After the World Series, my friends and I joked about Philly making a deal with the devil. After 25 long years, the city finally wins a championship? Someone had to sell his soul for that to happen, right? But we were certain the agreement concluded with the parade back in October. We were wrong.
Turns out the pact has yet to expire.
How else to explain the way this Eagles season has gone? How else to explain the feel-good, 23-11 win over the Giants?
Yesterday, along with 10 other Eagles fans, I crammed into the world's smallest space to watch the game. It was my buddy Fearce's living room, which is actually a converted garage the size of a phone booth. (I don't think you could park a Cooper Mini in there, but whatever.) Combine the close quarters with the fact that the Birds started slowly, and you'd have expected a riot from that crowd. Or, at the very least, some reflexive vandalism.
Instead, everyone was fairly positive from the beginning. Maybe that was because the World Series had softened us. Maybe that was because everyone kept saying how the Eagles had been "playing with house money" since backing into the playoffs. Maybe it was because, even though the Eagles didn't play so well at the start, the Giants were even worse. Or maybe the good mood is our reward for all those years of suffering.
However this has happened, the season that once made so many of us blind mad has taken an unanticipated turn indeed. Anyone who says he foresaw the Eagles advancing to the NFC championship game in Arizona is either highly medicated or a shameless liar.
Either way, here the Eagles are - one game away from another Super Bowl. One game from sending another Philadelphia team to Tampa for the second momentous sporting event in just over three months. Incredible.
Best of all, while the Eagles are on the way up, yet another New York team is finished. While my friends - and probably yours, too - were rejoicing after the sixth-seeded Eagles dispatched the overrated Giants, the television cut to a commercial. As Daniel Powter's "You had a bad day" pumped through the speakers, you couldn't help but think of Eli Manning and the Giants - and smile.
Say what you will about the Prince of Darkness, but the guy delivers.
Andy Reid: Credit where it's due: That was an awfully nice win.
