No, The Eagles Won't Fire Andy Reid This Week
For some unknown and unholy reason, the Eagles aren’t going to fire Andy Reid this week, according to a report by Les Bowen in today's Daily News:
A high-ranking team source told the Daily News it was not, that Reid will coach the Eagles next Monday night against the Carolina Panthers.
Told during the game that fans want to hear from team chairman Jeffrey Lurie, their 3-7 team having dropped six games in a row in increasingly ugly fashion, a team spokesman said Lurie was unlikely to speak Sunday. He didn't say anything about Monday.
Jeffrey Lurie is a goddamn coward. We all know he’s loyal to Reid and doesn’t want to embarrass his long-time coach. But keeping Reid around is 100% counterintuitive for a guy completely and sometimes needlessly obsessed with image and media coverage of his team. It’s not about wins and losses anymore, it’s about saving face. Reid’s presence on the sidelines has become the most public symbol of the Eagles’ unwillingness to change.
For Reid’s sake, firing him mid-season would likely save on a lot of heartache. And firing him now, during Thanksgiving week, would save the Eagles from some negative press. Not much– some.
But no, Lurie will be stubborn to the end. Non-existent, even. He’ll continue to be absent from the sidelines before games, continue to decline requests from the media. Yet his customers, us fans, literally hate his product right now. Hate the coach. Hate the players. Hate him.
An example of the hate? Reader Ryan sent me a letter that he is sending to Lurie. I’m generally not a fan of these open letter things, but this isn’t a made-for-page-views, fire the coach type of thing… it’s a real letter, from a paying customer, to Lurie:
I wouldn’t hold your breath, Ryan.