Wellness

[Sweetbay magnolia]

Can we trade Dan Snyder? What a wreck. Anyone hear the London Fletcher comments about Haslett?

[gardenman]

Well, that was ugly. The offense never got in sync and Mark Sanchez did not play well. There were opportunities galore in that game, but dumb mistakes, questionable officiating, and ineptness gave the game to the Seahawks. These guys won't be happy when they see the game film of this game. They left a lot of points on the field. The defense and special teams played well, but the offense was pretty putrid this week. At least the local media should stop trying to canonize Mark Sanchez now. Now, we have the Cowboys coming to town next Sunday night for a really big game.

[teganslaw]

I watched some of the game. There did seem to be questionable officiating, and it might have contributed to the Eagles' loss, but there was more to it than that. Seattle's defense stopped Philly and Sanchez. Did the Eagles change uniforms? I thought their original color was green, not the dark ones they were wearing.

What happened with San Francisco? Losing to Oakland, who was blown out by St.Louis last week. Go figure....

Denver didn't have it easy against Buffalo. Manning's game was off. The game wasn't televised here, but I saw some highlights. Wonder just how far Denver would get in the playoffs; that team is looking a bit vulnerable right now.

Tonight's game should be a good one. I don't see New England losing two weeks in a row, but you never know. San Diego can be tough this time of the season.

[gardenman]

The black uniforms were worn for the first time against the Giants earlier this year when we shut them out, so management decided to break them out again for yesterday's game. The players were excited about that. Unfortunately, two of the guys we needed to have a big game (Mark Sanchez and LeSean Mccoy) had arguably their worst games of the year. Lesean McCoy was openly apologetic after the game and accepted full responsibility for his mistakes. He couldn't really explain why, but he was just off his game yesterday. He missed his bllitz pickup on one play, he fumbled, he missed open holes, he just had a bad game. Sanchez was Sanchez. He hasn't been as good as many in the press would like you to believe, but he hasn't been terrible. He wasn't terrible yesterday, but we needed him to be really good and he didn't elevate his game.

As to the officiating, it was awful! On one of Wilson's scrambles behind the line of scrimmage his offensive linemen (three of the five) thought he was running and took off down the field blocking Eagle defenders. One lineman made it 22 yards down the field and blocked the cornerback who was covering a wide receiver. The wide receiver then was uncovered and Wilson found him for a big gain. Troy Aikman wondered how that guy got that wide open. Well, when a 300 pound offensive lineman runs down the field and blocks the cornerback covering him to the ground it's pretty easy for a receiver to be wide open. The Eagles coaching staff and players were screaming at the officials and pointing at the linemen down the field, but the officials kept their flags in their pockets. They had a number of options they could have called on that play, a lineman illegally down the field, offensive pass interference, unnecessary roughness, etc, but they called nothing.

On another series Wilson three times just heaved the ball way out of bounds and no where near a receiver while in the pocket and about to be sacked. That's supposed to be intentional grounding but it wasn't called. The Seahawks ultimately got a touchdown on that drive. The Seahawks just got away with murder yesterday and it was appalling. The officiating was worse than anything I saw with the replacement refs a few years back. The NFL reviews and grades the officials after every game and this crew will not be happy with their grades. I'm not sure what the lowest grade they can get is, but this crew may set a new bottom. They were just miserable. there were some phantom calls against both teams on things that weren't penalties and then a ton of missed penalties.

Chip Kelly was reciting the rule book to the officials who just looked at him with a blank stare and seemed confused as to why he was upset. Ugh! The Eagles are now 1-5 with those officials officiating their games. There's something weird going on there. Ron Luciano the former baseball umpire wrote a book where he described having issues with certain players/teams where he'd unconsciously always rule against them. I'm thinking that crew has some sort of issue with the Eagles. Yesterday was just pathetic. A few of the Philly area writers (not generally favorable to the home team) said the Seahawks really should have only had seven points and that the rest were due to the officiating miscues. You expect officials to miss little stuff from time to time, but three offensive linemen down the field and one of them twenty plus yards down the field blocking a cornerback trying to cover a wide receiver and being pointed to while the play is ongoing by the coaches/players, for stuff like that not to get called is insane. Thank God it wasn't a playoff game!

Oh well. On to the Cowboy game now. That's the next Sunday night game. The Cowboys will be well rested and prepared for that game having last played on Thursday. The winner of that game will be well positioned for the NFC East title. The Eagles defense is playing exceptionally well right now and assuming we get a sane officiating crew it should be a good game.

[Spurt]

On 12/7/2014 gardenman said:

Well, that was ugly. The offense never got in sync and Mark Sanchez did not play well. There were opportunities galore in that game, but dumb mistakes, questionable officiating, and ineptness gave the game to the Seahawks. These guys won't be happy when they see the game film of this game. They left a lot of points on the field. The defense and special teams played well, but the offense was pretty putrid this week. At least the local media should stop trying to canonize Mark Sanchez now. Now, we have the Cowboys coming to town next Sunday night for a really big game.

GARDENMAN, I think it was more of the Seahawks defense playing at a really high level---they seemed to have found their groove.......But be comforted-- you going to be facing a COWBOY'S DEFENSE next Sunday which is definitely NOT anything like the Hawk's defense....... There were also a couple of scrambles by Russell Wilson that kept drives going.....And I think Pete Carroll had an excellent game plan against Chip's offense...But yes I wondered about those lack of grounding penalties and a few others myself....It was almost like having an NBA officiating crew out there....

Just be happy you are competing for the Division Lead and aren't going down the path like Washington is.....SHEESH!!!!! The Saints were horrible, as were the Titans (Did Coughlin save his job?)_... the 49ers have fallen apart....good bye Jim Harbaugh.....And what a wacky league how about those RAIDERS and there was talk of Harbaugh meeting with the Raiders owner....yep we got an interesting offseason in store...!!!!

[Spurt]

On 12/7/2014 teganslaw said:

I watched some of the game. There did seem to be questionable officiating, and it might have contributed to the Eagles' loss, but there was more to it than that. Seattle's defense stopped Philly and Sanchez. Did the Eagles change uniforms? I thought their original color was green, not the dark ones they were wearing.

What happened with San Francisco? Losing to Oakland, who was blown out by St.Louis last week. Go figure....

Denver didn't have it easy against Buffalo. Manning's game was off. The game wasn't televised here, but I saw some highlights. Wonder just how far Denver would get in the playoffs; that team is looking a bit vulnerable right now.

Tonight's game should be a good one. I don't see New England losing two weeks in a row, but you never know. San Diego can be tough this time of the season.

Hi TEGAN...WOW what a comeback by Andrew Luck!!!!! What a game!!!!What a WIN!!!

What the heck was that about---not a single touchdown pass by Peyton in their win?..For a minute there I thought we had traded RGIII to Denver......

The Pats/Chargers game was interesting for a while, but there were some penalties and injuries that just killed the Chargers......and with Beli and Tom you just won't see them losing 2 in a row......

[gardenman]

It's going to be an amazing off season that's for sure. We may see more change this off season than we've seen in decades. I could see half the teams having new QB's next year. That's pretty much unheard of. Brian Hoyer is almost certainly gone from Cleveland. RGIII, and Kirk Cousins look like they'll be gone from Washington. Colt McCoy might just follow them out. The Jets will likely have someone new. I wouldn't be shocked to see even Eli Manning move on if the Giants got the right offer. Who knows how many coaches are goners?

The officials had me screaming at my TV on Sunday. Chip Kelly was calm, cool and collected compared to me. It was just ridiculous. I'd never seen a game where an offensive lineman was twenty yards down the field knocking a corner off a receiver who then catches the pass with no flag thrown. How the heck does that happen???

I'm pretty sure the Eagles are looking forward to that Dallas defense. The Cowboy defense did not perform well in the last meeting. I'm also pretty sure the Eagles would love a rematch with Seattle with sane officials officiating the game. The league is going to send a very nice apology to the Eagles for the actions of those officials, but it won't change the outcome. That was just pathetic. Giving the Seahawks a measurement to slow down the offense when it was clear that the Eagles had the first down by more than a yard was ludicrous, but that was just the start of the insanity. Those officials might as well have been wearing Seahawk uniforms for the way they officiated that game.

[gardenman]

And Cam Newton is injured in a roll over accident. He's reportedly okay with two transverse fractures in his back. There's no way he'll play this week or likely next. People are saying it's a pain management issue, but they're forgetting the violence involved in a roll over accident. In a typical car/truck the seatbelt is a three point harness (either side of the hip and one shoulder) and not a five point harness like that used by racing car drivers. Cam's a big guy (around 250 lbs.) and all of that weight was being jerked around and then stopped by those belts. He's going to be seriously bruised and uncomfortable for the foreseeable future. There's a likelihood that both arms and his legs were also thrashed around rather dramatically and are in all likely more than a little beat up. Reports indicate his vehicle rolled three to five times and that's a heck of a tossing. Seatbelts in cars are narrower than those used in race cars also which focuses the force in a smaller are. There's no way he'll play this week and in my opinion it's highly unlikely he'll play next week. Rollover accidents are violent.

[gardenman]

One of the local sports writers here in Philly has now figured out what the Eagles need to do to win a Super Bowl. According to him (and he was serious) all they need to do is find a young Aaron Rodgers. I'm pretty sure Chip Kelly whacked himself in the forehead hearing that and said, "Why didn't I think of that? It's so obvious!"

Unfortunately, the reporter didn't happen to mention where a team could find a young Aaron Rodgers, but it shouldn't be all that hard. After all, how many teams would want a quarterback like that? There can't be more than 32 in the NFL and a few Canadian teams. Heck, it should be easy to find a guy like that. There must be hundreds of young quarterbacks out there playing just like Aaron Rodgers.

Football is such an easy sport when you're a sportswriter. All you have to do is get four defensive linemen like JJ Watt, linebackers like Clay Matthews, corners like Richard Sherman and a couple of all-pro safeties and you've got a good defense. On offense an Aaron Rodgers or two, a couple of Adrian Peterson type running backs, five monster offensive linemen and a few Megatron-like wide receivers and you've got a good offense. It's just hard to understand why teams don't go out and find guys like that to draft each year. (Hint: They don't exist! Those guys are rarer than rare.)