NFL 2012

You could have really stuck in the knife by suggesting they hire a Jim Zorn...

Actually, I intentionally picked guys who weren't totally incompetent. Otherwise I would've included Mike Singletary, Marty Morninwheg, Bobby Petrino or Cam Cameron. Although maybe McDaniels belongs in the second group, he did get rid of an established QB and #1 WR before ever coaching a game.

Reports say the Eagles are going to interview Seahawks DC Gus Bradley and Colts interim head coach Bruce Arians. How exciting for Philadelphia fans.

And it looks like Chip Kelly is off the table, with multiple reports that he's going to Cleveland.

Why?

My guess is tons of money + total control, ie things you don't get in Philly, SD, Arizona, etc.

Money, sure, but don't forget that Kelly is a northeasterner. His entire career prior to Oregon was back east. So Cleveland and Buffalo and Philly probably have greater attraction to him then the west coast teams. Then throw in money and power and there you go.

But he also has to coach Cleveland.

I'm a Skins fan, but now I live up near Philly. I actually feel bad for Chiefs fan with this hire. If you really look at Reid critically, his teams have been utterly mediocre since that loss in the 2004 Superbowl. He got more control over the scouting and draft after that point, and since then, the Eagles have gone 69-65-1, so if you're excited for a 8-8 season...good hire. The last playoff game the Eagles won was in 2008.

He really benefited from Jim Johnson, and you can see his teams really weren't the same after Jim passed away. Jim's defenses were ferocious, but the offense was always a finesse offense...so when Jim passed away, both sides of the team became more finesse oriented, and the Eagles became a soft team. You'll see this as he drives you nuts by passing 70% of the time. McCoy was the best player on the Eagles, and Andy repeatedly refused to actually use him. I wonder how he's going to use Charles.

He also really needed to take time off before coaching again. He was burnt out this year (death of his son weighed on him heavily). Oh and just be aware that the guy is insufferably arrogant with media and the fans - he's not quite Brian Billick, but he's close.

That's a valid point, he's probably a Mike Holmgren type, good coach but should not be in charge of personnel. Giving him too much power could doom him as a coach, assuming they don't have the balls and the sense to take away his front office powers after a few seasons like the Seahawks did with Holmgren. I remember last season hearing that Asante Samuel and Nnamdi Asomugha couldn't play well together because one was better in man and the other was better in zone. Why the hell would you spend big money on a player who doesn't fit your scheme?

Apparently Ponder is out with an elbow injury for tonight. This is either going to be a total disaster or total hilarity.

Bring on the Patriots!*

*not really

Or both!

Webb is ridiculously dangerous when he busts out and runs. Dude is crazy fast.

Can't really say anything pro or con about his arm, though (other than if he could throw, you figure he'd be the starter).

Surely Minnesota will start passing the ball soon!

nm: disaster.

Going out on a limb: none of the teams that have played today are winning the Super Bowl.

I do think you make some good points, even though I suspect it will be a few years (and coaches) before the Eagles are good again. But don't exaggerate Reid's failings. Yeah, the last two years have been bad, and given the influx of talent that is pretty inexcusable. However, in 14 years as a head coach he's had three losing seasons and two 8-8 years. Take out the 4-12 this year and the 6-10 the year after the Superbowl loss and his record since then has been 60-39, which shows that rather then being consistently mediocre, the Eagles have been up and down. There have been some good years there, even if those weren't deep playoff run years.

This argument reminds me a lot of all the talk here about how mediocre Jeff Fisher was with the Titans. Since he's left the Titans have been worse then mediocre and Fisher has managed to turn around the Rams in one year. I suspect Reid has the chance to have a similar instant impact. And for franchises that have lost for awhile a guy who makes them competitive is what they need.

Listen, overall I think he's a good coach, but he is a poor talent evaluator. He's also been visibly burned out the past two years. He really needed a year off to regroup, reconnect with his family, and recharge his batteries. This was a very trying year for him personally; aside from having to fire two coaches (one of whom was a close friend), one of his sons died of a drug overdose at training camp.

And you can't just ignore bad years, especially when the trend is pretty clear how Andy's career has gone.

Webb would be an all-pro if he could actually throw the damn ball.

What a disaster of a game. Bummer. Packers did their thing, Vikings couldn't do a damn thing on offense for 3.5 quarters. Shame; I was really looking forward to it win or lose, and then Ponder was deactivated, and then...that.

Just poppin' in to say go seahawks :)

Goose, Moose and the Other Guy are still light-years better than Chucky. Thank God ESPN doesn't have the playoffs.

Billick is quite good, and I think Aikman is decent as well*. Joe Buck is fucking horrible as a football play by play guy though. Just. So. Bland. And. Undescriptive.

*I may be the only person that thinks this.

I like this comparison, because both Fisher and now Reid have taken over teams that have some decent, if fragile talent and underperformed the year prior to their arrival. I'm not sure what the Rams upside is in the next few years (considering that the NFC West is actually quite tough now), but if Reid can get the Chiefs performing to something like their talent level then they should compete next year for at least a wildcard spot (assuming Peyton's cyberneck holds up to the cold another year; that division is a mess).

As a Cowboys fan I'm pretty happy about getting Reid out of the division though; he's a better coach than the battery chuckers up there deserve.

Well the fans in Philly deserve Rich Kotite as Coach For Eternity. They're horrible. I like being here when the season falls apart on them and listening to their talk radio shows. The absolute overreaction and pain and anguish they express is...just so delicious.

Surprise surprise, without the crowd disrupting everything the opposing offense tries to do and providing free false starts and delay of game penalties, the Seahawks can't play defense. I can't believe how many people picked them to win on the road, when they only won two road games all season (and one was against the Panthers, which should only count as half a win). Never mind the Seahawks fans talking about a Super Bowl run, which would require more playoff road wins than they had in the regular season.

They look pretty good right now.

Yep. It's a ballgame.

Let's see what RG3 can do moving forward. If you're a Seattle fan, be happy they got an INT off him, and off a bad decision and throw. He just doesn't do that, so he's probably not running at full steam right now (RG1.5 perhaps). He had only 5 INTs all year, with 2 of them being off balls the receivers hands that got tipped into the air.

Please do not jinx my team like this...

Fuck Shannahan for keeping RGIII in that game.

Man I hate to see any player to down.

Fuck Shannahan for keeping RGIII in that game.

So how was it watchin your team not cross midfield for three quarters? :)

Seahawks, bitches.

;-)

I really would have liked to see what a healthy RG3 would have done in that game. Once he couldn't plant or run...it was over for him.

So would I, honestly, but that is one of the downsides to the way he plays. If I was the Redskins I'd hold on to Cousins for as long as I can - he'll get playing time every year.

Yeah pretty much. :( I really hope that injury's not something that nags him for the next few years. The way his knee buckled looked awful.

Shanahan should have pulled him earlier. Well, what's done is done...we'll see how the knee is. Apparently RG3 was walking after the game, so hopefully it's not awful.

I will also say I'm really getting tired of losing to the Seahawks in the playoffs...2005, 2007, 2012. Good lord. Good luck with the rest of the playoffs, Seahawks. Beat the crap out of the fraud Falcons next week, please!

Eightball from what little I gather you can walk on some pretty bad ligament style injuries, so the fact that he was walking isn't necessarily indicative. :(

I know. I'm being optimistic, dammit.

I've had torn ankle ligaments in the past (multiple times, yay). Right after you injure yourself, sometimes you can walk on it (sometimes it hurts like hell and there's no way), but once you stop walking, it can swell up like a mofo and then you're done. Good news for the Skins is there's a lot of time to rest and heal for people like RG3 and Pierre Garcon, and there are a lot of good players we lost early on in the season who will return for next year (Brian Orakpo and Adam Carriker, both of whom fit in this scheme very well, and Fred Davis who is a hell of a good TE).

I guess the sprain was his LCL, assuming that's what went on him (and obviously that's quite the assumption) well, from what I recall that's not as bad as an ACL tear. Still not good though, especially for a guy who plays the way RGIII does.

If I'm Dan Snyder I'd seriously be considering firing Shannahan right now.

Shanahan said post-game that RG3 told him he could still play at a high level so he left him in. Shanahan also says the doctors cleared his return, but there was a story today that Dr. James Andrews (yes, that one), who serves as a Redskins sideline doctor, never cleared RG3's return when he had the original injury. Shanahan previously said Andrews had cleared him to return in that game. So who knows.