I think I've finally rebounded enough to make a post.

Sunday's four o'clock hour was one of the most gut-wrenching sixty minutes ever. The Braves blew a five run lead in the eighth and ninth innings of what turned out to be the longest playoff game ever. They let a guy who barely hits more homeruns than Rafael Belliard tie the thing up with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Then, after about nine innings of painful, non-clutch baseball, another Belliard-like Houston batsman ended the game with a solo shot.

While all of this nonsense was going on, the Eagles superb defense was getting torched by a couple of old Patriots, Drew Bledsoe and Terry Glenn. First of all, a sitting duck QB like Bledsoe is exactly the type of passer the Eagles defense usually preys on. And secondly, Glenn shouldn't have been a problem since coordinator Jim Johnson was focusing on him as the most likely threat on the Cowboys offense. Well, so much for all of that. Bledsoe had all day to throw the ball and the Eagles defensive back "Lockdown Lito" Sheppard struggled to keep up with Glenn early in man coverage. A blowout ensued.

The way I see it, the defense should be the constant with the Birds, so I pin this one entirely on them. The offense is going to go through peaks and valleys through the course of just about every game. #5's bunch ranks highly in both yards per game, as well as three and outs. The key is having the defense show up and provide routine stops to allow the offense to find its groove.

And the Aikman quote of the game (a paraphrase in my memory at this point)...

"The Eagles are really struggling on both sides of the ball and on defense."

I don't know, something like that. Everything sounded stupid during that four o'clock hour.

Labels: Eagles '05