With only two more wins needed for a second championship parade in three months, I honestly believed that the Eagles were going to win their first Super Bowl.

However, I forgot that the Eagles, while full of talented players, have some of the worst execution I have ever seen from a sports team. And the blame doesn’t go to just one person or one group of players or one referee who doesn’t think that tackling a wide receiver while the ball is in the air constitutes pass interference; I’m placing it on every single one of them.

Perhaps that is what bothers me most about the Eagles’ 32-25 loss. They are a better team than the Arizona Cardinals, but they played poorly and made bad decisions.

In the other three NFC Championship game losses, you can point to one play that would have turned it in our favor, but we really weren’t the better team in any of those games. Against the St. Louis Rams, the Eagles were the young, inexperienced underdogs, but could have won if N.D. Kalu knew how to properly block a punt. Hey, N.D., hands forward, not hands up!

The following year against Tampa Bay, the Eagles were favored, but that Buccaneers team was better at every position except quarterback, and it showed. However, if Michael Lewis was playing safety instead of the aging and injured Blaine Bishop, Joe Jurevicius would have never been able to outrun the defense for 71 yards on a crossing route to set up a Buccaneer touchdown.

Against Carolina, the Eagles were playing without Brian Westbrook, but if Donovan McNabb and Duce Staley connected on that halfback wheel play, Staley goes in for a long touchdown and I believe the Eagles win that game.

And that brings us to Sunday. The Eagles, from head coach Andy Reid all the way down to terrible wide receiver Greg Lewis, made so many bad decisions and bad plays that I’m shocked the Eagles even had a chance at the end.

Three plays into the game, the Eagles made their first unbelievably bad decision. Arizona had a third-and-1 at the their own 29, and Eagles’ cornerback Asante Samuel stood eight yards away from all-world wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. Guess what happened? Fitzgerald rolls across the middle, catches a wide open short pass for a first down and a few plays later, the Eagles are down 7 points.

Wouldn’t you think about playing press coverage on that play? I pointed it out before the play was snapped, but apparently if something is so obvious that I can see it on TV, it’s much too obvious for a guy with a $60 million contract to notice.

Then just before the end of the first half, rookie safety Quinton Demps laid out Kurt Warner for a 15-yard roughing the passer penalty, which led to a field goal at the end of the half by Neil Rackers, and put the Eagles in an 18-point hole heading into the locker room.Personally, I think Demps will be a solid safety in the NFL, but considering this play and the fact that he got burned for a 62-yard touchdown catch by Fitzgerald, wouldn’t it have been smarter to play a veteran like Lito Sheppard in his place? I know Lito has been buried way down on the depth chart, but after those two plays by Demps, Lito’s experience would have been a welcome sight on the field.

Switching over to offense, why does it seem like our receivers just rotate in and out randomly every play? Watching on TV, you would see a player make a catch and then see him on the sideline for the next play? I know football is a tough game, but these guys should be in good enough shape to be on the field for consecutive downs.

More importantly, why would Greg Lewis and Hank Baskett be on the field at the same time? That means the Eagles top three receivers were all on the sidelines during key plays in the NFC Championship game.

I don’t think I ever saw Larry Fitzgerald skip a play, but apparently all of our receivers are equally talented, so it doesn’t matter who is on the field. There were even third downs where Brian Westbrook was on the sideline! I thought the goal was to have as many of your top playmakers on the field at the same time, not throw whatever losers you can find out there.In fact, why did Greg Lewis get activated in place of Reggie Brown? All he did was drop a 60-yard bomb in the first quarter and do nothing else the rest of the game. I’m sure Brown could have done that!

Overall, the Eagles defense was outplayed, and the Eagles offense didn’t realize that the underneath crossing routes were wide open until the third quarter. The Eagles should have won this game, but as we all knew going into the playoffs, the Eagles have a lot of talent, but had never put it together four games in a row.

They still haven’t, but at least there are only three weeks until the World Champions of baseball report for Spring Training in Clearwater. And, as my Dad said after the game, it’s not like the city could have afforded another championship parade anyway. We all probably would have had to pay a fee to stand on the city’s sidewalks if the Eagles had won it all.

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Like the “On the Edge” Blog? Hear more of my opinions about Philadelphia sports every Friday at 3:30 p.m. on WBCB 1490 AM during the Coffee with Kahuna show, where, this week, we will talk about the Eagles’ meltdown in the desert and disappointedly look ahead to the offseason for the 48th consecutive time.