Can You Taste It?

I haven't felt like this since 2004.  That season was the last time Eagles fans could wake up in the morning knowing that no matter what happened from week to week, their team was going to be there, right at the end.

Philly fans take nothing for granted, obviously, but this Arizona match-up sets up really, really well.  You all know I spend every Monday obsessing about all the ways the Eagles could be exploited by their next opponent ... but that's not easy to do with this one.  A pass-happy team with a rattle-able QB and a weak secondary?  Man, that's sweet. 

Really, about the only thing you could hang your hat on is the extent to which Philly teams in general, and this Eagles team in particular, don't always do well with prosperity.  But that's just Negadelphia talking.

Arizona is obviously a good team, or they wouldn't have gotten this far.  For as much attention as the Eagles have been getting nationally, the Cardinals have looked pretty darn good the last two weeks.  And I wouldn't take too much away from that Thanksgiving game, when those guys were travelling on a short week after a bruising game against New York.  They'll be ready this time.

But so will our guys.  I'm confident of that.

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A few more reactions to the post-game discussions below, but first I want to re-post something I wrote in the comments.  It came in response to an "old timer" saying there's no reason to celebrate unless/until the Eagles win it all.  This pretty well sums up what I think about that approach to being a fan:

Anyone who wants to poop all over a back-from-the-dead playoff win over the defending Super Bowl Champion New York Giants can go find someone else's parade to rain on.

This season has been over twice -- once after the Ravens game, and then again after the barfjob against Washington. And now we're supposed to calmly ho-hum away the fact that we're 60 minutes from the Super Bowl and just took down the hated Giants to boot?

No way. Being a sports fan is not supposed to be an actuarial exercise, where he who dies with the most championships wins. If it was, why even watch the games? Just check the standings at the end of each season and see how the portfolio is doing.

The Eagles are close, man. This thing is wide open. I'm not going to wait until Jeff Lurie is passing around the trophy to get excited.

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Westbrook, when reasonably healthy, never makes just a small contribution.  I was all ready to tear apart the idea that the Eagles won practically in spite of Westbrook, and then this morning I saw this article that did it for us.

But his mere presence, hobbled or not, played a major role in the Eagles' surprising second-half production against the Giants.

With the New York defense carefully monitoring Westbrook's movements out of the backfield, quarterback Donovan McNabb found himself with plenty of room to work in the middle of the field.

On one of the biggest completions of the game - a 15-yarder from McNabb to Kevin Curtis that gave the Eagles a first down on the Giants 14-yard line with 2:42 remaining in the third quarter - Westbrook played a pivotal role, curling out of the backfield and drawing double coverage from defensive end Justin Tuck and safety Michael Johnson to open up the middle of the field.

"We ran a wide route and then had a little spot route inside of Brian and it opened up," offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg said. "We ran it a couple of other times as well . . . Just the threat of Brian Westbrook being on the field certainly affects our opponent."

There's more in there, but that's the gist.  Westbrook is the Eagles' Plaxico Burress -- and I mean that in the nicest possible way.  He's the scheme breaker you have to go all out to stop, opening up the rest of the offense.  He's worth a touchdown a game just by being dressed.

That two-week Super Bowl layoff looks pretty good right now, doesn't it?  No, I'm not looking past the Cardinals.  (Much more importantly, I doubt the team is either.)  But if the Eagles can somehow get through this game, that's two weeks of rest and recuperation for injured guys like Westbrook and Runyan, and plenty of time to recharge the batteries for the old dudes like Thomas and Dawkins. 

I've never liked the two-week layoff before now.

Of course the defense is good.  There's a funny little line of argument going around right now amongst those who would sooner curse their own mothers than give Reid or McNabb any credit for this team's success.  The idea is, basically, that the offense still sucks but the defense has bailed them out for so many weeks in a row that this doesn't really say anything good about the offensive guys.

Well.  Considering the Eagles have carpetbombed the defensive side of the football the last three years with first- (Bunkley and Patterson), second- (Laws and Abiamiri) and third-round (Smith, Bradley, Gocong) draft picks, along with signing huge (Samuel), nice (Howard) and under-the-radar (Clemons) free agents, it's not all that surprising that that's the side of the ball that's finally showing some serious game-changing potential. 

RIP: The Idea That Eli Manning Is An Elite QB.  Eli Manning is the perfect counter-example to the idea that winning a Super Bowl somehow defines a quarterback as being qualitatively different and better than the other guys who haven't managed that trick. 

Eli is a fine QB when the seas are calm.  When he's backed up by a great defense, a superlative running game, and the premier bail-out target in the league, he can look pretty good.  But we saw yesterday once again that if the guy has to win the game, rather than just manage it, he's no better than average.

The wind conditions were tough, sure, but Donovan did just fine with them.  And the Eagles defense is pretty darn good, but did you notice the Eagles didn't sack Eli a single time?  More than that, they really didn't even get that much pressure on him.  The blitzes weren't getting home and the front four was generally getting stuffed by a solid offensive line well-versed in the Eagles' schemes.  And yet still Manning looked flustered much of the day. 

I will say, in Eli's defense, that without Plaxico and Shockey, his receiving corps is looking a little Eagles-esque right now.  But with that many guys selling out to stop the run all day, at some point Mr. Super Bowl Winning Quarterback needed to make a play.  He didn't. 

Here comes the bandwagon.  This cracked me up:

The Cardinals sold out the 71,000-seat facility through a combination of telephone and online sales, plus in-person purchases at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.

When the Cardinals hosted the Atlanta Falcons in the first round of the playoffs, they needed an extension from the NFL to sell their remaining tickets and ensure the game would be televised locally.

Finally, looking for some more good signs?  Check this out.  The house style over there can be a bit over-the-top, but 18 of 19 is a nice little stretch.