Courtesy of several Galley Friends and Readers, the lost post from this morning:

The Emo Eagles Fan broke the news to me yesterday that Andy Reid has decided to bench Kevin Kolb in favor of Michael Vick. (To get a sense of the deep genius behind this bit, his post links the news to an NYT story. That’s high-level funny.)

No one who has watched Andy Reid should be surprised. Since the Eagles acquired Vick, it was pretty clear that their long-term plan was to get rid of McNabb and eventually get the starting job to Vick. Kolb was never intended to be the long-term #1. If he hadn’t gotten a concussion, Reid would have made something up to get Vick into the position.

Maybe it will work out. Vick is a gifted, though not elite, quarterback. His skill set clashes totally with the offensive philosophy Reid has used in Philadelphia for 11 years. Yet for all that, success in the NFL is based in part on arbitrage: you succeed by finding value plays. And Vick is the best QB-rating-point per dollar deal in the NFL.

But even if it works out this year, that arbitrage opportunity dries up as soon as Vick’s contract expires–at the end of this year. The better he plays now, the more you have to pay him next year. And that’s if you think that he’s both the present and future of the franchise.

And what about Kolb? I was never convinced he was a sure thing, but the Eagles handling of him showed that they were. They drafted him in the 2nd round when McNabb really needed a wide-out. They spent three years grooming him. Then they traded away a potential Hall-of-Famer to name him the starting QB. One way or another, Kolb represents an enormous debacle for the Eagles. Either (a) He isn’t the player they thought he was, and they squandered a chance to give McNabb real WR help to get him; or (b) He is a starting-caliber player whose value they’ll never put to any good use because of the Vick experiment.

And then there’s Andy Reid. Some day Reid won’t be coach of the Eagles and Eagles fans will miss him. He’s very good at a lot of the things that coaches do to win football games. He seems to be not much better than average as an evaluator of talent. And he is, at least professionally, a cretin.

For one thing, he lies. All the time. When he insisted a few days ago that Kolb was his starter, that was just the most recent lie. Almost from the moment he arrived in Philadelphia, Reid went out of his way to tell reporters things that everyone knew were untrue. (I remember after the McNabb pick Reid testily insisting to local media that Doug Pederson was the present and future QB of the team as if his #2 overall pick was never, ever going to start.)

As a coach, Reid’s highest duty is not to answer reporter’s questions candidly or truthfully. It’s to win football games. (Which he does, for the most part.) But consider what he said about Kolb this week:

* On Sunday evening, he said Kolb would start the next game.

* On Tuesday, he said Vick was taking Kolb’s job.

Fine, it’s one thing to have your boss lie to you and then about you in public. And it’s another thing to have your boss take away your job because your back-up beat the Detroit Fucking Lions by a fieldgoal. But how about when your boss lies to you, screws you, and then insists in public that he’s doing it for your own good? Here’s Reid talking about how this is really the best decision for Kolb:

“I know I’m kind of the bad guy in this situation. I understand that,” Reid said. “But I’ve got to do what’s best for both players and this football team. It’s a win-win for both players. I’m looking out for those two guys and our football team.”

Thanks, boss. The reason Reid is a cretin isn’t because he screwed Kolb over. That’s part of the business. If Andy Reid thinks Michael Vick is the best player for the job, he makes that call. Reid’s job is to win football games and sometimes (maybe even often) that means that individual players will be misused or treated less than fairly.

But to not acknowledge that unfortunate fact, to lie over and over and over, and then, to insist that, hey, he’s just trying to look out for the kid?

Some day Andy Reid won’t be coach of the Eagles anymore and they’ll have another Rich Kotite and they’ll be a joke. And I might miss him. But I won’t be unhappy that he’s gone.