I am in a daze. You know how in movies when there’s a big explosion or violent car crash and suddenly the camera cuts to a tight shot of the protagonist and the image drags in slow motion, the sound dropping to an almost silence, except for a barely perceptible ringing sound layered over the muffled shouts of others onscreen as chaos continues to roil around our hero, but you understand they just aren’t mentally present or aware of what’s happening? That basically describes the state I’ve been in over the last few weeks. I exist now in a perpetual state of sports shock. Wrap me in a silvery mylar emergency blanket and shine a flashlight into my eyes.
After this past Sunday, with the Philadelphia Eagles’ shocking 40-22 win in Super Bowl LIX (it’s “59” apparently, not pronounced phonetically, as disappointing as that may be) over the Kansas City Chiefs, I’ve had enough. I don’t think my fragile heart can take any more. Having to watch the team I hate most in all of the world celebrate a championship — their second in eight years — live in full 4K HD from the safe confines of my own living room is where my line is. I simply cannot bear another wound. I am bloodied. Beaten. Broken.
2025 has been off to a hell of a start. Entirely ignoring the kleptocratic slide into a racially delineated oligarchy the new administration is barreling toward at full speed, there’s been plenty of goings-on to drive your grandma to drinking for even the most oblivious “I don’t get involved in politics” set. From the Cowboys trotting out their next sacrificial lamb of a coaching hire, this time in the form of middle-aged nepo baby Brian Schottenheimer, a man who hasn’t been considered a legitimate head-coaching candidate for more than decade and will eventually bear the blame for the team’s continued mediocrity, to the biggest heartbreaking betrayal by any professional sports organization in memory with power-mad Mavs GM Nico Harrison unilaterally cutting bait with a future statue-outside-of-the-stadium-worthy legend in Luka Dončić, it’s been a month. Add to this that it took all of two and a half quarters of basketball before the return in the deal that sent our beloved No. 77 away, All-NBA power forward Anthony Davis lived up to his derogatory nickname of “Street Clothes.” He’ll be wearing them on the Mavs bench indefinitely now after suffering an adductor strain halfway through the third quarter of his Dallas debut on Saturday. He looks to miss at least a month. Likely more.
Now, Philthy’s confounding win is the final blade in my belly. In a vacuum, another Iggles Super Bowl title would be enough to send me into a days-long fit of aggravation. It’s an organization that’s easy to loathe. From the maddening “Fly, Eagles, Fly” chant to head coach Nick Sirianni’s infinitely punchable face, the annoying mascot they’ve made out of Oscar-thirsty actor Bradley Cooper, and their meathead, trolling, riot-prone fanbase, everything about them is obnoxious. As this victory was a wholly one-sided domination of a current and previously thought unbeatable NFL dynasty, and all the while coming on the heels of perhaps the worst two-week period of my sports life, it’s a particularly sinister twist of the knife.
Not only do I have to begrudgingly acknowledge that the Eagles as an organization are light years better run than whatever backward and reactionary philosophy the Cowboys can claim but also that a former gadget player — and now reigning Super Bowl MVP quarterback, Jalen Hurts — is inarguably better than Dak Prescott, and that the infinitely punchable Nick Sirianni, if only by dint of his two elite coordinators in Kellen Moore and Vic Fangio, is somehow also better than Mike McCarthy was and Schottenheimer is likely to be. That Philly now has as many Super Bowl appearances (four) as the Cowboys have playoff wins over the last quarter century is just more seasoning sprinkled into the proverbial sore.
Super Bowl Sunday is normally like Christmas, or Fat Tuesday, or your annual prostate exam: a day you look forward to all year. There are so many fun traditions. There’s the great artery-clogging food, the intervention-inspiring stock of ice-cold beer, the funny big-budget commercials, a halftime show that will make old white people angry, and, somewhere in there, usually a damn good football game. Thanks to Eagles DC Fangio, we were denied the last of these. His monstrous defensive pass rush kept the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, the best quarterback in the league, scrambling for his life all game, sacking him six times without ever once bringing a blitz. Consequently, Kansas City’s “Punt God” Matt Araiza got more work than their convicted domestic abuser running back (Kareem Hunt) and their anthropomorphized protein shake and pop-star boyfriend tight end (you know who he is) had combined. The Trash Pigeons practically skated to victory, with Kansas City unable to score their first points until the third quarter in a largely unwatchable game. It’s all now just another half-perceived explosion in the periphery of my shellshocked sports stupor.
As an aside, the commercials were also lame. The massive budgets used by ad agencies to allot to creativity and humor and that once forced the commercials to dominate water cooler talk the Monday after the game have been replaced by awkwardly shoehorned celebrity cameos and gruesome, nonsensical CGI (babies with dog heads? hats made of human flesh?!). At least Kendrick Lamar’s poignant and ambitious halftime performance delivered on the requisite Boomer discomfort. No doubt the socials exploded with angry comments from accounts whose profile pics consist of closeups of the users in their driver seats with wraparound Oakleys on.
If schadenfreude is joy from others’ misery, I would like to say that in the wake of a depressing Eagles win, the opposite of that is what I’m feeling. “Fruedeschaden,” if you will. That I am completely miserable at witnessing those aggravating Eagles fans’ joy. But, honestly, at this point, after all we as local sports fans have been through recently, I’m just numb. Even still, nobody talk to me for, like, a year.
