Philadelphia Conundrum: What's Wrong With the Eagles?

56. This is the number that boggled my mind all night as I tried to figure out how in the hell the Philadelphia Eagles managed to pull out a win. 56 is the number of pass attempts Michael Vick threw in the Eagles sloppy and unacceptable 17-16 victory over the Cleveland Browns. When you look at the head-to-head team statistics after the game you see 25 first downs and 456 total yards from scrimmage and you’re happy until you look at the final score and the total number of plays.

The Eagles ran 88 plays with a time of possession of 35:58 but they turned the ball over 5 times…against the Cleveland Browns. If it wasn’t for our defense, Philadelphia fans would have been booing Andy Reid upon his return to Lincoln Financial Field, if they aren’t booing already. Now let’s put these numbers in perspective. The Cleveland Browns ran 59 plays with a time of possession of 24:02. The Eagles offense managed to outplay the Browns offense yet keep them in the game with costly turnovers. LeSean McCoy fumbled early, which happens sometimes, but what was even more costly, were the amount of times I sat and thought to myself “Vick, what are you doing?!” He was just out of sync, very out of touch with the offense. He had receivers twisting and turning trying to catch bad passes, threw horrible passes when he should have ran and ran when he should have thrown the ball away. Reading other articles I got the main gist of what Vick’s problem was and I even tweeted an idea about it to anybody who wanted to listen: “I will never take preseason for granted again.” And with good reason, Vick ran 8 pass plays in preseason, a stat that doesn’t quite translate to 56 passing attempts (a career high) in Week 1 of the regular season.

Granted yes, Michael Vick is a bit injury prone, but how many QBs in the league play scared to get hurt? Not many. Michael Vick is one of the most elusive, if not the fastest QB in the league when he’s on. But when he’s off like he was in Week 1, you’re left asking more questions and getting less answers. The Eagles threw the ball 56 times, something I haven’t seen them do ever. If anything, I’m left screaming pass when they run it. McCoy was unstoppable when he got the ball, especially on the last drive where the Eagles won the game. But it was as if the Eagles coaches wanted Vick to do everything humanly possible to throw a passing touchdown to silence a critic that wasn’t there. Don’t get me wrong, Vick’s passing is his strong point, but his accuracy isn’t. The throws he was trying to make were either forced or the timing was off with his receivers and they tipped it in the air and it got intercepted (this happened twice).

In other words, any fan could tell he wasn’t the Vick we all knew and have come to love, or hate depending on your love for dogs. Now I could understand if McCoy wasn’t averaging 5 or 6 yards a rush per carry or if the Eagles had a hard deficit to come back from but neither was the case. The conservative Eagles team is usually one who takes the lead and mixes up runs and passes. In retrospect, last season, the Eagles averaged about 35 passing plays and 28 rushing plays. Not to mention, McCoy was a 1000+ yard rusher last season, so it’s not like we didn’t have the players on the field to take some of the load off of Vick. Vick was sacked only twice, hit only 11 times, so it’s not like the offensive line wasn’t doing enough to help him out but WOW, did they really need to go vertical so much against the Cleveland Browns? Joe Haden played out of his mind as did D’Qwell Jackson in the Browns secondary but wouldn’t any secondary play well when you just drop back and throw the ball on just about every down?

The Eagles were one-dimensional against the Browns, a team who was 4-12 last season, with no reasoning behind it. Not once, until the last drive, did the Eagles take some pressure off of Vick and give McCoy the ball. And even then, Vick almost threw an interception in the end zone that any other team not named the Cleveland Browns would have caught, thus ending the game. McCoy had 20 carries for 110 yards, not bad considering the 56 passing attempts. Not to mention when McCoy did get the ball, he was explosive. The Browns defense wouldn’t have been able to handle him had the Eagles mixed up the run and pass so Vick could have some sort of window to throw to and not just watch the Browns defense sit back in a zone defense. And why am I so critical of things like this? Because Mike Vick has put this pressure on himself with saying things like “The Eagles have to win now” and “This one is for Andy…” if it is for Andy, you’re doing a bad job of representing him.

Now, with all that being said, should Eagles fans panic? No, not yet, but they play the Baltimore Ravens next week. Throw 4 interceptions next week and the game will be over by halftime if not the first quarter. Let’s not forget what happened last time the Eagles faced the Ravens, I haven’t. Remember Donovan McNabb and that benching? Yeah, that Baltimore Ravens team that drubbed us 36-7 back in 2008. My fingers are crossed the Eagles offense can get it together because it’s not on the O-Line this go round, it’s on Mike Vick and the Eagles coaching staff.