Fixing the Eagles
Football is such a fantastic and amazing sport – it epitomizes life. Unlike other sports, to be successful in football one must overcome adversity. More than that, a football field is the ultimate battle field. The 100-by-52.5 yard rectangular, grass-covered surface deciphers which men are courageous and which are not.
Football at the professional level is even more complicated. An organization must be run in a specific manner to be consistently successful. The two organizations which epitomize this quality most are the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New York Giants. It is no coincidence that these organizations have won 10 Super Bowls between them, more impressively four of the last seven. The organization must work in unison, with uniform beliefs of how to improve the team. A franchise must have a caring owner that is interested in winning championships, and who isn’t satisfied with just the money side of owning an NFL team. The owner should have an elaborate understanding of football as well. The franchise must also have a general manager, or an individual(s) acting as such, who understands the contractual side of the game, but who also has a great eye for talent. The franchise must also have an excellent coach who also knows how to build a team, how to coach, how to handle the different personalities on the roster, and maybe most importantly how to prepare for each week’s game. The franchise’s players must also be ‘character guys’. Players who are positive, confident, focused, and dedicated to the team make everyone’s job in the organization much easier.
As for the Eagles…
Jeffrey Lurie is a smart businessmen. His franchise is always making an astounding profit regardless of the team’s production on the field. Lurie has hired two head coaches since buying the Eagles in 1994: Ray Rhodes and Andy Reid. Lurie has the football intelligence to be a Super Bowl-winning owner; however, he must make changes beneath him in the Eagles’ front office.
It all starts with Howie Roseman. Start a petition now, do whatever, but make one thing absolutely crystal clear, the Eagles WILL NOT and CANNOT win a Super Bowl with Howie Roseman as general manager. He has whiffed in the draft and free agency. Roseman drafted too many busts in a time where the Eagles were on a peak, but needed young help defensively. The jury is out on Brandon Graham, who is finally starting to resurrect his career after a severe knee injury in 2010. Nate Allen was benched this season, after two very inadequate seasons, for special teamer Colt Anderson. Daniel Te’o-Nesheim was axed after one abysmal season with the team. The scanty draft picks continued in 2011, starting with first round pick Danny Watkins. Watkins sat on the bench for the first half of his rookie season for free agent off the street Kyle Devan. This season, Watkins is still struggling and even after returning to the practice field after an ankle injury that has reportedly bugged Watkins throughout his football career, Watkins was benched for rookie Dennis Kelly and eventually another street free agent Jake Scott. The busts continued in 2011 with second round pick Jaiquawn Jarrett who barely licked the field his rookie season. Jarrett’s second season was a regression much like Watkins’ and it eventually lead to his release a few games into the season. Third rounder Curtis Marsh has been mostly absent from the field, but is still on the roster after two seasons.
Free agency is where Howie Roseman really digs his own grave. Consistently good football organizations, like the Steelers and Giants, know which player
s to sign and how much to spend on those players in free agency. The Steelers hold a belief that no player, especially no free agent, is worth a lucrative contract. They believe a more motivated player can play his position just as well for a lot less money, preferably a player drafted by them. Roseman broke the bank, in one off-season alone, by signing Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, Cullen Jenkins, Steve Smith, Ronnie Brown, and Vince Young to contracts that were worth more than their play. The most important thing to know as a general manager in the NFL is that teams improve more on the practice field than they can by signing free agents in the off-season. I do not know any general managers that I believe can do the job at a championship level, but looking for a pupil of the Steelers’ GM Kevin Colbert or Giants’ GM Jerry Reese may be a good idea. From the Steelers’ front office, I am intrigued by Ron Hughes and Brandon Hunt, two personnel scouts.
To conclude, a few head coaches I would like to see lead the Eagles in 2013 include… Ben McAdoo (current Packers QB coach), Chip Kelly (current Oregon head coach), Bill Cowher (former Steelers head coach, current CBS analyst), and Bruce Arians (current Colts interim head coach and offensive coordinator).
McAdoo (pictured) is the coach I would be most interested in if I were Jeffrey Lurie. He is a western Pennsylvania football prodigy (the birth place of football), so that intrigues me since I also reside from western PA. He has been around a great offensive mind, ie Mike McCarthy. McAdoo has helped shape Rodgers into the league’s best quarterback, and the top rated passer of back-to-back seasons. McAdoo is apparently a hot commodity around league gossip for a head coaching gig in 2013. Coincidentally, McAdoo would transition from Green Bay quarterback coach to Philadelphia head coach… just like current Eagles’ head coach Andy Reid.