I’m fortunate, as someone who was born in the mid 1990s, that I never had to convince myself that Bubby Brister or Bobby Hoying was ever “The Guy” for the Eagles. By the time I had concrete memories, the Birds had found themselves a young franchise quarterback in Donovan McNabb. The first season I can remember intently following the Eagles was the 2001 campaign and, really, what an introduction it was to Eagles football and the NFL at large.
McNabb was as exciting as anyone in the sport. They were great defenders everywhere with Brian Dawkins, Jeremiah Trotter, Bobby Taylor and others. Across the league, I loved watching players like Peyton Manning, Priest Holmes, Terrell Owens, Brian Urlacher and Kurt Warner.
The Eagles were good. I had little concept of anything other than the Eagles routinely winning games and beating opponents. When they clinched the NFC East in Week 16 in a narrow win over the Giants, their first division of my lifetime, I was jubilant. It was my first-ever sports triumph. A Super Bowl-less existence that older generations had lived through was not yet ingrained in me. I was just rolling with the wins.
What naturally comes after your first sports triumph, unless you’re a young millennial who was born in the New England area, is your first crushing sports disappointment. The playoffs came and the Eagles were at home and they took care of business against the Buccaneers. A team from Tampa coming to Philadelphia in January? They could never win! Anyway… the Eagles went to Chicago the following week and upset the Bears with McNabb dunking the ball through the goal post following a game-sealing touchdown run burned into my brain.
Awesome stuff. The Eagles were a game away from the Super Bowl. I was assured by family members that this never happens, but, hey, it felt pretty simple enough to me. Standing in their way was… the then-St. Louis Rams, the Greatest Show on Turf, the best offense the sport had ever seen.
The Rams were double-digit favorites, but the Eagles held their own. They were actually up 17-13 at half on the road against a team that had won the Super Bowl two years prior and featured two players who had combined for the three most recent MVP awards. The Rams came back and found their groove with all-world back Marshall Faulk, but the Eagles were in a position for a comeback of their own late in the fourth quarter.
Trailing 29-24, the Birds had the ball at their own 45-yard line with 2:20 remaining on the clock. They could’ve won it! That’s the type of drive where legends are made. Unfortunately for the Eagles, McNabb was throwing to the likes of James Thrash, Freddie Mitchell and Todd Pinkston. A fourth-and-seven pass attempt from McNabb was picked off by future Hall of Famer Aeneas Williams and that was it. The Birds lost and I had my first experience of sports heartbreak.
I was upset, but I assumed they would be back the next year. And they were! Then disaster struck again, and the following year and the year after that… It became a shared existence until Feb. 4, 2018.
I was born in South Philly, not too far from the Sports Complex itself. It was clear that I would eventually become an Eagles fan one day and that season I truly did. On that day though, the 2001 NFC Championship Game, in retrospect, I feel like I really became a Philadelphian though. The 2002 NFC title game was the worst of those Andy Reid-era losses, but that was the beginning of it all for me. I was sucked in and hooked, through high highs and low lows, for life.
When the Eagles square off against the Rams on Sunday, their “Snow Bowl II” playoff matchup from this past winter will be fresh on people’s minds. That’s great! What an iconic victory. I hope that was a part of someone else’s first Birds playoff run. A different Eagles-Rams postseason game, sadly, is the one that sits with me the most.
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