Oh, for the players and coaches it remains a daily perspective. They don't have time to step back and observe the big picture. They have jobs that require them to focus on the moment as the year marches forward. Jobs are on the line here, as they always are in the NFL.
From an organizational standpoint, however, being 3-6 after such high hopes offers a different perspective. The Eagles need to turn this team around -- the game-to-game part is up to Andy Reid and his coaches, and his players in the locker room and, to a degree, General Manager Howie Roseman and his staff -- and for Jeffrey Lurie and the front office, an eye must be cast toward the overall view here.
Where does this season go? Where does this team go after 2011 is over? The key is to stop the bleeding as quickly as possible, because things can get ugly in a hurry. We've been down this road in the past, when seasons turned out poorly and the Eagles were out of the playoff race before all of the leaves fell in Philadelphia. Theoretically, yes, the Eagles remain alive with respect to this year's postseason, and the coaches should prepare for New York with the message to the players that a win suddenly makes things tight again in the NFC East.
But this is also a team with a lot of players on one-year contracts, whether they signed here as unrestricted free agents in the offseason or whether they have existing Eagles contracts due to expire after this year. A couple of the names to consider: Wide receiver DeSean Jackson, offensive guard Evan Mathis, quarterback Vince Young, cornerback Joselio Hanson, running back Ronnie Brown and wide receiver Steve Smith. You've got a couple of starters in there and you've got some veterans who were expected to come here and add quality depth.
There are decisions to be made in the weeks and months ahead. A team that is still young enough to think it can contend in years to come was supposed to blend with all of the veteran newcomers signed in free agency to create a perfect storm of a roster that was hungry, disciplined, fast, experienced, blah, blah, blah.
Instead, the Eagles are 3-6.
Here is the message, moving forward: Make sure the organization is on the same page.
This season has gone south in a hurry, and it has been a tremendous disappointment. The Eagles, as written many, many times since the 2010 season ended, could have played it safe with the coaching staff and with the roster and retained many of their existing veterans from that team once the work stoppage ended and business opened for 2011.
What the Eagles did instead, and we all agreed with the approach at the time, was to hit free agency hard and add some premier talent. They had made over the coaching staff prior to the lockout, and for four months the newly-assembled staff worked together trying to know each other and get on the same page.
When training camp opened and the Eagles' roster changed so dramatically, the coaching staff tried to cram new systems and verbiage down the players' throats. It hasn't worked very well, as evidenced by the 3-6 record.
And while the outside world howls with criticism, the Eagles must have some internal discussions about how to fix the team, globally, for the future.
I remember back in 1998, when the Eagles went 3-13. It was a disaster from the start. The team couldn't score in the preseason and offensive coordinator Dana Bible was clearly miscast in his role. The Eagles opened the season with a humiliating 38-0 loss to Seattle and went on to lose their first five games and seven of their opening eight games.
The writing was on the wall for months regarding head coach Ray Rhodes. He had to go. The team had been 6-9-1 in 1997 after losing in the first round of the playoffs in 1996. The team lacked talent, lacked direction and lacked leadership.
It was an ugly, ugly time for the Eagles. Fingers were pointed. Blame was placed, and the season couldn't end quickly enough.
The Eagles must avoid that kind of close to this season. There is a lot of football to be played in 2011. Andy Reid is the head coach here now, and he should be the head coach moving forward. Reid will take responsibility for the mistakes he has made and for the 3-6 record and as the front man for the football team, he will bravely stand in front of the cameras and accept the slings and arrows sent his way.
The entire football organization is responsible for being 3-6. It has been a team effort, and it will require a team effort to dig out from the negativity of the won/loss record. The Eagles are a bad football team at this moment. They are a last-place team that just lost badly to a last-place team. This team plays with no fire, this team lacks discipline and this football team lacks enough leadership to hold on to a lead in the fourth quarter.
And this football team can be fixed. Maybe not in time to reach the playoffs for 2011, but in the near future. The first step is to work together and not cast blame internally or to the press. The vultures are out now. If you see a lot of damning stories from "sources," then the Eagles are in deeper and more dangerous tides than 3-6.
The Eagles, as a team, put together this roster and this coaching staff. After a 10-6 season last year, the Eagles cleaned house on the coaching staff and then followed with a free-agency blitz that seemed like the right thing to do at the time. The approach has backfired and there is no way to argue otherwise.
So what do the Eagles do next? The first step on the football field is to get quarterback Michael Vick back in his comfort zone. He has been a mess these last two weeks and, at times, for much of the season. Vick has been a turnover machine. Step one is to feed Vick some much-needed confidence. How that is done, well, I don't know. But I know that he isn't throwing the football with any precision, his timing is off and he is, in many ways, right back to where he was when he played for the Atlanta Falcons.
I can't sleep and I'm eating non-stop and I feel lousy. Depressed isn't the word. It's far deeper than that. Scared? Maybe. I fear long seasons of darkness for a football organization that has won a lot more games than it is has lost since Lurie bought the team. Deep in my heart, I know the Eagles are going to fix this situation. I just don't know when that fix will be accomplished. This week? Next month? After the year?
Monday arrived with it the prospect of being 3-6 with a team that hasn't delivered a lick other than in the blowout win over Dallas. Otherwise, the Eagles have been a confounding team that just isn't very good at this point.
It can be salvaged, though. I cling to that thought. How the Eagles do it, the approach they take, I don't know. But I know they need to do it together and not blame each other. This is a huge challenge for Lurie and for the Eagles' front office: Fix the football team and make it right as we peek into the future of the Philadelphia Eagles with seven weeks remaining in the regular season.
