THE BIRD BLOG

While Sunday’s 28-6 victory over the Redskins was hardly the most dominating performance we’ve seen this season from the Eagles, it was a good one. McNabb threw four touchdown passes and 222 yards, Pinkston had a big game (5 catches, 105 yards), and the Eagles rushing defense turned in a sterling effort: allowing just 51 yards on 23 carries (2.2 yards a carry). Sure it was only 7-6 at the half, but the Eagles allowed just 213 net yards and moved the ball with authority in the second half. What’s not to love?

Entering the game I figured that the Eagles would win, but I was nervous: the Redskins were getting 115 yards a game on the ground and the Eagles were surrendering 124. I expected to see Clinton Portis running wild through the Eagles secondary, eating up 10, 15 yard chunks at a time. To my surprise, Portis was a non-factor: 37 yards on just 17 carries (and 7 of those carries were in the first quarter). The decision to put Jeremiah Trotter in at middle linebacker was the right call: he was stout against the run and turned in a dominating performance.

So the Eagles are 9-1 and flying high with two wins against division foes since the Steelers debacle on the 7th. Time to start looking ahead:

-A win Sunday against the Giants gives the Eagles the division title and would make them the first team to clinch a playoff berth. How?

• A victory would run the Eagles record to 10-1, while Dallas and Washington can’t do better than 9-7. (In any case, the loser of the Thanksgiving Day game will be eliminated from the division hunt because that team can’t do better than 8-8.)
• And if the Eagles win Sunday they’ll drop the Giants to record to 5-6. Even if the Eagles lose their last five games and the Giants win all five, the Eagles would own the tie-breaker.

How incredible is that? Playoff berth on November 28th …

The Eagles current run is amazing to behold. This team is already a quasi-dynasty: three (and almost certainly four) consecutive division titles, four (and almost certainly five) consecutive playoff births, two (and possibly three) consecutive times with the best record in the conference. All that’s missing is a trip to the Super Bowl.

If the playoffs were to start today, the NFC would look like this:

1. Eagles
2. Falcons
3. Packers
4. Seahawks
5. Vikings
6. St. Louis

The Eagles would probably see the Vikings in the divisional round and the Falcons in the NFC title game. I think the Eagles can win both.

-The Eagles are going to start encountering resistance: the Giants won’t lay down without a fight and Shockey and Tiki Barber always seem to play well against the Eagles. Sunday won’t be a cakewalk. In fact, I’m going to bum everyone out and predict a 31-24 Giants victory. Sorry: I’m a pessimist about this one.

After that the Eagles get a hard game against the Packers (ugh), gimmie games against the Redskins and Cowboys, a Monday Nighter against the increasingly weak-looking Rams, and they finish the season by feasting on the Bengals. I think the Eagles will go 4-2 in the last six (wins: Bengals, Rams, Cowboys, Redskins; losses: Packers & Giants) and finish a franchise-best 13-3. They’ll win the conference title over the Falcons as well.

-What a terrific playoff race in the AFC: seven teams are 7-3 or better. Seven! 11-5 might not be enough to make the playoffs over there … the Steelers looked a little shaky against the Bengals. 19-14 against those guys? They should have wiped the floor with them and I’m surprised they didn’t. Roethlisberger didn’t look so hot either: only 138 yards. He was 15 of 20, but he got sacked 7 times and often looked confused and unsure of himself in the pocket. My father-in-law grumbled that the Steelers were peaking too soon and I think he’s right: Big Ben might start playing like a rookie.

-Unfortunately for the Steelers, they play a tough schedule down the stretch: Jaguars, Jets, Giants, Ravens and the resurgent Bills. Aside from next Sunday’s gimmie game against the Redskins, I don’t think they have an easy game for the rest of the year. I think the Steelers will finish 12-4. The Ravens could still catch them for the division, although that isn’t bloody likely.

-I’ve got a feeling about the Jets these days. They are playing stingy D (just 4 more points allowed than the Steelers, 25 more than the vaunted Ravens), move the ball even with Quincy Carter and have a smart coaching staff (don’t let the clock-management in the Ravens game fool you). Everyone is focusing on the Colts, Steelers and Pats in the AFC, but I think that these guys could stun everyone and be the AFC representative in the Super Bowl. I don’t think they have a shot at the division (the Pats have an easy schedule the rest of the way: they’ll go 14-2 this year again), but they could be dangerous.

-If I were to predict the playoffs today, it would be:

NFC
1. Eagles
2. Falcons
3. Packers
4. Rams
5. Vikings
6. Seahawks

Packers over Seahawks; Vikings over Rams
Eagles over Vikings, Falcons over Packers
Eagles over Falcons

AFC
1. Patriots
2. Steelers
3. Colts
4. Denver
5. Jets
6. Ravens

Ravens over Colts (gasp! – Yes. Upset); Jets over Broncos
Patriots over Ravens; Jets over Steelers
Patriots over Jets

Super Bowl:
Eagles over Patriots

-A word about the MNF sketch last Monday … [climbing onto my soap box] I was stunned to see the media outcry last week over the sketch. It happened after nine o’clock in the evening, thus taking it outside of the so-called “family hour”. No nudity was shown. And if the NFL wants to get serious about making their product more family friendly, then they should have the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders show a little less T&A.

Who cares?

And yet the air waves were saturated by people screaming and crying about the sketch. It was racist, Tony Dungy said, thus removing any respect I ever had for the Colts coach. It was inappropriate, whined Michael Powell and the FCC. You couldn’t turn-on the TV without hearing someone wail and complain.

So what’s wrong with all of this? I think the problem is that we are living in the Age of the Old Fogie (and the Young Fogie): people so aggrieved by the changing world around them that they whine, bitch and complain about everything. I think the success of the talk-show industry feeds into this: people sit in front of their TVs for hours at a time being spoon-fed stories over-sensationalized and blown out of proportion by the media. Sit down for one evening and slog through Fox News’ evening fare and prepare to be out-raged, stoked to a fury about the world around you. Secular humanists are controlling the schools, Europeans (the French) are helping the terrorists, and gays want to destroy your values.

Guess what? It’s not true. Take a deep breath and repeat after me:

The world is not going to hell.

The world is not going to hell.

The world is not going to hell.

Everything in this country is fine. True, the world is changing and that is scary stuff. But then in American history people have always been terrified by change: Benjamin Franklin complained that German immigrants were ruining post-Revolution America with their language and their culture. 19th Century nativists (many descendants of the Germans Franklin distrusted) believed that Irish immigrants were a criminal rabble. In this century we’ve seen people scream and holler about the Japanese “buying” America, complaints that look ridiculous fifteen years later. Now it looks like Near Eastern immigrants are the latest villain. In thirty years we'll be worrying about some new threat to our identity.

People talk a lot about values these days, but “values” mean different things to different people. I would point out that tolerance for others has always been a value my parents have tried to instill in me. Values don’t begin and end with “Thou shalt not…” Values are how you treat people and how you behave towards your fellow man. Judged by that standard, the problems with America don’t lay with the secular humanists.

I blame the media. I think this mess is because the media is sloppy: they don’t like reporting boring facts and information. They want to get people to tune in and terrifying them or angering them is the best, most efficient, means of doing so. Why report on international news like elections in Japan when you can piss people off by giving them This Week’s Outrage?

Remember the infamous California pledge of allegiance case? I was struck, watching Fox News’ coverage of the case ,by how utterly devoid of content their discussion was: not a word about the legal rationale behind the decision. Disagree with it, fine, but do your viewers a service by explaining to them WHY the court ruled as it did. If the media's job is to inform people about the case they failed miserably. (I always snort as Fox News’ “We Report, You Decide” slogan: I doubt any news channel does more lecturing to its audience than Fox News.) No content: Sean Hannity engaged in a little martyrdom for sixty overwrought minutes and people who watched got to have their blood boil (too much to expect Fox News to inform its viewers, I suppose) … Cal Thomas later that week made the ludicrous claim that the pledge case represented a worse blow to America than 9/11.

Worse than 9/11? Give me a f---ing break.

The bottom-line is that people need to take a deep breath and calm down. Put things in perspective. Nicolette Sheridan dropped her towel. You couldn’t see anything. You don’t like it, change the channel. Worried about your twelve year-old son? Don’t have him watch pro football. (Stick to college football: the cheerleaders are much more covered up.) Calm down. Quit whining.

Off the soap-box ... More after thanksgiving, ya’ll!

The most awful moment I can remember as an Eagles fan was Week 3 of the 1997 season, when the Eagles fell behind 21-20 to the Cowboys in Big D, rallied and botched the game-winning field goal. I stayed up until 1AM to watch the game and I was so crushed by the Eagles loss I skipped classes in the morning. Awful. Awful. Awful.

Tonight has a chance to be something great for the Eagles. They open the first of three games against division rivals. If the Eagles win them all, they'll emerge 10-1 and sitting in the driver's seat.

-An Eagles victory would drop the Cowboys to 3-6, along with the Redskins. I think it is a safe bet that the Eagles win will 11 games, so tonight could essentially eliminate the Cowboys and Redskins from the playoff hunt.

-As for the Giants, I try not to take pleasure in the pain of others, but consecutive losses to the Bears and Cardinals? That's laughable. The bad news for the Giants is that they could finish the season 7-9: they have to play games against the Eagles, the Ravens, the Steelers, and the Falcons. After pounding on muffins during their four game winning streak, these guys are in trouble. I don't think they stand a chance.

-Meanwhile, the conference battle heats up ... the Seahawks, Rams, Packers and Vikings are all at 5-4 and they collectively have the look of seeds 3-6 for the playoffs. I don't think any of them could catch up. I think the race for homefield advantage is between the Falcons and the Eagles. This season has been a march towards the inevitable battle between these two teams, between these two quarterbacks, in the NFC title game.

-As for tonight: call it Eagles 31, Cowboys 14. And Bill Parcells will call his team "stupid" six or seven times on Tuesday morning.

Bill Lyon at the Inquirer has some disturbing thoughts about the Eagles downward slide this season.

Good news: in the Reid era the Eagles are 15-2 after a loss.

Bad news: the Eagles have converted 4 of their last 29 third downs.

This team should beat the Cowboys, but make no mistake about it: this game might decide the Eagles season.

The always insightful Gregg Easterbrook chimes in with some thoughts on the Eagles-Steelers game over at Tuesday Morning Quarterback.

I watched the Eagles - Steelers game yesterday. A few thoughts:

-The Eagles need to do something about the running game. They generated next to no yards on the ground and got throughly dominated by the Steelers ground game. They can't go on relying on McNabb's arm to keep them moving. This team has to get another back in the draft or via free agency in the offseason.

-I wasn't overly distraught by the Eagles loss. It was a non-conference game on the road. They were due for a let-down, so it was better to lose this game than next Monday Night against the 'Boys.

-Speaking of which ... I thought that the Monday Nighter next week would probably be the most important game of the year for the Eagles and I think that is holding true: a win would put them back on track at 8-1 and basically eliminate the Cowboys from the playoffs.

-This stretch of three games could make or break the Eagles season: if they win all three they'll emerge 10-1 and virtually assure them of the conference title. Victories against the Cowboys, Redskins and Giants would sew up the division (it would be mathematically impossible for the Cowboys and Redskins to catch up, and the Giants look to be fading) and give the Eagles a huge edge in the conference race. These games will make or break the Eagles season.

Monday Night, baby!