{"id":1149,"date":"2010-11-05T17:13:08","date_gmt":"2010-11-05T21:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2010-11-05T17:13:08","modified_gmt":"2010-11-05T21:13:08","slug":"eagles-etc-week-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1149","title":{"rendered":"Eagles, Etc: Week Nine"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s time to transition from playoff baseball to midseason football.\u00a0 Not that we haven’t been paying attention to the NFL, as it is after all, the most popular sport in the country, but just that with postseason baseball being played in Philadelphia, the football season doesn’t take center-stage around here until November.\u00a0 So, let’s take a look around the league in Week Nine, starting with the Birds.<\/p>\n

Something’s Gotta Give
\n<\/strong>The Eagles, under Reid, have never beaten the Indianapolis Colts.\u00a0 In fact, Peyton Manning has absolutely carved up the Eagles defense all three times he has faced them in his career.\u00a0 The Colts have won all three of those meetings, with Manning completing just under 70% of his passes, with 7 TDs and only 1 INT.\u00a0 His career passer rating against the Eagles is a staggering 132.2, his best against any one opponent.\u00a0 And, keep in mind that the last two times he has played the Eagles (2006 and 2002), the Birds were 10-6 and 12-4, respectively.\u00a0 Add to the mix here that the last time we saw this Eagles defense, they were getting torched <\/em>in the fourth quarter by a Kerry Collins – Kenny Britt combination.\u00a0 The pass defense has been really suspect this year and now face their most difficult test this Sunday.<\/p>\n

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Maybe it's his ability to audible away from the blitzing Eagles, but Manning has better numbers against Philly than any other opponent<\/p><\/div>\n

So, this one’s easy, right?\u00a0 Not so fast.\u00a0 This is the 12th season of the Andy Reid regime.\u00a0 Coach Reid’s teams are 11-0 (straight-up AND against the spread) coming off of a bye week.\u00a0 So, Reid does something right in that bye week, so expect the Birds to be ready this Sunday.\u00a0 Secondly, they get Michael Vick back at quarterback and, presumably, DeSean Jackson back at WR.\u00a0 Plus, the week off gave banged-up players like LeSean McCoy and Jason Peters a chance to rest.\u00a0 There was no such rest for the weary on the other side of the ball, as the Colts are going on a short week, coming off a physical (albeit, relatively comfortable) win against their division rivals, the Houston Texans.\u00a0 And, the injuries are quickly mounting in Indy.\u00a0 Key offensive and defensive players, Dallas Clark and Melvin Bullitt, are on IR and out for the year.\u00a0 Their best defensive player, Bob Sanders, and a key linebacker, Clint Session,\u00a0are likely going to join Clark and Bullitt on IR.\u00a0 Both Pro Bowl defensive ends, Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis have missed practice time this week, though Freeney did return to practice on Thursday.\u00a0 Their number one running back, Joseph Addai, hasn’t played or practiced in several weeks and is almost assuredly out for Sunday’s game.\u00a0 Number two running back, Mike Hart, has not practiced all week with an ankle injury.\u00a0 If Hart can’t go, then second-year back out of UConn, Donald Brown (who has been disappoiningtly ineffective and is banged up himself) will be the only running back with any proven NFL experience.\u00a0 And, the wide receivers aren’t much better.\u00a0 Austin Collie has missed a lot of time this year with a broken hand and he has missed practice this week.\u00a0 Anthony Gonzalez, who has only played in two games all year, hasn’t practiced all week and is likely out.\u00a0 And, Pierre Garcon, while finally healthy, has ben relatively ineffective in the four weeks he has played since returning from injury.\u00a0 So, this team is on the road on a short week and is very banged up.<\/p>\n

Maybe that is why Vegas has the Birds as a three-point favorite<\/em> in this game.\u00a0 Either way, it is a very big game for the rest of the season because it’s looking more and more like the NFC East is\u00a0a two-team race with Philly and the Giants.\u00a0 The Cowboys are all but dead, and the Redskins has serious problems and a vicious second-half schedule.\u00a0 If the Birds can pull this one out on Sunday, they could set themselves up for yet another NFC East title.<\/p>\n

The Biggest Game of the Week?
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These guys finally have an actual football game to care about<\/p><\/div>\n

If you had looked at the schedule at the beginning of the season, you may have salivated over the two prime time games this week.\u00a0 You know that NBC and ESPN were rather excited to have these matchups.\u00a0 Well, things don’t always work out how you expect them to.\u00a0 NBC’s Packers-Cowboys game is, well, not very good, nor is ESPN’s Steelers-Bengals tilt.\u00a0 And,\u00a0with all due respect to the games in my childhood hometown (Eagles-Colts) and my adulthood home town (Ravens-Dolphins), those two games, while good, are not the marquee matchup of the week.\u00a0 The big game is, to the surprise of probably everyone is in Oakland, where the red-hot Raiders host the first-place Chiefs.\u00a0 It’s a rekindling of one of the oldest, fiercest, and best\u00a0rivalries in the game that has not been fierce or good recently.\u00a0 It’s the first time these two teams will play each as the 1-2 teams in the division this decade, and while the Super Bowl champ may not be participating in this game, the future is pretty bright for both of these teams, and one will get a nice leg up after Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Dark Horse
\n<\/strong>The Raiders and Chiefs, huh?\u00a0 Well, there is one team that I am now rooting for to reassert themselves out west – The San Diego…Super-Chargers!\u00a0 Yes, the Chargers stink and, yes, I did mean what I wrote in the previous paragraph, but, are we ready to bury the Chargers?\u00a0 Phillip Rivers has been the best player in the league this year (if the Chargers were even 5-3 instead of 3-5, he’d be the clear favorite for MVP at the midpoint in the season), and he’s been doing it without any healthy wideouts.\u00a0 That is why I decided to throw $20 on the Chargers to win the Super Bowl at 30-1 odds.\u00a0 Will it happen?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 Do I think it’s a much better than a 30-1 shot?\u00a0 Absolutely!\u00a0 And, I get to root for the Super-Chargers…<\/p>\n

The Best of the NFC?\u00a0 Really?
\n<\/strong>Because the NFC is so bad and everyone just have to name a favorite in early November, a lot of people are talking Super Bowl for the New York Football Giants.\u00a0 Now, I have never claimed to be<\/p>\n

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Honestly, name one thing that he's actually accomplished in his NFL career<\/p><\/div>\n

objective on the G-Men, so I’m not going to comment, but I am going to say, “let’s slow down a bit first.”\u00a0 Must I bring up exactly what the Giants have done thus far?\u00a0 An ugly win over the worst team in football (Carolina).\u00a0 Then, two losses by a combined 43 points to Indy and Tennessee, followed by an ugly win over the Bears, a nice win over the Texans, and two more ugly wins over bad teams, the Lions and Cowboys.\u00a0 Yes, you can only play who is on your schedule, but let’s hold off on making Giants 2010 NFC Championship t-shirts just yet.\u00a0 This week, they have a long road trip to a tough place to play (Seattle), so we can have this conversation on Monday with a little more information.<\/p>\n

The Measuring-Stick Games of the Week
\n<\/strong>This week has a decent number of teams on the bye, and it’s not loaded with great matchups, but there are some interesting games to watch and see whether some of these teams actually are good or not.\u00a0 Here is what I’ll be watching for on Sunday:<\/p>\n