Iggles Blitz

by Tommy Lawlor

Love to Hate

Posted May 26th, 2025 | 3 Comments »

I jokingly asked a couple of co-workers how excited they were by the news that the tush push wasn’t banned. Both of them responded they were actually disappointed. They also told me they had developed a hatred for the Eagles.

This caught me off guard. One is a Broncos fan and the other a Panthers fan. Neither of those teams is a rival for the Eagles. I thought about their response for a bit and then it hit me. The Super Bowl champion Eagles are so good they are now worth hating. That’s actually quite a compliment.

Go back to the 1990’s. The most loved team in the league was the Dallas Cowboys. The most hated team was…the Dallas Cowboys. They won big. They were brash and arrogant. Watching Dallas lose could put a smile on a dead man’s face. It was a glorious time to hate.

The Cowboys fell apart by the start of the next decade. They had no answer when Troy Aikman retired. Anthony Wright? Clint Stoerner? Ryan Leaf? None of those guys were worth caring about, much less hating. My instincts were to pull against Dallas, but it was hard to get fired up cheering against a team coached by Dave Campo.

You need to be good for fans to really care. The Eagles were great last year. That drew some fans onto the bandwagon, but it also got some fans to start pulling against the guys in green. You can also see some other reasons fans might not like the Eagles. Nick Sirianni’s sideline antics will turn off some people. The roster is loaded with star players.

Stars can be polarizing. It doesn’t always make sense, but people will just dislike certain players. As a kid, I hated Steve Garvey with a passion. I have no idea why. I hated Joe Montana. Again, not really sure why. You can bet there are people who hate Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, AJ Brown or Jalen Carter.

Then there is the Howie Roseman factor. Fans aren’t going to hate him, but the success of his moves. If you’re a casual fan, it must feel like the Eagles are the luckiest team in the world. They got their star QB in the second round. Carter fell to pick 9 and the Eagles got him.

Zack Baun went from nobody to All Pro. Saquon Barkley was gifted to the Eagles. Jordan Mailata was a late round pick. The Titans traded AJ Brown to Philly. Why on earth would they do that? And how in the heck did Cooper DeJean fall to the Eagles?

Those fans don’t see the mistakes. The Eagles don’t trade for AJ if Jalen Reagor isn’t such a failure. Mailata wouldn’t have a job if Andre Dillard hadn’t been a flop. Hurts wouldn’t be an Eagle if Carson Wentz had gone as planned. And so on.

The other key thing is that Howie is able to sign so many players and keep them around. Jeffrey Lurie lets the team spend a lot of cash, which allows them to work around the salary cap. That is maddening for a lot of fans and even rival players.

You can imagine Joe Burrow’s frustration when the Bengals tell him they can’t afford a star QB, 2 star receivers and a pass rusher. The Eagles have that and a lot more. I’m sure it feels like the Eagles are cheating at times. They aren’t. They work around the cap, which you can only do if your owner gives you the resources.

There is also the matter of the tush push. Eagles fans love it. Some fans are ambivalent. Others hate it. That play is just another reason for opposing fans to hate the Eagles.

If you think back to 2017, that was a loveable team. They weren’t loaded with stars. They beat the evil Patriots in the Super Bowl. Nick Foles over Tom Brady. Doug Pederson over Bill Belichick. I think most of the NFL world liked that team. They enjoyed the underdogs winning. This is different. The Eagles were a juggernaut last year. They have been to 2 Super Bowls in the past 3 years and could have more in their future.

They are now a team that some fans love to hate.

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It Lives

Posted May 21st, 2025 | 4 Comments »

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. We thought the tush push was going to be banned on Wednesday, but the Eagles pulled off their biggest comeback win in a while.

Everyone thought the play would be banned. The league pushed aggressively, for a variety of reasons. They basically threw a bunch of stuff at the wall and hoped something would stick. Not enough did.

It helped that Jeffrey Lurie, Jon Ferrari and Jason Kelce went to Minneapolis to argue for the play to remain legal. Kelce did his part to try to sell the other teams that the play was worth keeping. Lurie spoke for an hour.

Wow. Lurie got fired up about this and really fought for his team. That’s good to hear. Owners don’t often get a chance to make a difference. The opportunity came Lurie’s way and he took advantage of it.

I’m sure the league will try to ban it again next year. That’s fine. Maybe they’ll have enough support to finally make it happen. Or maybe defenses will find a way to slow it down this season and other teams won’t care as much.

I do think the ban would have been a bad look for the league if it went through this year. The Eagles just won the Super Bowl. If one of their best plays got banned, it would make the league and the other teams look petty. Now there will be another season of information, good or bad. If another year goes by and there aren’t injuries, that will help the case for the play sticking around.

The big losers today are the Packers and Frankie Luvu.

Someone made a good point that Green Bay was a good choice to act as the league’s proxy. They don’t have an owner. The Packers are community-owned. Mark Murphy is the team president and will catch flak, but that’s not the same as an owner. Murphy is retiring soon so there won’t be a specific person to hate.

As for Luvu, he tried all kinds of crazy stuff to stop the play in the NFC title game. Didn’t work, as I’m sure you recall. Luvu recently referred to the play as a “cheapo” and shared his dislike for it.

Well played, Mr Bama. Luvu will get a ton of attention when the Eagles and Commanders meet at the end of the season (two of the final three games). He will not be popular at The Linc.

I guess you could also argue that Saquon Barkley loses on this deal. He’ll be robbed of more short TDs. I guess we can live with that as long as he still gets the long ones.

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I’m glad the league passed this rule change. Teams should be allowed to onsides kick if they want to. It hurts that the surprise onside kick is still gone, but I’m not sure how to bring that back under the new system.

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The Lions had put forth a proposal to get rid of division winners hosting playoff games and instead focusing on records. There is some logic to that, but I do like division titles meaning something.

The Lions withdrew the proposal, knowing it wasn’t going to pass. This could get another look next year.

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If you would prefer to hear the insane ramblings of a crazy old man, you can check out my podcast appearance. Shane Haff and Jonny Page were kind enough to have me on their show to discuss a variety of subjects.

We had a good time. Hopefully you enjoy it as well.

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