Tuesday Eagles Hangover: Own The Moment (!)

Well well well.  Kind of a big game coming this Sunday, huh? 

The Eagles will make their first trip to the Cowboys' new stadium with not only the NFC East title but also a potential first-round bye available to the good guys with a win.  Let us all tip our caps to the NFL schedule makers for getting this game extremely correct.  Sure, these same two teams played in Week 17 last year (and have met in the final three weeks of the season four years running, with the Eagles winning each time), but hey, maybe this year will be different (though I desperately hope it won't be).  The networks even spared us flexing the game to Sunday night and kept it on FOX in the late-game slot.  All the better -- it'll be tough enough to make it to Sunday, let alone Sunday night.   

I've got a little post-game, a little pre-game, and some Haterade this fine morning. 

An acronym which has shockingly not yet surfaced at IgglesBlog.  Say what we will regarding Gregg Easterbrook's TMQ column on ESPN, but for enthusiasts of fabricated football-related acronyms (which of course we are) it would be criminal not to mention KRUMBLE, popularized by TMQ and translating as a "kickoff-return fumble," and which he argues "is the most devastating turnover, since the team that just scored immediately gets the ball back."  Yup.  If you're looking to blow a 17-point lead, the KRUMBLE really works like a charm.  Thanks, Macho (#1). 

Alternate methods in re: the blowing of 17-point leads.  Right when your team gets a big turnover to swing the momentum of the game, you'll want to try to take what amounts to a 50-yard penalty that pins your team a couple yards from their own goal line.  Thanks, Macho (#2).

Tiny details that I imagine made us all shudder a bit.  When Macho Harris KRUMBLEd the second time, was it Victor Abiamiri who pounced on the ball on the near sideline?  Anyone else get a creepy flashback to the NFC Championship Game at Arizona last year, with Abiamiri scrambling for the ball along that same sideline?  Thanks, Macho (#3). 

The opposite of Macho.  Sure, Macho is a rookie who probably played more snaps (defense plus special teams) than he had all season.  But contrast his efforts with the other rookie who played a lot of snaps (coming off an injury no less), the One Who May Have Won The Game.  It's very difficult not to be excited about Jeremy Maclin and what the Eagles will be playing at wideout for the next 4-5 years.  Not to put too fine a point on it, but plays like that catch along the sideline are what made Maclin a first-round draft pick.

This year, the marketing department got a jump on the playoffs.  Unlike last year when they were caught looking a bit, this year the Birds marketing department knew that the team was playoff-bound by Week 15.  And this earned us..."Own The Moment"?  Though I don't really know what it means, at least they used the Eagles uniform name font and not that crappy grainy Courier thing from 04 and 06.

(And now, we let the Haterade flow.)

Fah-Vuh-Ruh, Fah-Vuh-Ruh.  So it's bad enough that the national media and MNF crew have to engage in the Fah-Vuh-Ruh slurpfest every time a certain #4 takes the field.  But to have to suffer through it from Eagles writers?  I know, I know, it's an easy target, but how can a professional football writer in 2009 assume that Fah-Vuh-Ruh is going to win a close game in the cold?  Isn't there plenty of evidence to the contrary?  Also, why would one proclaim -- in the third quarter -- that the Eagles weren't going to get the #2 seed? 

Another traditional favorite (Haterade-wsie, at least).  Matt Mosley posted his NFC East Pro Bowl "possibilities" yesterday.  He suggested two quarterbacks from the NFC East should be under consideration, and neither was named Donovan McNabb.  Huh.  I'm shocked.  No really.  I am.  Passer ratings of Romo, McNabb, Manning, respectively: 97.0, 94.5, 94.2.  So why does Dunavin get left out, Matt?  Because his team won the most games?  Because he has the highest YPA of the three?  Because he missed two games after suffering a cheap shot from some jackass and still threw for 3,000+ yards?

Who profits from this sort of speculation?  I'd been pretty mellow in re: most of the local columnists of late, but does Phil Sheridan need to be extrapolating all sorts of things in order to raise our collective blood pressure? 

Given their careers and the public pressures each man faces, it would be especially galling for McNabb to watch Romo surpass him on the way to a Super Bowl title. That happened once upon a time to Randall Cunningham, whose only playoff win as an Eagle was followed by a blowout loss to the burgeoning Troy Aikman-led Cowboys dynasty. And it happened to McNabb when Eli Manning was able to lead the Giants to a championship a couple of years ago.

Remember all that talk about the Hall of Fame a few months ago? McNabb's career numbers would look that much less impressive if he was the only NFC East QB of his era not to win a title.

Romo's having a lovely year, but let's not hand him that Lombardi trophy quite yet, mmmkay?

This is going to be a brutal week, isn't it.  I mean, I'm usually excited about an Eagles game, but this week is easily in playoff-game territory, if not crazier.  At least the holidays and a field trip to Boston for hockey in the snow (and not rain, not rain, fingers crossed) will break it up a bit.

Now let us all cross our fingers and hope Sheldon Brown makes the Pro Bowl, which should make Paul Domowitch very happy.  I mean, even Derek can get behind Sheldon Brown for the Pro Bowl, right?