Super Big Game Day

#FlyEaglesFly 

It's hard for me to know now if I've been an Eagles fan since I first played Tecmo Super Bowl, or if it all started when I first gorged myself on $5 boxes of 1990 Pro Set. In any case, somewhere around that time, I declared myself for House Eagles and have watched (and sometimes not watched) all the ups and downs since then.

NFL has always come in a distant third in terms of my professional sports fandom, but I have memories of watching every Super Bowl going back to 1982 (coincidentally, the first one after the Eagles first one.) Technically speaking, I listened to most of Super Bowl XXXVII on the radio on a drive back home on I-5, but I caught some of it on the air at least. Still, I really didn't delve into actually paying attention to the league as a whole until Randall Cunningham came along and made me root for sports played largely on the opposite coast.

I'm excited about today's game. I rarely have a rooting interest in this game, so my usual witty banter will probably be kept at a minimum today as a I actually get excited and/or cringe at each play. I won't be devastated or surprised by a loss, but I'll be rooting hard for Nick Foles, Fletcher Cox, Malcolm Jenkins, Jay Ajayi, Alshon Jeffery and (Ducks!) LeGarrette Blount and Kenjon Barner. And a lot of other players I didn't mention! Like... Jake Elliott! He kicks bombs! Hey, I named a bunch of football players. Look at me.

Enjoy the game. Enjoy the nachos. Enjoy Justin Timberlake, I guess. Go Eagles!

I'm Done With the Eagles (and the NFL by Proxy)

I realized at the beginning of the last NFL season that my interest in the sport had waned considerably over the years. I kept looking for things to keep my interest and had even entertained the idea of occasionally writing something NFL-related for this blog. Eventually, I found my interest disappearing altogether with the Philadelphia Eagles disappointing start to their season, culminating with the 13-13 tie with the horrendous Bengals in Week 11. Eventually their play improved enough to get the team in the playoffs where they were surprisingly just a twist or turn away from making it to the Super Bowl.

This year, I began to ask myself the same questions as last. Why should I care about the NFL? What can I do to get more engaged in the games that my favorite team plays? Last season I even tinkered with a fantasy team, but it wasn't nearly as interesting to me as fantasy baseball is, since there seems to be less managing and more watching and finger-crossing.

But things had already started unraveling. The heart and soul of the Eagles, Brian Dawkins, was unceremoniously dumped. Backup running back Correll Buckhalter, who was a hard luck favorite of mine, joined the mass exodus which also included Lito Sheppard, Greg Lewis, LJ Smith and Tra Thomas. As much as I can admit that the team had probably overacheived in reaching the NFC Championship game, I don't really feel that the addition-by-subtraction plan was going to help the team a whole lot. The Dawkins thing really hit me the most, however, and it really made me question my allegiance to a team I've followed since fairly early on in Randall Cunningham's career.

And then, today, this happened. I'm done with this team.

At least I'll still have Tecmo Super Bowl.

[To be continued...]