Just Being A Fan

What a day. 

I got up in the morning furious that I wouldn't be able to watch the game, but not expecting it to matter much either way.  I kept tabs on all the early games on the drive to the airport by madly refreshing the "sportacular" app on my phone every 30 seconds.  I almost drove off the road when Tampa Bay pulled two scores ahead.

Ryan Longwell was lining up his 50-yarder right as we were coming out of the security line.  I saw the Minnesota players jumping around on the sideline and figured that might be it.  But then the final seconds counted down in Houston and Tampa Bay and improbably -- make that amazingly -- the Eagles were facing a win-and-in game against the Cowboys, the first half of which I got to watch in its glorious entirety as Southwest kept endlessly delaying our flight. 

By the time the cabin doors closed, both fumble return TDs had been scored and I could fly in full knowledge that it would have taken a collapse of epic proportions for the Eagles not to make the playoffs.

What a day.

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There really is a time and a place for everything.  The last few weeks, we've spent a lot of time discussing the things that seem to be wrong with this team.  Some of the coaches (a few of you), some of the players (a few of us).  All the little things that seemed to nag at a team that, in the end, did make the playoffs.

And while we're still going to see items like this over the next few days and think "hmmmm," at least for the next seven days we're not going to be talking about them here.  It's time only for talking about the Birds, the Vikings, the playoffs, and how happy I am that my DirecTV is now working again, thanks to a power outage that seemed to occur while we were in the air, serendipitously providing the reset our receiver needed.

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Hats off to the dude wearing the old school Eagles t-shirt in the Columbus airport today who came up to me in the bar and asked what the situation was with Oakland and the others.  You woke up this morning, knowing the long odds, knowing you were going to be nowhere near Phily, and recognizing the game probably wouldn't matter -- and still you pulled on the Eagles gear. 

Kudos also to the ladies to my left who had to listen to the guy who thought, "The Eagles just don't have any receivers except for that new rookie guy," would be some sort of effective pick-up line. 

There's just something about being in some random bar in some random city with at least a few of your home fans around that makes the world seem like an OK place for awhile.

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The last thing I want to do here before we move on to better things is apologize for this.  I've been wrong plenty of times before and will be wrong plenty of times to come, but I'm not sure I've ever been more wrong on this blog than I was when I wrote that.  Reid never even thought about quitting, which is why he took that tie and why the Eagles are in the playoffs today. 

It didn't have to work out that way.  In fact, it's only in spite of some ridiculously long odds that it did.  But it was the right move not because it worked out in the end, but because it allowed all that working out in the end to take place. 

Sorry, Andy, you got me on that one.