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!