Anatomy of an Eagles Fan...we've got a friend in the ESPN MNF booth in Tony Granieri...
As the Eagles prepare for their home opener at the Linc on Sunday, it's good to know we have a home-grown fan of the team and this site who possibly holds the greatest job in the world---Monday Night Football spotter for the broadcasting talent at ESPN.
His name is Tony Granieri...and he has graciously reached out to us with a guest-writer feature...
And this piece is meant to pump us up not only for the game on Sunday against the Ravens, but for the rest of the 2012 season.
Here's the view from Tony's traditional corner in the TV broadcasting booth of a typical MNF broadcast...
That's Tony on the left with fellow ESPN Monday Night Football crew members...
You can find Tony's original independent work at http://www.MondayNightSpotter.com ....
But before Tony Granieri became a big-shot spotter for the likes of John Gruden and Mike Tirico, he was a regular Eagles fan just like us. Tony offered us this guest piece which I am proud to publish--- and which I hope will refocus all of our hopes and dreams on the best possible outcome for this 2012 season.
A History of Losing--- Tony Granieri's lifetime journey as an Eagles fan...
The Philadelphia Eagles' off-season bonanza in 2011 and a solid 2012 Draft has raised expectations both within the Delaware Valley and somewhere deep inside of my sports fan soul... a soul that has been tortured and tormented by my favorite team since I first knew what a touchdown was. Let's take a look at that past and then revisit the upcoming season through a lens of cautious optimism.
Youth (Age 2-13)
I had a small, squishy, patent leather football growing up. It was the size of an apple, nearly oblong and had chew marks on it from my younger brother Michael who apparently loved the taste of patent leather. Nonetheless - it was one of my first toys and I remember playing with it. I also remember falling in love for the the first time. It wasn't with a girl, though. It was with a wildly athletic, game-changing quarterback whom we lovingly called Randall... Yesterday's version of Mike Vick, only better due to the nostalgic feeling I get when I see old Eagles highlights. He could fly - literally. He could throw - far. And there wasn't anybody else like him in the entire world. From about age two to about eighth grade I was a Randall-aholic. I had his jerseys. His rookie cards. I pretended to be him in backyard football. Hell - we even named our pet rabbit Randall and our two pet goldfish, too. (Yes - we had a pet rabbit. And yes - it was gay). Randall was everything and was everywhere. But he wasn't alone.
Those early Eagles teams also featured one of the league's greatest defensive units of ALL-TIME! Reggie White, Andre Waters, Wes Hopkins, Seth Joyner, Eric Allen, Clyde Simmons and Jerome Brown were all part of the Eagles dominant defense under then head coach, Buddy Ryan. This group intimidated, injured and ravaged opposing quarterbacks. Remember the "Body Bag" game and the "House of Pain" game? Classics. These teams were brazen and full of superstars. Their playoff record? How about 0-3 ?
Ryan's Eagles were talented, loaded with superstars, dominant defensively and completely incapable of winning a meaningful game. The one year things seemed to be lining up for a real run toward a championship (1990), Randall tore his ACL in the season opener and was lost for the year. So add bad karma to the mix. Bottom line, Randall left his imprint on a young Eagles fan. As did the Kelly Green unis, Buddy Ryan's unabashed press conferences and the swarming Birds D. I was hooked but not satisfied.
High School (Age 14-18)
As I entered High School I lost track of my patent leather football. I'm assuming it was simply misplaced, but there remains an outside shot that Michael just hauled off and consumed the entire thing. I also lost track of my love affair with the Eagles. Not because they weren't good. They won 10 games my freshmen year and 11 when I was a sophomore. It was because they were boring! They went from the enigmatic Buddy Ryan who fit the city's fiery personality perfectly to the vanilla and lukewarm Rich Kotite. The guy looked like an accountant. Gone was Randall...replaced by an aging Jim McMahon (barely acceptable), then an aging Rodney Peete (barely tolerable), then to a myriad of no names that I really feel as though I could compete with physically. Pat Ryan? Bubby Brister? Ken O'Brien? These guys were rejects from other teams. 35-year olds with nothing in the tank. No personality. No athleticism. Nothing. The decline from Randall to Pat Ryan was unbearable to witness. And along the way we lost the BEST defensive player of all time as a free agent (something that was brand new back then), when Reggie left us for Green Bay and his Super Bowl destiny.
Brutal. Team played decent at times. Won 10 games here and there. Never was a serious contender. Never had a personality or a superstar and was BORING. I hated the Kotite and Ray Rhodes Eagles. Their playoff wins over the Saints and Lions were worthless victories over teams that didn't belong in the post-season to begin with. They were the SAINTS and LIONS!!! The 1990's SAINTS and LIONS. The "let's wear brown paper bags on our heads" as fans of the SAINTS and LIONS--- because they were so bad, people rooting for them were embarrassed to be seen on television by their friends! That's BAD. Anyway...I'd take a dozen more Buddy Ryan/Randall years with zero playoff wins before I'd watch another Kotite/Peete team win against the LIONS or SAINTS.
This was a five or six year period of futility that ended in 1998 with an Eagles team that went 3-13. Bobby Hoying, Doug Pederson and the late '90's Eagles' QBs were almost as bad as the early '90's group (save for Randall's last hurrah in '93 and McMahon's general awesomeness). Also, RB Ricky Watters came to the Birds as a Free Agent... but otherwise the entire '90's decade saw all of our superstars depart. Reggie Gone. Randall Gone. Eric Allen Gone. Joyner Gone. Wes Gone. Clyde Gone. Jerome RIP....
The Birds franchise, led by the cheapest owner in sports (see: Norman Braman), was flat lining before our eyes. And then...
College (18-23)
The patent leather ball was old news by the time Jeffrey Lurie bought the Eagles from Braman in '94. He then hired Andy Reid--- who then drafted Donovan McNabb--- who then threw up in Super Bowl XXXlX. My college years saw the Eagles' first Division Title since 1988 and their first trip to the NFC Championship game since 1980. And their second. We lost both, and it was gut-wrenching. Horrible. Upsetting. The trend of McNabb shrinking in big moments was codified in that loss to Tampa Bay at home during the 2003 title game. Looking back on it now, it seems inevitable that they would lose that game. But at the time - Duce ran the opening kick back 90 yards to the Bucs five, the crowd was going nuts....I thought we were going dancin'. Didn't happen. College was awesome. The Eagles during this time period were appropriately good but not satisfying. Like a hot co-ed who thought teasing was fun...
It's not....
First Job (23-26)
Got hired by Scouts, Inc. out of school and witnessed the Eagles lose another title game before finally beating the Michael Vick-led Falcons to advance to Super Bowl XXXlX against the hated Pats. For the record, I went to school in New England and lived up there during this matchup. So there's some extra tension for me on this one. Regardless...Game is tied after three. Eagles play decent. Except McNabb throws two awful picks that were so bad they looked like he was joking. Eagles fall apart in the fourth and trail by 10 points with 6 minutes left in the game. They get the ball and need two scores in 6 minutes to either tie or win the game. URGENCY anybody? Nope....Reid and McNabb take 4:40 off the clock in the WORST 2 minute drill in history before scoring a TD to cut the lead to 3. They wouldn't get any closer as McNabb threw his third pick on the game's final play. Excruciating defeat. Culmination of McNabb's career in Philly. Good but not great. Incapable of winning the big one. Disappointment and question marks. Why no hurry up? Did he puke? And T.O. is worth mentioning here because no other athlete in the history of Philadelphia was so beloved so quickly than he. The Super Bowl performance on a broken ankle was simply icing on the cake. Dude was awesome and Philly loved him. Until he ripped our hearts out and stomped them into the ground in the following season...
Adulthood (27-31)
McNabb was finished in Philly after the Super Bowl loss. It may have taken 4 more years and one more tease job before it was official, but 24-21 against the Pats was his last real game as a Bird. He was traded and replaced with Kevin Kolb, who started one half before relinquishing his starting job to Vick. We're all familiar with what happened next. Vick turned into a real-life Madden game and led the youthful Eagles to many of 2010's most memorable performances. This new Vick-led team was STACKED with talent. Vick was and is surreal. D-Jacks is liked greased lightning. Maclin, Celek, and McCoy are all entering their primes and this group has set team scoring records in three consecutive seasons.
Defensively, the last few seasons have been a joke. For a team and a franchise that prides itself on its defensive prowess, it's been the ultimate failure. So....
Birds sign Asomugha, DRC, Babin, Cullen Jenkins and bring on defensive line guru Jim Washburn to turn things around for their anemic pass rush. That 2011 free agency haul is the equivalent of all the defensive stars we lost back in the early 90s. It's like things have come full circle. We have the new Randall (Vick), the new defensive superstars (instead of Eric Allen, Andre Waters and Reggie White we have Asomugha, DRC and Babin), and if Andy Reid starts speaking his mind, we could have the new Buddy. That's a stretch, admittedly. But the other points are valid. This team has marquee value again. We got a taste of it in 2004 with T.O. and McNabb leading us to the Bowl but it was short-lived and heart breaking. This seems different. Like it could last and even end with a parade down Broad Street where people are throwing confetti at the players and players are throwing smiles down on all of us. The offense is explosive. The defense is loaded. Vick is still capable of surreal (when healthy). And Philadelphia sort of feels like New York - with our Eagles being the new 1927 Yankees. Could a parade be next?
If the answer is yes...I'll buy a patent leather football on EBay and eat it myself. Sorry brother Mike...
THANKS FOR THAT INSPIRATIONAL PIECE, TONY!
Kickoff against the Ravens at the Linc is just one sleep away...
In the days of Marco Polo, Europeans were welcomed by Islamic traders and politicians as esteemed stimuli to their export-based economies... What the hell went wrong there?
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If I were "Dr. Evil" I would annihilate them all in the nations of Islam for the crime of sheer stupidity...
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@Tom Jackson I have met a few good ones... Yet they seem to form a sub-society and disrespect The host country they are in every time citing Religious doctrine Is higher than state laws... They really got the French by the balls.. England heading that way too. Here they are just trying to out breed us...
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@beanstalk Oh yeah, that "out-breeding" thing is happening in Spain, too...
Nah, I am not a racist hater of the Arabs...after all, they invented Mathematics as we know it...
I am simply concerned that they as members of an Islamic cult are totally off their chang...and completely devoid of sensitivity to other cultures who (gasp) have a sense of humor and comedy...
You know that old saying?---he who laughs last, laughs best!
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@Tom Jackson Yeah.. It just irks me that that it has all this subterfuge for the sake of PC.. I still think 9/11 was orchestrated... like most other war starting incidents
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...and then take their oil and their poppies...and use the proceeds to spread good upon the world...
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...after first furnishing my Las Vegas mansion with golden appliances and an irrigated golf course...
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I read a bit of Musso kerran(quran)..It just Old testament really... F*** em.. they are off their chang
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Yeh, I finally saw the "movie" that set the Arab world off... "The Innocence of Muslims"... just a terrible piece of filmmaking... so bad it was laughable... even had a talking donkey in it!...and acting so bad it made Shatner look like Shakespeare...in fact, props and scenery so lame it made the initial TV run of "Star Trek" look realistic...I swear I saw tire tracks in the sand in the desert scenes.. and since when does Mohammed speak English in a British accent?... I am convinced that the Arab world is a confederacy of dunces...because anyone with a cretin's brain could see this movie was a farce of laughable proportion... Maybe that's the real problem---the Arabs have no sense of humor? This movie was so lame it made "Gilligan's Island" look like a serious docudrama...
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@Tom Jackson One guy made it to apparently... So what people are dying for this one Tosser?!? That and Our countries going Postal on Iraq and Afghanistan would be More of a decent excuse for an Uprising... But F*** it, we need Oil and Smack... History is written by the Victors yeah? What shits me is people trying to deny our intentions there.. Particularly the WMD and Osama Hoax... Its all PC horseshit...
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"Arab Spring" tearing up U.S. embassies around the Mid-East... makes me wonder only for a split-second---would it be too wrong to turn the entire region into a giant parking lot?
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@Tom Jackson Ha they tried protesting that 'Movie' in Sydney... The Cops just hammered them... Usually I like a good old fashion violent protest..(you shoulda see me at a g20 summit) But the Slogans and plight of the Musso's was just too whack.... One Chant had me in stitches... 'Obama Obama, we prefer Osama'... Too late ya bearded Twats, GET In the truck...
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Damn it... the Pigeons are back eating my Fly screen.. It must be like Smack to the flying Rats, coz everytime Old mate lets his racing birds out... two of them show up to eat the fly screen... there is now a Hole the size of a baseball in the corner... I am gonna see if they like Eating Asprin...
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@beanstalk Pigeons eating fly screen...Ravens eating up screen plays... I smell an OMEN !!!!
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Kangaroos are cute...but can kill you under certain circumstances.
I feel the same about Way-Way Wice...
He must be contained and tamed at all costs tomorrow...
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@Tom Jackson Dline depth and LB depth on rotation will be tested and key to keeping us in the game. I don't have faith in our o to out point the ravens while our d plays sloppy. If Vick pulls his head out and MM helps him and our D keeps it close we have a chance. If we play like last week. We are gonna get kr at home and the wrath of the boo birds will follow
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@Tom Jackson aww Baby Joey's are cute... Anything full grown here will f*** your shit up... I can't imagine how many Asian tourist have had the crap kicked out of them trying to feed a Roo some lettuce
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Well...........show again tomorrow........so's I guess again I will miss the first half. Good luck to ya'all.......and good night. Pick ya's up again bout 3PM East.
@beanstalk Jimmy Durante, the vaudeville/radio comedian of the '30's, '40's and '50's, used to sign off his act with: "And Good Night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!"...
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@beanstalk Some of those older folks really new how to swing in their day..........threesomes and all.
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T-Bone.... Good old Dr.Beanstalk at ya disposal... My advice, hobble to bottleshop.. stock up of beer... Set up Esky(Cooler) with Ice and Beer...Elevate Foot till moday or until beer supply gets low... Order Pizza and Smash that down... You will be Nil by mouth the next day if they wanna operate, so enjoy ya Sunday
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Waaayyyyy past my bedtime.
I just came on here cause I felt the force - ripple-ing.
Nite All
Nite Mrs Calabash
