Bleeding Green Nation
Eagles fans over 30 know that what we’re seeing right now ain’t normal.
I’m old enough to remember a time when the Eagles didn’t blow someone out every time they played in an NFC Championship Game.
I’m old enough to remember when it seemed like getting to the Super Bowl would require several miracles that had to be canonized by the Papacy. I’m old enough to remember Buddy Ryan’s first round failures, Rich Kotite’s inevitable bumbling, Ray Rhodes’ flameout, and Chip Kelly’s implosion.
I’m old enough to remember watching one Super Bowl highlight after another, year after year after year, and never seeing the Philadelphia Eagles in any but one of them. And let’s be honest, no one wanted to watch highlights of Super Bowl XV.
For most of my childhood and young adulthood, the Eagles either weren’t good enough to make the playoffs, were an early round exit if they got there, or were good enough only to bang on the steel door of the Super Bowl but never push their way in. There were times when the mountain seemed insurmountable. There was always someone better, or there was some performance or weakness that would cost the Birds a chance either play for, or win, a title.
Every year, it was something. Now, all of a sudden, the Eagles are in their second Super Bowl in three years and looking for their second title in eight.
The four years of the Nick Sirianni/Jalen Hurts era have been the greatest run of success in franchise history, and should not be taken for granted.
Between 1950 and 1977, the Eagles made the postseason once, winning it all in 1960 against Vince Lombardi’s legendary Green Bay Packers. That was one playoff appearance, albeit a very successful one, in 27 years.
Dick Vermeil arrived in 1976 and after two subpar seasons, reached the playoffs four straight years (1978-1981), beating the Dallas Cowboys in a legendary NFC Championship Game at Veterans Stadium and sending them to their first Super Bowl following the ‘80 season.
The Raiders smoked them in Super Bowl XV, 27-10. It wasn’t that close.
Once the Vermeil run ended with a thud, it would be 12 years before the Birds would win another playoff game. They lost in the opening round of the playoffs in 1988, ‘89 and ‘90 under Buddy Ryan.
There was the Fog Bowl against the Bears, when the Eagles were actually done in by weather that prevented anyone from seeing what they were doing. Successive losses to the Rams and Washington the following years led to Ryan’s contract not being renewed and the elevation of Richie Kotite.
They finally won a playoff game after the 1992 season, when Randall Cunningham, Reggie White and the crew went into New Orleans and beat the Saints in the wild card round. They spent all their powder in that come-from-behind victory and were summarily destroyed in the divisional round by the dynasty Dallas Cowboys, then repeated the same pattern in Ray...
