the paper route. Now I had moved up to mowing lawns, digging ditches, and caring for plants at a plant store. Yep, I was big time, making a grand total of $3 an hour six hours a week!

It was around this time that I began to invest myself in the Eagles even more. I began to collect football cards like a insane little teenager. My family was poor during those years, and I wish I could say that I saved every penny and then hurriedly scampered to the 7-11 to buy some Topps football cards, but unfortunately, my youth was not quite Brady Bunch material.

In reality, I bought as many as I could honestly, the rest I "borrowed" with all the integrity of a Las Vegas teenager. Not the brightest moment of my childhood. But within a short time, I would go fully legit.

In those days, we didn't have the Internet with databasefootball.com or nfl.com to get our info. Most kids kept informed from the backs of these chipboard cheapie football cards. I was no different. I had fully immersed myself in the stats, records, and trivia that comprised the Philadelphia Eagles.

The time for my team was dark and only getting darker, but strangely, I had developed a trait that Eagles fans have come to know well: resolve.

Where do Eagles fans come from? They arise during times of plenty, but ultimately are strengthened during times of want.

Part Three will cover the plunge to rock bottom and strange hope that a cantankerous defensive coordinator and second-round draft pick would bring to the City of Brotherly Love.

Where Do Philadelphia Eagles Fans Come From? Part One of Five

Andrew Hamilton — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:08:00 -0400

The Quick Answer: a 25-cent football-helmet machine.

The Long Answer: From years of agonizing ups and downs, where loyalty is tested in the hellfire that spawned little annoying demons of silver/blue, red/blue, and red/orange.

Growing up in Las Vegas, the "Entertainment Capital of the World", in the late '70s was about as entertaining as watching an off-Broadway stage play starring Tony Danza in drag. (Which I think actually ran at the Riviera for a while). But like all desert-dwelling kids with nothing to do, I found ways to pass the time.

Like other kids, I had a paper route and blew most of that money on Asteroids, Space Invaders, and pinball. I always saved a couple bucks for football cards (Topps or Fleer, the chipboard gum-stained variety—we didn't have 'upper deck' glossy cards back then) and our neighborhood version of childhood gambling:

NFL football helmets. Yep, that's right. Put a quarter in, and DAMN if you didn't get another lame Baltimore Colts or New England Patriots (2-14 that year) helmet!

EVERY quarter was a crapshoot. I admit, at the point of near vomiting, I was a bit of a front-runner at 11, and I think the winningest team of the day was the Steelers. I knew nothing about them. I just knew they recently beat the Los Angeles Rams on TV and that was good enough for me.

I put a quarter in the NFL helmet lotto dispenser and instead of a black and gold helmet, out came a green helmet with silver wings on each side. I thought it was very cool looking.

I kept it, despite wanting to trade it at first, and through a little magazine called "Football Digest" (We didn't have ESPN or nfl.com back in those days) I discovered that this was the Philadelphia Eagles, and with a "superback" named Wilbert Montgomery, was a serious up-and-comer in the NFL.

I read anything I could find about them: magazines, football stats from the backs of my Topps gum-stained cards, anything. The next season, I was going to watch for this team.

It just so happened that the season I chose to start following the birds was the 1980 football season. For a little 11-year-old front-runner, the timing couldn't have been better. I only saw one televised game in Las Vegas that year, Eagles vs. Saints (of course, we didn't have DIRECTV back then), which was an Eagle blowout.

This Eagles team went on to a 12-4 record, and I watched them destroy the only team I truly hated in the NFL at the time: the Dallas Cowboys. This new favorite team went to the Super Bowl the first season I followed them. It was fate. I'm sure.

I began to trade my worthless Franco Harris, Stallworth, and Bradshaw cards for the more valuable (in my mind) Jaworski, Carmichael, and Montgomery cards (which I still have today).

I couldn't wait for the Super Bowl. My best friend at the time was (and still is) an avid Raiders fan. He couldn't believe that I was turning on him and his team to support the Eagles! He was still ticked off at the Eagles because earlier that year Philadelphia played Oakland and beat them 10-6.

Coming into this Super Bowl, the Raiders were the "underdogs" (a new term to me that I would NEVER forget in the subsequent Eagles seasons). I was sure that my new favorite team was guaranteed a Super Bowl victory over the evil black-jerseyed Raiders!

Then reality set in, the game started, and Rod Martin of the Raiders was EVERYWHERE. He intercepted so many of Jaworski's passes that I think he started calling for a "fair catch" every time Jaworski dropped back to pass (a la John McKay of the Buccaneers). It was awful.

We managed one touchdown to Keith Krepfle (not even Montgomery or Carmichael!) and one Tony Franklin field goal. Despite the touchdown cutting the Raiders' lead to only two touchdowns (24-10), our defense: Bill Bergey, John Bunting, Randy Logan, etc. just couldn't stop Pumpkinhead Plunkett and his offense from getting into field-goal range.

They scored the final points of the game, bringing the final score to 27-10. At the end of it, I confess, I was 12-years old and crying like a baby. I don't know why. As a 12-year-old boy, I knew that crying was evil and make-fun worthy by every OTHER 12-year-old boy, but I couldn't help myself.

I sensed a great disappointment of missed opportunity. In fact, prior to that game, I NEVER had any emotional attachment to any team, besides maybe the little church soccer teams I played for. This was truly something I'd never felt before.

In hindsight, I believe that this newfound attachment was what made me a true Eagles fan. Even though I had never set foot in Philadelphia and was trapped in a mob-infested desert hellhole in Nevada, I was still emotionally attached to this football team on the other side of the earth.

Somehow, I came to identify with a professional team, "bled green" with, if you will, and Dick Vermeil was my new hero, and my destiny as an Eagles fan would forever be cemented, despite that loss to the Raiders in Super Bowl XV.

Part one ends with the Eagles reaching the Super Bowl. Part two will catalogue the excruciating tests of loyalty I was soon to face as a newborn Eagles supporter.