The Philadelphia Eagles have made some very unwise moves these past couple years. A lot of it simply has to do with coaching. Before last year, Juan Castillo had never coached defense in his life. He was the Eagles' offensive line coach for 13 seasons prior to last year, when for some strange reason, he was hired as the team's defensive coordinator. The defense struggled mightily during the first half of the season, but showed enough improvement in the second half to warrant Castillo another year on the job. Well, it wasn't a full year on the job. Following a couple losses mid-season where the defense gave up 4th quarter leads, Castillo was fired. The defense was quite mediocre for the most part - ranking in the very middle of the pack in most categories. On the other side of the ball, the offense ranked near last in many important categories, yet Castillo was made to be the first scapegoat of the season and was let go. The Eagles were 3-4 at the time, far from out of the playoff race with nine games remaining. Hiring Castillo in the first place was a dumb move and firing him mid-season was dumb as well. The firing was simply to afford head coach Andy Reid some more time to keep his job.
With quarterback Michael Vick suffering a concussion this past Sunday, rumor has it that Reid will bench Vick the rest of the year in favor of rookie Nick Foles in order to try and afford himself even more time. The Eagles are fading quickly at 3-6, but with the NFC East-leading New York Giants struggling of late and falling to 6-4, the Eagles aren't completely out of the playoff race yet. Just as it was stupid to let go of a defensive coordinator mid-season, it'd be just as stupid to bench a starting quarterback in favor of a rookie who has never started a regular season game in his professional career. I highly doubt that Andy Reid will be able to convince the higher-ups that he's coaching for the future success of this team, which will afford him at least one more season as head coach there. What Reid needs is to win now and who is he going to trust more at quarterback with his job at stake - a four-time Pro Bowler or a guy who has never started an NFL regular season game? It's his call, but like with Castillo and now Vick, he's running out of people to blame for his own failures.
With quarterback Michael Vick suffering a concussion this past Sunday, rumor has it that Reid will bench Vick the rest of the year in favor of rookie Nick Foles in order to try and afford himself even more time. The Eagles are fading quickly at 3-6, but with the NFC East-leading New York Giants struggling of late and falling to 6-4, the Eagles aren't completely out of the playoff race yet. Just as it was stupid to let go of a defensive coordinator mid-season, it'd be just as stupid to bench a starting quarterback in favor of a rookie who has never started a regular season game in his professional career. I highly doubt that Andy Reid will be able to convince the higher-ups that he's coaching for the future success of this team, which will afford him at least one more season as head coach there. What Reid needs is to win now and who is he going to trust more at quarterback with his job at stake - a four-time Pro Bowler or a guy who has never started an NFL regular season game? It's his call, but like with Castillo and now Vick, he's running out of people to blame for his own failures.
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