Oh, there is disappointment. I wanted a football miracle, but any chance the Eagles had of keeping their season alive ended when the Giants beat up on the woeful Jets. Now, Cowboys at Giants determines the NFC East title winner and the Eagles host Washington for pride.
But deep inside of me, I know the Eagles are building something special. This team took too long to play its best football in 2011, and that has to chance. Too many times in recent seasons the Eagles had to have torrid finishes to make the playoffs. This season, they needed a strong close and help from other teams, and it was just too much to ask.
Instead of the playoffs, the Eagles will spend January evaluating the coaching staff and the roster, grading the moves they made prior to this season and strategizing for 2012. It will be a somber time, yet at the same time it will be tremendously exciting.
This team, one that grew together three weeks ago, has a chance to be outstanding. Oh, the Eagles have some work ahead of them, for sure. There are some difficult roster moves to make, evaluations that absolutely have to be right. The coaching staff, one radically changed after the playoff loss in 2010, matured beautifully in this final month of the season and deserves every consideration to remain intact.
Anyway, we're going to have a lot of time to talk about who should stay, who should go and what the Eagles need to again reach the playoffs and win their first Super Bowl. On Christmas Eve, the team went out and played a strong game against Dallas, blew the Cowboys right out of the water from the jump and left no doubt, no doubt at all, about which team is best in the NFC East.
Michael Vick and the offense took the opening kickoff and marched 80 yards in 8 plays, converting an opening third-and-6 play (Vick threw to Jeremy Maclin for 7 yards) and gaining a huge chunk of yardage on a spectacular leaping catch by Riley Cooper to gain 28 yards, with another 15 yards tacked on because of a DeMarcus Ware facemask penalty.
Philadelphia took a 7-0 lead on Vick's strike to tight end Brent Celek in the back of the end zone from 13 yards out and dominated the game from there. It wasn't flashy, but nobody expected it would be up-and-down-the-field football. Dallas played its starters, minus quarterback Tony Romo who left with a hand injury early and running back Felix Jones, who is nursing a hamstring injury and who had 4 carries for 24 yards.
The offense hit a few big plays down the field, and Vick was in control with his decision making and his touch, but the story as the Eagles completed the season sweep of the Cowboys was Juan Castillo's defense, which turned in its third straight lights-out performance.
Castillo mixed his coverages, brought pressure often and silenced the Cowboys. Cornerbacks Nnamdi Asomugha and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie were suffocating in press coverage against a pretty good group of Dallas receivers. Placekicker Alex Henery boomed two field goals, from 43 yards and 51 yards, and has now made 14 straight kicks. Punter Chas Henry averaged 50 yards per boot before a late-game block set up the Dallas touchdown with only a handful of seconds remaining on the clock.
It was wonderful to see, even if the reality is that the Eagles can't make the playoffs. That is, ultimately, all that matters. There are no excuses. The Eagles changed their coaching staff and then changed the roster and it simply took too long for this team to get its act together, to play Eagles football, to dominate teams.
Understand, though, what the Eagles are working with here. They have a young roster, with only a spot of age here and there. They have an extra second-round draft pick from Arizona and an extra fourth-round pick from Tampa Bay in April. They have wiggle room within the salary cap. They rebuilt the offensive line and watched as it came together over the course of a season, and now have a real chance at continuity there. The offense looks pretty set, with some roster questions – led by DeSean Jackson's future here – to be answered.
The defense has been overhauled and still needs some tweaks. Castillo came miles and miles from where he was as a coordinator in September and has coached a defense that has put together one of the most impressive three-game stretches in recent history here.
There are great times ahead for this football team, but we have to wait. We have to ache through the playoffs. We have to hope the offseason moves quickly and that free agency comes fast and then the draft and then, well, before you know it, the 2012 Eagles will be in place.
So there is disappointment, a huge letdown. A season that began with higher expectations than the Eagles perhaps have ever had ends as the team on the sidelines when the playoffs begin. The Eagles have nobody to blame but themselves. They lost too many winnable games. They make too many mistakes and the season ended too soon to dig out of the hole.
Wait till next year begins now, and with that is the sense that the Eagles are headed for greatness in 2012.
