Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffery Lurie met the media this afternoon in a somewhat surprising and out of character press conference. Lurie doesn’t typically address the media after a season and usually saves his comments for training camp. However, after what he called “he most disappointing season” since he’s owned the team, Lurie wanted to speak with the fans.
He opened his press conference expressing his anger and frustration with how the season failed to live up to his expectations.
“This season was without question the most disappointing season since I’ve owned the team,” said Lurie. “You’re only human and you go through all the range of emotions during the season, but the primary emotions I think are anger and frustration.”
He detailed that the team was coming off a division title last year, how aggressive they were in the offseason as far as free agency and trades, the progress shown by Michael Vick last year and the track record of Andy Reid.
Given all that, Lurie called it "completely unacceptable to be 8-8 and watching these other teams play starting next week. Incredibly, incredibly disappointing. "
As for the way the Eagles finished the year with four straight wins? Lurie isn’t terribly impressed by that.
“There’s a lot of things you have to like and I like about the last month of the season, but in reality and it’s the way the NFL schedule was, we weren’t playing Green Bay, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and some of the best teams in the league. There was no opportunity to prove – we proved we could dominate against teams the last half of the year who weren’t that competitive”
Lurie said that to be optimistic over the way the team finished would be “fools gold.”
He was pressed about what the reasons were for the 8-8 finish and while he did identify scheme changes and the abbreviated off-season, he stressed that “there are so many reasons and none of them are legitimate excuses.”
It was quite clear that Lurie was upset with the season and while he made the decision to bring back Andy Reid this year, I think many people listening got the distinct impression that coach is under pressure to deliver next year.