It has been a tough few years for me as a football fan. My two favorite teams are the Syracuse Orange and the Philadelphia Eagles. And you know what? It’s a whole lot easier to be a fan when your team is non-competitive than it is when they consistently fall shy of victory.Every Saturday when the Orange play I know what to expect. They’re going to lose. Big. I never get my hopes up for a victory. I never confidently bet my friends that they’re going to win. I just sit back and watch them surrender touchdown after touchdown. If the Orange do manage to pull out a victory – like against Louisville in ’07 and ’08 – then I am pleasantly surprised. I can run through the house cheering, waving my shirt above my head. But I always know it was a fluke. It won’t happen again.
At least I know where SU stands. Which is why it’s so much easier to by an Orange fan than an Eagles fan. The Philadelphia Eagles have the talent to compete in the NFL. They have the ability to be a playoff, even Super Bowl team. But why must they consistently disappoint me? The Eagles don’t make any sense; they can win against Pittsburgh, but can’t manage to eek out a victory against Cincinnati? Really?
The Eagles have been in every game this season until the very end. They’ve been competitive. But they somehow managed to find a way to come up just short of victory. They seem to underachieve in the most critical games: against NFC East opponents.
It’s a frustrating time to be an Eagles fan. It’s frustrating to know that we’ve lost at least five or six games these last two seasons because of one play in each. Imagine if we could change the Greg Lewis muffed punt against Green Bay last season. We would have been 9-7 and made the playoffs. If Andy Reid had called pass plays instead of runs on 4th and 1 against the Bears and Giants this year we might be 7-2-1 instead of 5-4-1. And tying the Bengals? Thar was supposed to be a blowout win, a win that was going to give the team confidence and help spur a second half run. Tying the previously 1-8 Bengals is tantamount to a crushing defeat at their hands.
The worst part is that I still have hope for this team. I can still see them running the table and making the playoffs. I can’t discount the Eagles until they’re officially, mathematically eliminated. Which means I’m likely going to be in for more heartache when our team registers 8 sacks against a pitiful squad and still can’t pull out a victory.
It’s harder to be a fan when you know your team can succeed but they keep disappointing you by finding new and interesting ways to blow it at the last minute. At least I know Syracuse is going to lose every game before it even starts. And with Syracuse I know that there’s nowhere to go but up. Any win is a positive win. With Philly, they have the ability to win at least 10 games a season, so falling short of that goal is a disappointment. And, unfortunately, it appears as if they’re heading down that road again.
So here’s a plea to the Eagles. Stop disappointing your fans! Learn from your mistakes (I’m looking at you, Andy) and stop repeating them. Dig deep down inside and find what it takes to get that one extra play that you need to finally win a game. You have the talent to win the Super Bowl. Now it’s time to live up to that. Please!
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