Juan Castillo, new DC of your Philadelphia Eagles

[MDS]

guys dont worry, he doesnt want to let his people down from back home

its all going to be okay.

[MDS]

so juanny is back around these parts for a little visit to la familia

anyway, he and his son worked out with another coach and his son at a high school today. our reporter who is buddies with him went and talked to him and apparently told him about me and my disdain for him. so juanny says "we'll show him", "hell be eating his words" and that they'll have a defense like "the steel curtain or the ravens."

then he said he was offered the titans OC job before he took the eagles DC, which might have been mentioned but i either never heard it or forgot it or refused to believe it.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

All I got out of that was that your largely meaningless existence was briefly acknowledged by one of the many Philadelphia sports personalities you dislike.

Nice moment for you. I'm going to let you enjoy the half-chub you got from the acknowledgement.

[Tomahawk]

You inferred incorrectly. The lesson is when the Eagles win the Super Bowl because of an amazing defense, we all owe MDS

[MDS]

the sad thing is he sounds like a cartoon character even around friendly press

[shorebird]

"Well show him!!"

[phillycrew]

so juanny is back around these parts for a little visit to la familia

anyway, he and his son worked out with another coach and his son at a high school today. our reporter who is buddies with him went and talked to him and apparently told him about me and my disdain for him. so juanny says "we'll show him", "hell be eating his words" and that they'll have a defense like "the steel curtain or the ravens."

then he said he was offered the titans OC job before he took the eagles DC, which might have been mentioned but i either never heard it or forgot it or refused to believe it.

So not only is he clueless, he gets easily worked up by a second hand comment from a "journalist".  Beautiful.

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Consider the source.

[SunMo]

lol

[SunMo]

Adam Caplan said that Castillo's schemes where the definition of vanilla.  very minimal pre-snap disguise.  pretty much what you see is what you got, which made it easy for the offense to know how to protect.

[PhillyPhreak54]

We need Toddy to get on his horse down to Port Isabel and get the exclusive interview.

Do it Todd!

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Adam Caplan said that Castillo's schemes where the definition of vanilla.  very minimal pre-snap disguise.  pretty much what you see is what you got, which made it easy for the offense to know how to protect.

Vanilla because he had no idea what he was doing. I almost feel bad for the dude. Likely his NFL career is ruined because he believed in Fat Andy. Always seemed very competent when he on O-line duties.

[Sgt PSN]

I'm sure he could get an Oline job in the league or maybe even a defensive position coach gig, but no way any team hires him as their DC after the crap job he did here.  I don't even think he could get a DC job in D1 college football. Maybe some D2 school or lower would take him and he can work his way back to the NFL in 10 years or something.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Castillo's firing: stunning and desperate

First reaction: stunned.

I am not surprised that Juan Castillo is not calling the defenses for the Eagles anymore -- and especially not after cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha openly criticized schematic decisions at the end of the Eagles' collapse on Sunday against the Lions. But I figured head coach Andy Reid would protect Castillo, leaving him in place and having secondary coach Todd Bowles begin calling the defenses from the press box. That way, Castillo could continue to wear the headset on the sidelines and relay the information to the players and save face. But no.

Yes, stunning. Castillo is out and Bowles is the defensive coordinator. A year and a half after the world guffawed in Reid's face when he turned his offensive line coach into a defensive coordinator, and months after he flirted with the idea of making a chance and giving the job to Steve Spagnuolo -- which would have happened had Spagnuolo said yes -- Reid is very publicly admitting a grievous error. There is no other way to read this.

All of the talk about how things were turned around at the end of last season was just that, apparently -- talk. And any benefit of the doubt that Castillo received after this defense got off to such a good start in 2012 also evaporated pretty quickly. This kind of in-season change happens very rarely in the NFL -- and it is hard to remember a coordinator who was fired from a .500 team with overall defensive numbers that are not alarming.

But the trend obviously was. I have said all along that while we all hard our suspicions, it was hard to really know about Castillo because none of us are inside the process, and because they did get better in the second half of last season, and because the defense has been pretty stingy overall in 2012.

But now we know, after two late-game losses, two more blown leads at the end, that Reid feels compelled to make the kind of in-season move that he has never been pushed to make before. He fired himself as the play-caller once during the bye week, but this is different. And it is desperate.

With that, mark down two days:

The day Reid replaced Kevin Kolb with Michael Vick.

The day Reid named Castillo as defensive coordinator.

If this goes badly from here, those are the days that will have gotten Andy Reid fired.

[ice grillin you]

It's amazing that all of you are smarter than Reid. Aside from McDermott, he has been pretty spot on with hiring coaches. I have seen old threads where everyone bashed the hiring of Marty M. The fact is, Reid is no dope. He could care less what the media says and what the fans think. I seem to remember, most of the fan base was against bringing in Vick. Smartest guy in the room? Maybe you are right.

Sometimes, in business, you don't copy the competition, you think out of the box.