Chris Gocong.  

I must admit I have a soft spot for the dude.  So often vilified by many of us fans, Chris gets nothing but ignored in weekly media sessions.  The fluff piece on PE.com about his volunteer work at a Voorhees Animal shelter really made me want him to be a good player.  

There was an article a while back where Gocong describes himself as the Defensive Fullback (Brookover), in the article Gocong says that he can have a great game and not even show up once in the stat sheet.  Everytime somebody blasts Gocong, I think about that article and wish I could offer up video evidence of what the heck he was talking about.  Thanks to the "Anatomy of a Play" that they posted on PE.com today, I've got it.  

The play in question was Spoon's strip sack.  The video quality they post on PE.com isn't great, and you have to watch a bunch of stuff before you get to the play in question so I link you to NFL.com instead.  I watched this play several times and will outline what happened after the jump.

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I'm over Andy Reid.  I can't take his play calling anymore.  He should run the ball more.  He should manage the clock better.  In order to get over the last hurdle to winning a Super Bowl, the Eagles need to bring in a coach with experience winning a Super Bowl.  Bill Cowher is out there and just about ready to start coaching again.  Jeff Laurie should go get him.  Peter King had an interesting note in his MMQB column that really emphasizes my point here and I think you guys should all check it out - it's the second stat of the week.

The Eagles and Andy Reid's agent,Bob LaMonte, are in negotiations to extend his contract beyond the 2010 season, after which the current deal is due to expire.

Why with the difficulties that the Eagles have had winning the big game should the Eagles even consider resigning Andy Reid?  Bill Cowher is out there and we should go get him - unless of course he's already here...

[Note by cavortingEagle, 10/19/09 1:42 PM MDT ]  edit.

Advanced NFL Stats is a tremendous website for nerds who find the numbers behind the game interesting.  The author doesn't typically post on a daily basis, but when he does the post is usually thought provoking.  I check his site about once per week.  Today I stumbled upon this gem where Andy's decision to punt the ball back to Cincinatti late in the game is derided as the worst 4th down decision of the year.  According to the author's methodology, giving Cincy the ball back with so much time left in the game gave Cincinatti almost a 1 in 3 chance of pulling out the game, whereas converting the 4th and 1 would have given the Birds about a 60 percent chance to pull the game out in regulation (they only would have needed another 15 yards for a long FG)...

The author's methodology for determining win probability is fairly sound and well documented (that last link is not for the faint of heart).  It's also something which can be evaluated on a play by play basis and the site provides in game win probabilities for some (all?) games during the acutal game.  

Knowing what we know now, playing for the draw worked just fine, but at the time we all would have liked to have seen a little more aggression.  Would you have punted, or gone for it with the game on the line in the fourth quarter?