7-point Dogs

The Eagles head to New York a 7-point underdog



The amazing thing about Sunday's game coming up is that the Eagles are just a 7-point underdog to the Giants. These are two teams who headed in opposite directions since their last meeting.

Sure, the Eagles beat up on the Cardinals 48-20 on Thanksgiving, but let's keep it real and admit to ourselves that it was more a matter of the Cardinals heading East and suffering what NFL observers have termed "The West to East coast travel effect" during this 2008 NFL season.

The Giants are 11-1 and since their 36-31 defeat over the Eagles they are 3-0. The Eagles are 1-1-1 since they met and two of those games were hideous.

Don't tell that to Andy Reid though. He told us all is well in Eagle-land. "You guys on your blogs or whatever can say that I don't know what I'm doing as a coach, but I think we have a good football team. That Bakay a**hole who writes for your website can talk about winning close games, getting turnovers, and running the ball all he wants, but he needs to keep his mouth shut and let me do the coaching", said Reid as he stepped out of the bathroom.

Rich Hoffmann is drinking the Kool-Aid now. In his column on the Daily News he says "playcalling not the problem with Eagles' running game."

Huh? Really?

Is he watching the same Eagles team as the rest of us? I'm sorry, Andy Reid must not have called over 60 passing plays in the Cincinatti and Baltimore games.

We caught up to Mr. Hoffman today outside of the Starbucks on Walnut Street in Philly and he had this to say. "Look I know what I wrote is complete bulls**t, but that's my job when I'm taking a paycheck from Joe Banner. How come you guys aren't tougher on Eskin. He's been kissing Andy Reid's ass so much over the years he no longer has a sense of smell", said Hoffman as he sipped on his latte.

While that may be true to a certain extent, but Eskin didn't write this fluff piece, you did Mr. Hoffman.

Look at this gem right here, which stinks of the spin that only Joe Banner or Dave Spadaro could rival.

"The Eagles run the ball 25 times a game. The average NFL team runs it 27.4 times a game. That's it. That's the difference between Reid and typical - two play calls a game. People say that if they would just stick with it, they would be better at it - as if they never try. It isn't true. Yes, Reid likes to throw the ball a lot - but deal with reality."

The reality is Mr. Hoffman that in the Eagles' defeats this year they didn't emphasize balance. And, historically the Eagles are much better football club when they run the ball then when they aren't. Their record speaks for itself. They are 37-5 when they run the ball at least 30 times. That's a fact. And, another fact is they got knocked out of the playoffs every time when they called a plethora of passing plays.

After our little chit-chat with Hoffman, we happened to run into Sean Avery of all people who is spending his 6-game suspension in the area.

"Dude, the Eagles are a motherf***in' joke. Why even bother writing about them? They're not even worthy of being the Giants' sloppy seconds", said Avery as he grabbed his crotch.

Now, onto Sunday's game. What can we expect out of the Eagles? I'll say the same thing I said before the Ravens game. I expect Reid to think he's going to call over 50 passing plays and expect a win.

And, the Eagles will go home with their season down the drain once again. Nothing he has shown makes me convinced he'll do otherwise against a good team.

And, if this game does become a close game do you expect the Eagles to pull it out when they have just a 1-8 record in their last 9 games that were decided by 5 points or less? The Giants on the other hand are 10-1 in their last 11 games decided by 5 points or less.

He'll tell us after they lose that the season isn't over and they just need to keep "firing away."

Great. What has that accomplished? Oh, it's gotten them a 54-53-1 record over the past four years since that Super Bowl loss to New England in Jacksonville.