Are You Ready For Some Football?

It's that time again -- it's Dallas week in Philly. And this year's even more special than most, since America's (least) favorite team will come to the City of Brotherly Love bringing along the wacky circus known as T.O. Land.

The media coverage should be slightly more than insane, since the four letter network Jeff Garcia once dubbed "ESTO" plans to run a weeklong series where Michael Irvin interviews T.O. about how it feels to follow in Michael's footsteps as an All-Pro wide receiver and petulant prick (and Mike can probably spend some time tutoring T.O. on how to (ab)use drugs without that pesky overdosing problem). By the way, for the Christmas re-match in Dallas, we hear ESPN Sunday Countdown will air a tour of Dallas area strip clubs guided by Irvin.

Seriously, has anyone considered the fact that pumping up this game is probably going to lead to bad things? Wait, I'm sure they have, and they don't care. Look, there's not a sports populace more embittered than the one in my hometown, and people persist in rubbing our noses in it. The Phillies just missed the playoffs in part because an umpire couldn't see a home run bounce off a foul pole. The Sixers spent the summer trying to trade their most popular player and icon, failed miserably, and are returning basically the same squad that's failed to make the playoffs twice in three years. The Flyers look like they're not particularly well-suited for the new NHL, which isn't surprising since Bob Clarke still seems to want to rebuild championship teams from the 1970's. And as a city, we haven't won a title in 23 years (21 if you're a Villanova alum like myself). Even horses affiliated with Philly can't close the deal.

And instead we get tormented by sports networks. Fox is probably sending Troy Aikman to do the game this weekend. I actually think Aikman is among the best of a sad crop of game analysts doing football right now (somebody please explain why Dick Vermeil is not doing games right now, and whether Joe Theismann's hair is the only reason he has the MNF gig ahead of Ron Jaworski), but this is like waving raw meat in front of snarling hyenas that haven't eaten in a week. The Fox studio show will probably be done from field level at the Linc, which means one more chance for someone to hurl a snowball at Jimmy Johnson (and you're an idiot if you think Philadelphia doesn't have fans creative enough to pack a snowball on a mild fall day with no snow). I'm actually wondering if someone will ask Joe Buck, who's also announcing the Yankee playoff games, whether he can make a determination if the Cowboys or Yankees represent the Anti-christ. I've never been able to make a concrete determination as to which team Satan loves more.

Loyal reader KS sends us this link, where the guys at Kissing Suzy Kolber are running a thread suggesting what fans can throw at the field. The post is funny, but if you want to capture the mood of Eagles fans, try this line in the comments...

The solution here is rather obvious.

Pill bottle, sans prescription label, filled with nickels. It accomplishes everything that we Philly fans are looking for -- a great visual with the pill bottle, the weight and maiming potential of a bettery, and a minimal personal expense (let's face it, who wants to throw 20 quarters away?).

And you're a little off on the obliviousness / stupidity of Philadelphia fans. Sure, we're stupid, but due to the lack of championship validation, our felonious jackassery is all we have and there's an unspoken, drunken undercurrent to Philadelphia fans that makes us want to perpetuate our awful reputation.

So there. Suck it, Terrell.

The Inquirer also tells us what we'll see at the Linc Sunday, including an interview with a drunken fan after Monday night's win over the Packers...

Dallas week had officially begun and, with it, the promise of a homecoming that should be filmed by Martin Scorsese rather than Steve Sabol.

"Ooh, it's going to be bad. I mean bad," the man in the hat said. "There are a bunch of people I know who are dressing up as pills, and their girlfriends are going to be sitting next to them dressed up as nurses."

That's just in case you were worried things might be understated on Sunday when Terrell Owens, the man who went from out patterns to outpatient last week, returns to Philadelphia.

Someone asked Dallas coach Bill Parcells if he expected this week to be a circus as the Cowboys prepare for the trip and then make landfall among a populace dressed like 200-pound gelatin capsules.

"Well, what do you think it was around here last week?" Parcells said, which was probably the best question asked at his news conference.

..."We understand that it's not about one person coming in here, but it's about that whole football team," Andy Reid said yesterday, broaching the subject himself before someone else could bring it up. "There's nothing more that Coach Parcells would like than us to worry about one player coming in here when he knows he has 22 good ones. We're focusing on the whole team across the board."

That's a solid approach and one quarterback Donovan McNabb apparently shares.

"It's a division game," McNabb said after Monday's contest. "We need it. We look forward to the challenge. Anything else, I personally don't care."

Well, what did you expect? McNabb put up with his fill of nonsense from Owens ("I'm not the one who got tired in the Super Bowl"), but knows there's no percentage in rekindling the fire. That would be - you'll pardon the expression - a prescription for failure.

So he won't say, "I'm not the one who got tired just before the EMTs arrived," or anything of the sort, and we should just accept it. All the entertainment value in this contest will probably come from the people pouring beer into the little mouth holes of their pill costumes, which is probably not recommended by the Food and Drug Administration.

Here's the thing -- this is the type of game we inevitably lose. We're Philly -- as Bill Simmons noted recently, we're now so resigned to defeat that we start getting depressed and drunk long before big games end (okay, the drunk part is not surprising). Even worse, I'll be stuck watching the bulk of the game in an airport bar in Texas, which precludes my ability to make nasty jokes about Michael Irvin's neck, Barry Switzer's coaching, Michael Irvin's mink coat, Barry Switzer's carry-on luggage, Michael Irvin's female friends, Troy Aikman's personal life (not that there's anything wrong with that), Michael Irvin's analysis on ESPN, Emmitt Smith's dancing, Michael Irvin's cocaine, Jimmy Johnson's hair, Michel Irvin's "interviews" with T.O., Jerry Jones' plastic surgeon, and Michael Irvin. No, I'm not trying to encourage my fellow Eagles fans to think about and comment on these things. That's not my style at all.

My advice to Cowboys fans, assuming any of them can read -- don't wear any Dallas regalia to the Linc Sunday. It may not be the Vet, but many of the same people will be there... and besides, it's never a good idea to walk through a parking lot of hostile people with food products readily available. Of course, no one's ever accused Cowboys fans of being intelligent. And yes, I have friends who are Cowboy fans, but I try to judge a man by his entire character, not just his weak desire to abandon his hometown team and jump on the bandwagon of a relentlessly over-promoted football team. These people's souls can still be redeemed... probably.

All in all, it should be an entertaining Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, if we can survive the coverage during the week.