A Tale of Two Organizations

Awful quiet yesterday in Philadelphia.

Couldn't say that everywhere. Not after anonymous Jets sources berated Mark Sanchez. Not after the hierarchy publicly booting Brian Schottenheimer. Not after everything short of a bottoming out of the ground beneath Metlife Stadium, all under a watch like Rex Ryan's knock-off Rolex.

How bad has it gotten? “Back-Door Lashings Calling Sanchez Oafish, Complacent and Unfit To Lead A Team Whose Confidence He’s All But Lost,” bad.

The quotes:

“We have to bring in another quarterback that will make (Sanchez) work at practice,” one player told Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. “He’s lazy and content because he knows he’s not going to be benched.”

Said another, responding to rumblings about the team’s interest in Peyton Manning: “We can win a Super Bowl with Peyton … How can we (with Sanchez) when he’s not improving at all? … He thinks he is, but he’s not. He has shown us what he’s capable of.”

Yet all is quiet on this Philadelphia front.

That’s a stark difference amidst a sea of similarity between the teams. Both suffered blown-out hopes to once-promising seasons. Both saw substandard play from much-hyped quarterbacks and media darling
defenses.

But here? Nothing of the sort.

Nobody (from the inside) is bashing Andy Reid. No tweets from rubbed-wrong veterans for "unnamed sources" who “want to attack Mark (Sanchez)” to “man up and put your name to it.”

What a statement about the state of this Eagle organization.

There’s no rift. No discord. No dysfunction. There’s chaos, the best descriptor for the “fluid” situation on the Steve Spagnuolo front; a third source of complication surfaced today, with word that the
Falcons would “love” to land Spags as defensive coordinator and have made him their No. 1 target for the position, just 24 hours after night and day reports that he was contemplating retirement and on the
cusp of joining the Eagles staff.

But not the inner turmoil taking place by the armful across the league.

Not like reports that Todd Haley was all but hated in Kansas City before his ouster. “If you thought it appeared that way,” Chiefs offensive coordinator Bill Muir said, “then it probably was.” Or of
the Reggie McKenzie/Hue Jackson power struggle in Oakland that blindsided a now-jobless Jackson, one of just five coaches in league history to get the axe after a .500-or-better year and sixth Raider
front man in the last eight years. Or like last year’s head coach/coordinator rift between Mike Singletary and Jimmy Raye, and curious tactics of Mike Shanahan that a year ago teetered on racism.

That’s just not what you hear around these parts.

If anything, there’s talk of validation. Of achievement by osmosis. Of contagious success. That’s the takeaway from the news that the Colts tapped former Eagle director of player personnel Ryan Grigson, 40, as the successor to Bill Polian and the man with final say on the Peyton Manning-Andrew Luck draft day conundrum, responsibilities you don’t hand to just anybody.

And Grigson makes just the latest former Eagle exec to land a front-office promotion, a list that includes the well-respected GM of the Browns, Tom Heckert.

While no news might prove good news for the rest of the league, any word out of Eagles camp screams promise.

Granted, the Eagles have tripped up in the past. I’ve gotta say, the Sean McDermott atrocity ranks atop the all-time list of PR blunders.

But the organization got it right this time, didn’t they? In keeping mum until deciding Juan Castillo’s fate? In keeping close to vest their interest in Spagnuolo? Even earlier, in keeping hush-hush the
Nnamdi Asomugha deal until Jerry Jones had a chance to fist-pump his way to embarrassment?

That’s how professionals conduct business.

Or, it seems, how the Eagles do.