Posted 03 January 2013 - 06:00 PM
We didn't fire Andy, Jeff did. If we is me, then we would have fired him on the plane flight home from CIN on November 16, 2008, after that ridiculous tie to a team that would have lost 10 games in the MAC. We didn't jump on the fire Andy bandwagon last week or last month or last year, there are alot of us who saw this coming for several years. The ones who weren't blinded by the NFCCG appearances, who saw it for what it was, which is a team that had reached its zenith, a coach whose support finally was gone, who could not stand on his own and be successful. There's no sin in that. Many many leaders got by with great staff. But the sin is in continuing to do the same things, losing game after game, and not changing until your neck is in the noose and suddenly announcing you are sorry.
Andy's greatest success as a head coach was hiring his initial staff. Once he started getting his staff poached, his greatness fell apart. When his single greatest hire died, it was the end. It took Jeff until just now to realize that, and that's fine, it's his team, he's allowed to let it suck for as long as he likes,. just as I'm allowed to not buy a ticket or product of any kind for as long as I like (my brother and I had a tradition since we were in high school, almost twenty years ago, that we each bought the other an Eagles gear of some kind for Christmas, and we haven't done that for 5 Christmases now).
To say that we are fair weather fans is ridiculous. I counter that the folks who defended Air Andy through the first round selection of the Canadian Fireman, through the John Castle fiasco, through the wide 9 garbage, through the Mike Vick charity rehab course, through the My Friend Marty era, these are the bad people. The ones who allowed Jeff to see the numbers, to say ok we are falling apart as a professional football team, we are putting an O line coach out there as DC, and we are STILL selling out tickets and jerseys, let's give this one more roll of the dice! I firmly believe that Jeff does alot of what he does or doesn't do based on public opinion, and over the entire Andy Reid era public opinion has been high, as in high ticket sales, prime time games, jersey sales. You don't mess with your money maker. If not winning a title makes you bigtime money, well, you keep doing that. He's in it for the money, and anything else he tells you is a lie. The moment he saw real evidence that his money was at stake, i.e. empty seats, signs, boos, national coverage of the empty seats, down jersey sales, etc, he made the move. Even last season, when every sensible person was all in for dumping the whole regime, he kept it around thinking that magical Andy and Vick could get him his money again.
I'm not saying that our next coach will magically get everything together and bring home the trophy next year. But there is more than a 0 percent chance it will be good football, because Andy was not capable of putting together good football, and anyone else can at least put together better football. It might not be the best, but it will be different. If you like passing in ridiculous situations, letting your halfbacks collect dust, little tiny children at every position, firemen with glass legs, you can get NFL Sunday Ticket and tune in to KC for your messiah. I'll be watching the Eagles, and hopefully my brother will get an Eagles hoodie next Christmas.