We all thought dynasty when Brady’s desperation heave fell to the earth on Feb. 4, 2018, didn’t we? I know I did. I remember touting the Eagles moves that offseason at a two-year-old’s birthday party to my friends, firmly declaring the season would be “a complete disappointment if the Eagles didn’t AT LEAST return to the Super Bowl.”

Well here we are. A season and a half later. Carson Wentz looks more and more like a guy who lucked into 10 amazing MVP-caliber games, got hurt, and then went through his next 21 games as a quarterback lacking health, confidence, weapons….and the elite skill that made him a top-3 quarterback in 2017.

Was that it? Was 2017 the high-water mark and we’ll all just be waiting for that next wave until the seafloor is dry and arid?

15-13 as a team since the Super Bowl. Mediocrity abounds. It’s not too crazy to think that maybe, just maybe, the franchise caught fire and successfully spun career years from 80% of its roster into a Super Bowl.

It’s better than the other option….they could have been the 2016 Falcons. At least they won, at least we all saw the one Super Bowl victory we had been waiting for our entire lives.

We all thought it would last forever, but history doesn’t back sustained longterm success in the NFL unless you’re the New England Patriots. Maybe we should be lucky we got one? We could be like the aforementioned Falcons, or the Panthers, or the 49ers in the last 10 years….one great year, one amazing run, and nothing to show for it but the memories and jagged wrist scars earned in a half-hearted attempt to forget everything when the game clock read 0:00.

In 2004 I remember listening to the WIP afternoon drive show, Anthony Gargano and Steve Martorano, years before Gargano would start ripping through co-hosts faster than slices of his Angelo’s pizza “second dinner” or his DiNic’s roast pork “third brunch.”

The two posited the following question: “Would you trade a guaranteed Super Bowl win the next season for 80 years of never winning another, or would you take your chances for the next 80 years without any guaranteed Super Bowl victories?”

Surprisingly, SO many callers took the former. This city was starved for a Super Bowl and would take one while slashing and burning the next eight decades as the price.

We had one two years ago. Just 78 years to go thanks to the desperate Philadelphian who put his blood signature on the contract drawn up on Buddy Ryan’s soul by Beelzebub himself (who is apparently a sports talk radio fan, because why wouldn’t the devil be a big fan of that medium?) that doomed us to 80 more years of garbage.

Should we be happy we got one? Was it wrong to think we’d get a little more out of this group than a once-in-a-lifetime fuck and then nothing but impotence or premature ejaculation on the very best days for the next two years?

I’m not saying this is it. I’m not saying the Eagles can’t win with this quarterback, or Doug, or Howie, or the long list of everyone on this team that has so utterly let us down this year.

But maybe that was it for us in 2017…and maybe we should be happy we finally got the one.

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