AP reported he should have had 6 INTs
BTW- Im not surprised McNabb and Andy Reid keep losing all these big games.
Reid's Eagles bird-brained: Coach can't recall 'what's the hurry?' drive
BY RALPH VACCHIANO
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - There was a moment during the Philadelphia Eagles' penultimate drive of Super Bowl XXXIX when Eagles center Hank Fraley rushed up to the line of scrimmage to get ready to snap the ball. Then he looked behind him and saw his teammates waving him back to the huddle, as the clock continued to wind down.
So at least someone was attacking the Eagles' comeback effort with a sense of urgency. It just wasn't coach Andy Reid.
Even yesterday, 11 hours after the Eagles lost, 24-21, to the New England Patriots, Reid still had no explanation for why his team wasn't in its no-huddle offense, trailing by 10 points with 5:40 remaining. It was a mind-boggling decision that even left some of his own players speechless, and probably cost the Eagles a chance to win their first championship in 45 years.
"Well, you know, I'm trying to remember back on that. I put that away a little bit," Reid said a few hours before the Eagles checked out of their hotel. "But we did try to get it going. I can't remember. I can't detail the circumstances why it didn't work as well as it should have."
Chances are there are many Eagles fans who can help refresh his memory. The Eagles were trailing 24-14 and had two timeouts left when they got the ball at their 21 with 5:40 left in the game. But instead of trying to move downfield quickly, they went on a long, methodical drive filled with short passes. And they huddled before almost every play.
When they did finally score on a 30-yard touchdown pass from Donovan McNabb to Greg Lewis that cut their deficit to three points, they had eaten up almost four precious minutes and left just 1:48 on the clock. By the time they got the ball back after a three-and-out by the Patriots, the Eagles were stuck at their 4-yard line with just 46 seconds to go.
After the game, no one seemed to have a reasonable explanation for the clock mismanagement. Reid said they were trying to hurry up, but "it was the way things worked out." McNabb said they couldn't do it because they were waiting for receivers to return from their deep routes. And right tackle Jon Runyan said the Eagles didn't want to rush because they didn't want to make any mistakes. He added, "It wasn't a big deal."
Tell that to the Eagles fans who were moaning at the game or at home screaming "Hurry up!" at their TVs.
At some point, maybe, Reid will have an answer for what happened, but he didn't have one yesterday. Asked if he wished he had handled that drive better and left the Eagles more time for a comeback, he said, "Well, you know, you'd love to have back the second-to-last interception there. It might have been a little different if that were the case." He was talking about Tedy Bruschi's pick that ended the Eagles' previous drive.
The drive he can't remember, incidentally, doesn't represent Reid's only bizarre decision. He mismanaged the clock at the end of the first half, too, when the Eagles had three timeouts and the ball with 1:10 remaining. Reid didn't use a timeout until there were 10 seconds left. Asked about that after the game, Reid said, "I don't remember that at all, to be honest with you."
There were also issues with his play-calling, which included just six running attempts in the second half. ("I need to go back and kind of reevaluate what I was doing from the play-calling standpoint," he admitted.) And then there was his decision to rush 11 men at the Patriots' punter with 55 seconds left in the game, leaving no one back to return the football, which rolled dead at the Eagles' 4.
"We made an attempt to stay aggressive with him and go after him and try to block the punt and put ourselves in even better position to get a field goal or a touchdown," Reid said. "It didn't work out."
For Reid, in his first Super Bowl as a head coach, not many of his decisions did.
A bad Reid
Eagles coach Andy Reid left a lot of unanswered questions with some of the decisions he made in losing Super Bowl XXXIX to the Patriots. Below are five of the biggest that will be torturing Philly fans for a while:
1. What's the rush?
Trailing by 10 points, 5:40 remaining, 79 yards away from a touchdown, two timeouts left...sure, what the heck? Take your time. Huddle up. Call short passes. That helped the Eagles move a whole 15 yards in the first 2:08. By the time they finally scored, there was only 1:48 left and their championship dreams were all but done.
2. What's the rush, Part II?
With 1:10 left in the first half of a tie game, the Eagles get the ball at their own 19 with all three timeouts left. Plenty of time to get into FG range. But instead, they open with a run and don't use their first timeout until they get near midfield. By then there are just 10 seconds left in the half, and the Eagles come away with no points.
3. What's the rush, Part III?
The Eagles get the ball back at their own 4 with 46 seconds left, they have no timeouts and are about 60 yards from a shot at a game-tying field goal. But miracles can happen, right? Not this way. They start with a 1-yard pass to Brian Westbrook, followed by an inexplicable pass into the middle of the field. It fell incomplete, but if Terrell Owens had caught it, there wouldn't have been time for another play.
4. Where's the rush?
The Eagles don't run much anyway and it didn't work well in the first half, but Reid gave up on the ground game entirely in the second. RB Brian Westbrook rushed two times (for minus-4 yards) in the final 20 minutes. And QB Donovan McNabb (above), whose legs worried the Patriots, rushed one time (for no yards) all game.
5. Why the rush?
With 55 seconds left, Reid took a gamble by sending 11 men at the Patriots' punter to try to get a block. The problem was, when they didn't get it, there was no one back to return it. The punt was good and the ball was downed at the 4-yard line, leaving the Eagles a long way from game-tying FG range.
Originally published on February 7, 2005