B...A...N...D...W......EAGLES!!!

I can’t tell you when precisely it was that I realized it. I’d like to tell you that it was on draft day in 1999 when Donovan McNabb was greeted with a round of boos from his newfound “fans”. Perhaps it could have been last season, when the decay of an entire defense was blamed on a hotheaded receiver whose clubhouse impact was apparently Ruthian in proportion. I’d like to tell you that I knew back then, but if I did…I would be lying. No, after nearly four years living in Philadelphia, it took me until midway through this season to realize that there are really only two words to describe the whole of Eagles nation. The words aren’t “die hard” and they aren’t “football smart”. No…to be brutally honest, if there’s one thing an Eagles fan loves more than Brain Dawkins himself or a great weekend down tha shore, it can be summed up in these two words…“fair weather".

Risking both our website popularity in local markets and possibly my life itself, I come before you, our loyal reader, with an outsider’s view from an insider’s perspective. Journalistic integrity being what it should be…I am not an Eagles fan. I happen to be a die hard supporter of another NFC East team which will heretofore remain unnamed (I’ll give you a hint – it ends in “edskins”). Regardless, I consider myself an open minded consumer of all sports products and I moved to the City of Brotherly Steaks with full intentions of making this work. Sure, we had our differences in the past – you worshipped QB #12 Eagles and I always wanted my mom to buy Charles Mann’s “Hungry Man” dinners at the grocery store, but we can get beyond that…right? Apparently not. Over the course of the past three plus seasons I’ve been subjected to every single Eagles game that local programming could throw at me. Undefeated Colts playing in New England late in the season? Too bad, we’ve got Eagles/Browns on your Eagles Network. Mike Vick had his throwing arm amputated and is taking on the Panthers while playing the entire game on a pogo stick? Not today my friend…the Niners are coming to town! And so it went. I confess… I kind of expected it...I was living in Philly after all. What I didn’t expect was that once a season had been decided (or in the aftermath of every “big loss”) there was only one group of people in the city with more apathy towards the team than me…their fans.

I take you back to September 2003. The season was merely weeks old and already the “fans” were restless. The team was 0-2 and things needed to change…quickly. The answer? Bench Donovan McNabb of course. What with A.J. Feeley being the second coming of Joe Montana it seemed to be a no-brainer. Perhaps…if one actually has no brains. Yet the talk persisted and so did the demands from the “fans”. McNabb was to blame for the slow start and only with his benching would the team come through. As a Redskins fan entrenched in a 10 year span of football that prognosticators might properly identity as “piss poor”, I was astonished. Didn’t this team just go to TWO NFC Championship games? Weren’t they led there by the very same player who Eagles Nation now wanted to bench for Heather Mitts' boyfriend? Weren’t they supposed to have gotten a handle on the crack epidemic 5 years ago? What was going on?

As my time in Philly continued, I began to get a grasp on what was a continuing trend. Eagles loss = public outrage = calls for firing/changes. TWO Eagles losses = public apathy = season is in the tank! It’s over! And that was all before week three.

To embody this fan sentiment in a tight visual depiction, one can picture the typical three year old child. Say the kid is playing in the park one day and he happens upon a small rock. Kid sees rock…kid does nothing…kid sucks his thumb. Adult picks up rock…shows it to kid…says “hot damn! this sure is the coolest rock I’ve ever seen!” and suddenly the kid can’t keep the rock out of his mouth. This lasts all of 5 minutes until Kid stumbles upon a different, bigger rock only to start all over again. Such is the way of sports viewership in the City of Balboa. Unfortunately, in Philly, not only does the kid move on to a different rock but he also spends the majority of his formative years bitching about how much that first rock “really just sucked.”

Case in point…Terrell Owens. C’mon now – we all knew who he was before he left San Fran for Baltimore…I mean…Philly. So here he comes…the king of Sharpies, barking at coaches and quarterbacks, and inappropriate celebrations. Basically a Ron Artest/Dennis Rodman for the NFL. Could we not see what was coming? T.O., as he came to be known, was welcomed to Philly with open arms. Soon #81 jerseys populated the area like squirrels in heat – we never had a chance. For the better part of one glorious season it all went splendidly. McNabb (the same one you wanted to bench a year before) was in pro bowl form and the Birds stormed their way through an NFC conference that happened to be a shade weaker than Paul Pfeiffer. Yet it all came crashing down after the Super Bowl. A season of turmoil followed as we learned that – SURPRISE! – Terrell Owens is a crazy asshole! In the aftermath of this shocker and another injury to McNabb, the Eagles season and their presence in the city essentially disappeared completely - I was even able to score tickets to the Eagles/Redskins season finale for well below face value! My economic triumphs aside, the fallout from the season of despair wasn’t looking good. The Iggles, as my local friends would tell me, “might have a shot at 9 wins…if they’re lucky."

Enter this season – the Birds start 4-1 and local pundits assure us that they are staring the Super Bowl in the face. The city is electric. For a while. Then the losses set in and so do the doubts. All this comes to a stirring conclusion in Week 10 when Donovan McNabb’s ACL decided it was time to get a headstart on the off-season Campbell’s commercials. So that was it…or at least I thought it was. For two glorious weeks the only arguing on sports-talk radio centered around when Andy Reid should be fired or who should be drafted to replace McNabb. Then along came the Panthers to spoil the relative peace and quiet. It has been mere hours but I can already hear the rumblings in the background. “The playoffs are in reach.” “Garcia looked good!” “The Giants sure do suck!” As the voices gather to a crescendo, I can only hope for a storm. This fair weather can’t last…can it? I won’t have to struggle through until Week 17 – will I? Perhaps Jeff ‘Latino Heat’ Garcia will throw an INT on his first attempt next week and expectations will again disappear. Either way, there will only be one response in my living room…

BOOOO!!!!

The opinions expressed in this article reflect the beliefs of this author and this author alone. Most of the other TalkingHeads zealously root for the Eagles week in and week out (so long as they win). I assure you that they do not condone nor agree with the opinions expressed in this article (unless of course the Eagles lose).