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Date Posted: 12:37:35 12/31/02 Tue
Author: munchdaddy
Subject:

fan perspective

Some Eagles Fans Perspective
There is one thing all long time Eagles fans have learned to trust. The team we root for will have more downs than ups. When you root for a team that has a below .500 lifetime winning percentage (.457 to be exact) you just come to anticipate it.
Some have tried to revolutionize this. The Vermeil years were the closest we ever came to being permitted to believe, just to have our hearts slashed out early and often in that fateful Super Bowl.
The Buddy years, as comical as they were, exemplified this. Even that daunting, unbreakable, fearsome defense could not make it happen. Sooner or later #12 would have to be counted on and he collapsed anytime the pressure emerged. We also knew that our motley crew coaching staff would at some point have to make an offensive decision. We knew in our hearts that those decisions wouldn�t be suitable and we were never pleasantly surprised
So rising from the ashes of what Buddy left (man was he good at leaving ashes) came the K-man whose name I cannot even bear to inscribe. I remember as if it were yesterday the machine the K-man assembled. It went 7 � 2 and we thought maybe��
Accordingly the wheels, transmission, clutch, accelerator, and breaks broke on that machine as we all watched in horror.
The years that followed beget a new owner and some deeper pockets than the shallow ones we had grown so accustomed to. This man came to town with his Hollywood smile and talked about a fairytale that we just could not fathom, winning. You could almost hear the entire city exhale �Yo Jeff, Hollywood talk don�t cut it in Philly.�
He didn�t hear us; he never has, and went and hired a guy from a winning system. This guy was to put him on the correct Rhode to success. He acquired something we had never seen, some offensive weapons. (He did not see the importance of QB at first, he learned the hard way). It is still vivid in my mind. This offense, this west coast offense in Philly, almost looked like it had a plan and purpose in its first game against the deadskins. That�s right; when you grow up an Eagles fan and watch everyone in your division win a super bowl except the country club Cardinals and your beloved team, you get a little bitter. That team came with in scoring in the red zone of beating a veteran, playoff tested 49er team in the playoffs, causing us to say wait till next year. I still have the NFL films video from that year entitled �A team in the right direction.� Unfortunately, next year came, resulting in ashes that would make even Buddy Ryan say �Holy Crap!�
So our Hollywood owner went in another direction, all be it the same type of direction. He went out and hired another Holmgrenesque architect. This general has a stare that could strike fear into Ditka. He however saw the importance of QB. And although this legend is somewhat trite at this point, we all, myself included, booed him when he did. (After that we booed and threw snowballs at Santa Claus, just to spend some time in the jail below our toilet bowl of a stadium, with the worst turf in football, that once caused a preseason game to be canceled). We sat back, watched the rebuilding, some pickled flashes of excitement, and all the while that stare remained.
Then last year happened. We swept, all be it barely, a team that had owned us in recent years. Believe yet? We beat up on the best defense in football in the first round. Believe yet? We took that stare to the final game in Ditka�s old house, and added a 33-19 defeat to its legacy. Believe yet? We found ourselves face to face with the greatest show on turf and were driving, yes driving, with a chance to win in the final moments of the game. With a score, we would meet a team with a back up QB in the Super bowl that to this day I tell you we would have beaten. Believe yet? I must admit I allowed myself to. They got me. I felt like we, as loyal fans deserved it. Then it happened. It was as if the #5 sickeningly morphed to a #12 and we saw an unthinkable interception. I felt cheated.
The reason for this lengthy history lesson is simply to describe the mindset of some Eagles fans. We ended last year with that same eerie what about next year attitude and waited for Big Red to start leaving his ashes. A week one loss to the Titans, we said here they come. Bounce back! A loss to the Jags, o.k. now it will start. Bounce back! Picked apart by the Colts, told you so, now you will really see it start. Bounce back! Our golden boy #5 goes down; well at least we will have the injuries to blame. Bounce back! The neck bearded, buck toothed, goofy lookin�, bull whippin� little bastard beats the crap out of a playoff bound 49ers team, in their house, on national TV. Bounce back! He is promptly rewarded by the football gods as we watch him lying on the field shaking in pain in the third quarter, now we certainly deserve to blame it on injuries. Bounce back! Perhaps the biggest bounce back of all, the entire team steps up its play and the third string guy just doesn�t lose.
Aside from not being able to bounce back, some thing else has been lacking from this regime. No owner giving interviews saying winning is not a priority. No QB�s Corvette parked on the field during practices. No going for it late it blow outs causing opposing coaches to call our coach a little troll. No Brooklyn sounding �without questions�. No for whos. No for whats. Essentially no distractions. We like it that way.
We are playing for home field advantage Saturday folks. Experts and non-Eagle fans, aside from big blue ones, think we will get it. I have heard them say it is our year. We should be confident. We can�t be. We are Eagle fans. We have spent this season waiting for a shoe to drop. Saturday�s game is of such importance, that I childishly feel like we can�t have it.
Come on team, come on Big Red, get some of the pits out of my stomache (for you Rod Steele). Take that Ditka shuddering stare straight to the football gods and give us the biggest bounce back in recent memory. Gain home field. Put us in a position of two home wins away from a chance to play for it all. Let me walk into work and write EAGLES in big black letters on the NFC side of the Super Bowl pool. Make me ask the question for real this time. Believe yet? My answer will be not yet. Not till I see them hold up a trophy and watch that stare fade unto a real smile for the first time on a football field.

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