Having just completed watching the Eagles vs. Giants, I, as a Philadelphia sports fan for life, have been treated to this year's ampule of foreshadowing that the Eagles seem to show me every year. Eagles 24-7 going into the third quarter, then losing 30-24 in overtime. At the Linc. In their home opener.
Since it is now barely minutes since the game is over, I am feeling a particular roughness in my throat from the copious tobacco smoke I inhaled over the past 2 hours and the screaming at the top of my already taxed lungs at every bung-scratching chuckleheaded fuck-up that the last two quarters of football have treated me to.
I have a feeling that I will have to go to the doctor's office tomorrow and ask him to give me a prescription for blood pressure medication. It may seem like an odd request since I'll have to ask him for medication I only have to take one day a week, but he's an Eagles fan too, so I think he'll understand.
You know what the hardest thing about being a Philadelphia sports fan really is? It isn't the losses. Every team loses, even the best ones lose once in a while. The problem is how they lose. As a Philly sports fan, I am often treated to those little 'fun facts' that indicate that their losing potential is far beyond that of every team in the league.
Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, you're lucky, maybe your team just loses and goes home. Ours makes a statement.
Case in point: Today, in the home opener debacle, the fun fact was that the last time the Giants were able to come back to tie trailing 17 in the fourth quarter was against the Redskins in 1970. Yes. 19 fucking 70. 36 years. I am not quite that OLD yet. Which means, quite literally, that I have gone my ENTIRE LIFE without having seen such an utterly amazing display of instant suckitude and rampant ineptoidism. So nice of them to treat me to what I've been missing all these years. Hey, Andy, Donny, Jevon, Brian W, Brian D, and the rest of the gang. Thanks a pantload.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
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5 comments:
I have two sons who live and breathe basketball and we follow the Sixers in this same pathetic way - how many times did they come so close to winning it all every year now since 1998?
Don't even ask.
Oh, please.
I mean, really.
Do you know what it feels like to lose in truly loserly fashion? No, you do not. I will tell you why.
Until you've been a Browns fan, a sensation one Browns fan describes as "watching baby seals get clubbed while lit cigarettes are put out on your genitals", you have no idea. The fact that your team has even once been to the Super Bowl is enough to make any Browns fan mock your pain with extreme prejudice.
Remember Elway's 98-yard march down the field? Did your team owner ever move your guys to effing Baltimore? Ever heard of "The Interception (Red Right 88)"? "The Fumble"? "The Kardiack Kids"?
Only a Lions fan ( possibly also a Saints fan ) can truly understand what it's like to love such bungling ineptitude.
Hold your head a little higher, ER. It could be so so so much worse.
You know, I love it when other sports try to "one-up" the misery factor. The only city that has merit to do so in this regard in the face of Philadelphia Sports Disappointment (TM) is Boston, and then only loosely. They have had the Patriots. And now, their biggest whine, the BoSox, have come up gold once. Thus, they lost their loser street creds.
Not only do the Eagles disappoint, but the Phillies, the Sixers, and the Flyers do as well. That's Quadrifrontal Suckitude (All Rights Reserved).
The Cleveland Browns have ALWAYS had an albatross around their necks as have the Lions and the Saints. They suck consistently and reliably.
Philadelphia sports teams have the nasty habit of showing us all the promise in the world of possible championship, only to drop us on our collective heads every single year and in rare form each time. The only ones who have ever come close to this are BoSox fans, and they have no claim anymore.
So you're saying that it's worse when they lose because your team occasionally wins? They get your hopes up and then let you down?
Meh.
In the Paul Brown era:
That wasn't just a football team Brown had put together. Rather, it was an all-star team.
And the Browns played like one, going 47-4-3 and winning the championship all four seasons of the AAFC's existence (1946-49). The Browns then went into the NFL and played in six straight titles games, winning three. In doing so, they put together an unprecedented run of 10 league championship game appearances in 10 years.
I say again, meh.
(PS: QF, Cleveland Version: Browns, Indians, Cavaliers, Barons.)
Meh, yourself. Not only do they win, but they get close. Really close. Give me a 6-10 season any day, like last year, where there's no room to get your hopes up, over a 13-3 season only to end in defeat in the NFC championship game. What pisses me off about them is that they've HAD their shots at the big one and gone limp within sight of the goal.
Right now, the Phils are in contention for the wildcard. Will they get it? Hell no. Will they make the faithful believe there is a shot? Absolutely. At the last gasp, they'll fail to put the period on the sentence, the stem on the apple.
At least with Cleveland you're under no delusions that they might just do it this year.
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