The Eagles suck this year. They traded away or lost to free agency too many people from the offensive and defensive lines.
They no longer control the line of scrimmage, in contrast to last year, where they dominated in every game except the losses to Pittsburgh and in the Supe to the Patriots.
TO is just noise, a selfish, stupid man who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut. But that is not new. Anyone who watched NFL football already knew this about him. Why the Eagles picked him up, and didn't expect this, reflects poorly on them, an organization that prided itself on only picking up "character players"!
I can't stand the result of this: the worst possible outcome for the Eagles. If I was them, the party line would have been: "Is that what he said? He says the darndness things doesn't he! I don't even pay attention to him anymore, he's proven himself to be a great football player, and that's all I expect from him."
Why suspend him? Just ignore what he says and have him play.
Rick,
Can't disagree more -- sometimes team chemistry is more important than keeping talent. TO is OBVIOUSLY a cancer to the Eagles -- and while he might help them in the win/loss column, he isn't going to help the Eagles do much in the postseason anyway so why kill your team chemistry to keep a guy like that? He is undermining the team, management, ownership, leadership, etc. -- and you DON'T want to encourage that kind of stuff in your lockerroom as management.
This is the SECOND team that TO has done this to -- and I DO think that teams will be less likely to pay TO tons of money to act like this for their team. At this point he is a risk -- and you don't pay top dollar for risks, IMO. You might trade one risk player for another or sacrifice some future draft picks but you don't pay top dollar for a risk like that.
TO is CLUELESS to how badly he has hurt his value on the field with all of his comments. But he will find out soon enough.
The Vikings finally had it with Randy Moss but even Moss didn't make these kind of comments about his team -- most of his jerkish behavior was off the field -- TO's is right in the middle of the lockerroom. You can't put up with something like that in your lockerroom -- you give up control of your team and tell everyone that talent is more important than heart, sacrifice and teamwork. That's a HORRIBLE message to send, IMO.
The only thing that I think the Eagles should have done earlier is sitting TO down and telling him emphatically what would and would not be accepted. And they should have fined him when he first started making comments. Then the Eagles SHOULD have recognized the accomplishments of TO's 100 TD's. You CAN'T overlook something like that -- everyone in the press knew it was coming and were talking about it -- that's just pathetic to overlook something like that. The Eagles had an opportunity to build some "good will" with TO (personally I don't think it would have done any good) but it comes across like they didn't WANT to recognize TO because of the stunts that he was pulling (and that's not a great way to act either, IMO).
