Essay and drawing copyright 2002 by Barrie Maguire
The Eagle has landed.
I woke up in the
middle of the night a couple nights ago. Immediately,
various nagging worries and unsolved problems began to open up dialogues in my brain. But was I doomed to lie wide-awake in the dark,
worrying, for the next three hours? Absolutely
not. I had strong medicine on hand: I had The Eagles Game to think about. So I thought about Donovan McNabb, ripping free of
those grasping Bear paws, drifting to his left -- buying time -- then abruptly muscling a
rocket into the arms of Cecil Martin kneeling all alone in the end zone; I saw Jon Runyan
flying through the air and Jeremia Trotter chopping wood and McNabb again, rising up to
slam dunk over the cross bar. The next thing
I saw was the sun shining through my bedroom window.
Ahh, the
Iggles. When they are bad, it feels
very, very bad, but when they are good, they are Prozac. Philadelphia has always
belonged to the Eagles. Me, I go back to 1948, when my dad took me to Shibe Park and
my first Eagles game, nothing less than a championship victory over the Cardinals
(Chicago) in a blinding blizzard ten times worse than the snow flurries at last week's
patirots-Raiders game.
Since those World
Titles in ’48 and ‘49, we Eagles fans have had few bright moments on our Trail
of Tears. Sure, in 1960 we screamed ourselves
hoarse while Concrete Charlie lay on top of a furiously wiggling Jim Taylor as the clock
ran out and the Eagles became Champions of the World.
But just a year later we read in horror that our edgy young quarterback,
Sonny Jurgenson, had been traded to the Redskins for solid-citizen Norm Snead and we knew,
intuitively, that we were doomed. Thus
followed years of bland nice-guy-coaches (Kuharich, Williams, Campbell, Khayat, McCormick)
and rosters that sent only one or two players to the Pro Bowl each year. Dick Vermeil (and Wilbert Montgomery) briefly
changed things, but after the Raiders pulled our pants down in the 1980 Super Bowl, even
Vermeil’s success felt like a fluke; the Eagles sank below the surface again. Until along came Buddy Ball.
God, Philly loved
Buddy Ryan, even if the sportswriters didn’t. We
loved his attitude, his blitzes, his “go ahead and lateral it to somebody”
approach to the game. But Buddy couldn’t
“network upward” very well and he was canned and we were handed Rich Kotite who
everyone knew would be a loser. We were right
again. After a few years Ray Rhodes made the
Eagles semi-good again, but once Buddy’s players were all gone the Eagles were back
at the bottom.
Then, hallelujah! Along came the Walrus and his Plan. And here we are at the NFC championship game. Philadelphia’s feeling pretty damn good
today. We know that whoever wins in St. Louis
will be the Super Bowl favorite. We love
being twelve-point ‘dogs. We know that
our gritty, gut-check defense will give us a shot at beating the narcissistic Rams. We know it’s going to be a hell of a game. Everything’s in place.
And you know what
else we know? Even if Marshall Faulk manages
to beat us with a couple of spectacular runs, and we don’t make it this year, we know
we’ll be back next year, stronger. Because,
honest to God, this Eagles team is poised to give us the best string of successful seasons
we’ve had since… since ever.
So win of lose,
sleep well tonight. The Eagle has landed on
Billy Penn’s hat. And this time he’s
here to stay.
***
1/27/02