This season marks 15 years since the Birds did the impossible.
The Eagles were down 31-10 with a little over eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter against the Giants up in the swamps of Jersey. It was Week 15 of the 2010 campaign. Another season would be down the drain after early promise had everyone sucked into this team. It was the story of my life.
There were times when I was younger that if I was that frustrated with a game I may flat out turn it off or just go to bed at three 0’clock in the afternoon like a sick puppy. I just cared so much that, for a long time, the losses were just so, so brutal. This isn’t to say I had some grand thought that the greatest comeback in franchise history was about to happen, far from it. I’m glad I wasn’t a gigantic teenage baby that day.
I doubt I need to rehash most of what transpired in the next eight minutes of the game for you, right?
Beyond the obvious heroics of DeSean Jackson and Michael Vick, the run-after-the-catch from Brent Celek for the first act of the miracle and David Akers’ ensuing perfectly executed onside kick were absolutely aces. Do not forget their parts in this! Vick’s most well-known game as an Eagle remains the “Monday Night Massacre” against Washington, but, to me, this was his true peak of his entire career. A team was up by multiple touchdowns against the Birds with only minutes remaining in the contest and their defense was absolutely terrified of what this guy would do. He was in complete command.
Then there was Jackson’s return. If he doesn’t drop it and fumble it from the start, he probably doesn’t score and I’m not writing about this right now. Hell, I might not be writing about sports at all if he doesn’t. Back in 2010, it was rather recent that Jackson dropped a football before crossing the goal line against the Cowboys, so everyone watching Jackson (wisely) scamper around and run out the clock were also thinking, “Please, please, please, actually get in the end zone…”
I watched the game with my dad. Before Jackson’s touchdown, we’re full on standing up, hands on our knees as we await his return, yelling at him to get this done like we were actually in the second row and he could hear us. When Jason Avant destroyed a Giants special teamer for the TD-sealing block, we went wild. I had never jumped higher or screamed louder. Our dog was barking her head off. It was pure pandemonium in our South Philadelphia row home.
In a pre-2017 world, this stood as the peak of the Eagles for me. In retrospect, that might be sad. It was a regular season game in a year in which the team didn’t even win a playoff game. That speaks to how spoiled (which isn’t a bad thing!) Birds fans have become. It’s because of those high highs that inevitably led to crushing lows that built the character of this fandom, however, the moments that made these two Super Bowl wins so much sweeter than they would’ve been if you grew up watching parade after parade.
I’m 31 now. That was roughly half a lifetime ago for me. I can simultaneously feel myself back in my parents’ living room for this like it just happened while it also comes off as a fever dream in a universe we no longer inhabit. It was everything that’s magical about sports in one swoop on that final punt return, seeing something that never happened before, seeing something you couldn’t fathom happening a short while prior and being with your loved ones for it all. Now that’s living.
As the Eagles take on the Giants on the road once more on Thursday night, let’s hope that no miracles are needed in the Meadowlands this time around…
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