It's a bye week, the Phils are fighting for their playoff lives, and the weather is absolutely amazing to boot... So I won't blame you if football isn't exactly on your mind this weekend. So, I present you with some light headlines to keep you up to date.
Les Bowen reminds us that Reid has never lost after a bye week.
TWO THINGS about the Eagles and the bye week: It nearly always comes after a particularly galling, unexpected loss, and it always precedes a comforting victory.
At least, that's been the story since Andy Reid arrived in 1999: 3-6 going into the bye, including six losses the past 7, 8-0 coming out of the bye, which is where the Birds will be next week, when they travel to the Meadowlands once again, this time to face the New York Jets.
Gary Cobb has handed out his first quarter grades for the Eagles. In short, defense good/offense bad.
The Eagles started the season with great concerns about their defense. Remarkably it hasn't been their defense which has let them down. It has been their offense. At 1-3, things look very dire, but the Birds have come back from poor starts to finish strong in the past. Hopefully we will see it again this season
Dr Todd Boyd of ESPN(I don't who he is either) asks, Why the McNabb backlash?
I find it especially ironic that Donovan McNabb and Isiah Thomas both have been in the news lately for the words that have come out of their respective mouths. There was an intense focus on Isiah's choice of language in the recent sexual harassment trial, while Donovan found himself the source of much derision for suggesting that black quarterbacks operate under a different kind of scrutiny than their white counterparts.
Despite being a second round pick, Victor Abimari has been inactive every game so far this year.
Abiamiri, 21, a sculpted 6-foot-4, 267-pound defensive end from Notre Dame, was the second player the Eagles drafted in April, the 57th taken overall in the second round. But his selection was mostly overlooked because of all the hullabaloo over Kevin Kolb, the quarterback the Birds chose earlier in the same round to the surprise of just about everyone, including Donovan McNabb. Yet, like Kolb, Abiamiri is biding his time, his name announced only in the moments before kickoff, when the eight-man inactive list is released.