A lot has happened in Philadelphia sports since my personal laptop died in its sleep before game six of the World Series. The Phillies fizzled out and lost to the Yankees team in a poorly played series by both teams.

And speaking of fizzling out, the Eagles’ rash of injuries finally caught up to them as they finished the 2009 season in the most embarrassing fashion possible—getting blown out by the hated Dallas Cowboys in two consecutive weeks (the first of which, 24-0, I witnessed in person), the second of which eliminated them from the playoffs.

The Phillies

Let’s take this look back chronologically and start with the Phillies’ inevitable failure in the World Series. I say inevitable because they just didn’t play good baseball that week. Neither did the Yankees, frankly; but in all of the little strategic decisions and details that are part of a game, the Yankees were simply better. Their brain cramps in game four, both on the field and in the dugout, are perfect examples of why the Phillies just weren’t up to snuff in that series.

Hardly resting on their laurels, a few short months later the Phillies made what is probably the largest blockbuster trade in franchise history. Remember how great it felt to have Steve Carlton take the mound every fourth day? Well, get ready to feel that sensation again, only every fifth day, when Roy Halladay takes the field for the Phillies in 2010. Ruben Amaro wound up trading away almost everyone the Blue Jays were demanding when the Phillies tried to get Halladay back in July, but this time they restocked the cupboard with prospects from the Mariners when they dealt Cliff Lee to Seattle in a separate trade.

It’s almost hard to fathom how good the Phillies would be this season with Halladay and Lee in the rotation together. Throw in a rejuvenated Cole Hamels and the rest of the National League would have been in serious trouble. That didn’t happen for three reasons: 1) Cliff Lee was owed $9 million in 2010, as is the untradable Jamie Moyer, and the Phillies were already at their budget limit; 2) Getting Halladay seriously depleted the farm system, so they had to get something in return to make sure they could compete for many years in the future, not just 2010; 3) Amaro is counting on Hamels finding his old form and essentially filling the role of Lee in the No. 2 spot in the rotation.

While having Halladay and Lee together was a wonderful, brief fantasy for both fans and the Phillies brass no doubt, it just wasn’t practical, and it’s hard to argue with their decision to think about the future. They made the current team better for the next four years (if you think Lee was good, wait until Halladay marches through the NL like Sherman marched to the sea), and they made sure they still have talent left in the system to keep them competitive when Halladay and the rest of the core players start approaching the twilight of their careers.

Don’t forget their other significant move: bringing Placido Polanco back to town to play third base, a signing not without irony since it was Polanco’s distaste for playing third which led to his trade to Detroit when Chase Utley took over as the Phillies’ everyday second baseman back in 2005. He is a significant downgrade from Pedro Feliz defensively, but an equally significant upgrade at the plate. Forget all those bad at-bats from Feliz and pencil Polanco into the 2-spot.

I’ll post a more thorough preview of the 2010 club in a few days.

The Eagles

Oh, where to begin?

As I pointed out to my many Cowboy-fan friends, the Cowboys were the healthiest team in the NFL and finished the regular season 11-5, while the Eagles were the most-injured team in the league and also finished 11-5 against basically the same schedule as the Cowboys. What does that tell you? Maybe it’s just a way for me to rationalize the beatdown they took from Dallas in those final two games, but I actually believe there is something to this.

The Eagles lost so many key starters to injury, starting in training camp with middle linebacker Stewart Bradley for the whole season and half the offensive line for various stretches, and on into the season with a secondary riddled by so many injuries Sean McDermott fielded a squad of third-stringers and guys they picked up off the street. Don’t forget Brian Westbrook’s concussions (he’s kind of an important player). When Jamal Jackson blew out his knee in game 15, that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

My theory was somewhat justified when the Cowboys had their asses kicked by the Vikings the following week, proving that Dallas really wasn’t that good either.

The point is, the Eagles getting to 11-5 and a wild card berth was probably a minor miracle in football terms. In a lot of ways,  2009 may have been Andy Reid’s best job as head coach. There’s a lot of speculation about the future of certain players, most of which I feel is overblown (McNabb isn’t going anywhere, though Westbrook may have played his last game with the team). If the Eagles stay healthy next season, and Reid’s offensive line plan actually works out the way he originally planned in 2009, look out in 2010. This team has the potential to be very very good.

Look for more thoughts from me on the 2010 Eagles around NFL draft time in April. For now, with spring training underway to fill the horrible sports void between football and baseball season, expect a full slate of Phillies coverage now that I’m up and running again.

The Eagles followed up last week’s inexcusable loss to Oakland with an unconvincing domination of a Washington Redskins team in more disarray than Brian Westbrook’s unluckily scrambled brainpan. The game was never as close as the final score indicates, but to give up the most points the Skins have scored all year doesn’t bode well for future endeavors against the Giants, Cowboys and Chargers in upcoming weeks.

Neither does rustling up a measly 11 first downs and a terrible 26 percent conversion rate on third downs. McNabb looked bad (for him), completing 60 percent of his passes; which seems all right until you remember how many passes of the 5-yard variety he missed. Meanwhile, Andy Reid’s play calling continues to be so retarded (I mean that in the strictest definition of the word, so please no angry e-mails), someone on the staff could do the team and McNabb a favor by melting Reid’s laminate menu.

At the rate he’s getting hit, it’ll be a miracle if McNabb survives the season.

Too many missed tackles, too many penalties, too many injuries and too much self-delusion clearly leave little hope for success the rest of the way as the Eagles embark on the toughest part of their schedule.

The good news: They’ve played two stinkers in a row against dreadful teams and still are only half-a-game behind the Giants, who may be overrated in their own right. The bad news: Keep playing like this and there’s absolutely no chance of beating the Giants or Cowboys, much less the Saints, Vikings or any of the even more dominant AFC teams like the Steelers, Colts and Patriots.

Should Westbrook be out for any extended period of time (and he should be), things are looking pretty bleak for the Eagles. Thank goodness for that World Series thing to distract us all in the meantime.

You get an interesting sense of the way things really are and the way some people think they are when you’re watching the Eagles in a suburban Dallas sports bar at the same time the Cowboys are struggling to keep pace with the Kansas City Chiefs.

We still don’t know how good a team the Eagles really are, even though they made easy work of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We probably won’t know until they play the Giants three weeks from now. But if they really are a good team, they should take the bad ones out behind the woodshed, smack them around real good and take their lunch money. Carolina: check. Kansas City: check. Tampa: check.

Even while committing 10 penalties for 111 yards (a disturbing trend this year which needs to stop now), the Eagles dominated an inferior opponent. Donovan McNabb looked better than healthy, carving up Tampa’s secondary for 264 yards and three touchdowns. He threw some passes so hard, I couldn’t follow them on the TV screen. A lot of those passes went to rookie Jeremy Maclin, who hopefully just won a starting job over Kevin “Thumbs” Curtis.

McNabb was the team’s leading rusher, too, which was the only real sour spot of the game besides the penalties. Brian Westbrook also looked healthy again, but Andy Reid and Marty Mornhinweg spread the rushing attempts around on a day when the offense as a whole only ran 45 plays (21 rushes, 24 passes) to Tampa’s 75.

I think this “wildcat” business is a sideshow that exposes the fact that they can’t really run the ball traditionally right now. Furthermore, it seems to slow things down to a crawl having to run McNabb off the field and bring on Vick. If they’re going to run it, just leave McNabb on the field. What does Vick bring to this scheme exactly?

Meanwhile, the Cowboys were struggling to come back against a team the Eagles steamrolled by 20 points a few weeks ago. In the bar, Cowboys fans shook their heads in disbelief at every play the Cowboys screwed up and cheered wildly any time they made a play, as though the Boys were suddenly dominating the game, not bumbling their way back from a 13-3 deficit over an awful Chiefs team. If that had been the Eagles in that situation, any cheers from our fans would have been of the Bronx variety.

The point being that Eagles fans should feel far better about their team than Cowboys fans, who seemed to me to be thrilled that their Boys looked awful against a lousy team. Perhaps the Dallas city council should rename the Trinity River the Denial. We may not know exactly what we’ve got with this team yet, but we know what they aren’t: the Cowboys. Thank goodness for that.

About a month before the draft, when the Eagles off-season plan looked as well thought out as the Bay of Pigs invasion, I had a half-written column excoriating Andy Reid & Co. for their desultory personnel decisions on a team that was one TD from the Super Bowl.

The humble pie I never baked has been soured considerably by injuries, but that’s not Big Red’s fault, so I’ll still eat it.

But before I do that, let’s review the ingredients in that unbaked pie:

• Donovan McNabb, seeking a new contract (an extension that guarantees his future with the team), finally used some leverage to make another plea for more offensive weapons and make it clear that his remaining time in Philadelphia is getting short. He ended up getting a raise instead of an extension, but that effectively accomplished the same goal: Donovan McNabb is the quarterback for the next two seasons. Thank goodness.
• The Eagles low-balled Brian Dawkins so badly in negotiations, their longtime defensive captain reportedly didn’t even bother to come back and hear the Eagles counteroffer to the contract he signed with Denver. Of course, the team would have been nuts to match that deal; but maybe if they had started with something reasonable it never would have come to this, and Weapon X might still be wearing green. We’ll all miss Dawkins on the field, the team might miss his leadership off it even more.
• Both William Thomas and Jon Runyan, the men who have protected McNabb’s front and blind sides for his entire career, were told to talk a walk, leaving both offense tackle positions open without an apparent plan to fill them.

At this point, any Eagles fan worth his salt pretty much threw up his hands in frustration and disbelief at what seemed like complete disorganization. It certainly didn’t seem like Reid was trying to make the necessary moves for a team that came just short of the Promised Land.

But it turned out Reid did have a plan after all—a hell of a plan really. It just didn’t play out exactly like it was supposed to.

The Eagles boldly addressed the offensive tackle vacancies, signing Shawn Andrews’ brother Stacy to play the right side, and trading their extra first round pick to Buffalo for left tackle Jason Peters, who also happened to be Shawn’s college roommate. So not only did they plug the holes on the O-line with two pretty good players, those guys could presumably keep the notoriously flighty Shawn on the straight-and-narrow, focused on football.

Well, one out of two ain’t bad. Shawn has effectively lost his job to Winston Justice, who will start at right tackle in tomorrow’s season opener. Add in Todd Herremans’ foot injury, and two of the five projected starters in Andy Reid reconstructed offensive line aren’t going to be on the field for at least the first few weeks of the season, if not longer.

On the defensive side of the ball, things were a bit more undetermined. The loss of Dawkins was huge, more in terms of his leadership than his playing skills; and Sean McDermott replacing his mentor, the late Jim Johnson, was also a mystery in terms of impact. What was no mystery was the huge blow Stewart Bradley’s ACL tear dealt the defense. Suddenly the Eagles look like a team that won’t be able to stop the run or cover tight ends in a division full of great ones. If the offense doesn’t score early and often, the defense is going to have a hard time keeping the Eagles in games.

Scoring isn’t going to be a problem for this team for the most part, thanks to some slick drafting by Reid, picking up Jeremy Maclin and Brian Westbrook’s heir apparent in LeSean McCoy.

And then came the night of August 13, which was so shocking, I had to do a double-take at the news scroll on ESPN.

Donovan McNabb wanted weapons: He has an arsenal now.

Michael Vick might spend most of the season on the sideline holding a clipboard, but the thought of him coming in and out of games has the potential to terrify opposing defensive coordinators. Including Westbrook and DeSean Jackson, both of whom have some high school quarterback experience, the Eagles could run formations with four guys on the field who could potentially throw the ball. Try game planning for that.

So what does all this mean for the Eagles in 2009? Can they win their division? Maybe. Can they get to the Super Bowl? Probably not.

McNabb has the best group of skill players that he has ever had at his disposal. They’re going to score a lot of points in a lot of games. However, what happens in those games when the offense isn’t clicking, probably because of the amorphous offensive line? Unlike last year, the defense won’t be able to keep it close and give the offense a chance to get in sync. That could spell trouble in a division as tough as the NFC East.

My prediction: A 9-7 season and a wild card berth. The Cowboys and Redskins might make decent teams in other divisions, but they’re a joke compared to the Eagles and Giants. It’s possible the Giants could struggle enough on offense to bring a division win for the Eagles into the picture, but their defense is much better than the Birds, and that gives them a huge advantage. When you have a team with great offense and mediocre defense versus one with a mediocre offense and great defense, I’ll take the great defense.

Of course, the NFL is an almost completely unpredictable entity these days, so I could be wrong. Let’s hope I am, and the Eagles are better than I think they are.

With the NFL season kicking off tonight, I though I’d take another shot at infamy offer up my predictions for 2009. It’s not like my 2008 predictions were way off. (No one remembers that I picked Detroit to make the playoffs, right?)

In the interest of brevity and laziness, rather than going team-by-team, I’m going to tackle each division and then my playoff picks. So, without further adieu, predictions which will further enhance your opinion of me as an idiot.

AFC East: (1) New England Patriots; (2) Miami Dolphins; (3) New York Jets; (4) Buffalo Bills

The Golden Boy is back in Boston, and that likely means a return to dominance for Belichick’s boys. Miami likely takes a step back from their incredible turnaround last year, but not much of one (I like their defense). Buffalo and their coach are so woeful, finishing behind a Jets team led by a rookie quarterback and head coach.

AFC North: (1) Pittsburgh Steelers; (2) Baltimore Ravens; (3) Cincinnati Bengals; (4) Cleveland Browns

Anyone who doesn’t think the Steelers are the class of the NFL, raise your hand. (You’re either blind or nuts.) Baltimore should hang in there again and benefit come wild card time from playing in the same division as the Bengals and Browns.

AFC South: (1) Tennessee Titans; (2) Indianapolis Colts; (3) Houston Texans; (4) Jacksonville Jaguars

This gets a slight nod over the NFC East as the toughest division in football. The Titans are a solid team up and down the roster, but that could change if Kerry Collins gets hurt or shows his age. Payton Manning and the Colts have undergone a lot of changes this off season, but look out if they start clicking again. Houston is finally on the rise (unlike all those other season when they were picked as sleepers); too bad they play in the AFC South. Same goes for Jacksonville, which somehow always manages to disappoint under coach Jack Del Rio.

AFC West: (1) San Diego Chargers; (2) Kansas City Chiefs; (3) Denver Broncos; (4) Oakland Raiders

The Chargers should be exiled to the CFL if they fail to win this lousy division. The Chiefs should improve just because the other two teams are so terrible. New coach Josh McDaniels turned Denver from mediocre to laughing stock almost overnight, while the Raiders and Al Davis clearly have no idea what the hell they’re doing anymore. San Diego could finish with 14 wins playing among this group of losers.

AFC Wild Cards: Baltimore Ravens, Indianapolis Colts
AFC Champion: Pittsburgh Steelers

NFC East: (1) New York Giants; (2) Philadelphia Eagles; (3) Washington Redskins; (4) Dallas Cowboys

In terms of player personnel, this could be the league’s best division; but as a whole the teams don’t stack up to the AFC South. The Giants’ defense is exceptional, while the Eagles’ defense took two huge blows from the death of Jim Johnson and Stewart Bradley’s ACL tear. The Birds should score a ton of points, but that might not be enough some weeks. But as long as Jerry Jones and Daniel Synder continue to operate under the delusion that they are football men rather than businessmen, the Giants and Eagles will continue to rule this division.

NFC North: (1) Green Bay Packers; (2) Chicago Bears; (3) Minnesota Vikings; (4) Detroit Lions

The Packers are coming of age and poised to score a lot of points with a fairly good defense backing them up. The Bears aren’t too shabby either, though I question Jay Cutler’s ability to win. I’m not sure who the bigger knucklehead is: Brett Favre or Brad Childress? Childress has all the worst qualities of Andy Reid and none of the good ones. Favre is washed up, and I bet he goes down with his first major injury. As for the Lions, well… they won’t go defeated again!

NFC South: (1) New Orleans Saints; (2) Atlanta Falcons; (3) Carolina Panthers; (4) Tampa Bay Buccaneers

This is a flimsy division, so I’ll take the team with the best quarterback (Drew Brees). Matt Ryan will only get better thanks to TE Tony Gonzalez. Carolina’s nice running game won’t offset Jake Delhomme permanent shell shock from his six INTs in that playoff game last year. Tampa is one of three teams to fire their offensive coordinators a week before the season. Are you kidding me?

NFC West: (1) San Francisco 49ers; (2) Seattle Seahawks; (3) Arizona Cardinals; (4) St. Louis Rams

There’s just something about Mike Singletary (and Frank Gore) that has me picking the 49ers as this year’s sleeper team. That and I’m not convinced Matt Hasselbeck and Kurt Warner can get through 2009 unscathed. The Rams still have a lot of rebuilding to do under new coach Steve Spagnuolo.

NFC Wild Cards: Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles
NFC Champion: Green Bay Packers

Super Bowl XLIV Champions: Pittsburgh Steelers