Article by contributor Gino Ferretti (@PHL2PGH)
If it had to be someone, you knew deep down that eventually Castillo would be the Juan.
With all do respect to Tony Montana, they need people like the beleaguered, now former, Eagles defensive coordinator to point the finger at and say that’s the bad guy.
At a little after 9:30 a.m. yesterday morning, the Philadelphia Eagles announced they had fired defensive coordinator Juan Castillo. At noon, Eagles coach Andy Reid addressed the media.
“I think we all know how much I care about Juan Castillo as a person and as a football coach,” Reid said. “Tremendous football coach, tough worker, has a great family. I know he’s going to continue to do great things in the National Football League.”
Reid went on to dispel any questions about who was responsible for the decision to fire Castillo. It was him, and solely him. Reid hired offensive line coach Castillo to run his defense before the start of the 2010 season despite Castillo having zero experience as a defensive coordinator.
The 2012 season has started with the focus being primarily on the floundering offense, and not so much on the defense. The Eagles offense currently ranks second to last in the league in average points per game, and first in total turnovers. Despite finishing the 2011 season No. 8 in the league in total defense, and No. 10 through the first six weeks of the current season, Castillo was dismissed.
It takes an explicit arrogance to believe you can move an offensive line coach to defensive coordinator with no training. It takes a total lack of disregard to your own derelictions and shortcomings to make a move so bold that it’s actually more preposterous than brilliant.
But that’s Andy Reid.
He’s the coddled son the Eagles organization has fallen so deep in love with, that they’ve allowed him the conductor seat on a billion dollar high speed train, with no scrutiny of the aimless miles it travels, though down the same tracks in search of new scenery.
Don’t think twice about this, dear reader.
The Juan Castillo firing was simply Andy Reid switching seats on his train to self destruction.
Burn baby burn.
Castillo was an Andy Reid loyalist for 18 years. But Reid could not save Castillo the way you would expect a loyal friend to do so.
Andy Reid is simply having enough trouble saving himself from himself.
For all the good the late former defensive guru Jim Johnson brought to the Eagles and the fans, it’s now more clearer than ever how great of a mop he was to Andy Reid’s spills and bedlam.
Instead of settling down an eager and antsy Castillo from thinking too much outside of his own capabilities, he let him walk frantically into a coordinator position he had no business being in.
A friend wouldn’t have allowed such a surge.
A friend would have found avenues for Castillo to go down, to learn the other side of the ball, without allowing him the quandary he’s faced with now. Andy Reid used the decision making of a Pop Warner coach for an NFL team. How else can you explain hiring a defensive line coach before the coordinator? How else can you explain allowing that line coach the ability to run an unconventional scheme, with a new coordinator who wasn’t even trained to understand the basics of schemes? Eagles fans, and the media that has provided them the mouthpiece to their aversion, stood with skeptical patience as the defense continued to blow leads and blow hope.
Juan Castillo’s failures were attributed to Andy Reid’s reckless endangerment of himself. You can never trust someone who cannot get out of their own way. You can pimp your schemes and game plans on football fans in Jacksonville or Carolina, but not Philly. Not when the greatest thing the fan can possess is common sense. It’s the most useful tool in micromanaging a swindler. It was fans on the sofa who envisioned this ending before it became a realization to the bosses on the hot seat.
How ironic that on the day of the second Presidential debate of the 2012 Election, the Eagles added their own animal into the donkey and elephant race for water cooler discussions.
The scapegoat.
Photo Credits: Associated Press
