My Favorite Eagles Moments

This year marks the beginning of another playoff run for my favorite NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles. It has been a very up and down season for the Eagles with injuries plaguing the team all year. In the end, they were able to overcome the obstacles, win the NFC East, and secure a first-round match-up with the Seattle Seahawks. However, I’m not here to write about that today. Instead, I’m here to reflect on seasons past. Whenever the Eagles are about to start a playoff run, I tend to think back on some of my favorite Eagles teams, players, and moments. To get everyone in the spirit, I wanted to share some of my favorite moments with you.

The 2017 Season

Okay, I figured I’d get this one out of the way first since it is the most obvious inclusion to this post. After years of let downs and heart-breaking finishes, the Eagles were finally able to win the Super Bowl! It took the most unorthodox path to get there, but it finally happened. 

It wasn’t until Jake Elliot nailed the 63-yard field goal against the Giants that I started to get the feeling that this was going to be a special year. Never before had I felt something quite like it. For a while, my feeling was correct. Carson Wentz was having an MVP caliber season and the Eagles were rolling past teams on a weekly basis. Then came the biggest tragedy of the season: Wentz goes down with a torn ACL and had to miss the rest of the season. I was legitimately devastated because of that special feeling I had.

Then Nick Foles came in. I had been familiar with Foles from the 2013 Eagles season where he led the team to the playoffs and lost a close playoff game in the Louisiana Superdome. He even went to the Pro Bowl and was MVP of the game! I was still upset over the loss of Wentz, but I was glad to have Foles be the one to fill in. 

My confidence in him paid off. He helped the Eagles escape the Atlanta Falcons in the divisional round, stomp on the Vikings in the NFC Championship game, and lead the Eagles past Tom Brady and the Patriots in Super Bowl LII. Speaking of which…

Super Bowl LII

Not only did the Eagles finally win the Super Bowl, but they did it in one of the most entertaining Super Bowls I’ve ever seen. It was a shootout from start to finish. One team would score, and the other team would come right back with a score of their own.

There are three key moments I think about looking back. The first is the Philly Special, which is without a doubt one of the gutsiest plays I’ve ever seen. It’s fourth and goal in the Super Bowl, and they decide to run a play that involves a direct snap to a running back who pitches it to the backup tight end who throws it to the quarterback in the end zone. I’ll let you watch it to your heart’s content here:

Then there’s Brandon Graham’s strip sack on Tom Brady for the game’s first turnover. Until this moment, I really didn’t know how the game would play out. Once that happened though, I knew that the game was even good hand. I felt that way even through the third key moment which was the final play of the game: A Patriots Hail Mary to the end zone. In that moment, that special feeling I felt the whole year was coming to realization. There was no way they score here. My hunch was right on.

Celebration ensued that night and for the rest of that whole month. I even went to the parade and froze my rear end off! The entire experience was a once in a lifetime feeling. I’ll leave this off with a picture of me and my crew going to the parade.

The 2010 Season

Thinking back on my history of Eagles fandom, 2010 is always a standout for me. Going into that year, I already knew this was going to be a season unlike any I had seen before. This was because this was going to be the first time in my Eagles fandom in which Donovan McNabb wasn’t our starting quarterback. The McNabb/Dawkins Eagles were a staple of my childhood, so leaving that era was a weird feeling for me.

This time, it was Kevin Kolb taking the mantle and becoming the franchise QB! That lasted for all of not even a game as he was concussed in the season opener against Green Bay. Then came in Michael Vick, the much-maligned former star of the Atlanta Falcons. I had no idea how he was going to perform in his first real starting snaps since his scandal. He ended up coming in and leading one of the most exciting seasons of Eagles football that I’ve ever seen. 

The bomb he threw to DeSean Jackson against Washington at the start of the game on Monday Night Football was simply amazing. This season was also home to the Miracle at the New Meadowlands. Before Super Bowl LII, this was my favorite Eagles game ever.

This season also had a lot of wild moments that didn’t go in the Eagles favor. To this day, one of the most disappointing games to me was the game against the Vikings that was moved to a Tuesday Night because of snow. This lead former PA governor Ed Rendell’s famous “nation of wusses” line. This was their chance to secure a playoff bye week. Instead, they squandered the opportunity lost to Joe Webb. To me, that was what ended the Eagles season. Because of that, they then had to play and subsequently lost to the eventual Super Bowl Champs, the Green Bay Packers, in the wild card round.

Despite the disappointing ending, I could not forget how awesome the season had been. Vick ended up being named NFL comeback player of the year, and for good reason. He simply put on a show, and it is a performance I won’t soon forget.

The 2006 NFL Season

At this point, I was still early on in my Eagles watching career. I had really started to watch the team during their 2004 Super Bowl run, and 2005 was my first full year of anticipating the season (and being treated with a 6-10 season). 2006 was our chance to finally escape the stench of the Super Bowl XXXIX loss and the failure of 2005 and start fresh.

It initially went off to a great start, with the team starting off 4-1 and McNabb putting up excellent numbers. The season then started to take a nosedive with the team going 1-5 over the next 6 games. In the midst of that, McNabb tore his ACL against the Tennessee Titans in week 11. This opened the way for former San Francisco standout Jeff Garcia.

I remember at the time people debating whether it should be him or AJ Feely who should take over after McNabb went down. Ultimately, they made the right decision. Faced with a 5-6 record, the team went undefeated in the month of December. This included a 3-week road trip to each of our division rivals culminating with a 23-7 win against the Cowboys on Christmas Day.

Garcia led us into the playoffs with a Rocky like spirit. I still have my commemorative Jeff Garcia shirt to celebrate the moment. The underdog spirit led us to a wild card round win against the Giants. Despite the season coming to an end the next week in New Orleans, I could not forget the unprecedented run we went on and how far we were able to get without McNabb.

I’ll leave this post off on that note. I could write about the Eagles all day, so I’ll save some of my other favorite moments for a future post. If you’re an Eagles fan, let me know some of your favorite memories. If not, then tell me about your favorite team. Thanks for reading, and fly Eagles fly!