Slate dares ask, is Andy Reid dumber than you are?

Tom Scocca files the report:

As the weekend's goats go, David Akers is far down the list. Yeah, he blew two makeable field goals—but the second one, in particular, he had no business even trying. The Eagles were down 11, with 13 minutes remaining, and sure, according to whatever combinatorial flow chart Andy Reid may have been consulting, a field goal plus a touchdown plus a two-point conversion would have tied the game.

But it was fourth-and-1, down on Green Bay's 16-yard line, and the Eagles had been playing from behind all day. Even speaking in abstract tactical terms, there was a strong case for leaving Akers on the sideline. Touchdown opportunities are harder to come by (and more time-consuming to get) than field goal opportunities. Who knew when the Eagles might get another look at the end zone?

Under the emotional logic of that particular football game, though, the decision was even worse. The Eagles had done nothing all day to knock the Packers back on their heels. Here was a chance to put the screws to Green Bay for the first time—in booth-speak, to "force them to make plays." And, as we know but so often forget, settling for a field-goal try is not the same thing as settling for three points. Even so, Reid sent out the kicking team.

Andy Reid! Did I mention that it's hard to be good at all parts of football at once? I still cuss at the TV, but after more than a decade of this stuff, I've made my peace with Reid. He is an excellent football coach who happens to be bad at calling football games. He is stupendously good at preparation, arranging his personnel, motivating players, and all sorts of scheming and invisible stuff beyond normal people's ken. There's a reason his Eagles are undefeated in games after bye weeks—give Andy Reid an extra week to think about a game, and he'll come up with a winning plan. Hell, he was all tied up with Bill Belichick's Patriots at halftime of the Super Bowl.

Then, oh, the second half. Given a shorter time frame for thinking—a normal week between games, halftime of a football game, or, God help us, a two-minute drill—Reid's slow, powerful coaching brain is like an aircraft carrier in a speedboat race. Other coaches out-adjust Reid on the fly all the time. Ninety percent of casual fans believe, not without reason, that they have a better sense of when to call timeout or throw a challenge flag than Reid does.