Star Tribune/MCTAll my life I grew-up in a Philadelphia sports fan family; it’s simply in my blood to love these teams that never seem to pull through for me.
When it comes to the Eagles, I remember watching them when Randall Cunningham was leading the team as quarterback. In those years, they never made it to the Superbowl with him, so why should it surprise me if they do nowadays.
I said one thing to many people at Cabrini, especially to the other editors in the newsroom. “If the Philadelphia Phillies would come back to win the wildcard, or even better, catch-up to the New York Mets and take the division, there is no way that the Eagles are going to make the playoffs.” I truly stick to this comment because let’s just face it fans, the biggest teams in the Philly area can’t do it both in the same year.
Let’s break this down and look at the teams in the National Football Conference, or even more, in the NFC East. We have the Cowboys at 6-1, the Giants at 6-2 and the Redskins at 4-3.
Then we have our soaring “birds” at 3-4, two weeks ago losing on a lousy, and I mean lousy attempt to play defense on the Chicago Bears with just under one minute left in the game. I actually had doubts this past weekend when we stepped into play the Minnesota Vikings in their territory, whom had the same record as us, and pulled out the win. I believe that this win could be credited to Donovan McNabb who showed much more life than the week before.
I cannot believe after 21 years that I actually feel this way but I think my positive attitude about my teams went down the drain when the Phils broke my heart.
Don’t get me wrong, the Colorado Rockies really gave it to my team but I didn’t see that heart in the All-Stars of the squad and that made me feel that those men were just settling for making the play-offs for the first time since 1993.
And now, I think I have that heartless feeling instilled in me and I think my Eagles are just settling to take a last place finish simply because they know they have the worst record as of now.
Because I loved the Eagles all my life, I took such a strong, strong hatred for “America’s Team,” the Dallas Cowboys, whom we will take on this weekend.
I just hated them ever since the years of Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman and I hated seeing them sit on their high horses and stomp on Philly.
Now, I have to sit back again and watch them win, week after week, except for when those amazing New England “Pats” handed their butts to them.
For some reason I have a gut feeling that there is yet another upset waiting around the corner for them and how great would that be if it would come to the last place team in the division?
Man oh man, I just think of how this season would be different if we kept Jeremiah Trotter, re-signed Jeff Garcia and Andy Reid had some guts to sit the Syracuse University alum McNabb on the pine after the great job Garcia did when he stepped in for the injured McNabb.
I came to the realization that I am going to start to have more faith in my second favorite team, the Indianapolis Colts, with the great coaching staff and the classy players that look like a team until the last second of the game.
Maybe in years to come, when I have my kids and I am watching the games every Sunday, I can see the Eagles win a Super Bowl but really, I don’t want to hold my breath. Maybe I will just watch the Flyers this year, or pray for the best for the 76ers.
