McAdumb Speaks

Ben McAdoo has been quiet since he was fired, after failing miserably and bringing much shame to his family and the rest of planet Earth. Okay, maybe that’s a tad harsh. He did have a miserable season in 2017 and got canned. We can all agree on that.

McAdoo decided to open his pie hole and enlighten the football world on a variety of topics. His take on the Eagles.

“I think Philly, how much success has Philly had? I think they’re gonna have a hard time handling success.”

Who does he pick to win the NFC East? And what about the other teams?

“I think they’re (the Giants) gonna win the division.”

“Dallas, I like their offensive line, but how long have we been saying that? Their defense, they got a bunch of young guys playing DB, Sean Lee is banged up a lot, and their D-Line, they got a bunch of guys getting in trouble all the time. And Washington is Washington, right?”

With overly simplistic analysis like that, I’m surprised ESPN hasn’t hired him and made him the center of their football coverage.

Yikes.

Let’s talk about the Philly comment. There is some validity to the question of how winning will affect the Eagles. Winning a Super Bowl does change things. The key to a team handling that success is to stay focused and hungry, and to have great leadership.

I think the Eagles will be hungry, because of guys like Jason Peters, Carson Wentz and Darren Sproles. They didn’t win the Super Bowl. They want to be on that field next February, hoisting the Lombardi and knowing how it feels to win it all.

Doug Pederson showed last year that he knows how to lead. He also knows how to read the locker room and figure out what message his players need to hear. As a former player, Pederson knows you can’t have the same message all the time. Things change. Players change. Coaches have to adjust what they say to players. You can already see that in Pederson saying the team is no longer underdogs, but rather they are the hunted this time around.

It is possible that the Eagles could turn into a bunch of fat cats and go down a notch. Players become selfish and lose the edge that put them over the top last year. I just don’t see that with this bunch due to leadership and the character of the team.

One other note…while the Eagles haven’t been a great team in recent years it isn’t like they were awful. Rock bottom for them was going 7-9 in both 2015 and 2016. Each year they were a handful of plays away from making the postseason. The Eagles were 10-6 the two seasons before that. The players have had some success. This isn’t like a team going 3-13 and then suddenly becoming champs.

*****

I have no problem with someone being critical of the Eagles or any team, as long as their thoughts are either smart or interesting.

Will Brinson wrote a piece on playoff teams from last year that might not make it back this year. He mentioned the Eagles.

He concludes his overview of the team with this:

I firmly believe they are the favorites to win the division again, but that’s what people said about the Cowboys before 2017 too.

Brinson is telling you he expects the Eagles to repeat. Then he writes the section on why they could struggle. He focuses on injuries, which makes a ton of sense with all the Eagles on the mend from serious problems. That’s a legitimate issue.

That’s reasonable analysis.

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