Jim Johnson

Eagles Defensive Coordinator Jim Johnson passed away yesterday at the too young age of 68. My experience with the Eagles has been limited to the few times they played the Pats in the pre-season, and any of the post-season games they were involved in. I am not at that level of game-watching to know what schemes he was throwing out, but by God, the man's defenses always played well.

The Eagles fetish for using crappy wide-receivers has really hurt their offense this decade, and a thought passes through my mind that they may have wasted the efforts of Johnson, whose defense carried the Eagles for much of his tenure.

I never met the man, never shook his hand, and obviously was never a player for him, but by all accounts he was a good and honest man, and the passing of any of those is to be lamented.

In Madden, for Playstation, a game that by rights should have worn out long-ago from overuse, Johnson is invariably the first man to make a head coach in the offseason. Recent rumors, which were proved to be all too true yesterday, probably kept him from ever reaching that plateau. Maybe, given the relative lack of success of other brilliant one-dimensional coordinators, it is better for his legacy that he did not. In any case, the Eagles has lost a faithful servant and the NFL has lost one of its most innovative minds. Rest in Peace.