The Fan Hub

It’s never easy for Philadelphia Eagles fans to have to watch hated rivals like the New York Giants hoist the Lombardi Trophy, especially when it’s now happened twice in four years. But it’s even worse for them this time given that if you had asked just about anyone before the season started which NFC East team had the best chance to win it all, the prevailing answer would have been the Eagles.

Instead they’re left wondering what they can do differently so that they’re the ones in the Super Bowl next season. However, it’s as easy as simply trying to copy the Giants’ formula for success. The biggest reason for their success in the past four years has been the play of Eli Manning, who is about as different from Michael Vick in every way as a quarterback can be. While Manning is a “traditional” style quarterback who is best when throwing from the pocket, Vick’s biggest weapon is his mobility. While Manning is durable, having never missed a game due to injury in his eight-year career, Vick can’t stay on the field, completing only one 16-game season in nine years. And perhaps most significantly, while Manning is one of the great clutch performers of his era, Vick is at least, as the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane puts it, “on the un-clutch side of the ledger.”

There are plenty of other dissimilarities between the two clubs that mark the difference between success and failure as well, such as the game management skills of Tom Coughlin and Andy Reid, or the physicality of the Giants’ defense. However, what seems to be the biggest difference was encapsulated by Vince Young’s now-notorious “Dream Team” moniker for the Eagles this season. Like most championship teams, the Giants are a group that is greater than the sum of its parts. Rather than being a collection of high-priced talent cobbled together with the hope that they’ll click the way the Eagles were constructed this season, the Giants employ a specific system for which new players are targeted based largely on their ability to fill a specific role.

In order to implement such a system, the Eagles have to use the draft more effectively to capitalize on late round steals based on that principle, and then use trades and free agency to fill additional holes. Until they can do that, Philly will continue to suffer from false hope.

— Craig Lowell