By G. Emrich

Once or twice a year the Eagles do this to us.  They win a game in a way that raises our hopes and makes us think “Why can’t they look this good every week?”.  There’s no good answer to that question.  It’s sport.  It just happens.

Here’s what we know after six games.  LeSean McCoy has made one of the biggest one year jumps that we’ve ever seen in Philadelphia.  He was a decidedly average running back last year, average in pretty much every way.  He spent the offseason getting himself in the best shape of his life, and now he’s very clearly one of the best running backs in football.  He’s running the ball as well as any running back I’ve seen since I’ve been watching the Eagles.  He’s a better runner now than Westbrook ever was (pick your jaw up off the floor, I didn’t say he was a better player, just a better runner).  I’m not sure that people realize just how well he’s playing right now.

Kevin Kolb.  I’ve seen some stupid rushes to judgment in my day, both nationally and locally, but Kolb’s ranks high on the list.  Rant time.

All educated, analytical sports fans know to essentially ignore the sports media.  They didn’t get their jobs because they’re good analysts.  They’re reporters.  They get hired because of their reporting skills (or for other reasons if for TV, see Smith, Stephan A.).  Their opinion matters no more than the average intelligent sports fan (often times less).  Our local beat writers and columnists here in Philadelphia are better than average, but none of them have an opinion that’s worth listening to 95 percent of the time.  End of rant.

However, even if we accept this to be true, the idiocy from fans and media alike was nearly unprecedented.  I’m not saying Kolb is great, simply that it was absurd to claim he was ANYTHING based on one half of football.  And I’ll say something similar now.  Kolb was decent against San Francisco and very good yesterday.  That’s two games, still not enough to base a long term evaluation on.  I’ve seen plenty of bad quarterbacks look good for one game, even two or three games in row.  I don’t think Kolb is anything approaching bad, but I can’t say that with even close to 100 percent certainty at this point.

Another thing we don’t know with 100 percent certainty is how the good the Eagles are.  We know that the talent should support a consistently good offense.  The offensive line is the big question mark.  The talent and performance level at the quarterback, running back and wide receiver positions is too good not to produce if the offensive line plays like it did yesterday.  It’s highly unlikely that we’ll see that kind of performance from the offensive line too many more times this season, and that would be asking too much from them given the injury problems.  A more reasonable expectation would be a sustained period of solid play.  Solid play should be enough for this team.

The defense is a complete crapshoot from week to week.  The defensive line has been better than expected.  Linebacker play has been flat out putrid at times.  And I have no idea how to rate the secondary.  I know they can’t tackle and I know that’s going to be an ongoing issue.  I know that having only three safeties on the roster isn’t good, and it’s really not good when one is a rookie starter and one is a rookie backup.  My guess for this defense, we’ll see more of the same up and down play as the year goes on. 

Fortunately, no one is playing great football in the NFC right now.  Really, no one is playing anything close to great football in the NFC right now.  It’s a crapshoot team in a crapshoot year.  Hopefully it’s the perfect match.