At least we can all stop kidding ourselves. That’s what we were doing. Rationalizing. Making excuses. Employing sentences that started with “if” and “but” and “maybe.” That can finally stop. Sunday stripped away any remaining pretense.
The Eagles lost to Washington. That’s bad. The Eagles lost to Kirk Cousins. That’s worse. There’s no hiding after something like that. No pretending.
Sure, there were mitigating circumstances. The new kicker will end up as the former kicker pretty soon if he doesn't perform better. Mychal Kendricks and Byron Maxwell went down. So did Fletcher Cox for a while. Jason Peters and Lane Johnson were banged up. Nelson Agholor made a crucial mistake at a crucial time. But. But the Eagles were up by four points late in the game. They had to stop Cousins and Washington from driving the length of the field. They didn’t.
The defense was no doubt tired. The unit was on the field for over 40 minutes of the game, and yet the Eagles’ head coach will tell you that time of possession doesn’t matter. He’ll say it with a straight face, too, which is impressive. Here are some other things he said with a straight face during Monday’s postmortem press conference at the NovaCare Complex: He thinks the Eagles are “close.” They just “need to make plays” when given the opportunity. And, once more, their personnel is fine, they simply “need to execute.”
See. No biggie. Just make plays and execute. Simple enough.
You can blame the sorry state of the season on whatever/whomever you like. There’s plenty of shame to shovel. This much is indisputable: Kelly’s crew is 1-3. That’s the team he picked out, the team he unloaded LeSean McCoy and Evan Mathis and Todd Herremans to make space for, the team that let Jeremy Maclin escape to Kansas City, the team that cut DeSean Jackson for nothing before that.
More than anyone, this is on Kelly. Bill Parcells used to say that if they want you to cook the meal, they ought to let you pick the groceries. Jeffrey Lurie let Kelly pick the groceries. Jeffrey Lurie let Kelly cook this meal. And now the Eagles and their fans have to choke it down.
NFL
In fairness, Kelly and the Eagles had a lot of people fooled. The Birds were the fashionable preseason pick to win the NFC East and go deep into the playoffs — maybe all the way to NoCal for Super Bowl 50. Lots of people made that unfortunate prediction. So much for that. So much for thinking this team that Kelly disassembled and rebuilt to his specifications would do anything worth noting. Or, strike that. It’s done plenty worth noting, just for all the wrong reasons.
There were some positive signs there for a second, too. That only made it worse. Good Sam Bradford was last seen in Green Bay during the preseason. (That game was fun, at least.) After that, he was largely MIA — until the second half of the Washington game. In 52 games before Sunday, Bradford threw two touchdowns of 39 yards or longer. Against Washington, he tossed touchdowns of 62 and 39 yards. He added another 10-yard score for good measure. There were moments when he actually looked good.
Not that it matters. The Eagles are 1-3 now. One of those qualifiers that so many people employed to make themselves feel better was that the NFC East is terrible and the Eagles could win it by accident. But now they have losses to the Cowboys (who were without Dez Bryant for the entire game and Tony Romo for much of it) and Washington. If you still think they can win the division because the division is terrible, you’ve failed to consider the Eagles are currently the bottom feeders of the lot. They are the barnacles on the hull of a ship — and the ship is sinking.
During his weekly WIP radio appearance, Kelly reminded everyone that the Eagles had a rough start a few years ago and everything worked out OK.
“We were 1-3 two years ago,” Kelly said, “and coming back from having our pants pulled down and our heinies whacked out in Denver.”
Interesting visual. Problem is the Broncos were good. Washington is almost certainly not. Chip can peddle that nonsense, but he’s unlikely to find many takers. The market for his stock is tanking.
The Eagles lost to Washington. The Eagles lost to Kirk Cousins. There’s no kidding ourselves anymore. It’s like Red said: “Hope is a dangerous thing.” After Sunday, that shouldn’t be a problem.