Before Philadelphia’s amazing run to its first Super Bowl title in franchise history even got out of the gate, Eagles’ right tackle Lane Johnson made the following statement back in August in an interview with ESPN.
“I have a lot to prove to this city. I think if we have a few big years and make the playoffs, if we win a Super Bowl, I’m giving out beer to everybody.”
Following Sunday’s amazing 41-33 victory against New England and against all odds as underdogs throughout the entire postseason, the good folks at Bud Light backed him up by announcing that they would buy everyone in Philadelphia a beer via Thursday’s celebration parade.
Philadelphia should be the ones buying this entire team a beer. Multiple beers for the rest of the time that each member of this team remains in the City of Brotherly Love. In fact, I would go as far to say that the entire 53-man active roster, anyone on IR, the practice squad, coaching staff and anyone else employed by Jeffrey Lurie and the Eagles organization should never have to buy a drink again at any drinking establishment inside the five-county Philadelphia area. Throw in my old stompin’ ground in the Lehigh Valley, South Jersey and the entire state of Delaware for good measure.
The 2017 Eagles accomplished what 51 other team rosters could not. Two teams came close in 1980 and 2004 with Super Bowl appearances, but neither of those squads could seal the deal with everything on the line even with their starting quarterback (Ron Jaworski in ’80 and Donovan McNabb in ’04) on the field.
There were a few other good runs over the years, but somewhere along the line they all came up short.
I was hoping for a NFC East title this season after new head coach Doug Pederson led this team to seven wins in 2016 with first-year quarterback Carson Wentz at the helm. In my wildest dreams, I never expected to add a NFC Championship to the mix, let alone that oh so elusive Super Bowl title.
The 2017 Philadelphia Eagles will go down as being one of the best ‘teams’ to ever win a world title in the true sense of what being a team is all about. New England head coach Bill Belichick became well known for his simple mantra of ‘know your role, do your job’ and the Eagles followed that edict to a tee to beat the Patriots at their own game.
There are no egos on the 2017 Eagles. There are a number of great players, but no superstars that put their individual goals ahead of the collective goals of the group. You never heard a world from LeGarrette Blount when the Eagles traded for Jay Ajayi. Carson Wentz went out of his way to help Nick Foles prepare for this epic run while it seems apparent that Tom Brady did his best to run his backup Jimmy Garoppolo out of town.
Change is inevitable in the NFL and next season’s roster is bound to have a few new faces and a few missing from this year’s team. You wish you could hold time in a bottle and keep everything the same. However, that will (and probably should not) be the case.
The good news is that the basic core of this team will remain intact along with its heart and its sole. Doug Pederson should immediately be given a long-term contract (or at least longer than his current deal) and Howie Roseman should be given a huge raise. Signing existing free agents already on the team should be a top priority as opposed to shopping the market for players from other teams and keeping Nick Foles on the roster until Carson Wentz is 100 percent ready to go should be the plan at the quarterback position.
It is going to be a fun offseason for Eagles’ fans even if we have to wait until the 32nd pick of the first round of the draft for Philly to be ‘on the clock’. Wouldn’t you just love that to be the case every single year.
No comments:
Post a Comment