{"id":1156,"date":"2010-11-12T13:22:26","date_gmt":"2010-11-12T17:22:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1156"},"modified":"2010-11-12T13:22:52","modified_gmt":"2010-11-12T17:22:52","slug":"defining-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=1156","title":{"rendered":"Defining Success"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"

Can Vick live up to the raised expectations?<\/p><\/div>\n

Like a lot of NFL teams, the Eagles hit the midway point of their season with a huge range of possibilities for where their season will end.\u00a0 At 5-3, they’d currently be in a 3-way tie for the 6th, and final, NFC playoff spot.\u00a0 But they’re also just a game behind the 6-2 teams that have the best record in the conference.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It was hard to know what to make of this team coming into the season, and the unexpected back-and-forth between Vick and Kolb at quarterback, along with a litany of injuries at other positions, have only clouded the situation.\u00a0 So, what does this team need to accomplish for the season to be considered a “success?”\u00a0 And, in the bigger picture, how\u00a0do\u00a0we fans define success for our teams?<\/p>\n

For fans of some teams (mainly the Yankees), anything less than a championship is a failure.\u00a0 Every year.\u00a0 For most fans though, they have to\u00a0find their own measure for each team, each season.<\/p>\n

For example,\u00a0in my mind, the 2009 Phillies\u00a0undoubtedly had a successful season.\u00a0\u00a0Considering how many teams win a title and then disappear from sight for ten years, the fact that they came back the next year and won the pennant, with a mediocre pitching staff, was really a great accomplishment.\u00a0 Yes, they were manhandled by the Yankees in the World Series, but that couldn’t take\u00a0away from everything else they did, and the entertainment they provided us fans.\u00a0 That 2009 season also served to\u00a0keep the ‘ball rolling,’ in a sense, and helped them sellout every home game in 2010, and may have been a contributing factor\u00a0in their willingness to take on a contract like Roy Oswalt’s at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

The 2010 Phillie season, on the other hand, will go down as a failure.\u00a0 But wait, I hear someone saying, they had the best record in baseball for the first time in their 130 year history.\u00a0 And they won a playoff series!\u00a0 Doesn’t matter.\u00a0 Expectations for this team were, justifiably, sky high, and a loss in the NLCS put a big asterisk next to everything else the team accomplished.<\/p>\n

So, that brings us back to the Eagles.\u00a0 Coming into the season, I thought a playoff appearance would make it a success.\u00a0 They were handing the\u00a0reins over to a\u00a01st-year quarterback, had a questionable offensive line, and were starting two rookies on\u00a0a defense that was underwhelming a year ago.<\/p>\n

Two\u00a0factors have definitely changed that measure of\u00a0success in this first half of the season.\u00a0 One, Michael Vick has taken the QB job and\u00a0has been one\u00a0of the best players in the league, when healthy.\u00a0 Two, the NFC may be as bad as its ever been, which is saying something when you think about how long the NFC has been the inferior conference.<\/p>\n

I don’t expect the Eagles\u00a0to win the NFC, but I do think they have a decent shot at it.\u00a0 And so, at the\u00a0midway point of the season,\u00a0anything less than a trip to the Super Bowl in Dallas would be a failure.\u00a0 I don’t\u00a0deny that just making the NFC Championship\u00a0Game would be an impressive feat for this team, but Eagles fans have just seen\u00a0too many losses in that game for it to ever really feel like success.<\/p>\n

How would you define success for this Eagle squad: a playoff appearance,\u00a0a loss in the NFC Championship, a loss in the Super Bowl, or nothing less than a title?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a lot of NFL teams, the Eagles hit the midway point of their season with a huge range of possibilities for where their season will end.\u00a0 At 5-3, they’d currently be in a 3-way tie for the 6th, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[4,738,16],"class_list":["post-1156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","category-nfl","tag-eagles","tag-michael-vick","tag-phillies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1159,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156\/revisions\/1159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}