Eagles Continue To Stand By Reid

Coach Faced With Home, Team Issues

It has been nearly nine years since Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie put his nascent NFL reputation on the line and hired a little-known assistant coach from the Green Bay Packers named Andy Reid as his head coach, much to the dismay of the bulk of fans who wanted a more established coach. Months later, Reid used the second overall selection in the NFL draft on Syracuse quarterback Donovan McNabb and drew boos from Eagles followers who wanted the club to choose Texas running back Ricky Williams.

But Lurie trusted Reid and Reid stuck by McNabb, and they have been steadfast in maintaining that circle of support ever since. The Eagles have reached a Super Bowl and have won five of the last six NFC East titles with Reid as their coach and McNabb, at least between injuries, as their quarterback.

But this is the NFL and public unrest is never far from the latest string of losses, especially in a tough-love sports town like Philadelphia. So with the Eagles in last place in the NFC East as they prepare for Sunday's game against the Washington Redskins at FedEx Field, it's back to Lurie having to speak up for Reid and Reid having to stand by McNabb. Lurie did his part a few weeks ago, and Reid said yesterday that he has no plans to make a quarterback switch on the heels of a lopsided loss at home to the Dallas Cowboys dropped the Eagles to 3-5.

"I think everybody needs to pick up their game, all the way around," Reid said during his regular Monday news conference at the Eagles' training facility in South Philadelphia. "I'm talking about coaches and players -- everybody do their job a little bit better. It's easy to point the finger at one guy, but I don't think that's where we're at right now."

Where they're at right now isn't pretty. McNabb threw two interceptions and lost a fumble in the 38-17 defeat to the Cowboys. He is only the league's 13th-rated passer, putting him seven spots behind the quarterback -- Jeff Garcia -- who led the Eagles to the playoffs last season while McNabb was hurt. Garcia was allowed to leave as a free agent in the offseason and sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The deflating loss to the Cowboys came at the end of a week in which Reid continued to be under scrutiny because of the legal troubles of his two adult sons and missed a practice for the first time in his Eagles coaching tenure. Reid spent Thursday in a courtroom while a Montgomery County, Pa., judge sentenced sons Garrett and Britt Reid to jail time on drug, weapon and traffic charges. Judge Steven T. O'Neill called the Reids' home a "drug emporium" and called the Reids a "family in crisis." That led to a renewed speculation about the coaching future of Reid, who took a five-week offseason leave of absence from the Eagles after his sons were arrested in separate traffic incidents on the same day in late January. He said Friday he planned to keep coaching, and NFL officials indicated they had no plans to discipline him under the league's personal conduct policy.

Still, people around the league continue to wonder privately if Reid will keep coaching beyond this season, and his players have had to field questions in recent days about whether Reid's family problems have distracted him. In Philadelphia, Reid's job status has made its way from the sports page to the front page and even the editorial page.

In an editorial last month, the Philadelphia Daily News wrote: "It's too easy to draw a straight line from Reid's off-field issues to his team's on-field struggles. The fact is that the Eagles have been in decline since losing the Super Bowl in February 2005. . . . Reid's era as coach and executive vice president of football operations appears to have run its course after nine years, a lifetime for a pro football coach. . . . The Eagles are stagnant. Reid should step aside -- not because of his family problems, but because of his coaching problems. That the time might help him heal his family is just a side benefit."

But Lurie and Joe Banner, the Eagles' president, don't seem to agree and have remained staunch supporters. At an NFL owners' meeting late last month, Lurie told the Philadelphia Inquirer: "I think we have a great coach, great coaching staff, excellent leadership. We were 5-6 last year, we lost our starting quarterback, and almost made it to the [NFC] championship game. He's one of the truly best coaches, and if you interviewed the 31 other owners and Andy was on the market, many would be lining up. . . . Either you support your football people or you don't. And I do."

It also has been a turbulent season for McNabb, who sparked a controversy when he said during a television interview that he and other black NFL quarterbacks are criticized more harshly than their white counterparts. Then the issue was McNabb's words. Now it's his play. With McNabb coming off last year's season-ending knee injury, the Eagles got their quarterback of the future in April by using a second-round draft pick on Houston's Kevin Kolb. Some in Philadelphia now wonder if the future could come sooner than expected at the position.

Reid and McNabb spoke in the Eagles' locker room late Sunday night after the Cowboys game, but McNabb said later it was merely a "normal conversation" between coach and quarterback.

"I think what you have to do in this situation is see your mistakes, understand why it happened and be able to correct it going into next week," McNabb said at his postgame news conference. "The tough part about it is there were opportunities for us and in that situation, there's no room for error."

McNabb called the Redskins game a must-win situation for the Eagles. Both he and Reid said they're confident the Eagles are capable of crafting another turnaround a year after they won their final five regular season games and finished 10-6.

"I'm not saying that there aren't some plays that Donovan would like to have back," Reid said yesterday. "I'm not saying that. But I think everybody has had a little piece of that pie. . . . Things can change quickly in the NFL, but you've got to do it. I can't sit up here and talk about it. The players can't talk about it. You've got to go do it. We've done that in the past, and that's what we've got to do now."