Crash Eagles Crash, On the Road to Misery...

Well, when you think it can't get any worse, Philadelphia sports teams somehow know how to perform miracles. Not the kind of miracles like when you think all the beer is gone and then find that last thirty in back of the car, or when you think you have a paper due the next day and then find out that class got canceled (true story). No, not those kind of miracles. I’m talking about unthinkably bad things that happened. Yesterdays game was like being told that you're fired, and then having a homeless guy run up and kick you in the balls for no reason. Now don't take me as one of those typical Philadelphia sports fans that loves the teams when there hot, and then drops them like Federline did Brittany when they start screwing up. Though I have at times been very frustrated with Philadelphia sports organizations, I still am and always will be behind my teams one hundred percent. But for some reason, some crazy reason, on Sunday afternoon, I just couldn't understand why. Yesterday was the first day I began to believe in God, because I realized that he truly fucking hates the Eagles. Last season, we're fresh out of a super bowl, following the best season the Eagles have had in 25 years. Excited for another winning season, Philly fans are eager to see what Andy Reid has up his sleeve for the 2005-2006 season. But what happens? Our newest and best player, the infamous T.O., decides that because his cock is so small, he might as well start bitching about his contract even though the entire city of Philadelphia loves him despite his egotistic and his narcissistic behavior. He brought us a super bowl, we bring him praise. But we are all humans, even those guys in the NFL, and as humans have a tendency of doing what we do best: fucking things up. So T.O. holds out, Andy Reid doesn't take shit, and before you know it, arguably the best player on the eagles is now in Dallas, only to become the most hated player in Eagles history. OK, no big deal, the T.O. show is over, we can still do this. But wait, that isn’t enough drama. We need more bad luck or things would seem too perfect. Fortunately we got it. One Sunday in the fall, the big guy in the sky decides to deliver a monster hit to McNabb; and boom he gets a hernia that pretty much puts him on the Injury list for the duration of the season.

So that was last season, a season that us Eagles fans would frankly like to erase from our memories. But come August, most of Philadelphia had turned our bitter hatred towards T.O. (and all the bad luck that he represented) into a fiery desire to kick that shit out of not only the Dallas Cowboys, but also the majority of the NFL. With a late pick up of Dante Stallworth, adding a little bit more experience to our young secondary, things were looking seriously promising.

Let’s fast-forward to 1:00PM Sunday afternoon. The Eagles are looking at a 5-4 record after some unfortunate losses that could have gone either way in the last minutes of the fourth quarter, or in the case of the Giants game, the last minutes of overtime (lost by field goals to end the game by both the Saints and the Bucks). Other than the Colts and the Bears, nobody was quite running away with the league. It was up in the air, and for some reason it felt like the Eagles were ready to turn on the burners and send Philly right back to the NFC championship game, a game that up until last year seemed like a regular part of our season. Although off to a slow start, both defensively and offensively, the Eagles looked like they just needed some time to figure out what they needed to do to plough over the 3-6 Titans that were being lead by a rookie quarterback. I’m sitting there thinking, first quarter passed, no worries, we'll be in great shape by the half. But then the unthinkable happened. I had to take a piss...really bad. Well, it wasn't the piss that was unthinkable, but it was what I saw on the television after I returned from the bathroom that I couldn’t believe. McNabb sitting on the sideline grabbing his knee unable to get up. This is Donovan McNabb, a guy who passed for over 300 yards with a broken ankle and played more than two games with an abdominal hernia. This guy is tough and he can play through just about anything. But seeing him get carted off the field at the Linc, I knew something bad happened. So when Garcia, an experienced and winning quarterback, stepped on the field, I just prayed that we could maintain our focus, that McNabb was alright, and that we could send these goddamn hicks back to Tennessee.

Well, that didn’t happen. After a painful 2 hours of dropped passes, dropped interceptions, and missed tackles, I watched my Birds steadily lose altitude. Garcia did what he could for only having thrown the ball once the whole season (although he still played like shit). Westbrook had a hell of a game and we can only thank him for at least providing some offensive hope to make the game at least watchable for the second half. But our defense just got rocked and that was all there was to it. When your starting QB gets knocked out of the game, the defense has to be called upon to be the glue that holds the team together. Well Sunday, someone forgot to go to the hardware store, because that glue wasn’t there. We had our chances and we missed them. McNabb is out for the season with a torn ACL, the Cowboys pulled off an unbelievable game against the undefeated colts, and we now, for the third time in the last five years, have to rely on our back up QB to take our already struggling team to the Promised Land.

All I can ask is that if there is a God, will He, She, or It at least realize that we Philadelphians have been to Hell already and back again, and it really wasn’t fun. You gave Boston a chance to reverse their curse, now will you give us ours?