Let me give you a couple of undeniable facts. First of all the Eagles secondary has played their two worst games of the season in the last two weeks. The Cowboys went through them with ease and could have scored over 50 points but they called off the dogs in the 4th quarter.
They showed up like they weren't ready to play. If you wanted to you could easily attribute this to lack of leadership. They blew assignments and played without any passion. You saw Terrell Owens have his best game of the season against the Eagles secondary.
It was much of the same against the Redskins who have an inexperienced quarterback in Jason Campbell who has a quarterback rating beneath 80. He's near the bottom of the league. The Redskins hadn't completed a touchdown pass to a wide receiver in the entire season. That's after eight games. They also were playing without their top receiver because Santana Moss was injured. James Thrash started and 37 year old Keenan McCardell was the third receiver. Thrash caught two touchdowns and had a great game. McCardell who has been on the street for the entire season, hadn't caught a touchdown pass since 2005. The Skins shredded the Eagles secondary. They completed three passes for touchdowns against the Birds.
I sit and read story after story about Brian Dawkins and his great leadership. I will be the first to say that Dawkins has been a Hall Of Fame level safety during his time with the Eagles. Despite that if you wanted to criticize his leadership skills, you could do it based on what has happened in the last two games. He returned to action against the Cowboys and also started against the Skins. If he was such a great leader, you would figure that it would show up in the players who play next to him. I'm not criticizing Dawk because I've always felt that grown men have to take it as their own responsibitly to get themselves ready to play. But clearly the secondary hasn't been ready to play.
