Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
For 1980 Birds, a chance to see a better end this time
PHILADELPHIA » The Eagles will play Sunday in the Super Bowl, and John Bunting will watch every touchdown, every broken play, every hit and every missed tackle that should have been a hit.
What he won’t do, not Sunday, maybe not ever, is watch that other Super Bowl, the first one the Eagles were in, the one where they showed that a favorite could be beaten in the championship game.
“Never,” recalled Bunting, the former Eagles linebacker, on the phone from his North Carolina home. “Never watched the film. Never.”
It was that kind of a moment for the Eagles, who have had too many, and that’s why Bunting and plenty of the 1980-81 NFC champions will hoping the Patriots will become the beaten favorite and that Philadelphia will finally celebrate what seemed so possible 37 years ago.
The Eagles were threepoint favorites over Oakland in Super Bowl XV in New Orleans. And why not? As recently as late that November they’d beaten the Raiders, 10-7, to improve to 11-1. And the game before, they blasted the Cowboys, 20-7, to roll into the Super Bowl. It was their time, 20 years removed from their last championship. Then … what? “I recently went over the play-by-play,” Bunting said. “And it was shocking how often we did not convert on third down in the first half on defense. And it was shocking to see how close we were to putting a drive together on offense and stay in the game. I remember halftime. We were not ourselves starting that second half. We were not confident. We had lost a lot of our belief in one another.”
The Raiders scored two first-quarter touchdowns and led, 14-3, at halftime, on their way to a 27-10 verdict that shook the Eagles’ franchise for years. Legend says that the Birds were too tight, with Dick Vermeil having kept them sequestered while in New Orleans, even as the Raiders were out on Bourbon Street, bottoms-upping hurricanes. While those who watched on TV still swear they saw fear in the Eagles’ eyes during pregame introductions, that never was the consensus from the players.
No, as Bunting indicated, that doubt came later, after they were staggered early and realized that the Raiders were not the same team that had so recently lost in the Vet.
“I’ll tell you exactly what happened,” said Bill Bergey, the middle linebacker. “We were so fired up for the Dallas Cowboys, and the score, 20-7, was not indicative of the way the game went because we could have beaten them, 55-3. People say, ‘Why couldn’t you carry that into the Super Bowl?’ Well, the fact of the matter is we couldn’t get to that same level of emotion. Mentally and physically, it just didn’t happen. And if you can’t get ready for the Super Bowl, what can you get ready for?
“I’m not going to say we were flat. But we got down 14 points real quick. It was still the first half. And me being the elder statesman, I was in the huddle, trying to get everybody fired up. And at that point, not one person looked at me. And I said, ‘I know we are going to get beat in the second half.’”
That was his instinct, and it was accurate. But it wasn’t necessarily the consensus.
“I think that Dallas game had something to do with it,” said tight end Ken Dunek. “But I also think the fact that Oakland had been there before was important. That’s a pretty big stage, the experience factor is important. I also think Dick Vermeil, and he has said this through the years, worked us too hard in that off week. We were out on the frozen turf at Veterans Stadium having full-contact practices. And I think if he had it to do all over again, he would have taken his foot off the gas. He was a great coach, and that was his way back then. He adjusted his style when he got to St. Louis, and it paid off when they won the Super Bowl.”
Like so many other of his 1980 teammates, Dunek finds it hard to believe that, all those Roman numerals later, the Eagles still have not won a Super Bowl. It doesn’t mean, though, that Philadelphia has not won a major-league football championship, because that was him, a tight end for the 1984 USFL champion Stars. And that was Bunting at linebacker. And that was Scott Fitzkee, who was on that Eagles Super Bowl team, at wide receiver.
“The Stars were a good team,” Dunek said. “They were NFL caliber; I don’t care what anybody says. Look at that lineup and go through the names like Sam Mills and Irv Eatman and William Fuller and Sean Landeta and Bart Oates. Kelvin Bryant. They were great players.”
They were great, NFLlevel great, and the championship mattered. But it was not the Super Bowl.
“And one of the biggest regrets of my life was that we were not able to bring that Lombardi Trophy back to Philadelphia,” Dunek said. “But we have high hopes for this team. I think they have a real chance.”
The Eagles will be underdogs, but so were the Raiders in January of 1981.
“To me, it looks like this team is on a mission,” Bergey said. “I am looking forward to it with great anticipation. And it will be one great party.”
The Eagles and their fans expected one of those 37 years ago. Sometimes, though, a long-term view can soothe. Long, long term if necessary.
“I always stopped to say a prayer at Our Mother of Sorrows before the games,” said Jimmy Murray, the general manager of that team, of his native West Philadelphia parish, closed in 2013. “And I happened to notice lately that it opened in 1852. Eighteen-52. This is 2018. And it’s Super Bowl 52.”
It’s one sign, anyway, that it could be a Super Bowl that many Eagles fans will someday enjoy watching more than once.
Contact Jack McCaffery at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery.