Games between old friends not always memorable
PHILADELPHIA >> The Eagles don’t seem to grasp how personal this game with the Vikings really is. Here’s a warning: Lose to prima donna passer Sam Bradford and the Vikings Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field and you will never live it down.
It’s not just the presence of Sammy Sleeves that makes it personal. Pat Shurmur, the Vikings’ tight ends coach, interviewed for the head coaching job that went to Doug Pederson. Pat needs payback, too. He and Sleeves have had each others’ backs since their days in St. Louis.
These edgy reunions at the Linc with characters from the recent past generally don’t go well for the Eagles. There’s a four-car garage full of unhappy endings.
Sean Payton, the quarterbacks coach with the Eagles who grew up in Marple Township, brought the Saints here for a wild card game following the 2013 season. The Saints had been averse to cold weather in playoff games. They had no chance against the up-tempo Eagles.
But then came the game-winning field goal as time expired with a temperature of 23 degrees for Payton and Malcolm Jenkins, who played defensive back for the Saints that evening. All of that week, a source told me, Payton told the Saints how much he wanted to kick someone’s rear end.
“Let’s just say he really wanted to win,” now-Eagle veteran Jenkins said. “He was talking about the fan base and how passionate it was and how’d we probably get three or four eggs thrown at the busses on the way in. He was like, ‘Winning in an environment like that is special.’”
The Saints’ busses were pelted with eggs as they left the stadium, a show of hate and respect by Eagles fans. You know you’ve arrived when you’ve been egged at the stadium. Eggs are standard operating procedure for the Cowboys, Redskins and Giants busses.
Anybody remember when Andy Reid returned to the Linc the season after he was canned? Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie does. With a short work week, Reid beat Chip Kelly and the Eagles, 26-16, on a Thursday night, in the first month of the 2013 season. The Birds never had a chance.
Last year DeSean Jackson, the mercurial wide receiver the Eagles released because he wasn’t tradable, clinched the NFC East pennant along with the Redskins courtesy of a 38-24 blowout of the Birds at the Linc. The Eagles needed a win in that game and in the finale to get into the tournament.
The week before that debacle, Bruce Arians, the old Temple U. ball coach who was a much less desirable candidate for the Eagles’ job than Kelly, beat the Birds 4017 in South Philly. Even the press box was empty before that game was over. That proved to be the next to last game for Kelly in Philly.
Let’s not forget how Donovan McNabb played Lincoln Financial Field in 2010, the season after the Eagles traded him to the Redskins for the second-round pick that became Nate Allen.
In one of the ugliest games ever played, McNabb rallied the Redskins to a 17-12 victory, completing just 8 of 19 pass attempts. The guy who loathed the label of running quarterback sealed the decision with five rushes for 39 yards, his most rushing yards in three years.
This is personal, people.
“We’ll be alright,” Jenkins said. “Sam ain’t running nowhere. I’m not concerned about any of that stuff. All of that stuff, I had no idea it happened before you mentioned it. That’s more superstition. We don’t get caught up in that stuff.”
Spoken like a true 28-year-old, comfortable in his own skin. If Jenkins re-thinks this, if he merely rewinds to the hate Payton had for the Eagles in 2013, he’ll know what to expect. Players and coaches spurned by the Eagles don’t think about the hate on each and every play. But trust me, it drives their preparation and their will to succeed on game day.
The Eagles weren’t as invested in Bradford as McNabb. Make no mistake, this is payback for Bradford.
Bradford demanded a trade after the Eagles moved up in the draft and said they would select a quarterback. Naturally, that deflated his value. When the Vikings lost starting quarterback Teddy Bridgewater right before the season, his stock soared and the Eagles cashed in.
Eagles executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman, who has anything but a traditional football background, played Bradford like an air guitar. That alone should make Bradford lift more weights, study more film, and so on and so forth.
Shurmur didn’t grow up in the Philly area but he coached the Eagles in a variety of capacities a lot longer than Payton or Pederson.
Shurmur still has roots in the area. A win over the Eagles basically will complete the man so rudely shown the door with a 1-0 record as interim head coach of the franchise last year. Knowing Shurmur, he was thinking of ways to beat the Eagles the day they let him go. Now he’s handing that intelligence off to Bradford.
You only get one chance to win these signature games, so you’d better make it count.
One more example, before we go.
Rewind to Veterans Stadium for the NFC title game following the 2002 season. The building was shaking after the Eagles grabbed a 7-0 lead over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Jon Gruden, the long ago offensive coordinator of the Eagles, unveiled a game plan so diabolical in all phases the Eagles always seemed to have the wrong personnel on the field.
The Bucs won, then blew out the Oakland Raiders and Bill Callahan, once the offensive line coach of the Eagles, in the Super Bowl. That should have been the Eagles’ SB title. Superstitious? Maybe. But these types of games are personal, and the Eagles would be wise not to forget that.