Reid stands by decision to sit Kolb for remainder of career

Eagles head coach Andy Reid will not second guess his decision to bench Kevin Kolb for the rest of his life.

After the Eagles capped off a close, 30-27 victory over the Broncos on Sunday, Reid had to answer for his decision to never allow his backup quarterback to see the light of day again.

“We’re one of the hottest teams in the league right now, and Kevin’s bench play has been huge for us,” Reid said. “We need him well rested so he can give us some quality rest from the bench in the playoffs.”

Kolb took the news surprisingly well and even agreed with Reid’s decision to play McNabb and occasionally mix in Michael Vick for some ridiculous reason.

“Coach Reid said I’m a valuable asset to the team and he needs me on the bench so I won’t get any ouchies or boo-boos,” Kolb said on Monday. “I totally respect his decision and I just want to make sure I’m ready if the time ever comes for me to touch or possibly throw a football again.”

Vick recognized for courageous journey back to humanity

Michael Vick won the Ed Block Courage Award, voted on by his teammates, after the former barbarian defied all odds by courageously returning to life as a regular human being.

“It means a great deal to me,” Vick said Wednesday. “I was voted unanimously by my teammates. They know what I’ve been through. I’ve been through a lot. I had to learn how to hold a fork, tie my shoes, pay my bills, brush my teeth, not kill dogs, speak English and most importantly, not kill dogs. I’ve overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can handle or bear.”

Though other teams voted in players that give back to the community (and the world) without a team mandate and fought through debilitating injuries to stay on the field, they were all no match for Vick’s drive and determination to become a regular human being like the rest of us that don’t drown dogs for fun.

“Michael has really turned his life around, and despite what people are saying, it has absolutely nothing to do with the $1.6 million he’s being paid to play football and turn his life around,” said Eagles head coach Andy Reid. “In the short time he’s been with us, he’s gone from dragging his knuckles on the ground to scoring three touchdowns on the ground, which is remarkable. The sheer courage it took for him to finally walk upright and the sportsmanship he has displayed as a backup quarterback has been a real inspiration to us all, and hopefully the rest of Philadelphia as well.”

To cheer or not to cheer for Dawkins? That is the (dumb) question

In terms of fan decorum, It’s a no-brainer and the only reason I’m even writing this is because the question is being posed around town: Of course you cheer for Brian Dawkins’ return to the Linc and any Eagles fan that bought a ticket to the game and doesn’t de-ass themselves from their seat should be tossed…from life…immediately.

There’s no possible way to justify letting Dawk go while you take a chance and sign Michael Vick. It’s because of this that cheering on number 20 is just as much a snub to the Eagles front office as it is a “thank you” to the man that represents the Eagles franchise as much as anyone in history.

I’m sure that if the game is close in the fourth quarter and Dawk levels Donovan McNabb to force a fourth down, you may not hear too many cheers outta folks, but this is sports. We watch this stuff for entertainment and for a lot of people, following a favorite player trumps following the team as a whole. I could certainly understand people’s loyalty to the man, even if he’s now playing for the other side.

Hopefully the Birds will stuff the Broncos early so everyone can cheer on Dawk guilt-free for the entire game, though.

Adulterous, billionaire athletes with hot wives don’t need our sympathy

I’m not one of those sadistic a-holes that gets their kicks from seeing other people’s destruction, but I’m certainly not someone that’s feeling sorry for Tiger Woods when he brought all of this on himself.

To feel sorry for Tiger is to act like he’s a complete moron and you don’t become the world’s top golfer and make the kind of money he does as a complete moron. Save your sympathy for guys like Sean Taylor or Pat Tillman, but not for a guy that knowingly risked everything he built over more than a decade just to get a nut off.

We all make decisions in life, and Tiger’s was to get grimey with about a dozen loud-mouthed skeezers rather than stay at home with his wife. I think when you’re Tiger Woods, you have to know that if you get caught, it’s not gonna be like Joe Sixpack getting caught cheating, it’s gonna be like Tiger Woods getting caught cheating. He’s owned a television before and knows how the media jumps on celebrity misfortune. He knew what Kobe Bryant, Bill Clinton and about 50 trillion other men went through after dipping their nugget in the wrong sauce. So, why am I supposed to feel sorry for the storm that’s come down on him now?

Too many people wish they were given Tiger’s gift to be able to play golf and make billions at it while maintaining what once looked like a nice family. It’s the same story of a guy that wastes the talent so many other people wish they had. Tiger enjoyed the lifestyle he made for himself. He enjoyed being on top of the heap of far inferior golfers and all of the perks and endorsements that came along with it. If he didn’t, he could have pulled the plug at any point and went home just like Dave Chappelle did.

Call me weird, but I’m big on personal responsibility and this guy ran through the scenario of getting caught and made the decision to just do it anyway. It’s called thinking with the wrong head and I know there are few women that would defend what he did, but I’m one guy that could honestly care less how badgered he gets by any of this as long as he’s not physically injured…by anyone other than his wife.

Aside from the fact that he brought this down on himself, he doesn’t need anyone’s sympathy since this will generally be forgotten in a couple years. Few people look at Kobe as a rapist and no one really cares that Michael Vick is on the Eagles anymore, and that was only a couple months ago.

I’ll follow whatever else happens in this Tiger saga not with anxiety or bloodlust, but with a general curiosity to see how he comes out of it, since everyone knows he will. So, yeah…I don’t think he needs your pity at the moment.

Who wouldn’t pay to see Bonds play again?

Barry Bonds’ agent is saying he’s all but done since he’s been out of baseball for two years without a contract offer, but how crazy would it be to see Bonds play right now?

I’ve been anti-Bonds and anti-roids for a while now, but even I’m starting to realize that Bonds wasn’t just among a select group of guys that made the decision to cheat. If anything, Bonds got a late jump on his peers if the suspicions are right that he started juicing after the 1998 Home Run Chase. At this point in the game, if you’re anti-Bonds, you might as well be anti-MLB for the same reasons.

There’s no real reason to deny him an opportunity to play given that so many of the other suspected and even admitted roid-users have kept their jobs. I’m not gonna get all Stephen A. Smith on you and act like Bonds is owed something or needs a pity party because the man made a decision and is dealing with the consequences, but I’d still love to see him back in the game right now.

There are two reasons why I’m moved to lead the charge to get him back in the game: 1) Steroids or no, he was the greatest baseball player ever. Period. And 2) I just realized he’s 45 and would love to see what he looks like at the plate after a two-year layoff.

I’m positive it wouldn’t take more than $800,000 to sign this guy and it’s almost guaranteed that people would flock to the stadium to see the greatest baseball player of all time step into the box after sitting at home for two years. I’d put it up there with Tyson or Ali returning to the ring and as much press as Favre coming back drew, could you imagine how nuts a Bonds comeback would be in the sports world in 2010?

Most of what would make his signing with a team this year more exciting than the past two years…is that he hasn’t played in two years. We pretty much knew what he would have had coming back in 2008, and even at his age, taking a year off wouldn’t have been that awful. But I think two years is pretty much the cutoff and his agent is right to say it’s now or never.

Even if he were to come back, it’s probably out of the question for him to return to National League — unless he’s brought on in a Jim Thome or Jason Giambi role of the power bat off the bench (and nothing else) for the entire year — but there are a ton of struggling clubs that could use the attendance boost Bonds would bring.

I refuse to believe that Barry Bonds is still more hated among baseball fans than Vick is among football fans and people have all but moved on with the Vick hate already. After seeing how the Vick experiment has gone so far, I’d say a team like the Athletics are fools for not offering Bonds a minimum deal. For $800,000 or less, you’d get asses in the seats for the first time in that town since before the ‘94 strike.

I know I’d probably hate the guy if I met him, but there are few people on this planet that I would stop everything I’m doing to watch play a sport and Barry Lamar Bonds easily tops that list.

Iguodala: I’m pretty sure I’d be way better than Vick

Andre Iguodala jumped into the LeBron James playing football discussion on Friday by saying that he’s “pretty confident” he could at least do a better job out there than Michael Vick.

Standing at 6′6″, Iguodala has the height necessary to see over lineman, and the coke-bottle vision to see what everyone else is thinking, but he may lack the arm strength and accuracy to be an effective NFL quarterback.

“If I committed myself to the game of football, I think I would be pretty good at it,” Iguodala said on Friday. “That goes for other sports too, like baseball, MMA and maybe even basketball.”

Vick struggles in Eagles’ first attempt at wildcat special teams

The Eagles force fed Michael Vick into a wildcat offense on and off for the first eight games this season and were finally able to try out their wildcat special teams formation on Sunday against the Cowboys.

Rather than have David Akers come in to attempt a field goal in the third quarter, the Eagles lined Vick up behind Sav Rocca in an attempt to throw off the defense.

“Our wildcat special teams has the same element of surprise and mystery of our wildcat offense,” Andy Reid said on Monday. “Defenses have to anticipate the run, pass and kick all on the same play. It’s a defense’s worst nightmare. Or at least it would be, if Michael knew how to pass or kick. Or run for that matter.”

Nike just supplying Vick with a bunch of funky, unwanted shoes

Michael Vick’s agent reported earlier this week that his client had signed a sponsorship deal with Nike. Nike has now come forward deny those claims and say the company is only supplying Michael Vick with a couple truckloads of funky, outdated shoes and nothing more.

“Nike does not have a contractual relationship with Michael Vick,” Nike said in a statement on Thursday. “We have merely agreed to dump a truckload of worn-out shoes on Vick to give him an idea of what we think he’s worth right now. And that has nothing to do with the dogfighting stuff, either. He’s just a garbage football player right now. Now, if when he starts finding the end zone, we’ll be all over him like stank on chitlins again.”

Eagles’ throw-to-an-open-cat formation shocks, awes Chiefs

Michael Vick played in his first regular season NFL game since 2006 as the Eagles pummeled the Chiefs 34-14 on Sunday. Vick ran a handful of Wildcat plays, but it was the Eagles’ elusive throw-to-an-open-cat (or “Opencat”) offense that stole the show and gave the Eagles their second win of the season.

Starting in place of the injured Donovan McNabb, Kevin Kolb ran the experimental offense to near perfection, throwing to open cats for 327 yards and two touchdowns.

Andy Reid later explained the difficulty involved in running such a newfangled, hi-tech offense when everyone is so used to running the Wildcat.

“It’s something we’ve been working on for a couple weeks now and to be honest, we didn’t expect such positive results so soon,” said Andy Reid of the Opencat offense. “It’s hard to explain exactly how it works, but essentially what you wanna do is pick an open cat to throw to and when you’ve found one, that’s when you throw the ball to that cat.”

Overwhelmed by the formation from the Eagles’ first offensive possession, the Chiefs had no answer and could not recover for the rest of the game.

“We gameplanned all freaking week to defend against the Wildcat and then they throw this Opencat stuff at us,” said first-year Chiefs head coach Todd Haley. “They did run a couple Wildcat plays and we did a good job stopping them, but how in the world are you supposed to defend against a quarterback that can throw to open cats on a consistent basis? You can’t, it’s impossible.”

The Eagles will decide whether to stick with the popular offense — which has also been implemented by the Saints with great success — or return to the Wildcat in Week 5 when Donovan McNabb is expected to return against the Buccaneers.

ESPN preparing feverishly for overanalysis of Vick

Following the announcement by Eagles offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg that Michael Vick will play this weekend, ESPN has begun feverish preparations to overanalyze the 15 or so plays Vick will participate in. The network is planning a one hour special documenting Vick’s performance.

“It’s a big deal that Michael Vick is returning to the NFL regular season,” said a representative of the network. “I know he’ll probably only play 10 to 15 plays, and run that stupid wildcat a few times, but we want coverage of it. So what if his stats will probably be 1-for-5 passing with 11 yards of total offense. America wants to see Vick.”

ESPN plans on following its Michael Vick coverage with highlights and in depth analysis of the day’s top performances by punters and kick off specialists.

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