Our underdog Eagles represent underdog city
Forget Rocky. We no longer need the lovable underdog who gets a shot at the title. We have our own.
Forget Rocky. We no longer need the lovable underdog who gets a shot at the title. We have the Eagles.
Dougie. And Nicky. We have now officially entered the “team of destiny” mode.
How else do you explain what happened Sunday night at Lincoln Financial Field?
We’ll leave that to Eagles head coach Doug Pederson: “We’re going to the Super Bowl.” Actually Doug added a little spice to his comment: “We’re going to the stinkin’ Super Bowl.”
With Nick Foles as his quarterback.
The underdog Eagles again spit in the eye of the experts and simply dismantled a highly touted Vikings team, with Foles doing the work of a surgeon wielding a precise scalpel to carve up the vaunted Minnesota defense.
In a way, the fact that the Eagles won is not a surprise. Yes, they were 3-point underdogs, just as they were the week before, even though they were playing at home. In fact, in that divisional round tilt vs. the Falcons, it was the first time in NFL history that the No. 1 seed in the playoffs was an underdog while playing at home.
It was how they did it that was a stunner.
After falling behind 7-0, the Eagles — sparked by a Pick-6 interception return by Patrick Robinson — ran off 38 unanswered points.
And it wasn’t really that close. The Eagles, sparked by the turnover and a delirious Lincoln Financial Field crowd, simply imposed their will on the Vikings.
Foles, who took over the team after potential MVP Carson Wentz went down with a knee injury late in the season, played out of his mind. The backup went 26 of 33 for 352 yards, with three TD passes and no interceptions.
Foles never blinked when he was called to lead the Eagles into the playoffs after the Wentz injury. Most asked him simply not to lose the game, and that is what he did for several weeks.
But he showed signs in the second half last week against the Falcons that there was more to Nick Foles than just journeyman backup. Sunday night he was every bit the potential MVP of the man he replaced.
How good was Foles? A weird thought occurred during the third quarter. Could Carson Wentz — or for that matter Tom Brady or any other NFL QB — have played any better than Foles?
Much of the credit for this must go to Doug Pederson, perhaps the perfect coach for this team.
If the team has been labeled underdogs since losing Wentz, Pederson has toted that tag around since he was named head coach last year. One expert actually dubbed Pederson the least qualified head coaching candidate in NFL history.
And that was before the Eagles lost their best running back in Darren Sproles.
And their All-Pro starting left tackle Jason Peters.
And special teams ace Chris Maragos.
And starting middle linebacker Jordan Hicks.
And then what was supposed to be the death knell, the one injury the team could not survive — Wentz’s knee exploded, putting him on the shelf for the rest of the season.
Most expected the team’s playoff chances to follow suit. Pederson deftly seized on the underdog role and sold it to his team.
Enter Nick Foles. He beat the Giants, then struggled for two weeks in brutal cold conditions.
Sunday night he was simply lights out. It was a chance to silence the critics for Pederson.
It was redemption for Foles, who once threw 27 TD passes and just two interceptions for the Eagles just a few seasons back, then returned as an afterthought, a backup to Wentz, an insurance policy the Eagles certainly never thought they would have to use.
Now? Now he has a date with Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots in Super Bowl LII (that’s 52 for those of you not up on your Latin). It’s a rematch of Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005. We all know how that one turned out.
The reverberations from the Eagles win extended like ripples in a pond after a stone hits the water.
The entire region was electric.
Not even the usual Monday morning drag could dampen the mood.
The Eagles put the region on their backs and delivered.
The Underdogs are now Top Dogs.
Bring on the Patriots.