Eagles can't finish, but they can't start either

Andy Reid said something after the game yesterday that stuck me. Not because it was particularly brilliant or insightful... it was just a cliche after all.

"The offense can't start the way we're starting, and we can't finish the way we're finishing here both offensively and defensively. We have to make sure we're taking care of business and getting better."

He's right. Yesterday, I took the position that this loss was the result of a defensive collapse and I still believe that's true. Context is important. When a defense is handed a 10 point lead with 5 minutes left, then it's not in any way unreasonable to expect them to hold it. If they don't, it's their failure.

Having said that, Reid's point stands. If we step back and look at the game as a whole, we can't ignore the fact that the offense managed 7 points in the first half. We can't ignore that they turned the ball over twice in that half.

This is just too much like last season. We still haven't seen this team put together a full game where they played well for 60 minutes. Yes, the defense did its job very well in the first half, but they were awful in the second half. The offense did almost nothing in the first half, but scored 16 points in the second half.

The same thing happened against Pittsburgh. Against the Ravens, the defense gave up 17 in the first half but then held the Ravens to just 2 FGs in the 2nd half. The offense managed just a TD in the first half and 17 points in the second.

We've seen a half of good football from one of these units in almost every game this year. What we haven't seen is 60 minutes of good football. Heading into the bye, that's priority #1 for Andy Reid.