Eagles Redux

It's been a couple weeks since the Super Bowl ended. I was still feeling the pain. Then I stumbled across something I wrote a couple years ago, and never took the time to put up here. Put it this way: it's amazing how little changes. And how much you keep hoping that next year is our year.

Confessions of An Eagles Fan

9/1/2002

All right, my team made the NFC Championship Game again this year. And no one, and I mean no one, thought they could lose. We finally had a quality, championship-caliber football team, filled with character, superstar returning, headed up by the Coach of the Year... and they choked like dogs.

It figures. This comes with the territory of being a Philly sports fan. I mean, it sucks to be us. It's never our turn.

Let's get something out of the way: no one, and I mean no town, has futility cornered in professional sports like we do.

New York? Please. New York wins a title in some sport approximately once a week (as you read this, they're probably winning the World Handball Championship... parade on Monday). In my lifetime, the Yankees alone have won six World Series. Philly's current professional sports teams have combined for eight titles in the entire history of their existence (fine, I'm forgetting the Philadelphia Warriors and Philadelphia A's, who won a few titles before they moved. Find five people who care). Hell, the leagues give New York at least two teams in every sport to make sure this continues (like anyone thinks the Devils and Nets are New Jersey teams. Please. No one would want to call the cesspool of North Jersey home). Example: the Dodgers and Giants left New York because they couldn't make any money. So Major League Baseball promptly stuck the Mets in New York five years later. And the Mets, in forty years, have won more World Series than the Phillies have in over 100 years. And stick the line about the inferiority complex in an Amoroso roll and shove it. If your next door neighbor's kids kept bringing home trophies while your kids came home in police cars, you'd have an inferiority complex, too.

Boston? Yeah, I know about the Red Sox. The Phillies once went ninety-seven years without a World Series title; the Red Sox still have another decade-plus of futility to reach us. At least the Sox regularly make the playoffs before crashing spectacularly. By contrast, the Phils have visited the postseason nine times in 118 years; I think the Red Sox have lost a World Series Game Seven nine times. And Boston has the Celtics' sixteen titles and a passel of Bruins' Stanley Cups. Hell, the Patriots have been to the Super Bowl more times than the Eagles and somehow stole the Super Bowl from the Rams last year.

Chicago? Please. Philly had Wilt Chamberlain, the greatest player of his time... in more ways than one. We won one freaking title with Wilt, then traded him, like we do all our good basketball players (Charles Barkley got traded. Moses Malone got traded. Mo Cheeks got traded. Dr. J almost got traded, for Terry freaking Cummings, before he threatened to retire. Allen Iverson should probably start making out a list of places he likes). You people had Saint Michael. The greatest basketball player of his time (and all-time) won you three titles, then took a break, and came back and dragged home three more trophies. Personally, I think that makes up for all the crappy baseball from the Cubs and White Sox for the last ninety years. And even though we just kicked your tail in Chicago two years ago in the playoffs, the Bears still have all those great teams that won titles under Papa Bear George Halas and the 1985 Super Bowl champs under Mike Ditka. Mention Halas in Chicago and people put down their kielbasa to genuflect; mention Ditka and they get tears in their eyes. We have Eagles teams that won titles under Greasy Neale and Buck Shaw. Mention their names in Philly and people scratch their heads and ask, "Greasy Neale? Is that the cheesesteak joint in the Northeast?" or "Buck Shaw? Why youse askin' 'bout my plumbin' guy?"

L.A.? Please, I have enough reasons to hate the town without considering that those airheads who leave early to hit the beach will win approximately the next 12 NBA titles (And no, Kobe's not going to jail. Sports celebrities don't go to jail unless they're Mike Tyson) (And the press keeps claiming that one of their stars is a Philly kid. Hey, I watched Kobe play at Lower Merion and think he's a future all-time great. But don't ever call him a Philly kid -- Jellybean Joe left Philly and schooled the kid in Italy before returning to live on the Main Line, which makes Kobe's game more Michaelangelo than Frank Rizzo... and believe it or not, Philly fans prefer Rizzo). Who cares if L.A. doesn't have a football team? The Raiders moved there and promptly won a title in the 1980's. Hell, some of those sun-baked surfers probably think the Rams still play there.

D.C.? I live here, and I can say that their basketball and hockey teams truly suck most of the time (that is, when this town noticed they had a hockey team). Then they imported Jordan and Jagr, so they still sucked, but with style. Of course, both of them looked like a shell of their former selves (personally, I think Jagr just misses his hairdresser), but no one watches these teams anyway. The typical DC sports talk conversation consists of , "Is it Redskins season yet?" to "How come the Redskins suck again?" to "Hey, who do you think the Redskins will draft?" Besides, the Redskins won three titles in the eighties and nineties, which made up for the lack of a baseball team. Heck, their baseball team had the good grace to leave town after decades of losing. The Phillies actually stuck around Philadelphia demanding a new ballpark.

Anyone else? Atlanta? I think most real Southerners don't even acknowledge its existence, since it's mostly the Southern version of Connecticut. But we'll play along and point out that the damn Braves torture us with Ted Turner doing the Tomahawk Chop every October. Man, if only Sherman was still alive.

Houston? Michael Jordan took two years off and gift-wrapped two titles to Hakeem (or is Akeem?). Maybe Enron and the remnants of your local Arthur Andersen office can steal a title in another sport.

San Francisco? The hippies who live in Berkley get the 49ers and the Raiders in the playoffs every year, not to mention Barry Bonds. If they put down the bong, then they can get a home run ball out of the water.

Miami? Their baseball team is younger than Britney Spears' surgical implants, and they have as many World Series titles as the Phillies. And the Dolphins won a couple titles, if I remember correctly, before Don Shula joined the walking dead.

Detroit? Thanks for kicking our tail in the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals. Now go back to freezing in your Arctic lair. Not to mention the fact that you just hired Larry Brown to coach the Pistons, which means... well, a Finals appearance, since the Eastern Conference of the NBA no longer competes for titles. But hey, we get a few more seasons of Allen Iverson trying to drag the team to a title on his 165-lb. back, so take what you can get.

St. Louis? Hey, last I checked, the Rams moved to town and won you a Super Bowl, only a decade or so after your first team moved away due to a lack of fan support, although they may have left just to get away from Missouri. Plus, we spend all summer hearing about how St. Louis is the world's greatest baseball town, and that players love to play there. We're not sure what's so attractive about inbreeding and a giant McDonald's sign, but we'll take their word for it.

Phoenix? Geriatric losers steal our best pitcher and win a title a year later, but we'll forgive you since you beat New York. Now take your Geritol and go to sleep.

Baltimore? Heck, they lost their football team for 15 years, and still have more titles than we do in the last two decades. Not to mention Cal Ripken, Camden Yards and kickass crabcakes.

Cleveland? Okay, I guess living in Cleveland sucks, and now we took the only player who hadn't left the Indians' sinking ship. But they handed you the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in sympathy for setting your lake on fire (and can anyone else give me a good reason to put that museum in Cleveland?). No one's ever given us anything but bad jokes for burning down half the city during MOVE. Besides, you only have three franchises that never win titles (and it's not like anyone acknowledged the existence of the Cavaliers until LeBron arrived anyway). We have FOUR. And we all know the NBA is fixing it so the 2009 or 2010 title ends up in Lebron's hands. No one fixes a damn thing for us.

And that's the worst part. The city of Philadelphia hasn't celebrated a professional sports title since 1983. 1983!!!! Two decades, people. I mean John Travolta's revived his career at least three times in that span. Back in 1983, MTV still played videos, Bill Clinton was an oversexed country rube with pretensions of greatness, and the Berlin Wall still stood. I mean, we've witnessed the collapse of Communism in the last 20 years, but we haven't seen a Philly sports team win diddly squat. My little brother is now eighteen, has grown up in the Philadelphia suburbs, and has never seen the local sports teams bring home a championship. It's periods like that which lead young people down the path to New York Yankee fandom, or worse yet, Dallas Cowboy fandom, each of which guarantee everlasting torment in hell (fine, don't believe it, but I think it's a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the Bible).

And we've suffered through enough near misses since the Sixers paraded down Broad Street in 1983, before the horror of Black Sunday, January 19, 2003...

The Phillies

The Phillies signed every over-40 guy they could find for a title run in 1983, simultaneously trading off young, useless future Hall of Famers and MVPs like Ryne Sandberg and George Bell; all we got for it was a five game World Series loss to Baltimore (yes, I know Sandburg's not in the Hall yet. Maybe it's his association with the Phillies that's keeping him out). Since that year, the Phillies have a grand total of three winning seasons. One of those seasons featured a Phillies team that finished in second place... 21 games back of the Mets. Another one of those is the infamous 1993 team, when a bunch of loudmouth, ugly, fat, profane misfits (and for once, we're describing the team instead of the fans) came within a couple bad pitches of winning the World Series.

We won't mention the name of the guy who threw the pitches that made the difference (I'm trying to keep my blood pressure down), except to say we still have nightmares about Joe Carter (the fact that we had Pete Incavglia's 725 pounds chasing the home run over the left-field fence doesn't help much for the aesthetic appeal of the dream, either). Of course, we lost to a team from Canada, so I guess we could proclaim ourselves national champions, although maybe there would be a BCS dispute of some sort.

And hey, in 2001, the Phils hired former firebrand shortstop Larry Bowa to manage the team, and he pushed them to a second-place finish. This inspired the front office... to try and trade their Gold Glove, 30 HR-100 RBI third baseman. Granted, the kid wanted to leave, but we're only angry that he couldn't take the team with him. Then, when they finally traded him, the kid really does take less money, just to be in St. Louis. St. Louis, people: we're talking about a city whose big selling point is "We're not East St. Louis!" And Scott Rolen would rather play there. Then again, maybe Rolen just wanted to go somewhere where the press would simply bow down to him, rather than question his greatness. Thanks for overselling the move, Scott, by calling the move to St. Louis "heaven." No town in Missouri could ever be heaven, unelss we want to violate the known laws of the universe. Last I checked, the Scripture didn't say anything about retards who like "toasted ravioli" passing into God's kingdom.

The Phillies management, buoyed by the fact that they have a new ballpark coming on line, have promised to be more aggressive in the future, and seemingly followed it up with some wonderful off-season free agent signings, like Jim Thome and David Bell, and made a steal of a trade for Braves righty Kevin Millwood. Unfortunately, this Phillies management team lost most of their fans long ago, perhaps back when Larry Bowa was still playing. They're going to have to win something to get back the attention of the townsfolk. Yes, I know they're contending for the wild-card... but let's face it, everyone in America wants the damn Marlins to win the thing, and we're going to get our hearts broken... that is, if we ever believed in this team in the first place. Speaking of first place... oh, wait, we can't even see it, we're so far behind Atlanta. Maybe next year, right?

The Sixers

Of course, we also have the Sixers, who won that 1983 title. The Sixers finally winning a title in 1983 erased the sting from losing in the championship finals in 1977, 1980 and 1982, and also losing a 3 games to 1 lead in the 1981 Eastern Conference finals. Heck, the Sixers losing in spectacular fashion was considered the starting point of summer in Philadelphia back then. In 1977, when they blew a two games to none lead against Portland (Portland, for crying out loud! We lost to a team from Oregon... we lost to the only pro sports team in Oregon!), the Sixers unveiled a marketing slogan called "We Owe You One." Clearly, we should have asked for more, because they won... ONE.

After winning in 1983, they choked in the 1984 playoffs by losing to the Nets (back then, it wasn't legal to lose to the Nets in the playoffs), but drafted Charles Barkley, who played Hall of Fame-caliber ball. Most teams add a Charles Barkley to a championship nucleus and win several more titles. The Sixers won... nothing. They watched a brilliant shooting guard named Andrew Toney suffer multiple stress fractures in his feet, and their doctors decided the feet would heal... if he played on them. They traded Moses Malone, who led the championship team, for a center who had no cartlidge in his knees. They traded the top pick in the 1986 draft for Roy Hinson, a player who had no heart. Add that to Barkley's occasional lack of a brain and Dr. J's retirement, and the team fell into a decline so steep that even a Wizard couldn't have saved them (and believe us: then-owner Harold Katz was no wizard). The team was only occasionally saved by Barkley's regular one-man wrecking crew impersonation. If you want any proof that Barkley was a truly great player, skip all his accomplishments in Phoenix and Houston. Think about this: Charles won an Atlantic Division Title for the Sixers when the other starters were Johnny Dawkins, Hersey Hawkins, Mike Gminski and Rick Mahorn. We've seen Philly high school teams with more talent.

Once Charles left, the team resembled a wreck, period. At least Charles was profane and entertaining, between spitting on a little girl (to be fair to Charles, he apologized) to throwing fans through windows... yes, he's really changed. The arrival of Iverson, coinciding with the arrival of Pat Croce and later Larry Brown, saved the franchise from the drums of fan apathy that had beaten ever louder during the years of futility. Let's summarize the post-Barkley, pre-Iverson era with one note: in 1993, the Sixers picked second in a draft that featured Penny Hardaway and Chris Webber, two future All-Stars and MVP candidates. The Sixers picked 7-foot-6 Shawn Bradley, who'd been on a Mormon mission for two years in Australia... and would have been more effective if he'd stayed Down Under. 'Nuff said.

In the middle of this, then-team owner Harold Katz threatened to move the team across the Delaware River into Camden, New Jersey. The only reason they stayed was that even New Jersey didn't want this rag-tag bunch. Well, that and we built them a new state of the art arena. All right, we built the new joint for the hockey team.

The Flyers

But even they sucked by the early 1990's. The Flyers were once the pride and joy of Philly sports (granted, that's sort of like being the best actor in the Baldwin family; the women find you sexy, but most people recognize you as an empty-headed talentless hack), having made the playoffs 20 years in a row. Yes, reaching the playoffs in hockey back then was about as easy as spotting drunken half-naked college girls at Mardi Gras, but it was still reasonably impressive to do it 20 straight years (if someone's willing to finance the trip, we're willing to try the Mardi Gras thing for 20 consecutive years).

Then, in 1988, the Flyers canned Mike Keenan, who'd only buggy-whipped a modestly talented team to two Stanley Cup Finals appearences in four years. Flyer GM Bobby Clarke's plan worked, as the Flyers almost made the Cup Finals the following year... then promptly nosedived in the early 1990's, missing the playoffs for five straight seasons. The best part was, they played really boring hockey in the process. We think Clarke actually planned to suit up again and prove that no Flyer team could win the Cup without him, but we never found out, because the Icon of Flyer hockey got fired.

Actually, there was more than just Clarke's firing: his exile to Minnesota (where his team made the Finals and lost, continuing the proud Flyer tradition; this franchise is 2-5 in Stanley Cup Finals), his brief return, his brief departure to Florida... all right, who cares? Let's just say things got so confusing that team owner Ed Snider returned from a long hiatus in California and fired his own son Jay, although maybe Bobby fired Jay... yeah, it's All My Children, basically.

The Flyers didn't think this particular soap opera drew fans, though, so they decided to find a real marquee gate attraction. Unfortunately, all they got was a whole new soap opera, also known as Eric Lindros, dubbed hockey's "Next One" by every publication in Canada (they don't really have much to write about in Canada). Even the acquisition of Eric took weeks, as the Flyers needed an arbitrator to confirm that their handshake deal with Quebec to acquire Eric superceded a cash-under-the-table, threat-with-a-gun deal the New York Rangers made with Quebec (since Quebec is mostly French, they still surrendered the city to New York and moved the team to Colorado).

Lindros took a couple seasons to get the team going, but by 1997, he led the Flyers into the Stanley Cup Finals... where they got swept by Detroit as Eric scored ONE meaningless goal (that damn Sixer marketing slogan must have confused him). Lindros skated around in a haze for awhile after that. Then he suffered the first in a series of approximately 720 concussions. Luckily, the Flyers had hired the same doctors that the Sixers had hired to check Andrew Toney's feet, so they told Eric his feet were fine and he could play.

Since the problem was with his head, Eric was somewhat suspicious of this diagnosis, so he asked his Mommy and Daddy to intervene, just as any fifteen year-old would. Unfortunately, Eric was 26 at the time. In the resulting confusion, Clarke punished Eric by trading him to the New York Rangers... only to learn that the Rangers were still considered a professional hockey team. But now Clarke gets to see Eric a few times a year, and Eric gets to see all the people he grew to know and love in seven years in Philly. And if his head ever clears, he may even recognize them.

The Dynasty Factor

What do all these teams have in common, other than utter championship futility and geographic proximity? Well, since 1983, they've all come close to winning titles, or reasonably close, only to be derailed by mini-dynasties. The Phillies broke out of a seven-year slump in 1993, and went all the way to the World Series, only to run into the defending champions, the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays weren't all that great, but they were repeat champs, and this was before baseball decided to put a leash on George Steinbrennar's stupidity, which now allows the Yankees to win every year (luckily for all non-Yankee fans, the leash is now disappearing). Back then, repeating as champion was difficult, as the Blue Jays were the first team to do it since the free agency era hit for real in the late 1970's. Of course, it figured they'd do it against the Phillies.

The Flyers, as we noted, made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1985 and 1987, only to lose to Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers. No shame there, folks; in fact, those Flyer teams had an underdog Rocky-like persona (and most Flyer players were hoping Keenan would drop dead, like Mick). But in 1997, the Flyers finally returned to the Finals, and as the favorite. They entered the Finals cocky and confident, ready to take on Detroit. And what happened? The Wings destroyed the Flyers, wiping them out in four games, and had enough energy left over to repeat the following year. The Flyers' coach, Terry Murray, accused his entire team of choking, which got him demoted (or granted a pardon from this group of underachieving whiners) to a scouting position. To put this in perspective, Detroit had last won the Cup in 1955. Alaska and Hawaii weren't even states yet, and most public schoolchildren couldn't find them on a map... well, I guess the last part is still true.

The Sixers provided further proof for the theory in 2000-2001, when they produced a magical season, opening 10-0 and eventually winning two consecutive seven-game series to enter the NBA Finals. At that point, they confronted the Lakers, who had not lost a game in the playoffs. The Lakers' average margin of victory in the playoffs entering the finals was approximately 422 points, give or take 400. The Lakers were essentially Godzilla, and they'd just devoured the Japanese countryside before entering Tokyo, symbolized by the Sixers. Being a true Philly team, the Sixers teased us by winning Game 1 in overtime, then dropped four consecutive agonizingly close games. And need we mention that the Lakers' victory was their second straight title (and the second of three in a row)? The dynasty factor strikes again.

Aah, but there was one team in Philly that couldn't even get that close. While its fellow sports brethren came agonizingly close to scaling the mountain, one team was buried alive in a pit of despair. One team managed to titlillate us with its potential at times, without ever accomplishing anything of note. No, not the Eagles. The IGGLES.

E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!

Let's face it, the Iggles are Philly's first love. No one else stirs the pot quite like the Birds. People who can't remember the birthdays of their children know the score of the only NFC Championship Games ever played at the Vet. The Eagles play 20-24 games a year (counting preseason), but dominate the entire town's psyche 52 weeks a year. If they lose, the city's aflame with anger, criticizing everything and threatening to tear down the Vet. If they win, people are buying Super Bowl tickets (while criticizing everything and threatening to tear down the Vet). People's passions become absolutely rabid when they discuss this team.

Almost every incident of Philadelphia fans acting like, well, Philadelphia fans comes from an Eagles game. Remember when fans cheered Michael Irvin's career-ending neck injury at the Vet (in our defense, it was Michael Irvin)? What about Jimmy Johnson fighting off iceballs from the fans in the lower and upper levels of the stadium? What about now-Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell betting a drunken fan in the 700 level that he couldn't hit the field with a snow ball (the guy hit the field, which means he should be signed for the Phillies bullpen)? Of course, Rendell would probably do it again, and be cheered for it again.

People bring up J.D. Drew and battery tossing, but the Vet was packed that night for a Phillies game, and there's no way the Phils have 65,000 fans; those were Eagles fans warming up for the season in August. Some reporter in Atlanta last year raised the booing of hand transplant recipient Michael Scott at the Phillies' 1999 home opener; we think the Eagles fans who'd passed out at the Birds' final game in 1998 (and trust us, they had every reason to fall asleep watching that team) simply woke up, since no one we know actually voluntarily attended Phillies games in 1999. Besides, Scott was throwing out the ball simply because he was the first person to undergo a successful hand transplant, and he bounced the pitch; if you ask us, that's not a successful transplant (I'm kidding... or so you think). And, oh, lest we forget everyone's favorite on-field incident, the booing and snowball assault on Santa Claus at Franklin Field took place at an Eagles game (yeah, when's the last time Santa got Eagles fans anything)?

The Savior Arrives... BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

The perfect manifestation of people's passions regarding this team took place in the spring over four years ago, leading up to the NFL Draft. The Sixers were about to make the playoffs for the first time in what seemed like two centuries. The Flyers may or may not have been Stanley Cup contenders, but they were high drama on par with The Sopranos (and no, I'm not referring to the time Eric Lindros "supposedly" left tickets for an alleged Philadelphia mob boss). The Phillies... well, let's forget about that for a second (or longer). But there were plenty of actual sporting events to keep sports fans occupied....

And yet, the most important issue sports-wise in Philly that spring was "Who should the Eagles take with the second pick in the NFL Draft?" Local all-sports radio station WIP had all-NFL draft, all the time; I think Mel Kiper's hair had its own afternoon drive segment. Even Mayor Rendall weighed in with his opinion (and no, he didn't advocate hurling iceballs at the players and seeing who flinched). City Council passed a freaking resolution that politely suggested which player the team should take. It usually takes City Council 4 hours to decide what to have for lunch, followed by three hours debating which dead people get to vote in the next election. But they all agreed, and so did most of Philadelphia: the Eagles should take University of Texas running back and Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams.

Granted, the only thing the 3-13 Birds had the year before on offense was 1,000 yard rusher Duce Staley, but why not double our fun by drafting the poster boy for social anxiety disorder? Ricky Williams spent his first pro season doing interviews while wearing his helmet, a story that would be funny if they didn't diagnose the poor guy with the aforementioned disorder and stick him on Paxil. Wait, come to think of it, it's still funny, in that cruel, making fun of Barbara Streisand way (what am I talking about? It's never cruel to make fun of Barbara Streisand). The last thing we needed in Philly was a guy who has trouble dealing with the media. The Philly media are direct descendants of the same apes that spawned us lunkhead fans; the only difference is that media members are literate (or semi-literate, in some cases). Mike Schmidt's classic quote sums it up beautifully: "Philadelphia is the only city where you can experience the thrill of victory... and the agony of reading about it the next day." Ricky Williams might have worn a chemical warfare suit if he had played in this town.

But this was the guy popular opinion wanted in Philly. Ironically, a Philadelphia team had drafted Williams... the Phillies, who had him in their minor league system. Of course, as a Phillie, he sucked (we're not sure whether it's his fault, or whether that just happens when you pull on a Phils uniform... thank God Jim Thome's immune... so far). But drafting him in baseball didn't satisfy Philly's desire for Ricky. Between admonitions from the newspapers and the mayor, the Eagles' braintrust (which used to be an oxymoron) faced enormous public pressure. And just to add to it, WIP DJ Angelo Cataldi, who ran the all-sports station's entertaining morning show, organized a bus trip to New York City to ratchet up the pressure, accompanied by a group Cataldi affectionately called "The Dirty Thirty."

The Dirty Thirty showed up in New York City ready for war, which would have been fine for the Big Apple prior to Rudy Guiliani's time as mayor. Fortunately, New York was cleaned up by then, so the Dirty Thirty could save their venom for the draft. And instead of Ricky, the Eagles drafted a young QB from Syracuse named Donovan McNabb. As their future QB tried to bask in the moment with his parents, as he tried to enjoy the proudest moment of his life to date, the Dirty Thirty greeted him with... booing... and hissing.... and heckling... and shouts for Ricky.

Yeah, pretty much how we treat every athlete in this town. We booed Mike Schmidt. We booed Bobby Clarke, at least after he became a GM. I'm too young to remember it, but people tell me we booed Dr. J (even we should bow our heads in shame for that one). Someone should buy Jim Thome some earplugs. Heck, we treat rock stars that way; someone go ask "Destiny's Child" about it after the crowd tried to boo them off the court at the 2001 NBA Finals... or freaking Ja Rule and Ashanti, who should have just refused to perform at halftime during the NFC Title Game (if it hadn't been cold, we might have stormed the field and burned the stage down). But we save the biggest boos for the Eagles, even when they present us with a player with unlimited potential... you know, like Saint Donovan.

Unfulfilled Promises

See, we're used to potential. It's that unwelcome visitor who never leaves, like Celine Dion's music or Jehovah's Witnesses. See, potential should develop into something worthwhile, into something special. But in Philly, the flower always dies, or turns out to be a dandelion. Especially when it comes to the Eggles.

The Iggles last won a title in 1960. Back then, if we'd told Philly fans that a man would walk on the moon before they won another title, they would have laughed. Nowadays, we may believe that we'll land on Mars before the Birds win another title. After 1960, the team basically did nothing for 15 years, other than moving to Veterans Stadium, which was worse than doing nothing. The next time they won any sort of title was 1980, when they won the division and the conference... and being the Eagles, they lost to the Raiders in the Super Bowl.

That was Dick Vermeil's team. Vermeil came east from UCLA as a Boy Genius, and he worked his butt off. The man invested so much of himself in the team that people had to love them, win or lose. Hell, people still love Vermeil in Philly; I think the guy still does Blue Cross commercials (maybe he can find us all a good mental health facility). And they actually started to win, making the playoffs in Dick's third year (and losing a gut-wrenching game at Atlanta) and winning a playoff game in 1979 (before losing to Tampa). Then, in 1980, they hit the jackpot, climbing to the heights of greatness, before the Raiders booted them back down the mountain. Vermeil and his scrappy bunch stormed to a 6-0 start the following year... but the magic was gone. They got to the playoffs, but fell apart in an infamous loss to the Giants, where the team came apart at the seams (much like the turf at the Vet, in fact). Of course, all of this exacted such a toll on Vermeil, he quit two years later, citing burnout. Dick spent 15 years doing TV before returning to coach the Rams... of course, there he WON a Super Bowl.

Heck, the whole management team was cursed after the Super Bowl loss; team owner Leonard Tose later sold the team and went bankrupt playing blackjack and baccarat in Atlantic City. I'm not kidding; Tose sued the casinos, attempting the popular "They got me drunk so I'd gamble more" defense, which had been used by college frat boys since time immemorial, but had never been attempted in court. That excuse never worked for anyone else, and little sympathy came from Philly, since Leonard had attempted to move the team to Phoenix before he sold it. Until his death earlier this year, Tose lived on monthly support checks from his old friends, including Vermeil... yeah, that is sad, when your former employees are supporting you. But the guy tried to head to Phoenix, so most of us had little sympathy for him. Plus, he turned the team over to Norman Braman, who was exactly what we all needed -- a car dealer looking to make a buck.

Anyway, the team went in the tank without Vermeil, having been turned over to Marion Campbell (what did they expect, hiring a coach nicknamed the "Swamp Fox?"). Well, at least they didn't tell us, "We Owe You One." And after Cambell spent three years killing all enthusiasm we had for football (don't worry, we'll get to Rich Kotite in a second), Philadelphia found a savior: a fat guy with a big mouth. No, not Andy Reid. The one and only Buddy Ryan.

Buddyball

Let's get something out of the way: people around Philly either loved Buddy or hated him, but most of us loved him. Yeah, he was an arrogant loudmouth whose teams always seemed to choke... but our team always choked anyway, so why not do it with style? And Buddy Ryan did everything with style.

His first year, he took over a 7-9 team and promised that they would win the NFC East and not lose a game within the division. They went 5-10-1 and barely won a game within the division. We didn't care, because Buddy swore up and down, ran a torture chamber of a training camp, told us how much certain players sucked, made fun of opposing teams' lack of heart, ripped his former bosses, challenged his new bosses... the guy was a walking tornado. His mouth resembled the damn Energizer Bunny. Our team still sucked, but man, was Buddy fun! And he was just like us: a profane loudmouth who talked a better game than he played. Buddy ripped his own players the first year, but they weren't his guys yet; they were Campbell's left-overs (and much like the soup, they were overrated).

Soon, Buddy turned to annoying the other teams exclusively, especially the &%^$#@!*&^* Cowboys. He aggravated the Cowboys by putting a bounty on their kicker, who was a former Eagle. After Buddy choked on a pork chop, a Cowboys exec dubbed the next game the "Pork Chop Bowl" and Cowboy fans showed up with miniature pork chops, which they hopefully choked on after the Cowboys lost. Another time, the Birds knocked out two Redskins QBs and several other players (leaving future Eagle Brian Mitchell, a running back, playing QB for Washington) in a game Buddy and his players tagged as the "Bodybag Game."

But another amazing thing happened to Buddy's team: they got good. They definitely had some young talent: Randall Cunningham, who could run like a deer and throw the ball 90 yards, with Keith Byars, Chris Carter and Mike Quick on offense. Guys like Reggie White, Seth Joyner, Wes Hopkins and Clyde Simmons maturing on defense. In later years in the draft, they would add guys like Keith Jackson, Fred Barnett, Calvin Williams, Jerome Brown, Ben Smith, Byron Evans and Eric Allen. This team was loaded.

In the midst of a 1987 season dominated by a players' strike, the team finished 7-8. In reality, the team went 7-5, since the team played three games with replacement players, and unlike other teams, none of the Eagles crossed the picket line. Not one. I don't even think the guys on IR, who needed treatment, crossed the line. Why? Buddy encouraged them to stay out. This embarrassed team owner Braman, the Miami car salesman who'd picked the team up from Tose and then proceeded to alienate everyone in sight with harball negotiating. Buddy referred to Braman as the "guy in France" or something similar, and Braman was about as popular as... well, a Frenchman. Braman's dislike for his coach started that year, especially when Buddy disdainfully made fun of his replacement scab team and barely acknowledged their existence.

I'm not sure if Buddy ever spoke to the replacement players; maybe he just tortured them in practice. The replacements got killed, but Buddy had a good time making fun of starting QB Guido Merkens. No, I'm not making that name up. We started a quarterback named Guido, and he wasn't even popular in South Philly, where he should have been a God. I think he's working behind the counter at Pat's now. Actually, I heard he's a Lutheran mininster -- getting pounded into the Vet turf probably made him seek out divine help.

When the regulars returned to duty, their loyalty to Buddy was unquestioned; they would go through a wall for him (as it turned out, all they couldn't do was win a playoff game for him). And Buddy won the fans over by ordering the team to fake a kneeldown and score a late TD against the Cowboys, in "revenge" for Dallas running up the score in one of the replacement games. That's another reason we loved Buddy Ryan: after the replacement team lost in 1987, he never lost to the Dallas Cowboys again. He could have run for mayor on that platform and won (and if he'd run against Wilson Goode, it would have been a landslide, although Goode might have firebombed the Vet in retaliation). Heck, in 1988, Buddy won a division title on the final day of the season, beating the Cowboys in the process (26-7; I still remember the score). Good things seemed around the corner.

But the curse of unfulfilled potential returned. First, the Eagles lost an eminently winnable playoff game at Soldier Field to the Bears, in a game that disappeared in the fog in the second half. There's still people in Philly who think the Bears had people out on Lake Michigan dumping dry ice into the water to create that fog. They couldn't see the damn goal posts, but the refs kept the game going, thereby continuing a long procession of screwjobs by officials against Philadelphia. The game ended 20-12, although we're not sure it ended, since no one could see the clock.

That fog might have hung over that team for the next two years, because they never won a playoff game under Buddy. In 1989, a late-season loss to the Saints (quarterbacked by John Fourcade, which sounds like the name of a character on Melrose Place or something) on Monday Night Football cost the Birds the division crown, and forced the team into a wild-card playoff game. Randall played like crap (another theme) and the Eagles lost to the Rams 21-7 at home. The next season, they followed it up in another wild-card game with a 20-6 stinkeroo of a loss at home to Washington. And after Randall submarined his coach in the post-game press conference (the baby was upset he'd been benched in the middle of a horrific performance), Buddy was canned. And Rich Kotite was hired.

The Bad Years

These years upset me so much, I can't talk about them in too much detail. First Kotite, whose coaching career can be summed up like this: when Randall went down in Richie's first game, Richie went out and signed Pat Ryan to back up fragile Jim McMahon. Ryan was working construction when Kotite brought him in to play in 1991, mostly because the guy was an ex-Jet. Kotite had a thing for Jets from the 1980's since Richie K. had worked for the Jets back then. We saw John Booty, Rich Miano, Mike Zordich, Brad Baxter and Ken O'Brien. I think Wesley Walker and Richard Todd played a few games as well. Heck, I'm still surprised Kotite didn't sign Joe Namath. All this would have been okay, except for the fact that the Jets of the 1980's sucked. And eventually, so did Rich Kotite's Eagles.

The team had the best defense ever (look it up; #1 against the run, the pass and scoring, the first team to ever pull off that trifecta) in 1991, but a rotating monster at QB after Randall went down. First Jimmy Mac, who won games, until he suffered the first of his 200 injuries that year, leaving the Eagles in Ryan's hands during a Monday Night Football game in Washington. Ryan, who probably sucked at construction as well, put on the worst quarterbacking performance in the history of human civilization (Biblical records confirmed this). Then along came Brad Goebel, a rookie from Baylor, whose designated role was to hand the ball off to starting running back Heath Sherman (and, no, he was not sweet) and make sure the defense got ticked during another loss. Then McMahon again. Followed by Jeff Kemp. Maybe Senator Jack Kemp also suited up. Guido Merkens may have made another appearence; I'm pretty sure they held tryouts in the Vet Stadium parking lot (which is the same material used to make up the turf at the Vet anyway). Even with all these guys taking turns putting in inefficient and ugly performances, the team finished 10-6, thanks to the defense. Of course, this would be one of the few years in NFL history when a team went 10-6 and failed to make the playoffs. Worst of all, the damn Cowboys knocked the Eagles out of contention, at the Vet, beating the Birds in Philly for the first time in years, thanks to the special teams allowing Kelvin freaking Martin to return a punt for a TD (I'm not sure he ever returned another punt for a TD).

It all came together and simulataneously fell apart in 1992. All-World DT Jerome Brown died in a car crash just before training camp. All-Pro TE Keith Jackson held out, then won free agency in court. That's how much Braman was hated; the S.O.B. single-handedly created NFL free agency (yes, I'm sure there were other reasons, but you're not changing my mind). This same case eventually earned future Hall of Famer Reggie White his own free agency. Randall pouted as usual, turning a 4-0 start into a midseason funk, when Kotite benched him for a game. The team rallied to win a playoff game, but that didn't count, since they only beat the Saints. And the final beating of Buddy's Eagles (they were never Richie's team) took place in a playoff loss to Dallas, where the damn Cowboys whipped their one-time tormentors 34-10.

Over the next few years, all the stars left: White, Simmons, Joyner... we actually lost track of which player was departing which week. Kotite claimed an 8-8 mark, produced while Randall missed most of the season, was great in 1993. This played brilliantly with the local media and fans, most of whom were praying for deliverance... and received it, when Jeff Lurie bought the team from Braman, who finally had what he wanted: massive profit. Lurie promptly held a news conference at City Hall, where he promised to bring a winner to town. Most folks would have been happy if he'd just gotten rid of the resident loser, but Richie kept his job for the next season.

And what a season it was. Richie somehow turned a 7-2 start in 1994 into seven straight losses to close the season, including a mind-bending season-closing loss to the freaking Cincinnati Bengals. The string of losses started with a loss to the Cleveland Browns, and the teams in between might as well have been from Columbus, Toledo and Akron, since the Eagles couldn't have beaten local high school teams in that stretch. After that, we all expected Richie to take the short walk off the plank, but Lurie didn't even get to fire him. Instead, Richie cashed out, parlaying his impressive mark with the Birds into a job with... the Jets. You can't make this up. Richie's 4-32 mark with the Jets, combined with his seven closing losses with the Eagles, probably set some kind of record for bad coaching. All I can say is, you deserve it, Richie; we know you didn't leave anything in the locker room.

The team continued to suffer its usual litany of problems. Randall never really recovered from the 1993 injury, then got benched for Bubby Brister in the middle of the 1994 losing streak, thereby also giving Richie the unofficial record for "Worst Set of Quarterbacks Ever Used By a Coach." Lurie's Hollywood connections led to constant rumors of the team moving to L.A. We didn't really blame Lurie for the rumors, since we were busy blaming him for not firing Richie the moment he took over. But Lurie let Richie walk to the Jets, saving our collective sanity. Then he hired Ray Rhodes, a man who may have been insane.

The Rhodes to Mediocrity

Ray Rhodes arrived in town, breathing fire and brimstone (there's a man who put hot sauce on his cheesesteaks), and the Birds signed Ricky Watters, who left the world champion 49ers for a big contract with the hometown team. Ricky must have hired Richie K's PR agent, because he managed to incense Iggles fans with the infamous statement "For who? For what?" in response to a reporter's query regarding his decision to alligator-arm a couple passes over the middle. Keep in mind, this was in his first regular season game with the team. I remember seeing one guy set fire to a Watters jersey and dump it in the trash that week.

It's a testament to Watters' talent that he managed to play out his four year contract with the Birds despite this gaffe; of course, it's also a testament to the fact that the team had little on offense, other than Watters and star wideout Irving Fryer. The paucity of offensive talent on the team, especially at the skill positions, had Rhodes once discussing FB Kevin Turner as an offensive weapon, comparing him to Tom Rathman. Let's think about this for a second: first, Kevin Turner, fine player that he was, couldn't have carried Tom Rathman's jockstrap. Heck, he didn't belong in the same room as Rathman's jockstrap. And even more important, the 49ers of the 1980's and early 1990's didn't rely on Rathman to be a prime offensive weapon; for that they had Joe Montana, Steve Young, Roger Craig, Ricky Watters, Jerry Rice, John Taylor and Brent Jones. On the 49ers, Rathman was a fine complementary player. On the Eagles, Turner was considered a primary weapon. It's statements like that which had Philly fans firing flare guns at Monday Night games.

The only reasons the team didn't collapse into mediocrity was the motivational fire of Rhodes and the schemes of his wunderkind offensive coordinator, Jon Gruden. The coaches had the intelligence to bench Randall early on and turn to journeyman Rodney Peete (who later officailly had his name changed to Journeyman Rodney Peete). Ray whipped the team to a playoff victory in 1995 over the Lions at the Vet, and won Coach of the Year honors for dragging a team with such little talent into the second round of the playoffs. But Rhodes never had a long-term plan. He motivated his players for the playoff game by telling them the Lions were coming to town to break into their homes and rape their wives and molest their kids. Granted, it made sense with all the street crime in Detroit, but it's kinda unfair to blame the Lions for that. Plus, those motivational speeches only work the first time, and typically against overrated teams like... the Lions.

The following week, the Eagles got spanked 30-11 by Dallas, which was on its way to a Super Bowl title under the "coaching" of Barry Switzer (clearly one of the underappreciated miracles of the modern world). The most compelling storyline from that game was that it was Randall's last as an Eagles QB, and it featured the usual soap opera. Randall's wife gave birth to his first child that week, so he headed to Vegas to be with her during the birth... and left his playbook at home. Granted, this mattered little, since Randall wasn't starting and he probably never studied the plays anyhow... until Peete went down with a concussion early. Rhodes looked ready to kill himself on the sidelines watching Randall bumble around. The damn Cowboys sent the Eagles packing, and the Eagles sent Randall packing.

Actually, Rhodes' best contribution to Philly sports was his constant QB shuffle, where he managed to use Peete and both Detmer brothers in a three-year span. Since we had gotten used to the subpar version of Randall, or Ritchie's motley crew of substitutes, this actually looked good to us fans. I mean, here was the list of starting QBs we'd seen since 1991: Randall Cunningham, Jim McMahon, Pat f'n Ryan, Brad Goebel, Jeff Kemp, Bubby Brister and Rodney Peete. Ty Detmer actually looked good by the time Rhodes had to go to him. In fact, for a brief period in 1996, this idea actually worked, when Ty Detmer replaced the injured Peete and led the Eagles to a 7-2 mark, including a thrilling win in Dallas, capped when James Willis picked off Troy Aikman in the end zone and lateraled to Troy Vincent for a 100 yard return. We really thought that the team was an actual contender.

Of course, someone had to remember that this was Ty Detmer playing quarterback, which led to three straight close losses. The team faded to a 10-6 mark, ending the season with a 14-0 playoff loss at San Francisco. The team stumbled around punch-drunk the next season, falling to 6-9-1, and then offensive genius Jon Gruden left the coordinator's job to take over the Oakland Raiders. We should have known we were in trouble when Ray tabbed Bobby Hoying as the quarterback of the future, and named Dana Bible as his offensive coordinator; maybe Ray figured it would work if he had the good book on his side. Bible had never coached at the pro level; he lasted three games as offensive coordinator before Rhodes promoted quality control assistant Bill Musgrave to take over most of his duties. It didn't matter. Ray's last campaign ended in 3-13 futility, which brought on Andy Reid.

The Very Serious Un-Svelte Guy

When the Eagles set to interviewing for Rhodes' replacement, there were plenty of possibilities. Most folks favored Jim Haslett, the defensive coordinator in Pittsburgh, who had close ties with then-Birds personnel boss Tom Modrak. Haslett later landed the job in New Orleans and has since presided over one playoff season and two grotesque late-season choke jobs by the Saints. Hey, we already had that ability with Rhodes.

Haslett looked like a keeper, though, and other teams were hot on his trail as well. The Eagles knew better than to try for the hot free agent coaching commodity, Mike Holmgren; Holmgren could have any job he wanted, and Lurie was offering seltzer water while teams like Seattle and Baltimore were offering Dom Perignon. But rather than simply grabbing Haslett, the Birds' brain trust opted to wait and see if they could interview a guy from Holmgren's staff, the young QB coach, Andy Reid.

Keep in mind, most teams in football didn't interview position coaches for jobs as head coaches; even when they did so, this was usually an attempt to see if the coach in question could be a future coordinator. And as a position coach, Reid was working for an offensive master in Holmgren; Holmgren didn't even let offensive coordinator Sherman Lewis call the plays, much less let his QB coach give it a whirl. But Reid had the sterling recommendation of Homgren and Brett Favre, two guys who knew at least a little about winning titles. Heck, they knew a lot more than anyone in Philly did about winning titles.

Reid hit Philly and met with Lurie, Modrak, and Lurie's COO Joe Banner in January 1999. The meeting has become legendary in Birds' circles because Reid did what we all hope to do in a job interview: he blew his prospective employers away. How? A six-inch notebook, that's how.

The notebook was Reid's collected football knowledge, a combination planner-diary-filecabinet-worlddominationplan that contained Reid's plans for what he would do as a head coach: how he'd lay out practices, mini-camps, drafting, scouting, the protein shakes players would drink... we're joking about the last one (we think). This book impressed Lurie (of course, so did the script for V.I. Warshawski, the movie Jeff produced in his pre-Eagle days) and his cohorts, who realized they had a man who displayed serious attention to detail. Reid confirmed this by giving the three of them a fifteen minute dissertation on the mechanics of longsnapping, which will scare you if you think about it too long. Between that and the book, it was pretty clear that Reid would be an excellent head coach (or the poster-child for obsessive-compulsives everywhere). Andy was the choice; it only helped that he looked like the guy who always stands in front of you at Pat's.

The Takeoff

Reid had a plan. First, he got his QB... a guy named Doug Pederson. Most people in Philly figured he was a quarterback coach, but Ried assured us that this was our starting QB. Suddenly Guido Merkens and Brad Goebel looked pretty good (no, Pat Ryan will never look good).

But Reid had run a beautiful misdirection move, because he had also drafted McNabb. And after watching the kid handle his booing baptism by fire, Reid knew his team had its future leader. Even the fans figured it out... and after watching Pederson screw up for half a season, we were ready to cut Donovan some slack. I mean, it's not like he could be any worse than Pederson. No, really, he couldn't be any worse, unless his name was Pat Ryan. Danny Wuerffel throwing with his left hand might have been better than Pederson.

McNabb's first season had the typical rookie QB ups and downs, but Reid decided he was ready to start come 2000. He jettisoned Pederson to Cleveland (yet another reason to like Reid; instead of collecting other teams' trash, he sends ours away) and anointed Don the starter... with grizzled third-year veteran Koy Detmer as the backup. Never let it be said Reid's not brave, huh? Reid also imported supersize nasty offensive tackle Jon Runyan to infuse McNabb's protectors with the attitude he wanted. Runyan was an unrestricted free agent, with the chance to go anywhere... and he chose Philadelphia, even after Temple coach John Chaney almost warned him to evacuate immediately (we're curious about what John does when he recruits players). Local records indicated Runyan might have been the first free-agent signing since Pete Rose. Wanna bet on it?

Anyway, the pressure was still on McNabb to prove himself as the starter. The kid responded in his first full season as QB with an MVP runner-up performance and a playoff victory, without anything resembling an NFL-caliber wide receiver, with his 1,000 yard running back hurt and a committee of guys in the backfield led by Darnell Autry, who had spent the previous year working on his acting career. Duce Staley's injury, at first cursed as the death knell to any fledgling Eagle playoff hopes, turned into a blessing, one which would come full circle in 2002. Without Duce as the crutch to lean on, McNabb had to learn to survive alone... and he thrived. He ran and threw and improvised and answered every challenge the league sent his way. Early in the season, following a 6-3 loss at Green Bay, some folks questioned whether the kid was ready. He made that question look ridiculous by season's end. The best omen? The kid beat the Cowboys twice, including a 41-14 season-opening smackdown in Big D. Say hello to the big time, guys.

The Green Machine Takes Flight

The Eagles arrived in the playoffs a full year ahead of schedule, and caught one of the great breaks of all-time when Tampa's Martin Grammatica blew a field goal against Green Bay in the Bucs' last regular season game. That missed field goal ensured the Bucs a trip to Philly for a wild-card game; the Bucs' record in cold-weather games rivalled the French army's record in the last two centuries for ineptitude. The hangdog look on Grammatica's face after the miss told the tale; most of the Bucs arrived in Philly hoping to hide in the lockerroom, far from any of the elements that would drive the thermometer below the balmy temps the Bucs usually enjoyed at home.

Mind you, most Eagle fans were still mystified about how their team, one that started Autry, Charles Johnson and Torrance Small at skill positions, could make the CFL playoffs, much less the NFL version. It got so desperate at running back that Reid imported former Seahawk star and Cowboy reject Chris Warren for a few carries; Warren had last been effective around the same time that Nirvana had produced its first album. But McNabb, fortified by a rabid defense and brilliant special teams (David Akers had nailed game-winning field goals in overtime against Dallas and Pittsburgh in consecutive weeks), made anything possible. The wild-card game served as a further coming-out party, as Andy's troops shredded the Bucs 21-3 on New Year's Eve to advance to the divisional round. Damn straight it was a Happy New Year.

The only downside was the team that waited: the dreaded New York Giants, who had beaten the Eagles eight straight times. The Giants seemingly had some kind of anti-McNabb potion, because they had whipped the Eagles twice that season by a combined score of 57-25, and now the Birds had to visit Jimmy Hoffa's resting place in the playoffs. While the Birds' defense came to play, the Eagles committed a rare special teams gaffe, allowing a rookie named Ron Dixon to run the opening kickoff back for a TD. Later, Jason Sehorn returned a McNabb pick for a TD just before halftime, effectively putting the game away. The 20-10 loss wasn't the worst part, nor was the fact that it was the Giants winning their toughest game on the way to the Super Bowl. No, the worst part was watching repeated shots of Sehorn's fiance, Angie Harmon, cheering in the luxury suites; not only do they beat us, but they get the hot chicks on their side as well. No wonder we hate New York. Our belief in karma was restored two weeks later when Harmon watched her hubby-to-be serve as burnt toast on the opening TD for the Ravens in the Super Bowl.

2001: A Division Championship Odyssey

The Birds began the next season with high expectations, with the full weight of potential weighing down upon their shoulders. Usually, this is the high spot in the story of a Philadelphia sports team, especially our football teams. Even the Philadelphia Stars, of the late-not-so-great USFL, won only one title in Philly (they won their second after moving to Baltimore), despite being the best team in the league's existence for its entire three-year run. That symbolizes sports success in Philly and the vast conspiracy against our sports fans perfectly: if a team in our city actually wins, they promptly fold the league. In fact, we're reasonably certain that the USFL only failed because New Yorkers got sick of watching their supposed franchise, the New Jersey Generals, lose to a team from Philadelphia. Once that started happening, the league was doomed, since it upset the natural order of the world.

This Eagle team also got ready to upset the natural order of the world, but not without some pratfalls. The front office had experienced a shakeup when Lurie and Banner cashiered Modrak, the man who had led the way in rebuilding the Eagles' scouting and personnel departments. Most observers believed Modrak had lost his place in the team's heirarchy as Banner and Reid had expanded their duties, but the biggest beneficiary was Reid, who gained power over personnel matters, without really having caused the dustup. The Godfather analogy seems appropriate, although we're hesitant to cast Modrak as Fredo, pushed out when Lurie and Banner (Vito and Tom Hagan) promoted Andy (Micheal) to head up the family. Of course, Modrak didn't get whacked, although he did end up in Buffalo, which might be worse.

Meanwhile, after losing a hard-fought home opener in overtime to the powerhouse Rams, the Eagles blitzed Seattle and Dallas and seemed set to knock out the Cardinals before a bye week prior to a Monday night showdown with the demon spawn Giants in their hellish home. Unfortunately, the Eagles were Snake-bit by Jake Plummer one more time, as the Cards QB stunned the Eagles with a last-second TD pass in a humbling 21-20 home loss. Leading by three late in the game, the Birds failed to convert a 3rd-and-1 that would have sealed the game; Reid opted to kick a field goal and gamble that his defense could hold the Cards out of the end zone. They failed.

The humiliation from this failure inspired the Eagles defense to new heights. When they returned from the bye, the defense saved the Eagles' season with a brilliant performance. The Giants rolled up tons of yardage on the Eagles defense, but the Birds held them out of the end zone and the team only trailed 9-0 at halftime, despite the G-men having held the ball for an astounding 23 minutes. The Eagles offense only managed a field goal until the last two minutes, when McNabb took advanatage of a poor Giants punt to drive the team 40 yards for the game's only touchdown. James Thrash's sliding TD catch in the back of the end zone signified the end of the Giants' dominance, as Thrash even slid over Hoffa (okay, so maybe Hoffa's buried in the other end zone, but the symbolism is better this way).

The Eagles took the momentum from this huge win... and promptly dropped a terrible game to the Raiders, 20-10, on a day when the defense got exposed by a power running game and the offense... well, it still looked pathetic. While rookie RB Correll Buckhalter had fit in nicely to complement Staley during his recovery from his prior season's injury, the Birds new starting wideouts did little to justify Reid's faith. Neither Thrash nor Todd Pinkston, he of the Kate Moss frame, seemed able to develop into a gamebreaker, while rookie Freddie Mitchell had done little more than talk.

Reid never lost his faith in his players, or in himself, and a modest three-game winning streak seemingly vindicated him... until another awful home loss, this one a 13-3 gift to a terrible Redskins team. Howls of anguish were heard all over Philly, as McNabb turned in a performance that looked eerily similar to some of Cunningham's finest chokejobs. Donny sprayed passes all over the place, was pinned in the pocket by LaVar Arrington, and managed fewer than 100 yards passing in the worst starting performance of his career. With a road game looming in Kansas City just three days later and the division lead down to a measly game, the Eagles' sudden success of 2000 looked more and more like a forgettable fluke, like the success of Quentin Tarentino.

Rather than choke, as the pedigree of the franchise almost dictated, the Eagles seized the day. Humiliated by the ineptitude displayed against Washington, the Eagles ripped Kansas City and San Diego, then watched McNabb fight past three interceptions to deliver a 20-6 win to stop the Redskins. The Eagles needed only one more win or Giant loss to clinch the division, but the drama continued when the Eagles' six-game road winning streak ended in San Francisco the following week. After the Giants scored a late TD to rally past Seattle, the Eagles faced a daunting task: either beat the Giants at the Vet, or face the prospect of needing a win at revenge-minded Tampa Bay in the season finale to clinch the division title.

The game with the Giants firmly established McNabb as a big-game QB, while nearly inducing a collective heart attack (it's not hard in Philly, what with all the Cheese Wiz running through our arteries). The Eagles trailed 10-7 to start the fourth quarter, but McNabb hit Thrash with a 57-yard bomb to give the Birds the lead. The G-men rallied with a field goal to get within one, then grabbed a seven point lead with a TD and two-point conversion with just 2:43 left on the clock. McNabb responded again, hitting Mitchell and Thrash with key passes before finding Chad Lewis for the game-tying TD, all within a minute. After the Giants went three-and-out, Reid eschewed OT and sent his QB out to win the game, and after marching the Eagles down close, McNabb went off on two scrambles to put the Eagles within field goal range. Akers calmly drilled a 35 yard field goal with seven seconds left, ending it... or so we thought.

After the kickoff went for a touchback, the Giants used a quasi-hook-and-ladder play, where Ron Dixon grabbed the lateral and went flying down the sideline. Suddenly, Dixon had blockers in front of him, and seemingly every Eagle defender was way, way behind. As the crowd gasped, Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor, out in front of the play, fought off the blocks and slowed Dixon just long enough for Eagles safety Damon Moore to come across the field and knock Dixon out of bounds... at the six yard line. The division was clinched, the game was won, and the city was probably saved from being burnt to the ground (at least until Wilson Goode gets re-elected mayor).

So Close, and Yet So Far

Having survived the Giants heart-stopper, the Eagles went forth into the playoffs with brimming with confidence. First, they conducted another Vet Stadium torture session for the Bucs, who were playing to save coach Tony Dungy's job... and instead helped him pack his bags after a 31-9 Eagles' rout. The Eagles then headed to Chicago for a showdown with the 13-3 Bears, led by uber-linebacker Brian Urlacher. Most pundits gave the Eagles' little chance of winning in Chicago, but they forgot the Eagles' stellar road mark (7-1 that seasons) and one key fact: for Donovan McNabb, Chicago was home. Donovan and the Eagles dominated the Bears, as the Birds defense smothered Chicago, knocking Bears QB Jim Miller out of the game. A bad McNabb INT gave Chicago a slim 14-13 lead in the third quarter, but the lead lasted less time than a J-Lo marriage (yes, we need to beat that joke into ground as well), and the Eagles high-stepped out of Chicago with a 33-19 win that wasn't that close.

That left just one game between the Eagles and the Super Bowl, which had happened only once before, way back in 1981, when the Eagles had stuffed the Cowboys 20-7 to make their only trip to the Promised Land. Most people believed it to be a foregone conclusion that the Rams would fly past the Eagles, especially with Eagles' All-Pro DB Vincent nursing a strained groin. The Eagles stunned everyone by taking a 17-13 lead into the half... but Vincent left the game and rookie RB Correll Buckhalter sprained his ankle (after rushing for 50 yards in the first half). The Rams shifted gears and began to run the ball, and the Birds could not stop them. Worse yet, the Eagles' offense hit a dry spell without Buckhalter available to provide the threat of a run. Marshall Faulk led the Rams to 19 straight points before McNabb finally righted the ship with a late TD drive. Buoyed by the offense's effort, the defense rose up and forced a Rams punt. Eagles defensive end N.D Kalu almost silenced the Rams' crowd by nearly blocking John Baker's punt; Kalu missed the ball by a distance equivalent to Andy Reid's vertical leap. The Super Bowl dream died 52 yards from glory when Aeneus Williams intercepted McNabb, breaking hearts and TV screens all over Philly.

As the Rams celebrated their NFC Title, though, a sole figure emerged from the visiting team's tunnel. McNabb had returned, if only to watch, and to remember. He would carry that memory as the inspiration for 2002, as fuel for a championship dream. The entire team would remember the sting of that loss, one that could be blamed on any number of factors, from injuries to dumb luck to a second-half lapse to the Rams' loud crowd to the stench of St. Louis' famed toasted ravioli (seriously, that's a signature dish? Please). The Eagles followed McNabb's example; they took the loss and didn't make the excuses, simply filing it away for motivation. As part of that motivation, the team resolved that the next time an NFC Championship would be decided, it would be decided on their home field, before their crazed (and crazy) fans. Andy Reid simply turned to his plan and continued to build, patiently awaiting his fourth season... while all of the fans spent the off-season awaiting our deliverance.

The Long Offseason Road

First, though, the offseason loomed. Most Eagle fans hoped the team would address the team's need for offensive playmakers via free agency or the draft; one popular name bandied about was that of former Eagle WR Cris Carter, late of the Vikings. Reid steered clear of Carter, who had earned a reputation as a clubhouse lawyer, and instead reiterated his faith in the development of Thrash, Pinkston and Mitchell. While the fans howled over the decision, Reid quietly imported Packer veteran Antonio Freeman when Mitchell failed to cut the mustard in preseason. [Post-script: Freeman performed well, catching over 40 balls, while Carter first retired and later attempted a late-season comeback with the then-first place Dolphins. Mitchell did next to nothing, but Pinkston continued his breakout year. Miami collapsed and missed the playoffs while the Eagles marched onward. Round one to Reid, Banner and their nascent personnel department.]

Next on the free agent trail, the Eagles let starting SLB Mike Caldwell depart and signed former Redskin Shawn Barber, coming off a torn ACL, to take his place. Since the Birds had done well with former Redskins like Mitchell and Thrash, the grumbling was minimal, especially since the free agency pickings at outside linebacker were slim; in addition, the Eagles expected Quentin Caver, a 2001 second round pick, and Ike Reese to compete for the job. [Post-script: Barber played well from day one and never lost the job, adding more speed to the Birds' linebacking crew. Caldwell ended up a part-time starter in Chicago. Caver was a total bust, cut in mid-season when the team stole LB Keith Adams, a special teams ace, from the Cowboys. Round Two to the Birds.]

The Eagles cut Damon Moore after the young strong safety's torn ACL was projected as an injury that would keep him off the field in 2002. They signed former Tennessee all-pro Blaine Bishop to take Moore's place. Again, the grumbling was muted; no big-name free agents, but no losses. [Post-script: Bishop had an up-and-down season, with a late-season injury that kept him out of several games, then cemented his place in Eagles lore as the goat on Joe Jurevicius' 71 yard catch-and-run in the NFC Title Game. Lucky for Blaine he doesn't live in the Philly area, especially after admitting that the groin was hurt early in the Title Game and he didn't leave. But youngster Michael Lewis flashed enough potential to convince fans that Bishop's loss in the future would not be a problem either. Moore signed with the Bears, who remembered his playoff performance against them, and returned to the field on special teams midway through the season. Sort of a wash on the Moore-Lewis trade, but the sight of Bishop helplessly flailing while Jurevicius rolled downfield still haunts me.]

But the wailing started soon thereafter, when the Birds sent MLB Jeremiah Trotter, the team's defensive MVP and the leader of the unit, out the door. The Eagles had designated Trotter as their franchise player, which limited his ability to gain free agent moolah, and Trotter bitterly whined and complained like Al Gore in a Florida court room. Trotter fully intended to sign a one-year deal, but he first confronted Reid about his anger over receiving the franchise tag. Reid, fully aware of Trotter's Pro Bowl credentials, his tremendous play and his popularity with the fans, did what no one thought possible: he removed the franchise tag and cut Trotter free. Worst of all, Trotter went south to play for the division-rival Redskins, a move that sent chills down every Philly fan's spine.

Every journalist pilloried Reid for this action, widely proclaimed to be Andy's Waterloo. Reid probably didn't even need an antacid pill. His logic: he wanted Trotter around, but not if Trotter didn't want to be there. The Eagles had made Trotter a fair offer, and Jeremiah chose to say nyet, so Andy sent him to Siberia... or the Redskins, which is effectively the same thing. Reid proclaimed his faith in Barry Gardner, Trotter's backup, but smartly pursued Hardy Nickerson (who ended up with the Packers) and Levon Kirkland. Kirkland probably appealed to Reid, since he made Andy look like the "After" picture in a Weight-Watchers ad, so the Eagles signed him. [Post-script: Like you need to ask. Trotter played okay in Washington, but tore the ACL in his knee around Thanksgiving just as he was starting to pick up the system. Kirkland became a prime reason for the improvement in the Eagles' run defense, but his weight and lack of speed killed the Eagles. Gardner never showed himself as able to replace Trotter, who would have planted Jurevicius six feet under the Vet concrete if Jeremiah had been in a Birds uniform on the infamous 71 yard play. Nickerson, whom the Eagles coveted, was a complete bust in Green Bay. Yeah, sometimes luck helps -- but it also taketh away. A bad move, made out of anger, and the Birds finally paid for it at the end of the season. Not that Trotter should have gotten a long-term deal, but the one-year franchise deal would have done the trick.]

The Eagles fans' wails turned to outright confusion in the NFL draft. With problem spots at linebacker (see above), defensive tackle and wide receiver (as always), the Eagles used their first pick on... a defensive back. Okay, so they took the best player on the board, even if it's an area of strength, but they'll address need with their back-to-back late second round picks, right? Of course. So, in the second round, they drafted... a defensive back. And another defensive back. With everyone wondering if the entire Eagles' secondary had been vaporized in an undisclosed accident, the Eagles also drafted a running back, seemingly a useless luxury on a team with Staley and Buckhalter. Reid's rationale was that the Eagles wanted to replenish their secondary, especially with the loss of SS Damon Moore, who had blown out his knee in the NFC Title Game and was subsequently cut. And Reid loved the speed of Westbrook as a change of pace back. [Post-script: 1st round pick Lito Sheppard struggled with an injury early before becoming a solid special teams contributor, but never really cracked the lineup. However, 2nd rounder Michael Lewis started several games in place of Bishop and looked like a comer. Fellow 2nd rounder Sheldon Brown surged past Sheppard on the depth chart and became the Eagles' dime back, and registered 2 picks and several thunderous hits on special teams. Westbrook served as a change-of-pace back for the Eagles and made a solid contribution.]

As for the final pieces... Reid and the Eagles had conducted a public courtship of Warrick Dunn before the draft, leading to speculation about whether Staley may get cut. Dunn ended up with the Falcons, but Staley was still hurt. When Staley's agent penned an angry letter to the team demanding that Staley's role with the team be clarified, Reid reacted... by meeting with Duce. The meeting cleared the air, because Reid made clear that Deuce was his man at tailback. This became even more clear when a spring mini-camp saw Buckhalter fall victim to torn ACL in a non-contact situation, which made Westbrook's selection look very smart. Reid followed the injury up by signing Dorsey Levens to back up Staley, which some figured would lead to disharmony. Of course, those people forgot that Andy Reid doesn't put up with disharmony. [Post-script: At this point, you should have it figured out. Dunn had a solid year in Atlanta, but the Falcons spent $28 million for a guy who didn't get 1,000 yards. Duce cracked the 1,000 yard barrier for the first time in 3 years, and Levens averaged nearly 6 yards a carry in limited action. No one complained about his role.]

Watching the twists and turns of the off-season left Eagles fans in dismay. Where was the big signing that would put the Eagles over the top? The Dolphins snagged Ricky Williams, while we get Dorsey Levens? The Birds' off-season looked like a bust. Reid as personnel chief looked far less effective than Reid as head coach. [Post-script: Um, yeah. We're all idiots.]

Anything short of the Super Bowl would be a failure, and the Eagles did not look like a Super Bowl team in the off-season or preseason.

2002: The Road to Glory has Potholes

The season started with a stunning offensive performance in Tennessee, where the Eagles put up 24 points in a first half that made everyone believe what Reid had said in the preseason: the receivers have matured, the offense has more weapons and McNabb is about to take off as a quarterback. The Birds looked unbeatable... until they went into the locker room. When they returned, some imposters had replaced them. It might have been Guido Merkens and the 1987 strike team, especially in a horrific fourth quarter that saw McNabb throw awful picks and showcased a defensive effort that turned an 11-point lead into a God-awful, gut-wrenching 27-24 loss. The Titans had taken the Eagles' best punch, and had climbed off the canvas and whipped the Eagles; we looked like Creed while they resembled Rocky.

Reid refused to panic, even as the Eagles headed for a Monday Night Football showdown with Steve Spurrier and the Redskins in DC. It seems funny today, but people in DC actually believed the Redskins would beat the Eagles, sort of like people who thought Al Gore would make a good President. People then watched Spurrier's Fun n' Gun get gunned down. The Eagles wiped the Redskins off the field 37-7; the best Redskins offense came from some pepper spray used by the cops behind the Eagles bench.

The Eagles rolled for the next few weeks, with the only blemish being a 28-25 loss at Jacksonville, the oddest game of the season. Reid's team experienced a let-down after swearing there would be no let-down, with the only memorable moment coming late in the game when McNabb threw up on the field while trying to lead a late rally. Most of us shared that nauseous felling, but the team still stood at 6-2 when Indy came town in early November. The Colts, coached by the Eagles' personal kewpie doll, Tony Dungy, featured a pass-happy offense, were missing their All-Pro tailback and had a defense that received a charitable grade of "can only get better" in preseason magazines.

So, of course, the Colts destroyed the Eagles, 35-13, in a game that wasn't that close. Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison combined for two TDs, while James Mungro, a name that sounds like something from the federal-witness protection program, rushed for two more. Eagles fans prepared to jump off the Walt Whitman Bridge, but Reid took an alternative course. He accepted the blame for the team's performance, and basically swore it would not happen again. The team confronted their ineptitude in the week leading up to a game with Arizona, figuring this would be the biggest challenge of their season. They were wrong.

Lightning Strikes... Twice

The Eagles stormed out of the locker room at the Vet the following week, and simply took apart the Cardinals and long-time nemesis Jake Plummer. The Birds rolled to a 38-14 win, even after McNabb sprained an ankle in the first quarter that limited his mobility; the QB simply adjusted and had the best passing day of his career from the pocket, finishing 20-for-25 with four TD passes. The defense shut out the Cards in the second half, and Reid's game-plan worked to perfection.

Then, they announced the news: McNabb had broken his ankle, not sprained it. He would be out 6-to-8 weeks.

Around Philly, people acted like someone had stolen the Liberty Bell. Hell, this was worse -- half of Philly's schoolchildren and a third of its adults don't know what the Liberty Bell is. Forget home field. Forget the division title, since the Giants were only a game back. Heck, you might need to forget the playoffs. Even though McNabb swore he would be back, everyone knew the score, and they knew this was about as likely as Eagles backup QB Koy Detmer getting named one of People's 50 Most Beautiful People. Forget jumping off the Walt Whitman, since you might survive; just set yourself on fire and prepare for 2003.

But Reid wasn't ready to give up, and neither was his team. The Eagles rolled into San Francisco for a Monday Night Football showdown with 49ers, who held the same 7-3 mark as the Eagles. Detmer slipped and fell on his butt on his very first snap, which almost turned into a safety. But he jumped up,dusted himself off... and led the team to a huge lead. Then, just as we started to believe again, Detmer was hit after he threw, fell awkwardly and dislocated his left elbow. The Eagles finished the 21 point blowout, but were now down to their third-string QB. I'd make another Guido Merkens joke, but they're getting tiresome. The Eagles' fate now rested on the rocket arm of second-year player A.J. Feeley... A.J. Feeley, who never started a game his senior year in college.

Reid had drafted Feeley with a 6th round pick, mostly the result of his obsessive need to plan ahead. In Green Bay, they always had a young QB sitting around, carrying Brett Favre's golf clubs and taking phone calls from teenage girls for Mark Chmura (yeah, it's a gratuitous cheap shot). For example, Mark Brunell served in this role for a little while before heading off to great success as the starter in Jacksonville (after the Eagles missed on a chance to get him because -- big shock -- they couldn't get a contract worked out). And Aaron Brooks did a year's apprenticeship with the Pack before becoming the stud QB in New Orleans. And Ty Detmer and Doug Pederson... well, we ended up with Ty Detmer and Doug Pederson. But they're the exceptions.

The Pack always developed these guys, then traded them for draft picks, knowing that they would lose them to free agency. Reid learned the lesson and put the continual development of a young QB in his big notebook. Feeley became his project. No one, Reid included, expected that he would ever play... but funny things happen. Or not so funny things, as it turned out.

And before we knew it, we Iggles fans were watching A.J. Feeley entrusted with our Super Bowl dreams. Newly minted backup QB Tim Hasselback was engaged to Elizabeth Filarski of Survivor fame, but most of us didn't want to survive; we just wanted to curl up in the corner in the fetal position and go to sleep until next August. A.J. freaking Feeley was not taking us anywhere, except maybe to a better first-round draft pick.

Then, the amazing happened.

A.J. ditched the usual Philly script. Instead of losing our playoff spot, the kid reeled off five straight wins, and would have made it six in a row had normally automatic kicker David Akers not gakked a late game field goal against the Giants in the Meadowlands. Feeley jerseys started popping up all over Philadelphia (usually worn by attractive females) and the Birds earned home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, something the team had never had. Even the 1980 team only got to play at home in the NFC Title Game because Atlanta choked one up to the Cowboys. Feeley didn't impersonate Joe Montana in any of the games, but he played well enough to win, supported by brilliant performances by Duce Staley and the Eagles defense. And he became the trivia answer to the question, "Which Eagle started at QB in the last regular season game at Veterans Stadium?"

And the best news: the Savior was back. Donovan contemplated returning for the season-ending game against the Giants, but wisely passed on the offer, deciding to take advantage of the Eagles bye week to get a full eight weeks of recovery. Everyone wondered if Donny would be healthy enough to play, and whether he might be too rusty. His ankle was the subject of so much media attention it may have hired its own publicist. The team was no longer just a contender -- they were expected to make it to the Super Bowl.

Euphoria... and Crippling Depression

The Eagles opened the playoffs against Falcons wunderkind Michael Vick, who had only accomplished the impossible the previous week: he had won a playoff game at the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Against Brett Favre, no less. With snow everywhere. Under those conditions, most teams exit Wisconsin with a double-digit loss (granted, getting to leave Wisconsin is a victory in and of itself, but we digress). I mean, Favre never loses in cold temperatures, and it's the iron law of the NFL that the Pack never loses a playoff game at home, even when the NFL wants to fix it for the Cowboys. So, instead, the freaking Falcons become the first team ever to win at Lambaeu in the post-season, setting up the first McNabb-Vick clash.

And Donovan was back -- supposedly ready to play. Reid had made the call, and at that point no one would question the guy, who probably could have made water into wine at that point, or negotiated peace between Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. And to be honest, he was right. As good as the Birds had looked in short bursts with Feeley, A.J.'s flaws had become apparent by the season-ending game against the Giants, and the Eagles' offense was sputtering. It would definitely need McNabb to make the trip to the Super Bowl.

But McNabb was rusty, and the offense continued to move in fits and spurts on a blisteringly cold Saturday night. Still, he was good enough to pilot the Eagles to the lead, and the defense wouldn't let Vick loose, despite some magical moves by the Falcons' second-year stud. Vick finally broke off a long 40 yard TD ramble in the second-half, but absorbed a stadium-rattling hit from Brian Dawkins in return -- best of all, the TD got called back. The Falcons never threatened to cross the goal line again, and some late-game McNabb to Staley screen passes finally put the game away. The Eagles were in the NFC Title Game for the second straight year, ready to take the last step.

And everyone believed that they would. The Birds would face the Bucs, whose cold-weather performance made Roseanne Barr's singing seem pleasant by comparision. The town believed in this team, more fervently than the 2000-2001 Sixers or even the unforgettable 1993 Phillies. This would be the team, the one that ended the drought. The Super Bowl shaped up as a matchup with either Tennessee, who had opened the season by stunning the Eagles with a late-game comeback, or the Raiders, the hated Silver n' Black warriors who had robbed us in our only prior Super Bowl (okay, so maybe it wasn't robbery, but work with me here). The Cinderella sory to end all Cinderella stories. We were already seeing the parade in our minds. Would Andy Reid dance like Mark Madsen?

And then...

You know, I don't think about that day often... more than all freaking offseason. The wonderful tailgates, filled with holiday-like revelers, planning trips to San Diego, the game-opening monster kick return by Brian Mitchell followed by the Staley TD... some guy in the newspaper the next day said when Akers kicked the extra point after the TD, it was the happiest moment of his life, and he's got four children. And dammit, I understood. All of us did. This was our moment, our team, our redemption.

And then, it vanished. Taken away by Tampa Bay, a city which must have been named by a retard (seriously, the city shares the name with the body of damn water?) and is populated by rich geezers and complete morons who think football's cool because they get to take Chucky dolls to games. They won our Super Bowl, the one that had our name written on it. We believed, and all we got was a kick in the crotch, with a steel-toed boot propelled by a rocket. We wanted to cry, but most of us were too old and too cold. We cried as kids, but now we just accept it as it numbs our soul one more time. The pain hurts too much to cry. It needs to sink in and become a part of us, linking us to our sportsfan forefathers, the ones who watched the Sixers blow Game 7 in 1981, or the Phillies collapse in 1964 or the Eagles-Browns in 1950 and then bequeathed this curse to us -- the curse who makes us who we are and what we are -- Philadelphia sports fans, the ultimate losers, the ones who make all the other cities feel better about whatever piddling little problem their team faces.

And the worst part? It took a week this summer for the feeling to return. Duce was holding out, and so was our first-round pick. Hugh Douglas and Sean Barber were gone, replaced by question marks. The only player who did a damn thing in the NFC Title Game, Brian Mitchell, had signed with the Giants. Our window had passed.

But then, the team tore off the cover for the first pre-seaon game, and dominated. And we started thinking what would happen if Freddie Mitchell fulfilled his promise... and Pinkston developed into the go-to guy... and Buckhalter was all the way back... and the defense was strengthened by the youngsters in the secondary... and the depth at d-line could make up for Hugh's loss... and the excitement of the new ballpark could drive us...

See, that's the part that stings, the part that kills. We die a little death every year, but next year, we come back looking for more. We don't know any better, and frankly what we would do otherwise? I mean, what else can you do on a Sunday in the fall? And so we march forward once again, blindly following our team, waiting for that crucial moment when someone or some team rips our heart away, spits on it, stomps on it, sets fire to it and urinates on it before running it over with a steamroller. And what's truly frightening?

We still believe. Look out, NFL. It's finally our turn, baby.

E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!!!!!