Gameday is Here

For PE.com, I wrote a preview of the game and talked about some players that I’ll be watching closely.

There is no urgent question for me as we head into the game.  I want the offense to look somewhat polished.  I want the defense to look faster than last year and to tackle better.  I’ll be focusing on the LBs quite a bit.

What about you guys?  Any one player or thing you’ll be focused on tonight?

Here are Les Bowen’s 3 players to keep an eye on.  Oddly, Trent Edwards did not make the cut. Les is showing his bias against washed up ex-Bills QBs.

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I will put up a game thread prior to kickoff.

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Derek/Iggles Blog shared this nugget on Twitter.  Apparently the Luries have settled their divorce.  Sounds like they will continue to share the team.  That’s okay by me.  Lurie is a great owner.  I have no problem with Christina remaining involved.  She has done a lot of good things over the years.

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Sam shared a link on Twitter to “a very interesting ESPN piece on Urban Meyer and, more relevantly to Eagles fans, the impact of all-consuming coaching.”  It really is an excellent piece by Wright Thompson.

My one beef with the piece is that it glosses over or avoids some issues with Urban.  He has been a “win at all cost” type of coach.  He has pissed off recruits and opposing coaches with his tactics.  There seems to be no sense of honor with him.

Urban has had no problem with keeping troubled players around.  Florida had a bunch of kids that got into trouble of varying degrees.  Janoris Jenkins wasn’t kicked out of school until Will Muschamp arrived.  Most feel Janoris would have stayed if Urban was still coach.  Urban talks in the article about getting back to the days when he taught math to students at Bowling Green, but that feels very disingenuous when you look at his UF track record.

His health deteriorated at UF, causing his “retirement”.  A doubting Thomas type might also point out that he was coming off his worst season as a head coach (8-5) and the team wasn’t exactly stacked with talent for 2011.  The highest drafted Gator off the 2011 team went in the 4th round (DT Jaye Howard).

Urban Meyer isn’t just an obsessive coach.  He’s a win-aholic.  We’ll see if he can keep that under control at Ohio State and be a better husband/father.  I’ve got my doubts.

Andy Reid is more of a typical workaholic coach.  That isn’t the greatest thing in the world, but he’s not as ruthless as Meyer and I think that is a good thing.  I believe you can have success with some sense of honor.

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Les wrote a very good piece on Garrett Reid and how to not trivialize his death by making this a rallying cry for the team.  Really excellent stuff.

I know more than a few of you are fans of The Wire, one of the greatest shows in TV history.  One of the cast members of the show died recently, of an overdose.  The guy, DeAndre McCullough, played the assistant to Brother Muzzone.

David Simon, the writer/creator of The Wire, knew McCullough from back when Andre was a dealer on Fayette Street and Simon was doing research for a book called The Corner.  They had remained friends for the past 20 years.  Simon wrote a moving obit to his friend.

I found it interesting that two troubled men died so close together and fought such similar battles, despite having people around them that genuinely loved and cared for them.  So often we think of drug addicts as the loners with no redeeming qualities.  Both men here fought hard to do the right thing, but just weren’t able to win their battles.

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