THE BIRD BLOG

I would recommend reading Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column on NFL.com this week, except that Mr. Easterbrook has sadly avoided mentioning the Birds in his weekly wrap-up of the NFL. Even despite that glaring omission, TMQB is still worthwhile reading.

I've been a fan of Easterbrook for years. He's written terrific articles for The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly (his attack on SUVs in the New Republic last year was so insightful and interesting that I quoted it in a paper I was writing for law school). He brings a very different eye to the game of football: an intellectual's delight in the hidden complexities of a game that many would write-off as a bunch of guys knocking the crap out of each other.

(Intellectual dissertations of football aren't new, even for the Atlantic: the Philadelphia Inquirer's Mark Bowden, author of Killing Pablo and Blackhawk Down, is a frequent Atlantic Monthly contributor and wrote a terrific profile of Eagles Center Hank Fraley detailing Fraley's mental preparation for the game for the magazine's January / February issue.)

Easterbrook also seems to have a thing for the Eagles cheerleaders. So he's a good guy. Read him.