Fact: The Eagles are 1-3 in their last four pre-bye week games. Fact: Nobody can explain why the team has played so poorly in those four games or why Andy Reid's teams are 4-6 in that delicately-placed game before the bye week arrives.
It's a weird thing, and by that I mean the concept of the bye week and how it has been placed into the schedule of the Eagles over the years. Remember way back when, the Eagles had a bye week after their game 15 win over New England in 1999. It was bye week at Christmas and then the Eagles came back after the mini-vacation and defeated St. Louis, 38-31. The following season, 2000, the Eagles had another Week 16 bye week, on the weekend of December 17, and finished the regular season with a 16-7 victory in Cincinnati before opening the playoffs at home against Tampa Bay.
And how about 2001? The Eagles lost to St. Louis 20-17 in overtime and then stewed over it for two weeks before their next game at Seattle. Bizarre.
In more recent and, it seems, traditional times, the bye week has fallen anywhere from late September to late October, and the game just prior to the bye week has given the Eagles fits. Last year the team rallied in the fourth quarter to defeat San Francisco to help salvage a rough start to the year. But in 2007 the Eagles lost to the Giants 16-3, in 2006 they lost to Jacksonville 13-6 and in 2005 they were blown out in Dallas, 33-10. In 2004, the Eagles rolled over everybody, so that team doesn't fit into this analysis.
Anyhoo ...
Sunday is a huge game. I'm not going to dwell on the past, but I'm going to stress the importance of beating the Chiefs. This is a struggling and dangerous football team that comes into Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday. And the Eagles are a team with a hurting quarterback (Donovan McNabb), a running back (Brian Westbrook) with a sprained ankle, a wide receiver (DeSean Jackson) with a groin strain that won't go away and an offensive line that is changing personnel from one week to the next.
As they say, and as they mean it, on any given Sunday in the NFL ...
This is such a critical stretch for the Eagles. Kansas City, Tampa Bay and then at Oakland and at Washington. Think about those four games -- those teams have a combined record of 2-6 -- as you look at the rest of the schedule. How important is it for the Eagles to take care of business in these four games? Huge. Absolutely huge.
This is a flawed Eagles team right now. Reid knows he has a lot of things "to get right," as he likes to say. This is, really, a typical early-season team. There are areas of concern in addition to the above-mentioned offense. What can the Eagles do to play with more discipline in the return game? How does the does shrug off Sunday's tough performance against the Saints?
On and on it goes, as it does in every NFL city. The Eagles must find their identity and finish off the pre-bye game the right way. There is a tremendous amount of excitement with the debut in the regular season of Michael Vick and the expectations of how the Eagles are going to use him. He will play a role in an offense that went two of six in the red zone on Sunday, and Vick will be asked to play explosive football whether he is running, passing or doing whatever the team needs in the "Wild Eagle" offense.
Hey, it's time to shake off Sunday's loss. It was not good. Ugly. Embarrassing in many ways, really. The Eagles are a much better team than they played against New Orleans. The road to recovery begins with a good week of practice and then a strong showing against the Chiefs. Then, and only then, will be the Eagles enjoy some down days on their bye week.
