The months after the 2010 season proved to be a crossroads for Eagles coach Andy Reid and the franchise he had presided over for the past 12 years.
The Eagles had just caught lightning in a bottle with the resurrection of Michael Vick? into one of the NFL?s most dynamic quarterbacks. Reid had won his seventh NFC East title, and although the Eagles had lost a first-round playoff game to eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay, the organization appeared headed in the right direction.
Then Reid?s world fell apart.
The man who had benefitted from so many good decisions in his first dozen years made one poor judgment call after another. Instead of making another Super Bowl run, the Eagles spiraled downward and missed the postseason in each of the next two years, leaving owner Jeffrey Lurie no choice but to dismiss Reid with one year left on the coach?s contract.
How did the Reid empire fall so quickly and so profoundly? Here is a look back at the sequence of mishaps and mistakes from the end of the 2010 season that led to the end of his era.
1. Jan. 19, 2011
Reid names Jim Washburn defensive line coach
You can argue that Reid shouldn?t have fired defensive coordinator Sean McDermott, but changes were necessary. The Eagles had set a club record for passing touchdowns allowed (31) and had finished with the NFL?s worst red-zone efficiency (77 percent) in decades.
Reid had made up his mind before firing McDermott that his defensive scheme would change from the aggressive blitzing preached by the late Jim Johnson (and carried on by McDermott) to softer coverage with more pressure from the front four. He just needed someone who could coax more sacks from the defensive line.
Enter Washburn.
Reid convinced the organization to spend big bucks on the free-agent defensive line coach whose trademark wide-nine scheme had annually produced some of the NFL?s most dominant front lines in Tennessee.
But Reid didn?t do his homework. In hiring Washburn, he brought in a polarizing figure who cared more about sacks than the overall state of the defense. Washburn essentially was given more power than anyone else on the defensive staff and leveraged that authority to coddle his lineman and handcuff his defensive coordinators.
It took more than two months of the 2011 season for the Eagles to understand how to defend the run behind the wide nine, but the damage had been done. The Eagles started 1-5 and missed the postseason despite sharing the NFL lead in sacks.
This past season, even the wide nine stopped producing results. The Eagles went three straight games without a sack -- losing all three -- and didn?t have more than three in a game until Week 15. Without steady pressure, the defense became more dysfunctional than ever.
Reid first cut Pro Bowl defensive end Jason Babin -- Washburn?s pet project -- and then fired the disruptive Washburn 12 games into the season and 28 games into Washburn?s tenure.
2. Feb. 2, 2011
Reid names Juan Castillo defensive coordinator, Howard Mudd offensive line coach
By hiring Washburn to implement an up-front scheme, Reid sidetracked his search to replace McDermott. He interviewed several candidates for the opening -- including Dennis Allen -- but the job was deemed less desirable for hot coaching commodities with Washburn?s scheme already set in stone.
With nowhere to go, Reid turned to his longtime offensive line coach, who for several years had lobbied for the job. Castillo had never coached defense in the NFL, and his inexperience couldn?t be masqueraded.
The Eagles blew fourth-quarter leads in three consecutive games and opened the 2011 season at 1-4. A four-game win streak in December highlighted by better defense proved to be a fluke this past season, when the Eagles blew leads in back-to-back games against the Steelers and Lions and fell to 3-3. Reid fired Castillo during the bye week and replaced him with secondary coach Todd Bowles. Reid would later suggest that he should have fired Washburn before Castillo.
Before he named Castillo as his defensive coordinator, Reid coaxed veteran offensive line coach Howard Mudd out of retirement and let Mudd have carte blanche over the offensive line the same way Washburn was granted control of the defensive line.
Mudd, whose zone blocking scheme is best carried out by smaller and more nimble linemen (or freaks of nature like Jason Peters), immediately benched veterans Jamaal Jackson and Winston Justice and got rid of key reserves Mike McGlynn, Austin Howard and A.Q Shipley.
Although his schemes helped left guard Evan Mathis and rookie center Jason Kelce emerge? and cleared the way for LeSean McCoy?s breakout 2011 season, they failed to keep Vick upright and well protected. Vick absorbed one crushing hit after another and regressed from an improving pocket passer into a turnover machine.
Injuries this season to Peters, Kelce, Watkins and right tackle Todd Herremans illustrated the difficulty in implementing such a unique scheme. Inadequate reserves such as King Dunlap, Dallas Reynolds and rookie Dennis Kelly were tossed into the fire, leading to another round of excessive hits on Vick and more turnover problems.
Meanwhile, Justice, McGlynn and Shipley each started for a playoff-bound Colts offensive line. Scott started at right tackle for the Jets.
3. April 22-24, 2010
Reid drafts Danny Watkins, Jaiquawn Jarrett and Curtis Marsh
A series of questionable personnel decisions forced the Eagles to shift draft philosophy in 2011, when they used a first-round pick on right guard Danny Watkins and a second-rounder on Temple safety Jaiquawn Jarrett.
They had banked on Watkins, a 26-year-old Canadian and football novice, to stop the right guard carousel that had resulted from the 2009 bust free-agent signing of Stacy Andrews, whose inability to cement the job led to Max Jean-Gilles' and Nick Cole's porous platoon on the right side.
Watkins, a former firefighter, had played left tackle for just two years in a highly simplified Baylor offense, making his transition to right guard in Mudd?s scheme an uneasy one. He struggled with Mudd?s abrasive coaching style and didn?t start until Week 5 of his rookie season. By then, the Eagles were 1-3 and already playing catch-up.
Reid had also decided before that draft -- which preceded free agency because of the lockout -- that he would let reliable veteran safety Quintin Mikell walk in free agency, leaving him with second-year pros Nate Allen and Kurt Coleman as his only options. Reid then reached in the second round for Jarrett to pair with Allen, who was coming off major knee surgery as a rookie.
Allen wasn?t close to 100 percent by the 2011 opener and Jarrett looked lost from the start. The team was forced to start Coleman and Jarrad Page -- a seventh-round pick and street free-agent signing -- for the first four games. Not surprisingly, the Eagles fielded one of the league?s worst defenses in the first six weeks, especially against the run, which played a major role in their 1-5 start.
The Eagles also got little contribution from third-round cornerback Curtis Marsh, who was stuck behind four other corners on the depth chart in 2011 and played only scarcely on defense in 2012.
Watkins was inconsistent this past season for his first six starts and then headed to the sideline with an ankle injury that Reid said dated back to college, provoking more questions about why the team would use a first-round pick on damaged goods. Watkins? ankle eventually healed, but he didn't start another game.
Jarrett gave an embarrassing effort in the preseason opener against the Steelers and was released on the roster cutdown date, once again leaving Reid to soldier on with Allen and Coleman as starters. Both safeties struggled throughout the season and neither is guaranteed to return in 2013. Marsh played sporadically in 2012 and made no significant contribution.
Reid was also victimized by the 2010 draft. Two of his first three picks -- Brandon Graham and Daniel Te?o-Nesheim -- weren?t even on the roster at the start of the year. Te?o-Nesheim was cut before the opener and signed to the practice squad before Tampa Bay signed him. Graham was still on the Physically Unable to Perform lost after undergoing microfracture surgery at the end of his rookie season. The ?10 draft also yielded fourth-rounders Trevard Lindley (cornerback) and Keenan Clayton (linebacker), neither of whom were around by the start of 2012.
4. July 29-31, 2011
Reid signs Nnamdi Asomugha, Cullen Jenkins, Jason Babin and Vince Young
For years, Reid had built his playoff teams around a nucleus of draft picks who were groomed and developed together at the NovaCare Complex. Outside of a few outcasts, the Eagles generally embraced the atmosphere of professionalism and competition that Reid worked hard to cultivate and preserve for his first 12 seasons.
Every year, Reid would sprinkle into his nucleus one or two marquee free-agent signings to help bolster the roster and strengthen an area of immediate need. In the summer of 2011, though, he permitted an unprecedented spree of free-agent signings by president Joe Banner and general Howie Roseman that brought in veterans Asomugha, Babin, Jenkins, Young and Ronnie Brown. He also approved of the trade that sent quarterback Kevin Kolb to Arizona for a second-round pick and Pro Bowl cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie.
The additions two Pro Bowl corners to ?complement? Asante Samuel for essentially two starting jobs immediately created an uncomfortable situation. Brown looked slow and lethargic from his first practice. Young?s ?Dream Team? comment haunted the Eagles for the entire 2011 season -- as did his play during a three-game stretch in place of an injured Vick.
Most of the free agents were either unfit for the scheme, past their primes or both. Leadership in the locker room -- rarely an issue pre-2011 -- proved to be lacking during the tough times. At times over the past two years the Eagles have been accused of quitting, lacking heart and devoid of the senior leadership that guys like Brian Dawkins, Jon Runyan, Tra Thomas, Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and Jeremiah Trotter had brought to Reid?s powerhouses in the early-to-mid 2000s.
5. Sept. 11, 2011:
Reid opens season with Casey Matthews at middle linebacker, Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie in the slot and Moise Fokou at weak-side linebacker.
Throughout his career Reid has said his first priority as head coach is ensuring that his players are put in the best position to succeed. His personnel decisions going into 2011 reflected an entirely opposite approach.
After throwing boatloads of cash at defensive linemen and corners to spruce up his defense, Reid once again ignored his annual linebacker deficiency. He then saw fit to start rookie fourth-rounder Casey Matthews at middle linebacker, arguably the most important position on the defense.
Matthews, who had played outside linebacker at Oregon, was a disaster from the start. He was repositioned to the weak side after the season opener and then booted from the starting lineup altogether after Week 3. Reid also waited eight weeks to remove the struggling Moise Fokou in favor of Akeem Jordan, who?s bigger and a better fit behind the wide nine than Fokou.
There were other personnel decisions that were flawed from the start. Reid tried to accommodate his Pro Bowl cornerback trio by moving Asomugha around a la Charles Woodson and miscasting Cromartie as a nickel cornerback. Cromartie, whose strength is press coverage on the outside, struggled week after week against slot receivers on the inside while Joselio Hanson, one of the NFL?s best slot corners, watched from the sideline.
Even after dealing away Samuel before the 2012 season, the pairing of Asomugha and Rodgers-Cromartie still produced modest results. The wide nine is best carried in front of a zone scheme with sound tacklers at linebacker and defensive back, but Asomugha and Rodgers-Cromartie were career man-press corners who not only struggled with zone concepts but also were timid and unwilling tacklers.
The Eagles slogged through an eight-game stretch in 2012 in which they didn?t register an interception and allowed 19 touchdown passes. Reid finally made the right call on a linebacker after 2011, trading for two-time Pro Bowler DeMeco Ryans, but then allowed Castillo and Bowles to play second-round linebacker Mychal Kendricks at the strong side instead of the rookie?s more natural position on the weak side. Kendricks started off strong but wore down toward the middle of the season as the toll of shedding big offensive linemen and covering tight ends each week settled in.
E-mail Geoff Mosher at gmosher@comcastsportsnet.com.
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