February 10, 2025
It wasn't a three-hour panic attack this time around. It was a three-hour party.
When the Eagles won their first Super Bowl ever seven years ago, the game itself was defined by the type of anxiety Birds fans had long been accustomed to. A team that never won it big stood toe-to-toe with the greatest of all time late into the fourth quarter until Brandon Graham's strip sack ripped off that Band-Aid, that feeling that something bad would always happen to you simply because you're from Philadelphia.
This time?
It was over at the half.
I'm running out of publishable ways to say the Eagles dominated the Chiefs. Throttled. Destroyed. Kicked their teeth in. Whatever one you want to go with, it transpired. The nervous wrangling that dominated fans' attitudes back in Feb. 2018 was gone, replaced with an assurance that was already getting the party going by the third quarter. Eagles fans became a mix of Jalen Hurts' cool confidence and Saquon Barkley's beer shotgunning.
That sums up the vibe of Broad Street last night. There wasn't the pure jubilation that was present seven years back. There was an absence of tears streaming down people's faces as if they had just gotten a new lease on life. Philly knows they're great now. Just like the Eagles did in that absolute tail-kicking of a 40-22 win that wasn't even remotely as close as the score indicates.
When I walked out to Broad and Shunk after that first Eagles Super Bowl win, I had reached a time and place that I had dreamed about for as long as I had concrete memories. It was special, and those Eagles were more special than a collection of all-time greats, which made things so poignant at the time.
These Eagles though? They're just the best and they know it. Everyone out in South Philadelphia carried themselves accordingly. Whistles were blown in honor of Too $hort. Cheap cigars were chomped like they were of the $100 variety. It was a bad night to be a Miller Lite, too. It's better to live one day as an Eagles fan following a Super Bowl win than to be just about anything else.
People had started their celebrations essentially since watching Cooper DeJean's pick-6 in their living rooms and never looked back. Broad Street wasn't the premier destination of the Super Bowl party, merely a stop on a journey where the Eagles and their fans are now on top of the world.
Every Broad Street celebration is someone's first though, naturally.
I think of a child who kept screaming, "Eagles rule. Chiefs drool!" down Shunk Street.
You know what, kid? Sometimes it really is that simple. You got 'em.
Eagles fans are now used to these celebrations. Some like that kid don't know anything else other than the Eagles being winners. What a world.
The Chiefs' three-peat was denied. Maybe the Birds will rip off a three-peat of their own and shove it in everyone's faces. Maybe that won't have the awe and wonder of Feb. 4, 2018, and that's okay. Take it from the nitwit who found love at an Eagles celebration out in the city though: I'm sure the masses will be still huddled together on Broad Street popping champagne and yelling their heads off regardless.
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