Coach, management responsible for it always being sunny in Philadelphia
With the Eagles' win and the Cowboys' loss on Sunday, Philadelphia moved into a first-place tie with Dallas. There is no rest for the Eagles as they play at the Giants this week. They close at the Cowboys and have home games with Denver and San Francisco. There is a lot of season left for the Eagles, who play some of their best football during this part of the calendar.
The Eagles have been one of the best December teams in the league under Andy Reid. Since his second year with Eagles he has been 29-13. In fact, he has won 12 of his past 15 games in the month.
|
|
| Andy Reid sweats the small stuff, letting the players focus on their execution. (Getty Images) |
• How the teams train physically is a big factor. Joe Gibbs was a great believer in having players do a full weightlifting program two days a week through the season in order to keep their strength through the season, and even try to gain strength.
• Monitoring the reps players take in practice, the length of practice as well as how physical practices are.
There is another aspect of dealing with a team that is just as important, and it's one of Reid's strong points. Philadelphia media and fans don't like his stoic nature in press conferences. He is bland and outside of injury information he virtually says the same thing every week. He handles the situation correctly.
I remember looking at an NFL Films presentation on motivation and ex-Raiders great Dave Casper made a comment that was insightful from a player's perspective. He said, "Fans wanted to be entertained and players want to be coached and some coaches get it backwards and want to coach the fans and entertain the players." Andy Reid has the right perspective on things. Media and fans would like more animation from him, but with an animated style comes ups and downs and more things you end up having to defend at a later point.
What is important is what you say to the players. And in that context I come to my point on Reid and December. One of the keys to managing a team through a season is to keep things in perspective. There are going to be ups and downs during the season. The Eagles certainly have experienced those with an embarrassing loss to New Orleans at home and an equally embarrassing loss to the Raiders in Oakland. On the other hand they have hard-fought wins over division rivals New York and Washington and enter December in a tie for first place. By providing steady and strong leadership, players can play with confidence. Never letting the season get away from him emotionally is Reid's strongest tenet and a key contributing factor as to why the Eagles are a strong closing team.
| More Eagles links |
|
Power Rankings: Eagles climb to No. 6 |
The other defining factor about the Eagles is that owner Jeff Lurie and president Joe Banner have quietly once again done a smart job of planning for the future to keep themselves in contention for years to come.
In the past couple of weeks they signed right tackle Winston Justice and tight end Brent Celek to multi-year extensions. While most other teams have resisted signing players to contract extension with a cloudy labor situation on the horizon, the Eagles now have the core -- Brian Westbrook is an exception -- of their offense locked up for at least the next two years.
And we should remember that this is a talented offensive team with only two players -- Donovan McNabb and Westbrook -- more than 30 years old. Westbrook seemed to have lost a step even before the concussions, but the Eagles have been able to win with the help of rookie running back LeSean McCoy. McNabb, meanwhile, looks like he has a lot of football left, but Kevin Kolb showed he could step in and be productive if the Eagles choose not to re-sign McNabb after the 2010 season.
This is why the Eagles consistently win. They are always thinking ahead and making sure they have capable players ready to replace players they lose. Another case of this was the fact last year's team went to the conference championship game with Tra Thomas and Jon Runyan starting at the tackle spots. The team chose not to bring either back, and for all practical purposes the team has been without Westbrook this season.
But the Eagles had enough depth in their offensive line to have Justice ready to play at right tackle and the foresight to go out and trade for left tackle Jason Peters with an extra first-round pick they acquired in the previous year's draft.
Once again, the Eagles are fighting for a playoff spot this season and are ready to contend again next season.
