Champions of the Football World!
February 10, 2025
Congratulations to the fantastic sports fans of Philadelphia. Savor this. Allow this amazing feeling to envelope you and your family. The memories from this moment will pass down from generation to generation. This is why you became a sports fan, and your parents before you, and your grandparents before them.
And yes, because you’re a Philadelphia sports fan, embrace the other side of the story, too. Lock in the sight of Andy Reid looking befuddled on the sideline, of Patrick Mahomes appearing shell-shocked after another sack, of Travis Kelce recoiling at the bitter taste of defeat.
As the final minutes were ticking off the clock in an old-fashioned Super-Bowl blowout – Eagles 40, Chiefs 22 – my mind dialed back seven years ago to my first (and only) Eagles championship at WIP. It was such a glorious time, but no more so than this.
Back then, there were countless stories about how families were bonded by their love for the Eagles and by the feelings they shared when the Birds finally won the Super Bowl. People who were ill died days or weeks later, kept alive by their desire to experience that moment, this moment we are all sharing right now.
This is why you are willing to endure all of the tough losses, all of the frustrations over bad coaching, puzzling mistakes and dumb comments. This is the reward for seasons – sometimes decades – of unhappy endings. This feeling may not be as wonderful as the first view of a new son or daughter, or of a bride on your wedding day, but it’s the next best thing. Embrace it. You earned it.
Congratulations.
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One of the things I finally got to appreciate when the Phillies won the championship in 2008 and the Eagles in 2017-18 is the impact these huge moments have on our appreciation of the sports we love so much.
Here’s how our perception of the 2024-25 Eagles will change as a result of the Super Bowl 59 win:
- The debate over Jalen Hurts is over. He is a
champion now, and he played like one on the biggest stage. He will be known as the greatest Eagles QB in the modern era, both because of recency bias and because Nick Foles was really only a hero for one season.
- Vic Fangio will be a hero, too. He turned one of the
worst defenses in the NFL into the best, and then he saved the defining performance for the Super Bowl. At the half, the Eagles had 24 points, and had given up 23 yards. Against Mahomes and the Chiefs, that is impossible.
- And let’s not forget Kellen Moore, the offensive
coordinator who is headed back to New Orleans as their new head coach. He proved he could entertain a new job and still finish the current one brilliantly, unlike Jonathan Gannon and the ugly way Super Bowl 57 ended.
- Saquon Barkley didn’t dominate on the ground in the
big game, but he got them there. The Giants will always resent the Eagles even more now because their player won the Super Bowl in his first season here. Good.
- Zack Baun and Cooper DeJean will be etched in the
minds of Eagles loyalists forever now, too, for their big interceptions against Mahomes when the game was still in doubt. Add rookie Quinyon Mitchell to the mix and you’ve got a troika of young heroes who are the foundation of future Eagles championships (we hope).
- The biggest hero of all wasn’t on the field until the
very end, GM Howie Roseman, who not only had the best off-season of any Philly sports executive ever, but who built arguably the best roster in the team’s history. None of this happens without Howie.
- And then there’s Nick Sirianni. I will never be a fan,
but he is a champion, too. The scene with the Gatorade proved that his players love the guy, even if I don’t see exactly why. Nick takes his place now with Doug Pederson as our only Super Bowl-winning coaches. (Not Andy Reid, by the way, who failed 14 times.)
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I would be remiss if I didn’t spend a couple of more minutes gloating over what happened on the other sideline, foiling what would have been a nauseating display of three-peat honors for Reid, Mahomes and Kelce.
First of all, if you think Reid was any more forthcoming in the moment of his worst defeat, guess again. The robot was back, with more boilerplate responses to the valid question of how this supposedly great coach could get crushed the way he did.
“Too many turnovers and too many penalties,” he said. “Against a good football team, you just can’t do that. Vic Fangio does a nice job with that defense. They played well. They’ve got good players, a good scheme and they executed better than we did. They coached better. It starts with me. They played better.”
(Speaking of penalties, after the phantom call against A.J. Brown on the first drive, the refs actually called a fair game. The Eagles ended up with eight penalties, to KC’s seven, though, preserving the Chiefs’ record of 13 straight playoff games with favorable officiating.)
Secondly, Mahomes will spend the rest of his career trying to live down what happened in New Orleans on Sunday. He wasn’t just bad: he was awful. Swarmed by pass rushers, he threw the ball short, long and into the hands of Eagles defenders. Maybe this offseason he can spend more time on his career and less on ad campaigns.
And finally, there’s Travis Kelce. The look on his face as he left the field at halftime, down 24-0, was what I will remember most about the game. The Eagle-centric crowd had booed his girlfriend Taylor Swift so much, TV cameras avoided her for most of the game. Then he laid an egg on the field. Travis needs to follow his brother Jason into retirement. Old players don’t come back from losses like this.
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The victory parade is scheduled for Friday. Millions of fans will turn out, and they will feel the same joy four days from now that they are savoring right now. What I learned from 2018 is that the vibe stays with us for months. I plan to enjoy the moment from afar now, my time in the spotlight long past.
But I could not be happier for the fans and for the city than I am right now. The most passionate fans in America have something spectacular to celebrate. Bring your kids. Make memories. Create new fans. Enjoy.
No fans anywhere deserve this more than you do.