A Gimpy Brian Westbrook Won't Discourage Pass-Happy Andy Reid

Marv Levy, the longtime coach of the Buffalo Bills, famously said once, in reply to a local scribe who asked him how he deals with strangers on the street giving him unsolicited gameplanning advice, that "If you start listening to fans, you end up sitting with them."

Philadelphia Eagles Head Coach Andy Reid has never crossed paths on a professional level with Levy but one gets the feeling that the two of them would become fast friends, forging a meaningful relationship based on mutual admiration, film study, and cheeseburgers.

Reid, like Levy before him, has attained in his career a ratio of longevity to accomplishment that is practically unheard of in modern professional sports. For a coach to last a decade with a single team is rare.

To do so without winning a single championship and in a media cauldron such as Philadelphia no less, is unheard of and is a testament to the patience of owner Jeffrey Lurie. 

This isn't meant to imply that Lurie is running some kind of charity. Reid certainly has been successful, and few would've guessed that when he was hired ten years ago as a relative no-name candidate with only "Green Bay Packers Quarterbacks Coach" on his NFL resume that he would go on to become the winningest head coach in Eagles history, both in the regular season and postseason.

There are also the five trips to the NFC Championship game, though one has to be careful with the wording when bragging about that.

Yet for all his achievements, Reid has found it difficult to win the unwavering support, much less the love, of the team's rabid fan base. 

The primary reason for this is, of course, the aforementioned zero Super Bowl trophies earned in his tenure, just like Ray Rhodes before him, and Rich Kotite before him, and Buddy Ryan before him... well you get the idea.

However there are other factors as well, and they are entirely of Reid's making.

There's the fact that he has purposefully chosen to keep the media at arm's length during his decade in charge. The next revealing press conference quote from him will be the first and he's never seen the need to even bother pretending that he enjoys his league mandated sessions with the horde of ink-stained wretches covering his popular team.

The media, as they love to remind us, are the conduit for the fans to follow the team. In dismissing them as an annoyance and speaking to them condescendingly or patronizingly, Reid, it can be argued, is being indirectly disrespectful to the fans as well.

There's also the matter of his against-the-grain, counterintuitive gameplanning and his many controversial roster decisions. Last season he didn't see fit to have a fullback on the roster. A year before that he eschewed a punt returner. For most of his tenure, he didn't see the need of having elite, or even above average, wide receivers.

For a coach who has sheepishly admitted that he would never run the ball at all if he could get away with it, that certainly seemed odd.

With all his pass plays on 3rd-and-1, his stubborn refusal to call quarterback sneaks on 4th-and-inches, and his funky 70/30 pass-to-run ratios, Reid has made a career of thumbing his nose not just at the blue collar fans but also conventional football wisdom, a phrase I assure you is not an oxymoron.    

It has been this way from the beginning with Reid. His very first decision in charge, to draft Donovan McNabb instead of the guy the fans wanted, Heisman winning running back Ricky Williams out of the University of Texas, was greeted with loud jeers.

In hindsight it was the right move, but it was also a clear signal that Reid would rather pass than run.

The Eagles under Reid have been notorious for making personnel decisions, both in the draft and in free agency, that have gone against the wishes of their fans and the wisdom of the so-called experts on ESPN and elsewhere.

Only thrice has Reid acquiesced to the fans' pleas for common sense and all three times he has come to regret it. 

In the 2003 NFC Championship game the physical corners of the Carolina Panthers exposed James Thrash and Todd Pinkston, the Eagles much-derided starting receivers. For years Reid had defended their play and insisted the team was "fine" at the position, but after a 14-3 loss where his wideouts struggled mightily to just get off the line of scrimmage, he had to admit it was time for a change.

He gambled on the T.O. freakshow and got 14 productive, relatively incident-free games out of Terrell Owens (including a sterling performance in the team's Super Bowl loss to the Patriots) before the receiver's ego took over and he tore Reid's harmonious locker room apart, essentially demonizing McNabb for having a bigger paycheck.

Owens singlehandedly destroyed the Eagles 2005 season, as he promised he would when the team didn't give him a new contract.

The same offseason where Reid traded for Owens, he also signed defensive end Jevon Kearse in free agency to a huge contract. Kearse was a splashy name, and getting him made the fans very happy. Critics, however, feared that he was soft, injury prone, and not nearly the pass rushing force he was in his early years as a Tennessee Titan.

In four seasons the Eagles got 45 games and 22 sacks out of Kearse, a quintessential example that big money free agency signings rarely live up to the hype.

Finally, Reid kowtowed to the fans and re-signed linebacker Jeremiah Trotter in the offseason following the team's Super Bowl appearance. It broke precedent for a team well known for sending aging veterans packing when their contracts expired.

Trotter was only 28 at the time, but already his knees were shot, and both he and Reid knew it. Coming off a Pro-Bowl season though, it would've been bad form to not keep him so Reid gave in. Trotter was decent in 2005, but not much of a playmaker. By 2006 he was a complete liability against the pass and too slow to reach off tackle runs. He was done.

Having learned from these experiences Reid went back to his comfort zone and has ignored both his fans and critics the past three seasons, for better or worse.

Either way, he hasn't won the brass ring.

This summer saw Reid making many concessions to the fans. A couple of road grading tackles were signed in Jason Peters and Stacy Andrews. Leonard Weaver, an athletic, veteran fullback that can run and block, was acquired. A young running back, LeSean McCoy of Pitt, was drafted to complement Brian Westbrook.

It looks like the personnel is there to have a balanced offense.

Westbrook's injuries (and subsequent surgeries) change everything.

Reid has shown that his arm doesn't need to be twisted much to abandon the run. If his star runner is gimpy he will not hesitate to go back to his pass heavy ways, critics be damned.

No matter how beefy his line is, no matter how many reps McCoy gets in camp and in preseason, Reid will have the excuse that his backup is a rookie. He will have the crutch that Westbrook is always seemingly a play away from needing crutches. He'll point to the fact that his receiving crew has never been so deep.

He'll win or lose games the way he always has, on the right arm of McNabb.

Andy Reid might yet have to sit with the fans one day, but it won't be because he listened to them.