I'm not giving up on this teams chances to make the playoffs just yet...as much weirder stuff has happened in professional sports.  remember 2006 when things looked equally as grim?  the Eagles finished on a 5 game win streak and were arguably a Scott Young false start away from going to the NFC championship.  At the beginning of Baseball season it seemed as if the phillies had no starting pitching and Ryan Howard forgot how to make contact.  then throughout the summer it seemed like the team forgot how to hit and they werent going anywhere.  In the middle of september Cole Hamels lost to santana on a nationally televised game on Sunday night leaving us three games back with two weeks to go.  Now the phillies are world champions and all that seems like a distant memory.  Its not completely out of the realm of possibilities to see the eagles in the playoffs.  with that being said there is no way this team goes anywhere unless the coaching staff makes a drastic change to it's approach.  first and foremost, andy reid needs to hand over the playcalling duties.  I don't see how anyone can disagree with that.

But the problem goes a little deeper then just playcalling.  the team needs a serious attitude adjustment.  All off-season into this season we heard everyone in the Eagles camp talking about how good of a team this is.  While confidence is good, this type of talk got the Eagles and Reid believing that it is our god given right to win football games.  The team seems to be waiting around for success to come, while our conference rivals are reaching for it and grabbing it. 

with the exception of the Super Bowl year I would say this is our most talented team.  the difference between this team and the teams that won the NFC East consistently is swagger and swagger alone.  The offense plays with no emotion or fire and takes the "aw shucks well get em next time approach" every time they walk off the field without points.  In the past we would always have someone come up to make a big catch/run/block when it counted.   today every member of the offense seems to be waiting around for someone else to do it.   

the eagles need to ditch this notion of "we know were a good team we just need to come out next week and play better".  Right now they are not a good football team, and they need to earn back the right to call themselves such.

and finally, people need to get off Donovans back.  as bad as he played on sunday those numbers were severely inflated by reids refusal to make adjustments.  if Donovan threw half as many passes he would have thrown one, maybe two interceptions.  Every player has an off game, its just the nature of the game.  the reason you dont see the mannings/Bradys/Romos/etc. of the league having 3 INT games is because when theyre struggling their coaches dont ask them to throw the ball as much.  McNabb is only 31, he easily has another 2-3 years left before his skills really start to decline.  If Kevin Kolb was our starter from opening day we would have 2-3 wins tops, and would not have been close in any of our losses.  Donovan is still a franchise quarterback and still gives this team the best chance to win a superbowl year in and year out.