BY JOE PAONE IGGLES CORRESPONDENT Just another uneventful bye week here in Birdland. Y’know, lots of evaluatin’, tryin’ to put players in better position, doin’ a better job… and this year, the added bonus of some shameless, desperate scapegoatin’.When we look back on Andy Reid’s tenure, we’ll know exactly when Camelot turned into Camden. It’ll be one of two moments: the day Big Red promoted his young ward Juan Castillo to defensive coordinator, or the day he kicked poor, loyal, hapless Juan to the curb. Come to think of it, it’ll probably be both.

Juan had capably coached the offensive line for over a decade and had been with the organization since 1995, the first year of Ray Rhodes’ tenure as head coach. (How long ago was that? This exhilarating bit of ancient history happened.) When Reid was lured from the Packers to become Eagles head coach in 1999, Castillo drove all the way to Green Bay to successfully sell himself to the new boss. His offensive lines were usually very good, and he made stars of players like Tra Thomas, Jon Runyan and Todd Herremans.

Meanwhile, for the first 10 seasons of his tenure, Reid’s defense was of little concern. The late Jim Johnson took great care of it, so Andy was free to endlessly tinker with his offense. After Johnson’s death, the defense declined sharply under Sean McDermott in 2009 and 2010. The DC position became a great concern for the fans and the team itself.

Reid has been consolidating power with the Eagles for several years now. Rivals to his football operations supremacy, as well as to his coaching supremacy, have been frozen out of the organization. Today, he pretty much owns absolute power over the entire football operation.

But, as we all know, absolute power tends to corrupt.

Accordingly, there was no one with any backbone to tell him that his ballsiest move – letting a guy with zero NFL defensive coaching experience try to rescue a less-than-awesome defense – was probably a terrible one. The move was classic “I’m smarter than all of you” stuff from a master of the form, and most of the skeptical fan base was left to sit there and give Andy (and Juan) the benefit of the doubt. In the process, the “all-in” 2011 season burned to the ground, and the first six games of the 2012 season turned into a dreary nightmare. Even Andy’s pride and joy – his vaunted offense – seemed to lose its way as it lost confidence in the defense. The fans were loudly calling for Juan’s head.

What better way to quiet the masses than to fire Juan? Well, how about not looking so cruel and opportunistic while doing it? Many Eagles fans who despised Juan as defensive coordinator felt sympathy for the broken man after his unceremonious dumping. Scapegoat Juan gave tearful interviews to local media and sounded like a battered wife at her breaking point, saying sad things like he’d still “take a bullet” for Reid.

But by allowing Juan to talk him into giving him the DC position in 2011, Andy failed to put his loyal longtime assistant in “a position to succeed.” Quite the contrary; he gave him a lockout-shortened offseason to try to win over and lead a largely revamped defense. As a result, Juan could never get his swagger on as DC. The defensive players clearly didn’t respect him, a fatal condition that carried over to this season.

Given all of that, Castillo’s firing comes off as the rough equivalent of putting your dog down because you let it wander around the neighborhood to shit on everyone’s lawns.

If the Eagles miss the playoffs (and given the NFC’s glut of mediocre teams, that’s far from a certainty), Andy now officially will have no one to blame but himself.

And ultimately, Jeff Lurie would have only one person to blame.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joe Paone has attended nearly every Eagles game with his dad since 1978 and he has the lasting psychological scars to prove it. He also runs a PR firm, plays rock music, and hunts New Yorkers for sport. BeeElevated@gmail.com

BY MIKE WOLVERTON The Eagles outscored the Giants Sunday night, but there was some cause for concern. Giants receivers hit on numerous big plays, and missed several more. Mario Manningham was barely out of bounds for what could have been two separate touchdowns. Fellow receiver Hakeem Nicks dropped a sure long TD. And the Giants still put up 38. Factor in that the Eagles got a fluky fumble return touchdown and a punt return TD by DeSean Jackson, things you can’t count on happening every week. My point is that the Eagles had a lot of things go their way and it was still a tight game. It was a season-defining victory. It virtually assured the Igs of a playoff berth, as they are two games ahead of the Giants with three to play (and the Eagles hold the tiebreaker). San Francisco is the only other NFC team that can keep the Birds from at least a wildcard spot, and that seems unlikely. After Dallas lost to San Diego Sunday, the Cowboys are now hanging on to the second wildcard spot, one game ahead of the Giants who have the tiebreaker edge, and facing a trip to undefeated New Orleans next week. I wonder where Tony Romo and Miles Austin partied after Sunday’s game — probably not Vegas.

Unless the Eagles pick up another game on Dallas in the next two weeks, they’ll still have to beat the Cowboys in the final week to win the division. If the Eagles do win the division, they’re likely to meet the Cowboys or Giants in the first round of the playoffs anyway. As unappealing as that may be, I think it would be better than drawing the Packers.The AFC playoff picture is significantly more interesting than the NFC. I like Miami. Don’t forget they started 0-3. Among their losses, they almost beat both the 13-0 teams. They dominated time of possession against the Colts in a very close loss, and they led the Saints 24-3 before they got Drew Breezed. Until a couple weeks ago, I’d sorta forgotten that Miami was a Bill Parcells team, and they’ve been getting lots of credit lately for being very physical.They were a wildcat team that lost their wildcat QB and top running back in Ronnie Brown, and then transitioned into a basic pro-style offense and kept winning. I don’t think they’re ready to challenge the Colts or the Chargers, but look for Miami to get to the playoffs somehow.

Maybe they’ll overtake the Patriots. I only caught a couple plays from the Panthers-Patriots game, but I saw a 3rd-and-1 very late in the game that was an obvious running situation. Wide to the right, Randy Moss took a couple steps forward and then put an arm out for a token block on the defender, cornerback Chris Gamble. Gamble responded by grabbing Moss and not even making a token attempt to get in on the play. A pretty clear-cut example of, “I’ll take this play off if you will.” Turns out after the game that Gamble and safety Chris Harris claimed that Moss wasn’t going all-out on every play. Can’t argue with that…I saw it on the first play I watched!

I’ll close with a song (to the tune of “White Christmas”)

 I’m dreaming of a Cowgirl meltdown

Just like the ones we’ve seen before

Where passes get dropped

And coaches get chopped

The offense never seems to score

 .

I’m dreaming of a Cowgirl meltdown

With every Dallas game I see

May their days be sorry, no glee

Home for the playoffs they will be