Brian Westbrook heaped praise on Andy Reid for sticking with the run game Sunday, when the Eagles defeated the Giants 20-14 in New York. But as Matt Mosley pointed out in his NFC East blog, you gotta love the backhanded compliments that he is delivering:"We were able to run the ball successfully early, and Coach stayed with it," Westbrook said. "He was very committed to it, and I give a lot of credit to him because usually we're not that committed to it. He saw that we were getting it done.
"We always try to tell him 2 or 3 yards is not that bad, and we had a couple of carries where it was just 2 or 3 yards. But he stayed committed to it, and sooner or later, that turned into 5 or 6 yards, then we had the big run down the middle."
Yes Westbrook is complimenting Reid for sticking with the successful gameplan this week, but hidden in these remarks is a little bit of "I told you so." You can sense the "if this team had been more committed to the run earlier in the season we might be closer to 10-3 or 11-2." subtext.
I'm a big fan of what Andy Reid has done in Philly. He turned the franchise into perennial contenders. But NFL coaches - just like NFL players - have a finite shelf life. They can only be effective in one place for so long. I credit Reid for reverting back to the basics and sticking with what this team can do well: Control the line of scrimmage on offense and defense, mix in short, high percentage passes and take occasional shots down field. But if your players are constantly trying to convince you to stick with the ground game it might be time to take a step back for a little while.
I like Reid and I like his playcalling decisions over the last two weeks, but unless he can keep it up for the rest of the season I'm still in favor of a coaching change at the end of the season.
No comments:
Post a Comment