The Philadelphia Eagles are 1-4, and there's already enough blame to go around.
Much of the media chatter has the finger pointing firmly in Eagles head coach Andy Reid's direction. Jeremy Maclin was quick to reflect the blame back on the players.
Add Michael Vick to the list of those who hold themselves accountable, according to CSNPhilly.
"I know it's not coach's fault," Vick said after practice Wednesday. "It's not coach's fault. Coach can't go out and hold onto the ball. Coach can't throw the ball down the field. Can't go out there and do it, he can only give us what we need. The recipe for victory and that's what we need."
Vick is absolutely right.
There's no question that the first guy everyone wants to blame is the head coach. But that leaves one question: Why?
No one wants to blame Bill Belichick when the Patriots perform poorly in the playoffs, and they shouldn't. At the heart of each of those playoff losses are units that didn't execute in key situations,
The coach has to take the blame sometime — but all the time? Coaching habits aren't the reason Maclin holding onto the ball like it's a glass of water (as documented by Chris Chase of Yahoo's Shutdown Corner blog).
No matter how many times a coach tells his quarterback not to try and throw the ball when he's being hit, the coach can't run out there and hold onto the ball for him as he goes to the ground.
Blame execution, blame turnovers, blame an offensive line that doesn't feature a single 2010 starter as of Week 5, and in a few games, if things haven't turned around a bit, then we can blame the coach.
And who knows, maybe by the end of the season, we won't be blaming anyone. We're only through Week 5, and 1-4 isn't where any NFL team envisions themselves at this stage, but there are still 11 games to turn it around. As a matter of fact, they were 2-3 in 2003, and finished 12-4 and went to the NFC Championship game. They were 5-5-1 through 11 games in 2008, finished 9-6-1 and went on to another NFC Championship game.
Reid is fully capable of commandeering a turnaround. That being said, the Eagles can't let this thing reach the bitter end before making a decision. A few more losses could be the final nail in the coffin for Reid's tenure in Philadelphia.
As for any idea that the Eagles might quit on their coach? Vick was quick to shoot that down, too.
"We're just going to keep fighting, man, I'll tell you that. Ain't going to be no letting up. Everybody going to get 110 percent effort out of us, and it’ll turn around. … We’re going to fight for him every minute."
