A little over a week ago we held our first poll to determine Andy Reid's approval rating and only 17% of Eagles fans approved of his job performance and felt the team was headed in the right direction.

Has the tie with Bengals helped? What kind of confidence do fans have as we head down to Baltimore?

Poll ends Sunday

Guess what Eagles player didn't know a game could end in a tie until he was in a tie game? Brian Dawkins. (Eaglesville)

Hey look yet another Eagles blogger that wonders why all the controversy this week is about McNabb and not Reid. ESPN, comment? (Depressed Fan)

An in depth look at the play of Broderick Bunkley so far this season. (Iggles Blog)

Tony Romo picks up homeless men and takes them to movie theaters... then he tells his PR team to announce that he doesn't want publicity for it. (Poor Sports)

Does Sports Illustrated know there are ties in the NFL? (Bounty Bowl)

The Eagles fancast boys lament the Bengals tie. (Eagles Fancast)

One Eagles blogger has posted his wishlist, which seems to involve getting rid of everyone. (Bleed Eagles Green)

Apparently some Redskins fans have a burning hatred for Philadelphia. Our reaction? Indifference. (700 Level)

HHR compares the relationship of Donovan McNabb and Andy to Reid to the Neeleys on Food Network. Yes, I watch Food network. (Hugging Harold Reynolds)

A kid getting a ball thrown at his face really hard at really close range. Nuff said. (With Leather)

Megan Fox walked in public and was photographed doing so... Obviously this is a big deal for me. (WWTDD)

Hines Ward, who actually played in the last tie in the NFL, says he didn't know a game could end in a tie.

"No, I didn't know," Ward said. "I thought we were the last team to do it when we played the Falcons. I thought we just played it until you have a winner or something. It's kind of weird now that you can still tie ballgames."

Ben Roethlisberger guessed that half the league didn't know.

"I think people are making too big a deal and are being too hard on Donovan because you'd be surprised, I bet at least 50 percent of the league didn't know that at the time," Roethlisberger said. "You'd be real surprised. I think people just assume that the quarterback should know it all and that everyone should know that stuff and it's not necessarily true because who ever thinks about that stuff?"

I guess everyone is thinking about it now Ben...

I want to go back to something Ward said however. "It's kind of weird now that you can still tie ballgames." It really is. I wonder if the NFL will visit this issue after the season? Is there any real reason for a tie to be possible? Obviously it's so rare that teams go through an overtime period without scoring(twice in the last 6 years), so how rare would it be for them to go two quarters? It would be nearly impossible.

Why not just eliminate the tie and play untl there's a winner? I can't see how anyone would have an issue with that.

Since Andy Studebaker was signed by the Chiefs, a spot on the Eagles' practice opened up. Today it was filled by DT Babatunde Oshinowo, who spent time in the Washington and Cleveland organizations

His actuall full name is Babatunde Oluwasegun Temitope Oluwakorede Adisa Oshinowo, Jr

That's 59 letters if you're counting. People call him "Baba" for short.

Marcus Hayes wrote a really great article about Broderick Bunkley and what effect losing has on him. After the game against the Bengals where the defense was dominant and got 8 sacks Bunkley sat at his locker, with his head in his hands distraught over the the fact that he didn't play better. This is in a game where the opponent rushed for less than 60 yards and the QB sacked 8 times. After the Giants game, Bunk was inconsolable.

"One sack? I'm very disappointed," Bunkley said after the Eagles left Eli Manning virtually clean in the Eagles' Nov. 8 loss to the Giants.

Bunkley paused as he cut off the tape that held the gauze from the IVs he took in the third quarter to stave off further cramping and dehydration, a speed bump from which he returned. Blood had soaked through the gauze under the tape.

"I've waited for this game since February. To get to Eli," he said. "And I didn't."

That pretty much nobody else did, either, supplied him little solace.

"These guys are like my family," Bunkley said, "and when I don't play as well as I think I should, I feel like I let down my family."

It's great to hear that some guys take losing as tough as us fans do.

Raven's coach John Harbaugh spent 10 years here in Philadelphia most of which was as coach of the special teams. He was asked if facing his old boss and mentor will be special for him.

"I know you say, 'Well, that's what he's going to say.' Now, competitively, you're going against your brothers. It means something. It's exciting. There's a little bit of something at stake, and it'll be fun before the game. But when the game starts, it's going to be our players playing against their players, and whoever plays the best is going to win. It wouldn't be much of a showdown between me and Coach Reid out there. I think I'd be able to cover him, and he'd probably be able to block me. That'd be my guess."

Harbaugh says it will be awkard to face the Eagles and Reid.

"It's an awkward situation," Harbaugh said. "I'm still an Eagles fan. On any other Sunday, I want them to win. My wife and I root for them.

"The other side of the coin, though, is you want to make a good showing, a good impression. You want to go out and do well and show him that he taught you well. I want to win. But not just because it's the Eagles. Because we're trying to make the playoffs."

Studebaker was a 7th round pick of the Eagles this year who signed to their practice squad after training camp. Today he signed with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Eureka High grad Andy Studebaker has a new NFL home. The Kansas City Chiefs have signed Studebaker off of the Philadelphia Eagles practice squad. 

Studebaker will make his Chiefs debut Sunday at home against Buffalo. 

Studebaker worked out with Kansas City prior to the 2008 NFL Draft.  Now, he's a Chiefs player.

Studebaker will now be on the Chiefs active roster for the remainder of the season.

The local peppered Andy Reid with questions about Donovan McNabb in his day after press conference. Should he be replaced? Is it time for Kolb? Is McNabb finished?

"Donovan, for every throw that he didn't make there, he'll get himself back. I know that he has already talked to you (writers covering the game) after the game and put the blame on his back, which quarterbacks do,” Reid said. "He'll continue to fire and get whatever is wrong straightened out and get it right.”

"We'll get through it,” Reid said. "We'll work through it. He'll continue to push. He's a competitive guy. We have to make sure that we are putting him and the receivers, running backs, tight ends, that we're putting them in the right spot in the pass game and that everybody executes. Everybody has had a little piece of it, and we can all do a better job.”

OK fine... But is anyone asking Donovan McNabb if he thinks Andy Reid will "get it right." Does McNabb think Andy Reid is going to "get whatever is wrong straightended out and get it right?"

I'm not writing this an excuse of the play of McNabb on Sunday. We all saw him struggle and it's likely that no matter what offense Reid was running McNabb was still going to be off target and making bad throws that day. Still, his poor play shouldn't cover up the playcalling in the game.

McNabb's poor play shouldn't cover up the fact that the Eagles that the Eagles threw the ball 58 times and ran it 18. It shouldn't cover up the fact that against the 1-8 Bengals the Eagles offense was completely one dimensional and relying on poorly executed trick plays. But when the media does bother to ask about what role Reid might have had in the struggles, he flat out doesn't tell the truth.

"You end up trying to get Brian going is what you are trying to do," Reid said Monday. "With running backs, you try and get it right, and with that we left (Westbrook) in and tried to get it going."

That's just not true. I don't know any other way to say that. Brian Westbrook ran the ball 14 times. Fourteen! When you hand the ball to a guy 14 times you absolutely did not "leave him in and try to get it going." "Just keep firing" only applies to the passing game. If Mcnabb is stuggling Reid he tries to get him going by throwing more. If Westbrook is struggling, the running game is abandoned.

So now we'll endure all these columns where writers say it's time to bench McNabb and start Kevin Kolb... As if that would make any difference. The offense is unsustainable as is. Put whatever QB you like in there, if he's asked to run an offense where we throw 94 times and run 30 the last two games I doubt the results will be much different.

Quintin Mikell delivered a pretty hit on Bengals WR Antonio Chatman that ended up with Chatman being carted off the field on a stretcher. Mikell said he felt bad for celebrating the hit before he knew Chatman was still hurt.

"I felt bad," Mikell said after the Eagles' 13-13 tie with the Bengals. "I was celebrating and I was sorry because I didn't know what happened."

"After I saw him on the ground, I was really worried," Mikell said.

The refs made a terrible call on a roughing the passer penalty in overtime on Sheldon Brown that moved the Bengals within striking distance of a game winning FG. Brown was flagged for leading with his helmet, despite the replays showing he clearly did not.

"I really don't want to get into officiating," Brown said. "My job is to play the game. I don't play the game to be dirty. I don't play the game to hurt people. I just play it through the whistle. The league will probably see it that way . . . I think I hit him with the shoulder pad. We wear shoulder pads for a reason."

"I believe in protecting the quarterback - I do believe in that," said Brown, which is farther than most defensive players will go. "And I do believe in protecting players. But when it's crunch time, this situation is almost like a basketball game where they let the tick-tack foul go and they let the players determine [the outcome].

"But . . . when it's happening fast, the official has a job to do. He's going to call it like he sees it. I can't argue that."

Despite the poor call putting them within 50 yards of a game winning FG, Bengals kicker Shayne Graham pushed it wide.

"I thought I hit it good," he said. "It started out inside the upright. I guess I didn't play the wind enough. It's hard to explain. I just didn't make the kick, but that's what I am supposed to do. I feel bad for these guys because they really fought hard today and our defense did a great job."

Sav Rocca, who has been fantastic this year, had a really bad day yesterday.

"I was just trying to get them between the hash[mark] and the boundary, but that wind just kept dragging it across, and they went out of bounds, obviously," Rocca said of his late boots. "That's probably the hardest wind I've had to punt in."

The game started with a west-southwesterly wind measured at 15 mph that knocked the 38-degree temperature down to a 29-degree wind-chill reading.

"I tried to lower my ball drop a little bit" to drive through the wind, Rocca said. "I couldn't get any to come off right. Obviously, you want to put your best punt down there, so you can give your team the best opportunity."

Yesterday I wondered why Jim Johnson left Joselio Hanson to cover TJ Houshmandzadeh on the TD play rather than sticking Asante Samuel on him. It sounds like TJ was wondering the same thing.

"It was easy, the nickel guy was playing me outside; it was real simple," Houshmandzadeh said. "You (media) probably could have scored on that one."

Finally, Trent Cole had a big day in his return to his hometown.

"I saw people I know in the stands hooting and hollering for me," Cole said.

About his sacks and pressure, Cole said, "They put the tight end on my side. So I was down over the tight end and getting a double team. Later they used a guard to help the tackle against me."