This season will see the Eagles rebound to playoff status or struggle again near the bottom of the league and the ramifications will likely be huge.

So the Eagles will either be good or not this year. I guess he’s right about that!

but I don’t think he’s really wrong here.

I think McNabb needs to play well this year, or the Kevin Kolb era will begin in 2009. And I think McNabb’s kind of the lynchpin of the group Cobb mentions (ugh, it’s hard to talk about “Kolb” and “Cobb” in the same post without mixing them up).

If McNabb proves he’s still worthy of being the franchise QB, then it makes sense to keep those veterans around. If they decide to move on with Kolb, then I think there’s a “mini-rebuilding” that means they might decide to get younger at those positions as well.

I don’t think they need to blow up the team either way, because they have been trying to re-stock continuously with young talent, but I still think that no matter what the long-term prognisis of the Kevin Kolb “era”, his first season as a starter would probably be a step back from what we’ve come to expect of McNabb.

The reason that I hate the idea of people characterizing the eagles as being on downward slide, or on the verge of a massive or minor rebuilding, is that a.) we are a young team in general with few “true” veterans, and b.) last year wasn’t all that bad when you think about it.

The last part is the most important. We lost several games by a total of 10 points over the span of games, and the only true blow-out that we had came at the hands of the cowboys, as nauseating as that is. We did well last year but didn’t have the true offensive dynamite that we had in past years, but our defense was phenominal. Can you imagine what last year would have been like if we had been just 75 – 80% in the red zone as in years past? We would have been considered dominant last year rather then “a team on the verge of rebuilding” or a team headed for a new coach. McNabbs numbers were good last year, our receivers were good last year, and we hung with the best of them (e.g. New England, Cowboys, Giants). We just couldn’t finish off teams that we were beating. So even though we came off an 8-8 season, it wasn’t a 6-10 season or worse. We finished strong, and I see us coming on strong with new life this year.

GCobb can suck it….suck it long…and suck it hard…

I think it’s funny how he notes that Dawkins, Runyan and Thomas might all be gone next year if we struggle. Right…and they’re all at the end of their contracts and all might’ve retired anyways. So I’m not sure what point he’s trying to make. Second, I think the Eagles have already been rebuilding for some time. Look at the defensive front seven. It was basically created post-2005. They’ve almost perfected the art of permanent rebuilding.

There’s lots of reasons to be optimistic going into this season. On the flip side of that coin, I think we’ll remember this season as a failure if we don’t make the NFC Championship game at the very least. This team has Superbowl potential, there’s no reason to have low expectations just because the Eagles didn’t make the playoffs last year (when they definitely should have if they hadn’t thrown away the chances they had).*

or might it actually be the relentless negativity of the local press?