Well...Now that thats over

2009 was one hell of the year. From looking at what might of been the best offense of the decade to being absolutly dominated 2 weeks in a row by the Cowboys many people are going to look at this year at being a complete failure. And to be honest any year that doesnt end with a Lombardi trophy (which feels like every year) feels like a complete failure. Well, to be honest there are two factors that make me really optimistic going in to next year. 1) Injuries and 2) Youth. These two things have we really optimistic going into next year. Injuries- its no myth the toughest opponent we faced all year was the injury bug. If you look at all of the weaknesses of our team, LBs-CB depth-OLine. All of these things can be attributed to injuries. Our best LB goes down in the preseason with a torn acl and joe mays and omar gaither go down later on. All this forces us to bring back Trotter and give a 7th round pick significant playing time. Sheldon brown battles injury all year, ellis hobbs is lost, and we had to bring in former lion cbs to fill in for depth b.c of our losses at CB. Our Oline. Self admittingly the part of this team i was most excited about. Potentially having Jason Peters, Todd Herramans, JJackson and the Andrews Co. anchoring our offense was amazing. But Shawn Andrews never made it to the field, Stacy barely plyed, and only 2 players, Peters and Herramans, remained at the end of the season, from the super line we once dreamed of. Other players eventually went down too. Brian Westbrook barely saw the field this year after battling concussions. Cornelius Ingram a potential red zone threat of our offense goes down before the season starts. He end up bringing Allen Iverson out of retirement. The fact of the matter is the team we saw just get murdered by Dallas wasnt our full potential. And we get to start over next year with with healthy roster. Youth-Its no secret this team is the youngest of Big Reds career in Philly. We were the youngest team in the league. And we were really successful. Young Guns ran the show on offense. DJack, Maclin, McCoy, Celek. Really young guys with long careers in front of them who are going to contribute next year. Look at out two starting recievers DeSean "Whats my nickname now?" Jackson is a sophmore! Maclin is a rookie! Look at how great theyve contributed this year then imagine how there going to grow, mature, and get better as they learn the league more and develop over the post season. Shady McCoy is poised to take over as the starting RB next year with help from Leonard Weaver....at 21 years old. On defense Stewart Bradley comes back for his 3rd 4th year in the league. Even though he's coming off the dreaded ACL injury he's really young and has all the potential to bounce right back just like DMac did a few years ago. Macho Harris and Moises Fokou comtributed ALOT this season...maybe a little more than we would of wanted but it was valuble playing time for them. They will learn more and more about playing in a NFL defense. Macho will learn how to read the quarterback Moises will mature as a player. In general we are a really young group and as this group ages together as men and players then we will only get better and better as a team. Yes. This year was a failure. We were more then swept by Dallas. We were Dallas' bitches. We were knocked out of the WildCard round forthe first time under Andy Reid. But we have a reason to be optimistic going forward. Will we wake up tomorrow and be like "Shit...no more Eagles football until August." Yes. But hell. Maybe during that time off we can catch up on our anger management bills and fix the flat screen from when we threw the remote at the TV after Felix Jones long ass run.