I'm Done With This Eagles Team

Today in a home game, the Eagles blew their third straight game that they led in the fourth quarter. The span of the comeback was actually 20-3 in the third quarter, against a team with an embattled soon to be journeyman QB that was briefly pulled for a rookie, in front of a home crowd that started openly rooting for the baseball team instead of the team that was in front of them.

All of these things, by the way, are more or less unprecedented in the history of the franchise.

Now, I have watched very, very bad Eagles teams before. I have watched Monday night games against Seattle in miserable weather, where the team looked beyond helpless. I have watched Bobby Hoying and multiple Detmers. I have watched Rich Kotite and Marion Campbell. I have watched turnstile offensive lines, porous secondaries, bad red zone performance, weak-armed QBs and utterly indefensible clock management. I know bad football. I can tolerate it, I can keep my head during it, and I can avoid giving in to talk show radio style outrage and doom and gloom reactions to it. I don't need my team to win a Super Bowl to be happy, and my expectations for this team were not unduly extravagant; I simply hoped they would be better than last year.

But this Eagles team? I can't abide it. I'm not even sure that, in good conscience, I can continue to root very hard for it.

It's not Michael Vick. He's clearly the best QB they've had in the past several years; watching Donovan McNabb in Minnesota, or Kevin Kolb in Arizona, shows they made the right choice. While I'm not thrilled about his past, I also believe in rehabilitation and Christian charity, and wonder why his crimes are so much less forgivable than anything that anyone else in the NFL has done. It's just not logical to hate him on the level that some people hate him, or to blame him for what this team is now.

It's not the talent level. They have talent. It's not the coaching. As poor as the talent evaluations have been, as little as they are getting out of this year's draft class, that has generally been good in the Reid Era, if not maddening. It's not even the play-calling, despite the plainly insane desire to keep the ball away from LeSean McCoy, especially near the goal line.

Rather, it's their insufferable and inexcusable arrogance, this utterly unwarranted sense of self-worth and attitude, this feeling that just from having the players they have, and by making the plays that they make, the other team should just give up...

You see, this Eagles team doesn't think they should be 1-3. They think they should be 4-0. They don't think that they've blown 3 straight fourth quarter leads because they have been gutless and careless; they think they've been unlucky, that the refs haven't given them flags for late hits on their QB, and that everything is going to be just fine, if they just keep doing the same thing.

They think they can run into the line and try to throw the ball for an impossible highlight score, without regard for turnovers. They think they can show the defender the ball, because they are just that fast and skilled, and that fumbles won't ensue from this. They think they can scream at the refs for pass interference calls, rather than tackle the defensive back that made the interception. They think that in a nightmare game where it's all going south due to offensive turnovers and sloppy tackling, that laterals on punt returns and more ball strip tries are the way to go.

They don't think they have a problem stopping the run; they think that's just the scheme. They don't think they are undersized, because they think that everyone they play will want to go for their 2 passes to every 1 run playcalling. They think that emulating the Indianapolis Colts of Peyton Manning, rather than the Pittsburgh Steelers of Ben Roethlisberger, is the way to go, regardless of what the team's fans would really respond to.

They feel that offensive playcalling should be consistently titled towards the passing game, rather than adjusted to the opponent's strengths and weaknesses. They believe that pulling players in and out of the starting lineup on a week to week basis will fix things, and that linebackers aren't important.

They don't think that special teams are critical, that an offensive coach can just go be a defensive coordinator because he really really really wants to, that they can just pick up waived players from other teams and plug them in the starting lineup and everything will be OK, because they are just that smarter than everyone else.

Well, here's how smart they are. Here's how good they are. Here's how talented they are.

Vikings 24, Eagles 14
Cowboys 14, Eagles 13
Packers 21, Eagles 16
Eagles 31, Rams 13
Falcons 35, Eagles 31
Giants 29, Eagles 16
Niners 24, Eagles 23

That's the last 7 games that count. In those games, they were favored in every game. In those games, they are 1-6.

They aren't going to the playoffs. They aren't going to be .500. They are going to lead the league in turnovers, finger pointing, media blowups, camera shots of injured personnel, and so on, and so on. They are paper tigers, absolute pretenders, old enough to not get much better, devoid of leadership and substance.

And sure, they could still turn this around. They could still make people believe in them, get the rush defense up to mediocre, make a playoff run. Seasons don't end in the first week of October, no matter how you lose.

But they will never, ever, make me believe in them again.

(Oh, and one last, final kick in the teeth? If the Bucs cover the spread against the Curtis Painter Colts tomorrow night at home, this Eagles collapse will have cost me $265 on two different parleys. Freaking joyous.)

30 Eagles - Niners Takeaways

30) Why any team doesn't just run the ball up the gut 30 times a game against my laundry astounds me

29) You have to love how Fox does not show a replay of the coverage on the first quarter INT against Vick and DeSean Jackson, especially after DJ puled for a flag rather than try to tackle the man

28) Calling a timeout to bring in a rookie QB to hand off on a long third down seems, well, curious

27) Should it really be called leveraged when you launch off your opponent when your opponent dives on the ground?

26) Watching David Akers miss and get blocked reminded me of, well, the last few years

25) When I talk about Vick being an artist, the touchdown Houdini act to Clay Harbor is something to put in a frame. Unfortunately, art is not winning

24) As the Josh Morgan touchdown showed, targeting Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie is the way to go right now

23) I'd really like to watch one Eagles game this year without a half dozen looks at Vick on the sideline working out various maladies

22) There can't be anything good happening for a defense when 3rd and 14 is routinely wiped by the QB scrambling

21) That sound you heard was the 14 remaining Brent Celek fantasy football owners who are paying attention wailing over Harbor getting touches
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20) If you have any idea what Ronnie Brown was trying to do with a pass while being tackled on a third and inches dive, please let the rest of us know

19) The field mic picking up an Eagles fan screaming, "Oh my God, what's wrong with you, Brown? What's wrong with you? I hope you get cut!" spoke for all of us, really

18) Given the team's turnover issues, laterals on punt returns don't seem terribly wise

17) Any other QB in the league, the late hit on the sideline gets called; any other network, the replay is also shown

16) Given how easy it is to get a touchback now, short kicks to avoid Ted Ginn Jr. seem really silly

15) I'm not sure you announce a game with Alex Smith without using the word "hapless" at some point

14) It says something that your best red zone offensive hope is to avoid turnovers and/or missed field goals

13) Frank Gore's fantasy owners must have appreciated that remarkably pointless end of first half play calling

12) In 30-plus years of watching this laundry, I've never seen a more inconsistent defense

11) Teaching the safety to go for the big hit on the sideline fly, leading to a whiff and more yards, is starting to seem like a planned technique

10) I'm still not sure why Jeremy Maclin's catch was disallowed

9) Alex Henery will have better days, but they might be in a different league, laundry, or profession

8) The refs really liked telling us when Alex Smith wasn't intentionally grounding the ball

7) When 3rd and 7 is a toss sweep that's all but guaranteed to work, your defense sucks

6) If you have any evidence that Andy Reid and Juan Castillo knows what they are doing, please share it with the rest of the class

5) If blowing a 20-3 second half home lead against a team that hasn't won back to back road games since the Bush Administration doesn't get you canned, I don't know what will

4) Eagle Fan started chanting "Let's Go, Phillies" in the fourth quarter, because he's really not as stupid as you think he is

3) If you are going to blow every game in the fourth quarter, you might as well cut to the chase and quit earlier

2) The really nice thing about this loss is that you know exactly what Reid will say afterward, and that the players will still think they are better than the final score

1) I officially hate this collection of gutless pretty boys who can't stop the run, stand up to negative momentum, protect a lead, win a challenge or do much of anything but amass fantasy statistics between the 20s

Way Down South Where The Fish Play Slow

Another Poker Diary. It's all just a cry for help, really.

When I was a musician and a music journalist, we'd occasionally get the opportunity to cover or perform in Delaware. The rule of thumb for these gigs, in my bands and among my friends in other bands, was simple: Delaware audiences were on quaaludes. You could pretty much kill yourself on stage, and get nothing more than a sincere but underpowered stoner clap. They appreciated you, but dammit, this was Delaware. They just didn't have the energy to actually enjoy things.

And ever since the state of Delaware spat in the eye of the NFL in 2010 and started taking sports bets, I've had a hankering to make a run and dabble in legal fun. One of the best days in my life was spent going 4-1 ATS in Treasure Island in Vegas in October 2003, knowing that I was only one made figgie away from clearing an entire weekend of Blackjack 101 off the books. (That lesson, of course, is don't play.) There's something absolutely fantastic about being in a book where two sides are going nuts on a tooth and nail game, and having no action on it. It's more fun than cats, a slick floor, and a laser pointer. Seriously. So with the majority of my poker profit coming from outside the home this year, and a $65 10pm tournament available, a good degenerate friend and I made a night of it.

The first thing to know is that the drive is similar to AC, but easier. You don't have to stop at a myriad of penny ante tolls, and it's just a straight shot down; easy drive. Once you get there, the place is, like most converted race tracks, immense; much more room than the non-track places. The parking lots are outdoor but shuttle bussed, and free; that's another win over AC. And since it is in its own world of golf course and complex, you don't get that very un-fun sense of driving through the economic wasteland to get to your game that's killing the community. (Though, admittedly, that's more the slots and table games. At least, this is what we tell ourselves.)

It's also, well, big. You can park at this place and have no idea where the casino is, and when you walk the floor, it's easily bigger than Chester or Parx. In terms of ambiance, coffee is 75 cents, there's free soda from a self-serve beverage station, and I didn't eat anything while I was there, but it all seemed like a decent middle-brow or better place. I'd put it above Parx, Chester, Showboat and Lumiere, below Harrah's AC and TI in Vegas, and the fact that I've now been to a half dozen casinos is a sign of oncoming age, or winning at poker. You make the call.

We got in the place around 9pm, registered for our players' cards (yes, they make you do that), then dodged a scary Rolling Stones cover band to get to the upstairs poker room. (You make a grown man cry? Then don't make a fat girl sing backing vocals in tight clothing. Woof.) The $65 entry got us into a game with 90 players, where the final table got paid, top prize around $2K, pace of play coming in around 6 hours. They started you with 20K chips and 15 minute blinds, no antes. Pretty reasonable, and for the smokers out there, lots of close outdoor area to self-medicate.

A quick word about the sportsbook; it's parlay only, with a minimum of 3 teams to be chosen, so it's more or less a license to print money for the casino. Like any sportsbook isn't, really. I'm actually more than OK with this, since it meant that I got my juice in for minimal risk. I bought 3 $10 tickets for escalating insanity of 3, 5 and 9 games tomorrow, and if I hit, my family will be peeling me off the walls. If I lose, I'll shrug. I hope. Basically, all you can ask for out of a bet.

My tournament lasted about 90 minutes, past about a third of the field. I hit a few hands to get up to 24K, but probably limited my take from trip 10s with an overbet, rather than trapping against flush and straight draws. I also found myself between the two biggest stacks at the table, and knew I needed to make a move before my blinds became indefensible. With the table being freshly populated with new players, I made it 5K under the gun with A-K offsuit, with blinds of 300/600. A new player made it 20K, and with my tournament life on the line, I hoped like hell he was on air or a dominated ace. I called, he flipped over Js, so it was more or less even money. After the turn, I had flush, straight and over draws, but still just A-K. The river was a blank, I was done, and I wasn't even all that upset about it. I've yet to see anyone win a tournament without some luck, and even if I knew he had Js, I probably have to make that call anyway.

With my comrade still in, I then headed over to the cash tables to kill time, and wound up in one of the stranger $1/$2 cash games of my life. I'm used to big swinging chip games in places like Parx and Chester, and maybe that's Delaware Park, too... but not at this table tonight. Seated between two guys that had 5-to-1 chip stacks to my buy-in, I proceeded to watch fully half or more of the flops hit with no pre-flop raise, and few pots go behind the $50 total mark. In this environment, you could play tight, make continuation bets with air, go for 3X the pot with low pairs and then take it down with another 3X bet on a rag flop... so long as, of course, you chose your spots wisely and continued to broadcast that you were tight by not limping in on every other hand, like the rest of the table was doing. Weird. I slowly but surely chipped up, and didn't really get hurt, or make a lot, on anything. Delaware poker players are also, it seems, on Quaaludes.

Notable hands included a K-4 big button check flopping the K-4-4 boat for a whopping $20 payout (I called the $8 flop bet, but everyone else bailed and the raiser never fired again, or called my river raise with an Ace and flush on the board -- very disappointing) and 3-5 suited in middle position becoming the disguised straight in the river, again to no callers.

Honestly, for a tight player like myself to be at a table filled with bigger nits than me, despite the size of their stacks, was just kind of odd. And my first read of my tablemates was that there was going to be fireworks and big moves, giving the size of the stacks and the fact that you could only amass those by winning; Delaware Park's maximum buy in is $300 at the $1/$2 table. By the end of 2 hours at the table (the amount of time it took for my friend to leave the tournament, also without cashing), I had hit a bunch of hands, tipped the dealer a dozen times, made back my buy-in and my sportsbets, and felt a little bad that I hadn't made more. It seemed that soft.

But hey, when poker is a profit at a casino, giving the rake and the tipping, that means you've actually made more than you think. And I suspect it's not the last time we'll make the drive down there. The sports betting is catnip, the drive isn't bad, and the room is nicer and saner than Chester or Parx.

And you can't bet on the NFL in AC...

One Swing

In the sixth inning of tonight's NLDS Game One, the hometown Phils were down 3-1 to the visiting Cardinals. A 3-run home run by Matt Holliday in the first inning staked the Cardinals to an early lead against Roy Halladay, and Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse sailed through the early innings with little trouble. After a double by Chase Utley and a single by the lucky Shane Victorino (extra life from an error by the iron gloved David Freese on a pop up) got them off the deck, two men got on for Ryan Howard.

Lohse was able to gets strikes with the change up, missed with the fastball, and the count went deep. The TBS telecast went into the double play data, and had that happened, you had to think that the next best chance for the home team would have been late, against the suspect Cardinals bullpen. No matter how you tell that story, the chance for the home team winning aren't good.

Which is when Lohse missed, and Howard absolutely crushed it, dropping the bat with confidence as the ball started its very rapid journey to the second deck in center field, for a 4-3 lead. A few minutes later, Raul Ibanez woke up the echoes of his fine career with a laser to right that made it 6-3, and with Halladay on cruise control, Game One more or less ended then and there. The bats stayed alive and turned the game into a laugher, and maybe that's always going to happen with the Cardinals' bullpen, but still. The shot that breaks the wall is more important than the pile-on afterward, and it says something about my confidence that I'm filing this in the eighth inning, with zero concern that pre-filing will come back to bite me on the ass.

If the Phillies go on to do what they were favored to do -- and with Chris Carpenter on three days rest in Game 2 against a rested Cliff Lee, it's more than even-money that the favorites will have the maximum number of chances to end it -- you can put it all on Howard, and I can't say I'm not happy for the man. It's not his fault that the team signed him to a big contract, or that he is what he is... a borderline platoon player who can be handled by plus pitchers, who generally doesn't deliver full value unless RBIs are your sole method of judging a man.

He is what he is, and tonight, he might have won a playoff series with one swing. Do that in a World Series while limping, and the highlight is shown forever; in an NLDS, it gets forgotten. But not this week.

The Football AI

So this week, QB Michael Vick is going to try, for the third straight week, to finish the game that he starts. Two weeks ago in Atlanta, it was a freak accident concussion from being pinballed around his own backfield into an offensive lineman. Last week in Philadelphia, it was a bruised non-throwing hand that was apparently misdiagnosed as a broken hand. In both cases, he left with the lead; in both cases, the Eagles soon lost it, in games where stunning breakdowns and red zone failures obliterated situations where they won the majority of snaps.

And I'm struck, as I usually am when it involves Vick, as to the comparisons that you can make between him and the passion child of this here blog, Allen Iverson.

Please excuse me for talking about Iverson in the present tense; I know he's no longer any kind of factor in any kind of league. Sigh.

Both players are, at the height of their powers, artists of deception, and unique talents. Both men seem to do what they do with a minimum amount of help from teammates, and to carry an absurd amount of value, because the nature of their gift is to make it look like they are playing one man against the world, even when they aren't. Both men, at their best, seem to be unstoppable, and provoke a feeling of awe.

This is, of course, the good side of the equation.

On the down side, neither man overwhelms you with their accuracy. Both men are injury-prone, with teams that are spectacularly ill-equipped to compete without them. Both men are genuinely difficult to assess from a statistical standpoint, with plenty of evidence for and against their worth.

Both men have had issues with the law, and enjoy remarkable affection from the African-American community... and criticism that seems to border on racism from some white commentators, who start at disregarding the intellect, move to lifestyle choices, go all the way to slurs, and finish only with dreams of incarceration or worse.

Both men have been dragged down by their inner circles, have probably used marijuana, gamble for high stakes, and could easily find themselves with a negative net worth shortly after their playing careers are over. Both play their game with little regard for their personal safety, well-being, or future earning potential. Both are fascinating interviews, prone to candid moments they will later regret, and wear their hearts on their sleeve. Both are, whether the teams and town want to admit it or not, the id of their city.

Iverson's act ran thin with lessening results and questionable effort; by the time he left town, it seemed like something of a relief. He took the team to just below the summit in 2000-01, and never really got close again.

Vick's story is still to be told, but after three games this year and the sloppy end of last, the first half of 2010 is starting to look like a mirage. His gifts are unchanged, but his durability is now a clear problem, and it says something substantial that reaction to his plans to play this week among my peer group wasn't a question as to whether he would play... but if he would play well.

The team is 1-7 in his last eight starts, with the only win coming in St. Louis on opening day.

Maybe he quiets the doubt tomorrow against the Niners; that's certainly how I'll be betting. But there's nothing he can do to make me stop seeing him as Iverson in cleats, with the undercurrents of tragic art and desperate longing.