Sure, the Birds won and looked great doing it, but as Mike Quick said during the first drive, "Where was this all year?" Honestly, how does it take an NFL coach, one that has been at the helm for 10 years, 13 weeks to realize that when you run the ball, your offense is pretty good? For fuck's sake, Andy waited until the Eagles had virtually no shot to make the playoffs to unveil the potential of this offense. What a jerk.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved what Reid and Marty were doing. It only makes sense to keep DeSean Jackson and Kevin Curtis on the field for the majority of the game. They are your best receivers and should be on the field as much as possible. Also, it was great to see Jason Avant and Hank Baskett used as the other receivers, with Reggie Brown buried on the bench. Plus, getting Kyle Eckel in there to do some blocking and pick up those short yardage situations was a sight to see.
But shit, how the hell does it take tying the Bengals and getting crushed by the Ravens to make that happen? Shouldn't the coach know his personnel, what he needs, and what the players' strengths and weaknesses are? Now, I know that's asking quite a lot from a coach—you know, knowing his players and how to use them—but I guess I'm just kind of demanding that way.
Donovan proved he can still be an excellent quarterback when the other team actually has to play the run. Brian Westbrook, banged up or not, proved he can still be one of the best backs in the league if you just feed him damn ball. All it took was the Eagles' playoff hopes to virtually vanish for Andy and Marty to allow him to do it.
As fun as it was to watch what this team can be when it's firing on all cylinders, it was equally as frustrating thinking about where this team could be had they just played like this all year. But it's really not worth giving yourself a brain aneurysm reliving it.
As far as players who stood out to me, tops on the list was Joselio Hanson. I'm no Joselio fan, to say the least, but he's starting to convert me. Much of the game, Hanson was covering Boldin, who didn't do shit. Joselio was blanketing the beast and was really key to shutting down the Arizona attack. Sheldon was also his steady, underappreciated self, making many big plays, and I was eternally grateful to see that Sean Considine was nowhere near the field. Quintin Demps became the sixth defensive back and looked pretty good.
It wasn't all fun and games though, with Max Jean-Gilles joining the player he replaced, Shawn Andrews, on the injury train. I'm not a doctor or anything, but a broken ankle on a nearly 400 pound man sounds like it could take a while to heal. Just a guess.
Anyway, the game was fun to watch on Thanksgiving, but really, all I want for Christmas is for Andy and Marty to get fired. The fact that it took these idiots this long to figure out how to maximize the potential of their players shows they have fallen behind the rest of the league. Time to go. Nice win, though. Really.
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