Loading ...AP Slams Eagles (*gasp* *shock* [/snark])
January 25th, 2005 by SteveYes, I know my readership isn’t exactly die-hard eagles fans (Iggles), but I figured I’d throw this out there, and I want everyone to burn it into their brains for the next 12 days. From the Associated Press:
[E]ven with Owens, they probably are only the NFL’s third best team.
The real Super Bowl was played Sunday in Pittsburgh.
First off, “only”? “Only” the NFL’s third best team? They’ve “only” been the NFL’s 3rd best (according to the AP) 4 years straight (and were about 6th the year before). That’s pretty freaking awesome. Even the Patriots had 2 bad years over the past 5.
Secondly, let me remind you all high and omniscient football prognosticators; you’ve been dead wrong the last 4 years about the Super Bowl. Dead. Wrong. Let’s start with the 2000 Super Bowl (played in ‘01, for those unfamiliar with football’s post-season structure). It was the Baltimore Ravens vs. the New York Giants (coincidentally, the team that had knocked the Eagles out of the playoffs in the Divisional Round that year. This is a recurring theme). What were these high and mighty AP writers and ESPN analysts predicting? With the Giants dismantling of the Vikings in the conference game and the Ravens having one of the best defense ever, the game was predicted to be a low scoring affair, with the anemic Ravens offense doing little against the Giants decent defense, and the real battle being fought when the Giants had the ball. One analyst even suggested that Baltimore’s Defense would probably score more than its offense. So how did the game play out? Well, the Giants did little, and were even worse than I thought they were going to play (and I hated them, so that gives you some idea). The Ravens, meanwhile, actually moved the ball, got into scoring position, and *gasped* got a few touchdowns on their own! Wow! So much for that anemic offense. Oh sure, the Ravens defense played insane, but the Giants didn’t live up to their end, and the “close, low-scoring game” was a blow-out by halftime. So much for that.
Now, that year wasn’t so bad, I suppose, especially when juxtapositioned with the next year’s Bowl. Wow. Simply put, the media both sucked and blew on this one. The St. Louis Rams, then the power-house of football (and the team who had eliminated the Eagles in NFC #1), were expected to annihilate the tuck-rule-aided, lucky New England Patriots. The Rams, after all, were one of the highest-scoring teams in recent memory, and the Patriots weren’t exactly known for their high-scoring abilities. In fact, shock and disbelief rang out through FOX Studios when prognosticator Jimmy Kimmel picked the Patriots to win the game. The lighting system behind him during his segment flashed “Seriously?!” The guys in the booth (J.B., T.B., Howie, and asshole Chris Collinsworth) ridiculed Kimmel and predicted a blow-out. Oops! The Patriots took a 14-3 halftime lead. They held the Rams to 3 points in the 1st half! Holy shit! The Rams made a valient come-back and tied the game before miracle worker Adam Vinatieri kicked a last-second field goal to win the game.
Well, surely the media learned from their mistakes and got it right the next year… right? Wrong! That year (2002, if you’re following), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (who had beaten the Eagles in NFC #2) played the Oakland Raiders in what was billed as a defensive battle between 2 defensive teams… hah. The score was 20-3 Bucs at halftime, and 27-3 after the Bucs’ first possession. 24 of those points had been earned from long, time-consuming, yard-gaining drives by the offense. The Raiders only field goal had come off a turnover. The Bucs quickly intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown, right before the Raiders began to light up the scoreboard. They scored 3 touchdowns in the span of about 1 quarter, all of them offensive. Only 2 scores down, the Raiders were then put down by 2 touchdowns returned for touchdowns for the Bucs in the final 90 seconds of play. Even taking out the interceptions returned for touchdowns, the score would have been 27-21, Bucs. That is a much higher-scoring game than predicted by the “experts”, yes?
Ah, which brings me to last year. The game that has the most significance to the Birds. Last year, the resurgent New England Patriots played the upstart Carolina Panthers (who… oh, you get the idea. it was #3). Everyone recognized how powerful the Patriots were, but they ignored (as the Eagles had) the talent and guts the Panthers had on their roster, instead saying the “real” Super Bowl had been Indianapolis at the Pats in the AFC Championship game. The “experts” predicted a blow-out, and instead the Panthers fought tooth and claw, holding the lead sometimes, and forcing the Patriots to win… on a last-second field-goal.
So, here we are again. Let’s see what sage advice I’ve heard in the last 2 days… Firstly, someone suggested that the “only NFC team” with a chance to beat the Patriots was… the Panthers. *blink* wait, you’ve said that the NFC sucks, so the 15-3 winner of the Conference doesn’t stand a chance, but a team with a 7-9 record (who lost to that 15-3 team by more than 20 points) stands a chance? That’s ridiculous! The other thing I heard was that if the Packers had advanced to the NFC championship game, they might have beaten the Eagles and then the Patriots. What?! The team that couldn’t beat the Vikings at home and lost to the Eagles by 30 points could beat them and the Pats, but the Eagles can’t? Arrrgh!!!
In closing, and coming back to the idiot who wrote this AP article, it doesn’t matter when you think the 2 best teams played, or that you think that was the “real” Super Bowl. No matter what, the actual Super Bowl is in 12 days, and the best team from the NFC will be playing the best team in the AFC. 60 minutes of football will decide who is the best team in the NFL, not some idiots with a computer who’ve been wrong 4 years in a row. But to all those doubters and “experts”: please, keep picking the Pats. Keep dissing the Birds. Keep saying that we aren’t good enough, that our team isn’t good enough, our players not good enough, our coaching not good enough. Cause if there’s one thing that has motivated time and time again, it’s being doubted by the sports media.
p.s. Oh, and Rush Limbaugh is officially an idiot. And to all you apologists for him at school? You can go sit in the corner now. No matter the season stats, McNabb did the thing not even the unstoppable Manning could do: win a championship. And now he’s going to be trying to do what not even Dan Marino could do: win a Super Bowl.
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