Super Bowl Sunday

Two years ago the Eagles won the Super Bowl. With apologies to the title teams of 1948, 1949 and 1960, that was the greatest day in franchise history.

As Eagles fans, players and coaches heard for years, you either have a Super Bowl win or you don’t. The Eagles finally joined the ranks of Super Bowl champs on Feb. 4th, 2018. It was an amazing moment and it changed the professional lives of all involved.

Jeffrey Lurie owned a Super Bowl winning franchise. Howie Roseman built a Super Bowl winning roster. Doug Pederson was a Super Bowl champion coach. Guys trying to make their case for the Hall of Fame could now put Super Bowl champions as part of their resume. Even role players like Nate Sudfeld, Shelton Gibson and Elijah Qualls could call themselves Super Bowl champs.

It is hard to quantify what that title meant to fans. After so many years of heartache and struggle, they finally got a chance to see their beloved Birds as the team holding the trophy and smiling as confetti rained down.

This erased the misery of 1962-1977, when the Eagles had one winning season and no playoff appearances.

It erased Rod Martin’s interception party in Super Bowl XV, when the Eagles fell to the Raiders 27-10.

It erased Buddy Ryan’s playoff losses, when the Eagles found a way to come up short at the worst time of the year. The Fog Bowl was bad luck. The next two years were bad postseason play.

The Super Bowl win erased the frustration of 1991’s Gang Green defense, arguably the best in NFL history, not even making the playoffs.

It erased torturous playoff losses to Dallas in 1992 and 1995, as well as a shutout loss to SF in 1996.

It erased the ugly QB play of the decade of the 90’s. Pat Ryan. Jeff Kemp. Brad Goebel. Bubby Brister. Ken O’Brien. Mark Rypien. Bobby Hoying. Doug Pederson. Koy Detmer. Man, those were some miserable games.

The Super Bowl win erased Ronde Barber, Ricky Manning Jr., the Super Bowl XXXIX loss to the Patriots, Tim Hightower’s late TD in the 2008 NFC title game and Tramon Williams interception at the end of the wild card game in 2010. Those were some painful days. The Dream Team and 2012 weren’t exactly walks in the park.

It erased the Chip Kelly era, which included the tough playoff loss to the Saints, the release of DeSean Jackson, the trade of LeSean McCoy, the signing of DeMarco Murray and the trade for Sam Bradford.

Super Bowl wins are powerful.

The last two seasons were full of ups and downs. There were some extremely frustrating moments. Those seasons were especially disappointing coming off the high of winning the Super Bowl. At times it felt like those teams were paying for the success of 2017, with so many odd things going against them.

Were the Football Gods taxing the 2018 and 2019 Eagles?

If so, it was worth it.

If the Eagles go no better than 9-7 for the next decade and can’t stay healthy for more than three games, it was worth it.

Glorious.

I think there is still plenty of success ahead for the Eagles. Doug Pederson is a good coach. Carson Wentz is a good QB. When you have those two pieces, you have a chance to compete every year. I’m excited for the future.

*****

I’m hoping that hours from now, Andy Reid will be holding the Lombardi Trophy and celebrating his first Super Bowl win.

Reid had some frustrating postseason losses while coaching the Eagles. We’d all like to know why he didn’t run the ball more, that goes for preseason, regular season and postseason. But the good far outweighs the bad. Reid brought stability and success to the Eagles. The Eagles don’t win the 2017 Super Bowl without him. From Doug Pederson to Howie Roseman to Duce Staley to Jason Peters, Jason Kelce, Fletcher Cox, Nick Foles and so many more. That team had Reid’s fingerprints all over it.

Here is an interesting piece on Reid’s case as a HOF coach. If he wins tonight, he’s a lock. Even if he loses, he’s a virtual lock.

This is a great piece on Reid’s former assistants talking about gameplans and building up the script for the beginning of the game.

Go Chiefs. Get that man his ring!

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