Hail Mary

From what I hear on the radio and read in the papers I am not the only one who was very frustrated with the Philadelphia Eagles this season. At times during the season many fans wanted to get rid of the coach and quarterback- or one or the other. I wanted to see Andy Reid gone- I'd had enough of his stubborn arrogance. I wanted the team to lose some more games in the crazy hope that ownership would be forced to make some off-season changes. I'd seen too many stupid play calls and enough poor clock management (for God sakes you've been a head coach for 10 years- learn how to handle your timeouts) The Eagles follies of mid-season can be summed up in two words for those in the know- over time (If you're not in the know you're probably not reading this anyway) But I'm not really here to write about all the bad things this year- I want to talk about the miraculous last month or so.

Now I'm not the same crazy, cursing at the TV superstitious Eagles fan I was for so many years. I'm still very bitter- Philadelphia fans may never lose that no matter how many trophies our teams hoist, but Eagles losses don't ruin my week like they once did. Several factors play in to all of this, but a major one is the litany of disappointments this team has visited upon its fans, well for almost 50 years now. Several of these disasters have happened in the game they are about to play in a few hours- the NFC Championship. They have been to four of them so far in the last ten years and they are 1-3. Two of them are remembered as some of the worst losses in team history. But still, fans are very optimistic this time too. No one is really afraid of the Arizona Cardinals no matter who is on the team. In the past we were a dominant team, winning our division and conference. This time we slipped into the playoffs through a very rapidly closing window. A few months ago the Eagle's didn't have a Santa's chance on a cold day at Franklin Field of making the playoffs. Now everyone is again saying: "Why can't us?"

I've been thinking of the end of this season as one big hail Mary pass. That's when the quarterback is so desperate he rears back and lets the ball fly-praying that it will come out well. A team that had a hail Mary's chance of making the post season is now on the verge of becoming legendary. The pass went up against Dallas in the last game of the seaon and has been flying past the Vikings and Giants. We are all now ready to watch and put ourselves on the line again waiting to see where the ball will land.