Eagles Will Regret Mental Blunders If They Don’t Make the Playoffs
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

With eight seconds remaining in the first half of Sunday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Philadelphia Eagles had the ball at the six-yard line. Coach Andy Reid could have opted for an easy field goal, but he decided to try one more play, even though his team was out of timeouts.
Big mistake. Tight end L.J. Smith caught quarterback Donovan McNabb’s pass, but he was tackled before he could score or get out of bounds, and as the last seconds of the first half ticked off the clock, the Eagles missed out on three points. They lost 23–21. One play never defines a season, especially if that play is a four-yard gain in the second quarter of the seventh game of the year. But for the Eagles, that play was the latest in a string of errors that have contributed to their 4–3 record — even though they’re good enough to be 7–0.
The Eagles’ failure to conserve timeouts also stung them in the previous week’s 27–24 loss to the New Orleans Saints. The teams were tied with two minutes left, and the Saints had the ball in field goal range. The Eagles had wasted their timeouts, so the Saints kneeled on the ball three straight times, running all but three seconds off the clock before the game-winning kick.
In that game, Saints coach Sean Payton showed better clock-management strategy than Reid. When New Orleans faced thirdand-1 with 2:17 left in the game and the score tied, running back Deuce McAllister gained five yards. Once McAllister had picked up the first down, the Eagles would have been better off allowing him to run into the end zone so the Saints’ score would come with enough time for the Eagles to come back. By tackling McAllister after the first down, the Eagles gave the Saints three free plays to run out the clock. Although allowing an opponent to score a touchdown seems anathema to any football player, coaches need to understand that there are rare circumstances when that’s what they need to instruct their players to do.
Reid said after the game that he didn’t think of allowing the Saints to score until after McAllister picked up that gameclinching first down. He also said the Eagles used their timeouts early because they had trouble calling plays in noisy opponents’ stadiums and had to avoid delay-of-game penalties. But smart coaches plan ahead for crowd noise. Reid and Philadelphia offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg also need to understand that the pass to Smith before halftime against Tampa Bay was a terrible call — in that situation a team should only call a pass that is certain to either score a touchdown or stop the clock with an incompletion.
Reid is a good coach, but the blame for clock-management mistakes falls squarely on his shoulders. Reid has a history of clock-management blunders dating to the Super Bowl two years ago, when the Eagles engaged in a slow, methodical fourth-quarter drive that took almost four minutes off the clock as they tried to come back from a 10-point deficit against the New England Patriots. Although the Eagles did score a touchdown and force the Patriots to punt on the next possession, by the time they got the ball back, they had just 46 seconds, and they lost, 24–21.
Reid shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for the Eagles’ three losses this season. In their loss to the Giants, a 24–7 lead turned into a 30–24 overtime loss thanks in large part to a fumble by running back Brian Westbrook and a personal foul on defensive end Trent Cole. The players — not the coach — deserve the blame for those mistakes. And the Eagles have had bad luck on everything from opponents making long field goals to fumbles bouncing the wrong way.
Despite all this, the Eagles, who host the Jacksonville Jaguars Sunday, still have a good chance of making the playoffs. But in the important battle for homefield advantage, seven teams in the NFC currently have better records. If the Eagles fall short of getting the home-field edge, and then lose in the playoffs on an opponent’s turf, they’ll look back at a few mental mistakes and wonder what could have been.