NFL Conference Championship Games

[birv2]

As a lifelong Eagles fan, I'm heartsick today. I'm sure I'll get over it someday but...

But I've got to chime in on McNabb and Reid -- yes, they go braindead at the worst times, but we've been to 5 (or is it 6) NFC championships in the last 10 years. We've got a chance to do something every year, and not a lot of teams can say that. How would you like to be a Browns fan? Or Lions?

I get frustrated with Reid and McNabb, but they would both be snapped up in a heartbeat if we ever let them go. Philly fans don't know how good they've got it. Do you really want to see Kevin Kolb running the offense next year (shudder)?

Maybe getting this close will be the motivation we need to win it all next year.

[R_of_G]

Well said Birv.

It's why I would take McNabb on either of my teams in a heartbeat. He's been key to the success the Eagles have had over the last decade. They may not have been able to win the championship games or Super Bowl, but they've gotten there in large part because of his play.

Not every QB makes the right decisions all the time, but McNabb seems to make plenty of them and his athleticism is an intangible which greatly benefits the Eagles. If they were to drop him, then what? There is no free agent of his caliber available so that leaves Kolb. Kolb may be good someday, but I don't think a team that just made the NFC championship game should be at a "rebuilding" stage just yet.

[Tynee]

This year has shown me that the NFL instant replay rules are a joke. Whether it was the so-called forward pass call which cheated San Diego against Denver early in the season, the kickoff which never touched the Eagles player or went out of bounds today or any of the many plays in between, I have seen far too many incorrect calls on plays that are "not reviewable".

So I ask, what is the point of having "not reviewable" situations? By allowing any form of replay at all, the league acknowledges that its officials make mistakes and that these mistakes should not necessarily affect the outcomes of the games. Therefore, why would the system provide for situations in which a mistake must be accepted?

Let me state, I am not for reviewing every play every time from the booth. I am not for changing the way it works now with the one challenge per team per half. The only change I want made is that ANY call can be challenged. To isolate any type of situation as "not reviewable" makes the entire concept of review preposterous.

On another note, where is this spectacular Eagles' defense I keep hearing about? I've talked a lot about the two D's we will see this evening in the AFC game, and I've read and heard a lot about how "the Eagles are being overlooked and are playing the best D right now." Ok, where is it? It looks to me like the Cardinals can pretty much do whatever they want out there. Interesting to me that the Eagles are giving up a lot of points because that cannot be blamed on McNabb (everyone's favorite scapegoat).

Yeah, they screwed them both up. The thing is, how would you correct it? The reason that some plays are unreviewable is because they are blown dead too early.

For example, lets say there is a Cardinal's player standing close enough to grab the ball after it bounces. The Eagle's player hears the whistle and quits on the play, but the Card grabs the ball and runs into the endzone with it. In a perfect world, they could go back and say, "the whistle shouldn't have blown, so the Card's get 6" except that the Eagle's player would have kept playing if the whistle hadn't blown, so maybe he would have gotten the ball instead. Sometimes, you can review it all you want, but there's no FAIR way to fix it, so you chalk it up to human error and move on.

That's my take on it, anyway. Either way, it was good football this past weekend, and the SB should be entertaining with a really good O matched up against a really good D, and an ok O matched up against an ok D.

[R_of_G]

It's a good point you make Tynee. I'm not sure how I would address a situation like that, but there's got to be a better way than the way it is now. I'll have to give it some more thought.