(ThatKidInTheCorner :: Andy Reid Fires Himself! And Reporters In Philly Swarm!)

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November 13, 2006

Andy Reid Fires Himself! And Reporters In Philly Swarm!

I had no idea the playcalling would be the story of today's game; the Philly sports media turns into a caricature of itself

So I was going to write a post about how much I needed the Eagles bye week. For anyone who's spoken to me about the Birds for the past two weeks, I've been deep in breakup metaphors. Lots of talk of "taking some time apart" from the Eagles and "needing my space." And also the horrifying experience I had at the sports bar two weeks ago comma alone. Then I realized that I had essentially written that post a year ago. And then I toweled off and really did take a break.

My one action item from the bye week is that I've decided that I'm no longer at the point in my life where I need to wear one of my Eagles jerseys on game day. Of course, I'm still allowed to wear them, but it's no longer required. I'm a big boy now!

Anyhoo, I had no idea that the big story coming out of today's win against the Redskins (which has done wonders for my mood this weekend comma there I said it) would be that Eagles Head Coach And Executive Vice President Of Football Operations Andy Reid (gasp!) delegated the play-calling duties to Offensive Coordinator Marty Mornhinweg. That's right. The Eagles won 27-3 and Andy didn't call the plays. Andy himself offered up this information at his post-game press conference.

It took the Philly sports reporters a few seconds to figure out what they had with that comment. But once they did (and trust me, it was only seconds), they went after it like a fat kid poking at the last piece of bacon.

I'd like to say that said reporters were appropriately restrained in their cross-examination on this topic. Surely this merited some follow-up questions, but they were other things to discuss, no? Brian Westbrook's big game on the ground? Maybe the good bounces versus bad bounces thing? The emotional game that Brian Dawkins played? The at times erratic performance of the offense?

Sigh.

The McNabb press conference focused solely on this topic. Marty Mornhinweg was mobbed by reporters and held court for a while. No fewer than three (3) articles are already posted on Philly.com on it. (Be sure to vote in the poll!) In a rare moment of restraint, they managed to not ask Dawkins about it.

Phil Sheridan was the first to go meta with the story, questioning the motives of of the "typically close-lipped" Reid in making such a public revelation. I'm sure that by tomorrow afternoon WIP will have spun an intricate web of conspiracy and subterfuge around it. Fine.

I'll admit it was semi-hilarious listening to McNabb and Mornhinweg giving pained and politically correct answers about it, as if they'd been caught faking information about WMDs. We must never question the authority and wisdom of Andy Reid! He is all-knowing and all-powerful! McNabb went into full denial mode ("At no point do I have any idea who calls the plays -- Marty's the guy who tells me the plays every week, so I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference anyway. Go boss!"), while Mornhinweg smugly insisted that it wasn't a big deal, and even made a fat joke about Big Red ("It's nothing, we can joke, no biggie, no worries!").

I was tempted to reference the ways that the Bushies manipulated the media with the Rumsfeld firing the day after the Democrats took Congress, but then I remembered that (a) it's just a goofy football game and (b) I already made one heavy-handed political reference (above).

To be honest, I didn't think that the Eagles really called a different offensive game this week, so whatever. Yeah, they ran more, but most of that was on the final drive when the Skins had completely given up and just wanted to get out of the rain. But whatever. If Andy Reid's trying to tell us that he's human and can admit when he's underperforming, well I'm happy to eat that up as well. (I mean, I do watch the video of all the press conferences.) Good for you for being "self-critical" and "results-oriented," Andy. We'll make some motivational posters.

Anyhoo, 5-4 is pretty cool. At least better than 4-5. Also, here's a video of a random drunk guy stumbling in the parking lot of the Linc: