The Eagles lost on Sunday in embarrassing fashion. Everyone who watched that slopfest was upset with the team. I certainly wasn’t happy with what I saw. So why didn’t I come on here and rip the team more on Sunday?

Some of you are upset that I wasn’t upset enough.

Let me explain where I’m coming from. I was a typical sports fan as a kid. I lived and died with losses. Seeing my sports heroes lose a big game just devastated me. I would be crushed for days. I would stew with rage. I wanted coaches fired. Players benched. Some cut or traded. Typical post-loss emotions.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve changed. I still get upset with a bad loss, but I get it out of my system pretty quickly. I become more analytical than angry. Emotion doesn’t solve anything. It is fun to vent, but the satisfaction is temporary at best.

I love football coaches. I have ever since I read articles about Tom Landry and Buddy Ryan back in the early 1980s. I was fascinated by X’s and O’s, but also the philosophies behind coaching. Over the years I’ve read all kinds of books on coaches. I watch interviews and documentaries when I can. I listen to coaches shows on the radio. Heck, I enjoy listening to coaches from other sports.

Last night I went to the football coaches bible, Finding the Winning Edge by Bill Wash. I wanted to see what he had to say about tough losses. There is a section that deals with losing streaks. Walsh said a few interesting things:

Avoid gimmick solutions. If the gimmick doesn’t work, it just makes things worse. And most gimmicks don’t work.

The atmosphere on the field and in the facility should remain the same. Don’t make things tougher or more intense. You don’t solve problems with emotion.

Don’t plead with the team to play better. A coach must maintain the dignity and authority of his position.

Walsh built a team that sustained success over a long time. He did have some losing teams early on. The year after winning his first Super Bowl, SF went 3-6. The next year his team went 10-6 but had a terrible stretch in the middle of the season, losing 4 of 5 games.

Walsh never panicked after a bad loss or a losing streak. He stayed the course with his schemes and philosophies. He focused on fixing the problems that were hurting his team.

Chip Kelly could rant and rave about his team. That wouldn’t solve anything. I could rant and rave about Kelly and his team. That wouldn’t solve anything. And it just isn’t my style. There are plenty of people with blogs or Twitter accounts who rip the Eagles regularly. That’s not my thing.

This doesn’t mean I’m not frustrated with the team. I absolutely am. Even though I handle losses better these days, they still depress me. I want so desperately for this team to get back to being one of the best in the league. Seeing them miss the playoffs last year and then fall to 4-6 this year is frustrating and depressing.

Instead of staying depressed, I turn to the coaches I’ve listened to and read about for advice. Can this be fixed? How so? Where does this team go from here?

It is easy to say “Blow this team up. Fire ’em all…with extreme prejudice.” Might even be fun to do that. But what would Carolina be this year if the owner had fired Ron Rivera after their 3-8-1 start last year? Marvin Lewis went 4-11-1 in 2008 and 4-12 in 2010. Then he got Andy Dalton and the team has been winning ever since. Who knows what would have happened to that franchise if they fired Lewis.

To be fair, sometimes a team can wait too long. Norv Turner should have been fired after the 2011 season. The Chargers gave him a final year and he went 7-9. That wasted a season in the careers of Philip Rivers and Eric Weddle, two outstanding players. When you have a franchise QB like Rivers, you have to take advantage of it.

I’ll write a column on Tuesday with my thoughts on Chip Kelly’s future. The key is to make a decision based on the whole body of work and not the last game.

When you have a flat out bad coach, he has to go. He is clearly holding the team back. When you have a coach going through a bad season or bad part of a season, that is much more difficult to evaluate. Is this an anomaly or is it reality?

Chip Kelly said on Monday that he still believes in this team. That might sound insane to a lot of fans, but again…think about teams in the past that have had a bad record at this point and finished strong. Fans of those teams likely would have had the same angry answers when asked about their team.

Only time will tell how this season plays out. It is important to see what happens. That will give us some answers about the future of Kelly, his staff and the team.

Like everyone else, I’m desperate for the Eagles to win the Super Bowl. There is no magic formula. Bill Belichick won last year. He’s purely an NFL guy, but this is his second job. He was a failure in his first stop. Pete Carroll won before that. He came to the NFL from college after failing before that as an NFL coach. John Harbaugh won the title before him. He was a longtime NFL assistant with no head coaching experience. He was never even an offensive or defensive coordinator. Three different paths to NFL glory.

I wish I had the answers to what the Eagles need to do. I don’t. I’m constantly re-evaluating what I think and trying to figure out what is best for the team.

One thing I do know. I can’t wait to see how this team responds on Thursday. That will tell me a lot about these players and coaches. I’m not saying I have to see a win or else, or that the team can’t make any mistakes. I just need to see something that makes me believe in this group again. That was lacking on Sunday.

And I’m not talking about effort. People who say the team quit are nuts. This is the NFL. Guys play hard, with very few exceptions. Effort is a given. Besides, if that’s what I’m focused on, I’ll watch small school football. Those kids play for the love of the game.

I’m talking about execution. NFL players are paid to make plays, not to almost make them. Make some friggin’ plays. Is that too much to ask for?

Of course, a 45-0 shutout of the Lions would be acceptable as well.

_