Hollis Thomas – “I have an opninion about everything.” Photo by Todd Bauders/contrastphotography.com

Are there two words in the vocabulary of Eagles fans that they cannot wait to see disappear more than “Wide Nine?”

Fans finally got there wish the morning after the Eagles brutal defensive performance against the Dallas Cowboys when Andy Reid fired defensive line coach Jim Washburn and brought back Tommy Brasher who was the d-line coach between 1999-2005.

“I just want him to do what he does,” Andy Reid said of Brasher. “And what he does is prepare a good, sound, aggressive defensive line. I think that’s what you’ll see from what Tommy coaches.”

If you need any proof how bad the “Wide-Nine” sucked, just look at one week of being in a technically-sound defense with Brasher and you saw how well the rest of the defense performed against Tampa Bay. As the D-Line goes, the rest of the defense goes.

The reasons the wide nine didn’t work in Philadelphia where as follows:

• The Eagles didn’t have the size in the linebacker corps.

• There was no physical defensive tackle.

• The team was never on the same page defensively.

Every place a defender tried to run somebody was running up somebody’s back. When you have that kind of thing going on there is not going to be continuity or cohesiveness on the defense. Everybody is not on the same page.

I was shocked to find out they weren’t practicing together as a full defense at the end of a practice.

At the end of practice you are supposed to do what is called a walk through. You have the entire defense go through a run-through so you know where you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to be doing.

After the Tampa Bay game, I heard some of the young players say it was pretty cool because that was the first time the whole defense worked together at the end of practice, learning where everyone was supposed to be. I found that funny, hilarious.

When the Eagles hired Washburn first, they killed and chance of having a creditable defensive coordinator from coming here.

Now they have a chance. They brought in a guy (Brasher) who is a technician who is a team-first guy.

The word that I was hearing is that Washburn was selfish. He had the d-line separated from everybody else. He was the “Charlie Manson” of football. He had everybody following his lead. When ever I asked a question about defense I would get “ask Washburn,” ask Washburn,” …I would ask back…”You don’t have your own opinion?” I’d say they player “you know what works and what don’t work,” and on top of all that, the defense stunk so bad that everyone knew to run a lead draw against that defense.

We saw it played the right way when we played Detroit. They had linebackers who were big enough to stop the run, their secondary was suspect but they were getting through to Vick so it didn’t matter that much.

That is the right way the “Wide-Nine” is supposed to be run, but why would you want to run a defense that never won a championship?

Brasher is what you need. He is a teacher. You have young impressionable minds. You can’t give them a guy like

Washburn who taught all the wrong ways how to play football.

We need to see how good this defensive line. You know what you have in Trent Cole, Cullen Jenkins and Darryl Tapp. But do you know what you have in Derek Landri, Cedric Thornton, Brandon Graham, Phillip Hunt and Fletcher

Cox until you see how they do in a more traditional defense?

Cox was able to get a sack against Tampa Bay, was stuffing the defense, making plays. Against Tampa Bay I saw for the first time guy knew what they were doing.

Eagles fans can now look toward a young defensive corps. The veteran secondary they have must play well and if they do they have a chance to be decent.