The funniest question my friends and I asked each other growing up was: “What will you do when the Eagles win the Super Bowl?” The emphasis is on “when” not “if.” We all believed, for so long and hopelessly, that this team would bring us wins and parades and parties and fulfill all our dreams.
February 4, 2018 is the most mythical day in Philadelphia history, as the Eagles finally won their first Super Bowl. The expectations for this night were impossible compared to the legend everyone had already constructed in our minds, and the Birds’ first Lombardi Trophy exceeded anything we could have imagined.
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Eight years later, I’m still amazed every day by what happened on the road to the championship.
Carson Wentz is injured. Knee from Keanu Neal. Interception by Patrick Robinson. Tori Smith’s Flea Flash Trap. Nick Foles plays the prodigal son. This all happens before the team heads to Minnesota for the big game!
The Eagles won the Super Bowl in the most incredible way, in what will go down as one of the greatest championship games of all time. The Eagles have a backup quarterback, a backup left tackle, a coach everyone expected to be fired before this year, and the everlasting power of friendship. Their opponent? This is the greatest quarterback-coach duo in the history of the sport! When they win it all, they won’t just outdo teams like the Jaguars or Browns. They’re going to have to go into the lion’s den and kill Tom Brady and Bill Belichick.
They did it!
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On his best day ever, Doug Pederson outshone the greatest defensive minds in football history. Foles, the former messiah, outcast, Philadelphia winter patron saint, beat the GOAT on the sport’s biggest stage. Corey Clement is an undrafted rookie free agent who started training camp at the bottom of the depth chart and is playing like Marshall Faulk. Backup tight end Trey Burton threw the most famous touchdown in Eagles history. Brandon Graham changed the trajectory of his entire career. That doesn’t make much sense at the moment! Still not working!
I watched the entire game with a mini trash can between my legs because I thought I was going to vomit from the nerves the whole time. I didn’t cheer. Who was the halftime performer that year? Beats me. Before the start of the third quarter, I was in the backyard of a rowhouse in South Philly, hyperventilating. I felt like my entire existence was hanging in the balance. Oh my god, I’m 23 again!
Like many people in the city, I took to the streets after the victory. We popped champagne, smoked cigars, hugged friends old and new, and soaked up the first day of the rest of our lives.
The Eagles winning the Super Bowl changed everything for me. I always knew it would happen, but the extent of it was unimaginable even for a daydreamer like me.
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A few days later, I met a woman at the Super Bowl parade, and it might just have been a social media adventure:
Well, we are married now.
Nick Fucking Falls, man.
Every night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have my wife, and oddly enough, I have the Eagles to thank.
What a team. What a city. What a wonderful life.
41-33 forever.
