The Big Red Debate

Posted: January 20th, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Philadelphia Eagles | Comments Off on The Big Red Debate

The Eagles will not win the Super Bowl this year. So who do you pull for? To me, that’s a no brainer. Big Red. Andy Reid. The man who helped the Eagles go from mediocrity to being an organization that mattered. And still does.

Amazingly, not everyone agrees.

I have posted comments during Chiefs games about how I’m pulling for Big Red to finally get his title. Some people come back at me questioning why I am pulling for Andy.

It seems like the bad feelings stem from the frustration with his inability to bring the Lombardi Trophy to Philly while he was here and his stubborn style of coaching (mostly not running the ball enough).

Andy didn’t win the Super Bowl with the Eagles. He got the team to five championship games, but somehow only won one of those games. When he did get to the Super Bowl, the Eagles lost to the Patriots 24-21.

I’m not going to pretend everything went smoothly from 1999-2012. There were ups and downs. There were times when Andy drove us all crazy. His refusal to embrace the running game could be maddening. His decision to draft Freddie Mitchell over other WRs in 2001 was torturous.

There is no reason to go through every decision that was unpopular or incredibly frustrating. Suffice it to say, there were times when Andy could make you want to banish him to ice caverns of Fridgia.

But there was a lot more good than bad. A lot more.

The Eagles went to the playoffs nine times under Reid. They went to five NFC title games. They won five division titles.

Reid developed star players like Donovan McNabb, Brian Dawkins and Brian Westbrook. He gave us LeSean and DeSean. He even coached the immortal Derek Landri.

Beyond winning, Reid created a great atmosphere. He made the Eagles a destination team. Prior to his arrival, players used the Eagles to get more money from other teams. Reid changed that in a major way.

You saw free agents wanting to come to Philly. You saw players wanting to come back (Hugh Douglas, A.J. Feeley). Not many guys ever wanted to leave.

Reid is a brilliant, but flawed coach. He is great with people.

He now has a coaching tree. Doug Pederson and John Harbaugh have won Super Bowls. Ron Rivera got his team to the Super Bowl. Sean McDermott has his team on the rise in a big way.

When I’m down at the Senior Bowl, there is a wave of people that go to see Reid. You’ll see scouts, former assistants, agents, media people…you name it. Andy talks to all of them. And not just a brush off type of hello. He gives them all his time and attention.

Andy Reid has meant a lot to me even though I’ve never met him. I will be pulling for him to win the Super Bowl with all of my heart. It would mean the world to me to see Big Red hoist the Lombardi, just as it did when Reggie held in back in 1996 as part of the Packers.

Andy deserves to win it all. He has helped a lot of players and coaches during his time in the NFL. He’s made the game better. Bill Belichick is a genius, but also can be an annoying blowhard. Andy is Andy. And the NFL is a better place for it.

When asked how he celebrated the big win…

https://twitter.com/Chiefs/status/1219325129152434177

Go Chiefs!!!

*****

Speaking of the Eagles and coaches.

Okay. So what is going on? I thought Harrell might be the front runner for the job.

The Eagles can talk to a variety of NFL assistants with the break between now and the Super Bowl. They can also talk to people down at the Senior Bowl.

We’ll have to wait for the rumor mill to get going. Right now we don’t know what the team is thinking.

It isn’t a bad thing that we don’t know their plans. We just need them to have a plan.

This is interesting. Berry is a very smart man and he’s worked for a couple of different teams. He’ll have a different outlook than someone who has been in Philly for the past four years.

It would be good to keep Berry around.

*****

This is kinda funny.

_

Comments are closed.