Depressing thought about our role in the NFC East

[Skinsfor4]

Hopefully the East is cyclical and after Philly wins theirs this year,we will be back at the top again.

[MattFancy]

It's hard sitting here realizing that the NFC Championship will be decided by 2 teams we have a 3-0 record against this year. It's hard realizing that yet again we finished last in the division. It's hard sitting here thinking that we were 6-2 at the halfway mark and finished 8-8. It sucks when you look at our draft picks for this y ear and we only have 4 out of a possible 7. But then, I realized that things aren't THAT bad.

We have a team that has plenty of talent on both sides of the ball, a coach that hopefully learned alot after his FIRST year of being a head coach, an owner that we know will try and spend money to make this team better, and fans that will go out and show support for this team. We're not the Lions, Raiders, Chiefs, Texans, Bengals, or Bills. Unlike the other last place teams, we were a playoff team last year and have a good core of players to build around.

Yeah we lost some games this year that we should have won, but we won some games that no one thought we would either. At the start of the year I predicted we would finish 9-7 or 10-6, yeah that 6-2 start had me thinking 12-4, but we finished 8-8 which is what most people thought. We didn't get blown out in any game, every game we played we had a chance to win. Can you see that for the other last place teams in the league? Maybe for the Saints and Bills, but not the others. Yeah we had a bad collapse to end the year but it wasn't even the worst in the league, i.e. Cowboys and Jets.

There is plenty of hope for next year. Hopefully Vinny is smart enough to address the trenches with the draft and FA. Maybe he wanted the skill players to learn the offense before we brought in help in the trenches, who knows with Vinny, but we have a solid group of guys. Maybe a full offseason in the system will help JC and the WRs develop some chemistry. I don't consider us the doormat in the NFC East, this team isn't as bad as everyone thinks.

[elkabong82]

Now now now,, this thread was supposed to be DEPRESSING.

Didn't you read the title?

I agree completely, people are acting like we're one of the worst teams in the NFL, and it gets old. There was the annual prediction thread back in August, and looking back on it most everyone in it posted a record between 7-9 and 9-7, and lo and behold, almost everyone was CORRECT>

In fact, most people in there that posted a .500 prediction considered it to be acceptable given all the surrounding circumstances. In August we seemed to realize we had a rookie head coach who had never even been a playcaller before. We seemed to realize Campbell was learning yet another system, and he was only a second year starter.

Ah, but a 6-2 start changed all of that, gave everyone EXPECTATIONS. Of course we all remember being 4-1 and looking at the schedule with 3 creampuffs coming up and gleefully predicting 7-1 and a glide to the playoffs... but when we came up to the stretch that included 4 straight top ten defenses (including the top two defenses in the NFL ...who just so happen to be playing this week for a chance to whip up on Philly or Arizona and claim the trophy) no one wanted to predict we'd get our asses handed to us by those teams and come out the other end 6-6.

Nope, suddenly we were good enough to be able to handle the Ravens, Steelers, and the SB champions. (Optimism for the Cowboys is understandable, we already beat them. Notice again that all the others played this weekend, two are still alive, and one of them will likely win the Super Bowl)

Now, the other side of that is the fact we own both the NFC reps... but that should show people we're not as BAD as they think, either. We're capable of playing at a high level. (Consistency comes with time and practice. One year is neither.)

The lesson to learn: We're not a bad team. We're not a good team, either, at least not good enough to play with those kinds of defenses.

Now, does a rookie head coach calling plays against those defenses have something to do with why we got our asses beat? Probably. Is it understandable that the best defenses in the league kicked us around like that? Yes, it is given the circumstance.

Is it a good starting point to work towards for next year?

You're damn right it is. We were FORTUNATE enough in this debacle to have played against four out of the top five defenses in the NFL this year. (The fifth one being us.)

Why is this fortunate? Because we don't have to wonder how to practice to get better against them. We have first hand experience and game film of our own offense trying to work against the BEST defenses in the league, showing specifically how we fared against them in direct confrontation. We saw their tendencies and reactions firsthand. In terms of experience for a young coach, that is invaluable. You don't learn anything getting beat by a fluke vs the damn Rams. You learn by getting beat by the Steelers.

~Bang

If only other posters could post with such clarity and devoid of biased emotions. Great job Bang. Too bad this post will be ignored by most of the doom and gloomers who are contrite to say the team sucks simply because they aren't in the playoffs. We lost to the Bengals and Rams they say as a retort to this thread, pretending as if the first point is somehow invalid. The Eagles tied with the Bengals, the 49ers finished 1 game below us, and sorry, but let's look at the Rams game realistically. New coach so there isn't a whole lot you can gameplan for, and we dominated the Rams statistically, yet we lost by 2 points, and I hate to pin it all on 1 play, but the Kendall fiasco, just like the game, was a damn fluke. We could have played better for sure, but losing to the Rams doesn't make us garbage. That same Rams team put up 34 points and beat Dallas the following week.

We aren't as good as people thought we were after 6-2, and we aren't as bad as people think we are now after finishing 8-8. Click the link in my sig to see people's predictions at the start of the season. I don't care if people's expectations were raised after 6-2, because they were so typically low in the beginning and had nowhere to go but up, then we do well and just like at the start of the season when many had expectations too low, their expectations suddenly became too high. Maybe instead of being wrong on their perceptions of the team all the time, people can just give it a rest and realize the team is as the middle of the road but is getting younger each offseason and focusing more on the draft now.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

Here is something to ponder.

The Eagles have two first round picks next year.

The Giants get back Osi and have two second round picks.

Neither team is going to take a step back.

[pjfootballer]

All the teams I mentioned, with the exception of the #6 seed 2005 Steelers, were/are 10-6 or worse. If you want to sit and dwell on the last 17 years, feel free. I prefer to consider the better possibilities.

My point was, all those teams you mentioned that rose up from the pits of hell actually won something. What have we won? We have 1 division title and 3 playoff appearances (2-3 record) in those 17 years. All we've done is suck/be average/overacheive, wash, rinse and repeat.

[JimmyConway]

Maybe instead of being wrong on their perceptions of the team all the time, people can just give it a rest and realize the team is as the middle of the road but is getting younger each offseason and focusing more on the draft now.

I agree with the message of your post that ESers need to realize that we're a middle of the road team but you should realize where their depression comes from. It's from being a middle of the road team since Snyderatto took control. Also I haven't seen enough patience and restraint during consecutive offseasons to convince me that we're getting younger every offseason. We're definitely not getting younger at the same rate that other NFC East teams are because they are accumulating picks whereas we celebrate having 4 in one year. :2cents: