The most fun question my friends and I would ask each other growing up was, “What are you going to do when the Eagles win the Super Bowl?” There was an emphasis on the “when” there rather than the “if.” We were all believers, hopelessly so for so long, that this franchise would deliver us the victory, the parade, the party that would live up to all of our dreams.
Feb. 4, 2018 was the most mythologized day in the history of Philadelphia, the day the Eagles finally won their first Super Bowl. For an evening that had impossible expectations compared to the lore everyone had already crafted about it in our heads, the Birds’ first Lombardi Trophy exceeded everything we could’ve imagined.
Eight years later, I’m still amazed, legitimately on a daily basis, by what transpired on the path to that championship.
Carson Wentz’s injury. Keanu Neal’s knee. Patrick Robinson’s interception. Torrey Smith’s flea flicker catch. Nick Foles acting as the Prodigal Son. That was all before the team even made the trip to Minnesota for the Big Game itself!
The Eagles won the Super Bowl in the most improbable fashion in what will live on as one of the greatest championship bouts ever. The Eagles had a backup quarterback, a backup left tackle, a coach everyone wanted fired before the year and the everlasting power of friendship. Their opponent? Just the greatest quarterback-coach duo in the history of the sport! When they won it all, they weren’t going to just walk over the Jaguars or the Browns or something. They were going to have to go into the lion’s den and slay Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
And they did!
Doug Pederson, on his best day ever, out-coached the greatest defensive mind football has ever seen. Foles, the former-messiah-turned-castoff-turned-the-patron-saint-of-Philly-winters, out-dueled the GOAT on the sport’s biggest stage. Corey Clement, an undrafted rookie free agent who started training camp on the lowest rung of the depth chart possible, played like Marshall Faulk. Trey Burton, a backup tight end, threw the most famous touchdown in Eagles history. Brandon Graham changed the trajectory of his entire career. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense in the moment! It still doesn’t!
I watched the entire game with a mini trash can between my legs because I thought I would puke from nerves the entire time. I didn’t cheer. Who did the halftime show that year? Beats me. I was in the backyard of a South Philadelphia rowhome the entire time hyperventilating before the third quarter kicked off. I felt like the totality of my existence was hanging in the balance. God, to be 23 years old again!
Like many people across the city, I poured into the streets after the win. We popped champagne, smoked cigars, hugged friends new and old and soaked up the first day of the rest of our lives.
The Eagles winning the Super Bowl changed everything for me. I always knew it would, but the degree to which it did was unfathomable even to a daydreamer like myself.
In a bizarre and, dare I say it, cinematic turn of events, I met up with a woman at the Super Bowl parade a few days later in what might have simply amounted to a social media dare:
Well, we’re married now.
Nick freaking Foles, man.
Every night before bed and every morning I wake up, I’m reminded how lucky I am to have my wife and, strange enough, I have the Eagles to thank for that.
What a team. What a city. What a life.
41-33 forever.
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