Crossing Broad
Editor’s note: this is a guest post from Los Angeles screenwriter Max Reinhard, who has worked on Stranger Things, House of Lies, and numerous short films and commercials. He’s co-written a movie that may be coming out later this year.
We find ourselves in the NFL off-season: a wasteland of boredom, free agency, and trade rumors. With no live football games to occupy my time, I’m forced to ask the big questions? Who am I? Why are we here? How long can I stare at this blank wall until the season starts?
I’m an Eagles fan. I’m still coming down from the high of a Super Bowl pummeling of the Chiefs. It was a magic season, a glorious playoff run, and I’m only now beginning to accept the cold hard truth that I was actually not even a part of the team.
While there are no games to play, I can still think of football. But let’s think deeper. Beyond the stats. The records. The rankings. The minutes on the game-clock will always hit zero and the excitement and energy of the game will fade away, but the virtues and beliefs of a great team are evergreen – make that ever(Eagles)green.
What did this Eagles season teach me? It taught me that you win by running the damn ball, that it helps when you nail the draft every year, and that defense wins championships. Those are great lessons, sure, but none is really relevant to my life as a regular quasi-geriatric millennial writer with occasional lower back pain.
When I really think about it, the Eagles’ 2024 team touched me on a personal and emotional level. I feel wiser and happier after watching this season. Perhaps that’s the result of a light head from jumping up and down after Patrick Mahomes’ sixth sack of the Super Bowl. Or perhaps it’s because, if you were paying attention, the Eagles’ 2024 season contained so many life lessons about the human condition.
Those lessons:
Learning from adversity, not running away from it
Head coach Nick Sirianni constantly preached this to his team. “Adversity can teach us things that ease never could,” he said, “but only if we embrace it.”
This team and its players dealt with their fair share of adversity. From a near-Super Bowl win two years ago to a brilliant start and even more horrific ending last year. Knives were out for Sirianni after he shaved his head and bickered with his own fans (during an Eagles win, no less). The team’s offense looked disjointed at times. Yes, adversity aplenty. But the team embraced the adversity. They learned from it. They were not defined by their low points. Their low points only taught them what they could do better.
So often in my own life I have felt defined by adversity, and adversity was not a kind teacher. It was a ghoul, a ghost of my future life, telling me that whatever pain or shortcomings I was dealing with at the...
