The Eagles coaches have been studying this young football team and seeing if they have one important quality. Do they have the ability to respond to adversity?
How does the offense play after a bad series? How the defense respond to a turnover by the offense? Does the defense step up after giving up a big play? How will they react to a season-ending injury to a key player?
How will they play in a game against a tough opponent after getting blown out? Will they be able to withstand the criticism by the city after a poor performance?
Say what you will be the Eagles teams of the past decade, they were able to respond to adversity time and time again. Will this group be able to do the same?
The jury is still out after only one preseason game, but new starting quarterback, Kevin Kolb, feels this team can handle tough sledding. “The one thing I like about this group is …. when we had a bad series everybody kicked into the next gear, recognized it and moved forward we finish up practice good. That’s what you want, you don’t want things to linger and have two or three bad practices in a row”.
When asked whether he’s the offensive leader who has to take charge in those situations, Kolb responded, “Its all eleven of us and even the guys that are coming on different personnel packages. It’s everybody defense included. Right now, we’re a close unit and we need to stay that way and win a lot of football games.”
Kolb thinks it was a good idea for Reid to put them through a long and tough training camp to test them. “We have a lot of new faces, a lot of young guys, including myself”, Kolb said. “He wanted to see what he had when it comes down to November December when we’ve got to go out there and have a game winning drive or a game winning stop. I think he found out a lot about the team, I think he’s excited.”
This young quarterback will need to learn to win games in which they don’t play well but they stay away from big mistakes and allow their defense to keep them in the game. The key is staying away from the turnovers in order to stay close and steal the game late. Playoff teams do that.
Good points G,
The Coaches,Meadi and fans will not be able to answer this until the players get into these situations
and prove that they can handle the adversity that comes throughout a season
Time will tell, I think by week 6-8 of the Season, we as fans and in the media will have a pretty good gauge of this teams mental toughness and perserverence, until then we will have to wait until they
prove it to us..
Paul, yeah you’re probably correct about it taking half or more of the season to gauge the team – but the trend for Reid teams is to come on strong during the last half of the season, proving that often, the first half really doesn’t tell the story. So even once we feel like we have a good idea what this team really is, it could still surprise us big time come playoff races….etc. or they could suck it up for a while but come on real strong towards the end of the year. Who da heck knows. That’s the beauty of the NFL.
Agree with much of the above, but though Eagles teams tended to finish strong, the history of Reid era teams is that when they encounter big games, they can’t overcome them, and they had very mediocre first halves… consistently losing to the Pats, Colts, some weaker teams recently like the Raiders, Cinn, Bucs & Chicago. Not to mention the Rams, Bucs, Panthers, Arizona in NFC champ games to get to the SB, even covering the 3-pt loss in the SB. And those pre-Kolb Eagles teams were not teams with key injuries such as last year against Dallas.
Agree that it’s going to take at least half a season to really see how good this team is, but fans need some patience with a young team to perfect their game. The fact of the matter is, this new era of players MUST exceed what the former players couldn’t do… win it all. I don’t believe Lurie & Banner are content with just a good W-L record anymore, or why would you own a team, particularly in Philly.
I believe, though time will tell, that this team has an intensity and focus I never saw here before except for Dawk and a few others. All these young guys seem to want “it” all, or is it another mirage?
To Schiller,
I would tend to agree with you but this years team is so young and has many players lacking in game experience that I think the past trends of getting stronger and stronger as the season goes may not apply. I think that it is crucial that this years team gets off to a quick start for their own self-confidence and get some wins under their belt against some quality teams.
My gut feeling is they will come out smoking the 1st couple of weeks… You have SIms/Tapp who haven’t played in this type of atmoshpere with a good team and crazy fans, then you have the impact of this rookie class looking to establish themselves as good NFL Players. and then you have the return on injured players like Bradley,Hobbs that will be looking to make a statement and then of course the coming out of K Kolb.. If Kolb can keep his emotions in check and just play sound,solid football , I think the Eagles can start 5-1 out of gate and be a monster team down the stretch
We may have a real good idea after the Green Bay game. If they some how win or play a real close the game, the confidence should grow. Green Bay will score some points, but if the defense keeps it around 24-27 and the Eagles score 21-24 then this team is for real. A big loss would not be a big surprise by many. I’m an optimistic fan and give them a 40% chance of pulling out a win. If they win, the expectations and pressure will unfortunately sky-rocket. An early swagger will carry through the whole season for this young team.
5-11…enough said
Boy, what would we do without Songs!? We’d have to watch the games, read artilces, check the scores and highlights, all of that, to see what happens with the Eagles this year. But thankfully, Songs posts a lot on this website, letting us know exactly how things will go. Because he knows. Because he has the future firgured out. He has no angle, no slant, no agenda, no subjectivity. The man just posts what will happen in the future for his fellow bretheren, to save us the time and energy of watching our favorite football team play a season in the NFL. Thank you god, for giving us SONGS, because otherwise, we’d have to be ordinary football fans, waiting for reality, actuality and what happens on football fields.
hey songs i have a bucket over hear that could catch every last one of those tears ……..moving on i think all of this youth is a very good thing and we should be able to handle all the ups and down just fine
Eagles 30 – Packers 26 on a TD pass from Kolb to Weaver out in the flats on 4th and goal from the 3
yard line with 11 seconds to play…. Kolb is hoisted away by thousands of fans who crash the gates and come onto the field… By Monday morning Kolb has 3 Car Delearships in his name,(BMW,Caddilca & Lexus) a Jewelry Store on Sansom St and 2 Cheessteeak joints off Broad and Snyder Sts..
The City is at an all-time peak where strangers are actually nice to each other…
PW and Songs are last seen at the 30th Station boarding a train to Washington DC with thier napsacks and belongings ..
The rest of the league knows this team so well..what their gonna do in certain situations..where the blitzer’s are coming from..Reid’s tendencies..This training camp hopefully was for creating some new looks to go with the new faces. You gotta keep opposing coaches guessing.
i think a younger team makes it easier to handle adversity
i think the fact that guys may not know any better definitely helps
also the fact that no1’s job is to safe on this team helps keeps every1 fighting
With SONGS it’s never enough said…although we all hope.
come one guys, 3 slots left for the league hit me up drew_sg2000 at yahoo.com
Invites have been sent to everyone who already contacted me.
I agree JimmyMAc,
Hopefully AR and MM will adjust their schemes and play-calling to utilize the talents,match-ups that favor Eagles and mix-it up a little.. Let VIck come in and run an entire series each half to really keep these opposing Defenses and Coordinators on their heels… ..
Like I said before, as long as they keep DJax in motion to avoid the jam he’ll be lights out.
September 12th can not come soon enough boys!
I believe the question regarding adversity is the most important of all. One thing I