Eagles Challenged, Lose.

The Eagles lost to the Dallas Cowboys at the Linc on Sunday night. That sentence is both painful to type and incredibly annoying. Perhaps if nothing else, this game was a reminder of just how easy it is to turn on the Dallas hate.

Not really sure where to place the blame after that game. The failed challenges are the first thing that come to mind, but to Andy's defense, I think the home town team got jobbed a bit after review.

The offensive line was certainly another culprit. Jason Peters got banged up early, forcing Todd Herremans to move to left tackle and Nick Cole to move to left guard. They looked pretty awful against Dallas' fearsome front.

The recently lethal receiver core didn't really come up big either. Jeremy Maclin made a costly drop that turned into a Dallas pick. Donovan McNabb didn't have one of his better performances as of late, ending the day 16-30 for 227 a score and two picks.

Were there any bright spots? LeSean McCoy had some fancy moves and found some open field. I guess David Akers made a few field goals? Brent Celek once again made some plays.

Any time the Birds lose to the Cowboys it stings. Doing it at the Linc makes it hurt just a little bit more.

Comments

[Phils Phan]

Seeing Wade Philips fat grin hurts even more. I don't know why, but when he smiles, all I feel is hate hate hate.

[Steve]

I am done with Reid. Fuck him.

[Joe]

The call for the field goal on 4th down at the end just reminds me of the 2006 Divisional playoff game against the Saints. Instead of going for it on 4th and 6(?) with a few minutes to play, they punt it away in hopes of getting it back. The defense doesn't hold the line, and the Saints go on to win the game.

Here, we get 3 inconsequential points, the Cowboys run the clock out, and we lose in unspectacular fashion.

The more things change...

[jwf]

No mention of clearly the most questionable of Andy's terrible decisions, to kick a field goal? We need to stop giving this guy every benefit of every doubt. This has been going on too long. Still no Superbowl.

[kevin]

They are who we thought they were.

No, really... This is the Eagles team we have seen many times over the past decade. Capable of racking up lots of wins against mediocre teams, when Reid has a solid game plan in place. When the opponent has a better game plan, just chalk it up as a loss cause Reid can't adjust.

Mcnabb will have weeks where he looks like a top 5 QB, then he will have weeks where every pass looks like a struggle. I wonder if the receivers practice high jumps and diving into the dirt in preparation for gameday? No, seriously.

This great restructuring of the offensive line looks like a giant bust. I wonder if Ed Stefanski consulted in the Peters trade/extension and the Stacy Andrews signing....

[digi]

oofa...

end the Reid/McNabb era... pleeeeeease.

[chad lewis]

on the only good note of the night, the septa strike is over

[Trevor McFur]

I don't trust Akers much anymore, but I guess it was good seeing him boom some of those long ones. And Weaver looked ok. The replay jobbing was infuriating, but they lost the game when they couldn't take advantage of Sheldon's pick. Score there, the Eagles probably win.

[Luke]

The FG was the right move. The challenges were the right call. The playcalling wasn't bad. I give no fault to Andy in this game. The offensive line and the WR's slowed down our offense and the refs put the nail in the coffin.

[Captain Awesome]

Worst week in Philadelphia Sports ever.

[guenth]

@Steve, the reson why we lost that game was we went for it on 4th it was a completed pass, garcia to lj for a first but there was a false start by gaurd scott young who was in for...wanna say andrews.

tonights game got fucked up by reffing, some unfair calls, and some shitty passes by mcnabb, face it, mcnaab and company werent on the same page.....offense didnt click, and when offense dosent click defense struggles.

[Captain Awesome]

My manager at work is a Yankees & Cowboys fan. I am never going to hear the end of this. Heh maybe this is the right time to quit and start my own company like I've been meaning to.

[B$]

its funny, eagles win, all hail the eagles. eagles lose, end the mcnabb/reid era. tough loss, on to next week.

[kevin]

luke seriously? you have to score at least 7 points to win or tie. maybe the fg is the right call if andy had some timeouts. but no he blew them on a terrible and meaningless challenge (mcnabbs qb was a bad call by the refs, the first challenge was unnecessary). andy reid essentially punted the ball with no timeouts and down a touchdown.

[Brian G.]

What gets me is that 4th don call. If you noticed, the spot was behind where it was, therefore it was spotted as if McNabb lost yardage, which is total crap.

Reid is a total dope for kicking that FG.

[NUcappy]

Perhaps if Fokou doesn't commit 2 horrible, horrible penalties, we may have won the game. Maclin's inability to do much right didn't help either.

[Trevor McFur]

Yankees & Cowboys? Captain Awesome, your boss may be the biggest douchebag on the planet.

[GoesTo11]

Luke: ???

The FG made no sense, even though Akers made it. It would have been a defensible decision if the Birds had a couple of TOs left, which brings us to the obvious question...How do you find yourself with NO TIMEOUTS with ten minutes left in a tie game?

The spot calls, especially the last one, were weak. But Reid has to know that they're HIGHLY unlikely to be overturned on review. Poor risk/reward decisions, pissing away his timeouts in a tight game, reinforcing my view that Reid is the worst "successful" game-day coach in the NFL.

[Rich]

Beating a dead horse, but...
worst. sports week. ever.

[dc]

-FG was the wrong call. Why assume we'd prevent two first-downs AND mount a long TD drive?
-Play-calling was fucking awful. Maybe we should have gotten a power-back after all? 36 might well have been the difference but we have to run the ball no matter who it is back there.
-Penalties were bad. again.
-Safeties have no discipline.
-As much as it pains me...Romo had a great game. We have to back off once we sense a QB is hot and let Trent and co. go to work.

[FrontRanger]

If you're going for the FG there, don't you at least have to try an onsides kick? You know you have no TOs left.

[sultanofslot]

Hahahahaha people are actually calling for Reid's head because of that game?

[Hans Gruber]

Eagles vs. Cowboys recap:

- Cowboys suck.
- Andy's challenges were correct, and both should have been overturned for Eagles' first downs.
- Maclin should have been benched after the first series. First he doesn't even locate the ball (???) on the first pass, second he botches an easy first-down catch that turns into Cowboy points. For shame young man!
- Eagles defense did just fine for an off night. No complaints here.
- LET'S RUN THE BALL ANDY REID. SERIOUSLY.
- No way we lose this game if #20 was still around.

[TJB]

We definitely took one on the chin last week.

When we're down in a close game at halftime, does anyone actually think we're going to win? I would love to know what our record is over the past few years when we're losing by a TD or less at halftime. We never win those close games.

[will]

that first challenge was awful. whoever was upstairs and told reid to challenge should be getting a pink slip today. it wasn't even close and if walt coleman was a competent official the eagles would have lost yards on that play.

gotta love using a hard count on 4th inches to get the defense to jump offsides and then when they do jump offsides you don't snap the ball.

[mattindc]

I don't disagree with the field goal. We were in an undesirable spot, and any decision we made was likely to turn out bad. We had the options of:
1 - Punt and hope for defensive stand - This is essentially the same as kicking the field goal except we don't get the extra 3 points. And you saw how well the defensive stand went.
2 - Go for it - Our offensive stats were pretty awful all night (McNabb 16/30 with 2 picks, 4/13 third or fourth downs converted) I don't really see us coming through on a clutch 4th and 11.
3 - Kick field goal and try to get it back. Still need to get into the endzone but this time for the win, instead of the tie

The second challenge should have been overturned. The first one I think was a lack of awareness on McCoy's part to fall behind the first down marker untouched. And then we trick ourselves into a false start....ugh...how STUPID was that?? Hopefully our coaches and players get a little more familiar with the forward progress rules after today. I think our problem was a few key plays and a few key blown calls, not necessarily coaching decisions. This team is historically pretty bad in clutch situations.

[Spoony G]

Who called the plays last week? Was it Marty? It seemed to be.

And who called the plays last night?

[Carolyn]

The sad thing is that I knew they weren't going to convert... when they were 2nd and 1. We've seen it happen over and over with this team.

It was a horribly frustrating game to watch and certainly didn't help wash away the disappointment of last week.

[chewy]

Please tell me Fokou is going to get cut this morning. Inexcusable last night.

[Zack]

Another game...another incredible amount of dumb penalties by the Eagles

They will never win anything if they can't get the penalties down

That kick return for a TD, that great return on the pick by Sheldon....all brought back

[DP]

1. The 1st challenge was a bad decision. Who is telling Andy to challenge these things? It wasn't even close.
2. 2nd challenge would normally be the right move and the icing was the refs messed it up, BUT, I don't think you risk the last challenge and last timeout at that point in the game. Way too early to be out of challenges and time-outs in a close game. That's where the 1st challenge hurts.
3. I agree Maclin should have caught the interception but McNabb didn't help him with the accuracy either. Also, Maclin may not have seen the ball on the 1st play but it didn't look close anyway. Tell Mc5 to stop with the hand gestures to receivers after the play and showing them up. His receivers don't point to the ground on every wormball or pass that Mc5 f's up.
4. I think the defense largely played good enough to win last night and special teams (TD called back) and offense (penalties, Mc5 accuracy, RB fail to convert short-yardage) were to blame.
5. McCoy didn't have a good game. He had one or two nice runds, BUT, he dropped an easy screen pass on last drive and he danced too much on the 2nd&1 when he should have just stuck his nose in there.
6. Where was Weaver on the short yardage converstions? Andy runs Weaver out of shotgun but won't stick him in the I with a lead blocker to convert? Nice job Andy.
7. FG was absolutely the wrong call. Some are saying the offense can't be counted on to convert but yet your relying on them to mount a final drive with less than 2 minutes in and no timeouts? Consider the scenario. Kick FG, hold Cowboys to 3 and out, Cowboy punt, poor eagles field position, less than 2 minutes & no timeouts. No way! I don't trust Mc5 and Reid with 4 minutes left and no timeouts, let alone a sub-2 minute drill in their own territory with no timeouts. Especially on a night the offense couldn't bring it. Finally, I can only imagine the posts if Akers missed that. If Akers takes 10 of those, I say he makes about 50%. This isn't old Akers so that was a huge risk IMO as well as poor strategy.

[ces12]

are we ever going to use Vick? If not, it's time to make Kolb the #2 and put some pressure on McNabb to be accurate EVERY game.

[Mike]

After last weeks win this is such a huge let down. The Birds were flat on offense and failed to get any type of rhythm established.

I still don't know what to make of this team as they always seem to back up a good performance with a terrible one. No consistency at all.

[Tom]

I'm gonna go with the refs on this one. The Eagles didn't look fantastic on offense OR defense, but they didn't look too bad on either.

So McNabb was 16-30 w/ 2 INT. not great, but take away Maclin's boneheaded/fluky drop-INT in the first quarter, and Lesean's screen pass drop, and I'm sure there was another dropped first down in there. 19-30 w/1 TD, 1 INT and around 250 yards is solid. He's never been the MOST ACCURATE EVER and he's never gonna be. He protects the ball (that first INT was ridiculous, and the second was his second of the season). But his inaccuracy last night was not the problem.

I blame:

1. The officiating which was the worst maybe that I've ever seen, the head ref was either drunk or missing a chromosome.

2. Maclin for that horrific drop that turned into a pick.

3. The defense for caving on that Miles Austin TD, but it's hard to crucify the whole defensive effort for what was really one bad play, they only allowed 20 pts, which should be good to win against Dallas.

[Kim]

::sigh::

[Drew]

@ Captain Awesome:
Worst week in Philly sports ever? Not entirely. The Flyers are currently holding a four game win streak and they're starting to look like a team. We're 2-1 in the division. We can beat the Giants and Redskins, and we certainly can beat the Cowboys. Last night just wasn't our night. a 5-3 team is still in playoff contention.

[phillyfan412]

They were definitely screwed on the second challenge. I thought they got the first down on the third down run, and of course on QB sneak. Reid had to challenge that because it was at such a crucial juncture. The first challenge was completely uncalled for, though. Anybody who knows anything about football knows that forward progress only matters if the player is forced back by an opposing player. That was clearly not the case. I was at the game and I knew right away that Avant was short. In fact, I thought if anything, they would move the ball back a bit more after the challenge because he got a generous spot. The fact that I knew that and Reid didn't is mind-boggling.

That, and the wasted timeout with over six minutes to go and the third quarter obviously cost them. How long now have we been talking about these same issues? Reid is by far the worst clock manager in the league, yet after countless excruciating losses, he still can't figure it out.

On top of that, the offensive line was dominated in the passing game, and McNabb did not look good at all. He looked slow and threw everything short. That rib protection he wears could be hindering him. Or the injury itself could have flared up again. Either way, he wasn't good at all.

And lastly, I'm sick of the flat-out stupid play. Asante Samuel makes a good tackle for ONCE, and has to shove the guy way after the play was over. There were too many other idiotic penalties at crucial times to address each one specifically. Don't let the Giants game fool you. That was just as much an exception as the Raiders game was. Unless major changes are made, this team is going nowhere once again.