How An Eagles Team Set the Stage for Philadelphia Brilliance.
It’s Been One Hundred Years In the Making.
It’s all over, folks. An emotional ride that felt like a day at the amusement park, complete with at least half a dozen complimentary cashed-in tokens for the fastest roller coasters in service, is now imprinted in our memory banks forever.
For those of us south of the ripe age of 50 — we’ll no doubt forever tell the story to younger generations of this perfectly crafted Eagles roster whose talent burst out of control like a herd of wild stallions amid a bone-chilling Philadelphia cold at the most perfect of moments and dispensed with anything in its path with devastating effect.
The 2024–2025 Eagles erased all memories of their dilapidated collapse just one year earlier that ended in Tampa Bay with soaring summer expectations once again.
This group of Eagles would then take us on that exhilarating roller coaster ride that began in Brazil and included a 12–1 regular season after the bye week.
In the NFC Playoffs — this team out-muscled the Packers and Rams (even in the snow for the latter) and then completely overwhelmed the Commanders and Chiefs — setting an NFL record along the way with 55 points in the NFC Championship Game and 145 points in the postseason combined.
It was a warm May Day in 1974 when Philadelphia enjoyed its first Championship Parade to honor the Broad Street Bullies. Over the years — the foundation of William Penn’s Broad Street saw basketball celebrations for the 1983 Sixers, baseball celebrations in 1980 and 2008, and we’ve even seen a sharp left-hand turn for Villanova basketball onto Market Street in 1985, 2016, and 2018. In the same year of 2018, we celebrated our first Eagles Super Bowl win.
But we’ve never seen a celebration like this.
The 1926 Frankford Yellow Jackets waited until the following spring to celebrate. The 1948 and 1949 Eagles were first in a snowstorm and next in California when they won it all. The 1960 Eagles celebrated at a seafood spot down by the river.
The celebration we saw last week — nicely encapsulated into a Valentine’s Day of Love on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway — was an epic parade. More than a million deserving Eagles fans are in a sea of streamers and alcoholic beverages, partying with the likes of Jalen Hurts, AJ Brown, Cooper DeJean, and Saquon Barkley.
When your kids ask you about this season and the celebration that followed — tell them. Tell them that Philly’s never seen anything like this parade and this week of euphoria.
Tell them that Philly’s never seen anything like these Eagles. Tell them that it was well worth the wait.
PHOTO: William Bretzger-Delaware News Journal/USA TODAY NETWORK/Imagn Images
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