Former Eagles Coaches Making the News

I recently reported here on this blog about the wealth of former Phillies players and coaches that have gone on to coach elsewhere in the big leagues. Now that trend is shifting to the Eagles as well.

In today's news, you may have heard about Ray Rhodes being scooped up by the Texans to serve as a defensive backs coach, as well as Rex Ryan being signed by the Baltimore Ravens. Okay, so Rex Ryan never coached or played for the Birds, but his dad did, and it's important to note that he'll now be working under former Iggles coach John Harbaugh.

Assistant coaches aside, this (un-updated) list of NFL head coaches shows that quite a few are indeed ex-Eagles, namely:

-Brad Childress (Minnesota), former coach
-Jon Gruden (Tampa Bay), former coach
-Jeff Fisher (Tennessee), former coach
-Emmitt Thomas (Atlanta-- okay, well he was only there temporarily), former coach
-Herm Edwards (Kansas City), former player

Perhaps if I have time I'll dig down deeper to find assistant coaches that were once Eagles, but that could take a lot of time which I don't quite have since there are so many assistants out there!

But all in all, even though the Eagles have been in a slump of late, it shows they must have done something right to have so many alumni in the head coaching ranks.

Good job gents... now do us proud and make your teams lose to us so we can go on and win a Super Bowl, wouldya?

(Thanks to viewimages.com for the photo!)

Cris Carter: Hall-Worthy?

In an old Seinfeld episode, the character of Elaine hordes a stash of sponges (the prophylactics, not the dishwashing kind), and quizzes each potential mate to determine whether or not he is sponge-worthy.

Well, a similar process goes on in the world of sports, and this one has to do with making the Hall of Fame in a player's respective sport.

Cris Carter, the famed former Eagles wide receiver is up for nomination this year, which brings the question, "Is he Hall-Worthy?" Let's take a look at some of his highlights, according to Pro-Football-Reference.com and discuss...

*8 Pro Bowl selections and 4 All-Pro selections
*1101 Receptions, placing him second all-time
*13,899 yards all time, ranking him 6th
*130 career receiving TD's, good for second, and sixth all-time for TD's for all wide receivers and running backs
*5 2-point conversions made, ranking him third (okay, not the most important stat, I just thought it was kinda cool!)

So those are Cris Carter's highlights. Based on them, and other stats you can find at the above link, is he Hall-Worthy???

My verdict...

YES! Send him to Akron to the Hall of Fame.

He had a stellar career and deserves to be enshrined. Too bad that most of his career was spent outside of Philly, else we may have seen a Super Bowl, assuming he could have done just as well here as he did in Minnesota.

For the record, Carter, an Ohio State alum, was drafted in the 4th round by the Eagles in 1987, and stayed in Philadelphia on the steely Veterans Stadium turf until 1989. He spent the bulk of his career with the Vikings, and then fizzled out with 5 games in Miami in 2002.

Unfortunately Buddy Ryan let him go, as this statement from Wikipedia reveals:

During training camp in 1990, while coaching the Eagles, Ryan released an up-and-coming young wide receiver named Cris Carter. Ryan subsequently explained to the media that he had cut Carter because Carter "only catches touchdowns" - an explanation for which Ryan was widely ridiculed for several years, especially after Carter was signed by the Minnesota Vikings with whom he almost immediately developed into one of the NFL's premier passcatchers. Years later, however, it was revealed that Carter had had a serious drug problem, and that Ryan had released him from the Eagles to send him a wake-up call. Carter credits Ryan's actions with helping him to turn his life around.

So there you have it. At any rate, good luck on your HoF bid Cris, and you're more than welcome to suit up and try out for the Eagles again this summer...

Eagles Throwback Jerseys: Which One Would You Choose?

At Modell's the other day, I peered up at a wall of throwback Eagles jerseys. I was looking to spend my gift card and I wanted an Eagles jersey since I didn't own one, and didn't particularly feel like getting a current player, for no other reason than pretty much every Iggles fan has a Westbrook, McNabb, Dawkins, or other familiar player's uniform. So the throwbacks caught my eye but I had a decision to make on which player to spring for. The choices were:

Harold Carmichael (#17)
Randall Cunningham (#12)
Keith Jackson (#88)
Ron Jaworski (#7)
Vince Papale (#83)
Mike Quick (#82)
Reggie White (#92)

For any Eagles fan, this is a tough call!

Quite honestly, on any given day I might have chosen a different one depending on my mood. I must have been in a hungry mood that day because I wound up going with the "Jaws" jersey. In reality, it was a very close call for me, with each player having a different selling point. Cunningham was silky smooth and wore my favorite number, Vince Papale was gritty and a unique star (though I was too young to see him play), Reggie was a legend, and so on and so forth. Once you get thinking about it, it gets pretty tough!

So I ask you... what throwback Eagles jersey would you have chosen?

An Eagles Analysis from a Different Point of View

Please pardon me as I stray away from my normal undertaking of digging up Philly sports minutiae, but I just had to jot my thoughts down on the 2007 Eagles.

I saw two amazing stats that were pretty much buried deep in the Philly Inquirer, one from today one from the weekend. Before you read what I'm going to report, you need to essentially drop any knowledge you have about the Eagles... forget any opinions you have about the coaches and players, and just take in the stats for what they are:

1. The Eagles had the HARDEST strength of schedule in the ENTIRE NFL. Teams that the Eagles played won 56% of their games. The next closest team was Washington. Meanwhile out of all the playoff teams other than Washington, the next highest percentage was 51%.... and most of the playoff teams had much easier schedules. That definitely makes a HUGE difference over the course of the season.

2. The Eagles were one of only FOUR teams to be in the top 10 for both offensive yards gained and defensive yards allowed. Patriots, Dallas, and Indy were the other 3 teams. If that company doesn't amaze you then I don't know what does.

So all in all, I think we can all agree that the Eagles should have had a better record this year, but unfortunately a few costly mistakes and poor executions and coaching decisions when needed killed this team. But I think that on the whole this team's still on the right track, despite the flukiness of this past year. If they can fill in a few key positions, watch out in '08.

Unfortunately the Inquirer sports writers tend to focus on the same issues of "we need another wide receiver" (true, but so do most teams), or "we need to run the ball with Westbrook more" (debatable, since if he runs the ball 20-25 times a game he's a lot more likely to get injured or worn down during the course of the season and ultimately shortening his career), or "McNabb/Reid/fill-in-the-blank must go (or must stay, depending on the time of year)". While they do make good points, it gets pretty tiresome reading the same basic commentary over and over and over. Though he's not perfect, I generally trust Andy Reid and his decisions and I think it's a waste of time to second-guess every single one that he makes. Move on with life!

That's all I wanted to say. Happy New Year's y'all!