Reid’s personal issues finally clouded his football judgment
When Andy Reid’s two sons ended up in jail two years ago on drug charges, we all speculated about how the personal crisis would affect his professional life. Well, now we know.
One of the main reasons Reid signed Michael Vick, he said, was because he learned the value of second chances with his sons. No one wishes anything but the best for Reid and his offspring, but using their crisis as a factor in adding Vick is totally ridiculous.
Does this mean that every player facing adversity can now find a home with the Eagles? Has our team become a halfway house because Reid has experienced this new level of personal awareness?
From a strictly football standpoint, the addition of Vick is absurd. The Eagles just heaped more money on Donovan McNabb, and the backup, Kevin Kolb, is entering his pivotal third year of apprenticeship. Does it make any sense to open the team to so much venom for the sake of three or four gadgets a game? If McNabb inevitably falters sometime this season, how will he handle the inevitable clamor for Vick?
Reid’s personal crisis may have given him new insight into being a parent, but it clearly hasn’t made him a smarter football coach.
A CLOSER LOOK
Phils better make a decision on Lidge before October
The world champion Phillies have a fatal flaw this season. I know it. You know it. Heck, I wrote about it in depth a few weeks ago in this column.
Brad Lidge, the best closer in baseball last year, is now the worst — and the Phils won’t repeat unless they figure out what to do.
Last Friday, Lidge survived a harrowing ninth only with the intervention of the baseball gods.
Three balls were hit so hard in that inning, they became lethal weapons. Fortunately, they were hit at fielders.
Saturday was Lidge’s latest exercise in futility. Yes, his own errors ultimately foiled him, but it should be clear by now that Lidge has become a muddle of bad pitches and bad karma. There will be no repeat of that magical final out in the World Series, at least not with Lidge trying to close those tense October playoff games.
If you’re a religious type, now might be a good time to say a prayer for the recovery of Brett Myers — both from arm ailments and a curious new eye injury — or the rebirth of Ryan Madson as the closer.
Lidge has already blown eight saves. If the Phillies let him, he will blow an entire season.
I am 58 years old. Nothing should surprise me the way I was surprised last Thursday night.
Nothing should make me as sick as I feel right now about the Eagles signing a dog killer named Michael Vick.
And yet here I sit, five days after the single, most offensive decision in Philadelphia sports history, struggling for words that express rage without offending the people who read this column every week.
I know I will fail at that objective today because I can’t control my emotions over a wrong decision — wrong for the football team, wrong for the fans and wrong for people who care about their pets.
It was wrong for the football team because the Eagles have no position for Vick to play and because they never even bothered to work him out. It is wrong for the fans because they are being disrespected again by an organization that thinks it can do whatever it wants with no lasting repercussions. The Eagles signed Vick because they want undeserved national adulation for being the team of second chances, the team that wants to change the world. It is all a sad charade.
And it is wrong for pet lovers because we know the truth. The idea that someone could preside over the murder of dogs for six years is unimaginable. There is no cure for a mind that sick. We all know that.
Even owner Jeffrey Lurie knows it. He called himself “an extreme dog lover” when he welcomed Vick onto his team, the same team that cut players Damon Moore and Thomas Hamner within hours of incidents involving animal cruelty. If second chances are such a priority, why did Moore and Hamner not deserve another shot? Could it be because they weren’t nearly as talented as Vick?
And if this emphasis on second chances is a new priority, then why hasn’t the organization rehired Dan Leone, the disabled security officer who was fired after criticizing the team on Facebook when Brian Dawkins left. What infraction is more deserving of a second chance, a moment of verbal weakness or six years of cold-blooded murder?
The real message of this fiasco is that the Eagles are simply not worthy of our support. They preach the value of character and then dismiss a role model like Dawkins while embracing a felon like Vick. They don’t care what we think. They have won nothing, yet pretend they are a special.
I wrote in this space last week that it was getting harder and harder to root for the Eagles. Well, it is now officially impossible.
IDLE THOUGHTS
YOU TALKING TO ME? When Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said the Vick decision was “counterintuitive” for him, who the heck did he think he was talking to? (It means against his nature. I looked it up.)
RACIAL DIVIDE: There has never been a more polarizing issue in Philadelphia sports than the Michael Vick signing. Almost every one of my black callers loves the move. Almost every one of my white callers hates it.
TAKE THAT, PHILS: One of the main reasons the Eagles signed Vick on Thursday was to steal some of the Phillies’ spotlight back. Believe it. METRO/AC
Angelo Cataldi is a Metro sports columnist and host of 610 WIP’s Morning Show. He can be heard every morning from 5:30 to 10 a.m. His page runs on Tuesday.
Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions expressed on its pages.
