Philly Sports Jabronis
By Joe Darrah
There hasn’t been much that I thought was missing from this impressive 2013 Eagles team as they’ve proven their validity as a legitimately good squad.
Mistake-avoiding quarterback with poise and a presence about him that lends to winning. Check.
A defense that can consistently be counted on to keep points off the board and create enough turnovers to keep its offense in games. Check.
An overall balanced offensive attack that makes other teams respect all faucets of your system when game planning and play calling. Check.
A special teams unit that’s good enough to not be considered a liability in closely contested games. Check.
A head coach that, even in his first year, is someone you can trust is a mentally sharp individual who doesn’t take too many ill-advised gambles during play and trusts his personnel to deliver when the (sorry) chips are down. Check (sans his special teams strategy in Minnesota).
About the only thing I had been clamoring for as the weeks have passed and the playoffs became less of a dream and more of a reality is seeing an established “face” of the team emerge. That household name who we could all easily embrace not just based on on-the-field merit but based on his willingness to put himself out there publicly and demand that he be recognized as the team’s “it” guy. That guy you look for first as a fan when the team runs out of the tunnel and the guy that other teams and players could recognize as our leader. Someone with a swagger that oozes real confidence over for-the-cameras arrogance who we all could undoubtedly know that he wants to win just as much as the fans want this team to win. Someone other than Michael Vick, who I’m not chastising here but at the same time never felt comfortable with him as our franchise’s face.
Thank you, LeSean McCoy, for gracefully assuming this role, a role that hasn’t really been owned since the departure of Brian Dawkins.
With no disrespect whatsoever to Nick Foles as the competent quarterback and de facto field general that’s inherent with excelling at the position or DeMeco Ryans, who has certainly shown leadership qualities in his own right throughout this season, especially as it pertains to the defense, I’ve honestly been waiting for Shady to step up like this for a few years now as a long-established superstar in this league. But he coolly has waited his turn, and I respect that.
To me, the face of this team for the majority of this season has been Chip Kelly. And I’m not knocking him either when I say that. He has been and remains a huge success story. He’s a media darling, someone who hasn’t been shy in front of the cameras and had already proven the respect he has earned in the NFL even before being named to his first head coaching job by the Eagles last offseason. (Think pow-wows with Bill Belichick about offensive strategies while still at Oregon.) He has that “it” factor as an innovator and from a personality standpoint.
McCoy flaunts his title belt, which represented many things after the Eagles won in Dallas Sunday night.
That’s all well and good and well deserved. But this team needed more than that and the fans deserved someone in actual uniform who would step outside that proverbial box and do things like demonstratively stand on the sideline bleachers and emphatically gesture to an already raucous crowd to get on its feet, its tiptoes really, and rally a team and a player doing everything it and he could to win a pivotal game during a snowstorm. Someone who would calmly and seriously predict (if not promise) that his Birds would dismantle a hated foe in the Dallas Cowboys during the season’s last week and claim the NFC Eastern Division championship. Someone who would bring a championship belt onto the very field where his opponents’ and their fans’ hearts had been broken by a game-ending interception in what had been building up as a potential opportunity for a game-winning drive led by a backup quarterback who didn’t have a reputation for fourth-quarter disasters like his more talented heir.
It’s finally happened. Shady has made himself known for much more than being a high fantasy draft pick on a team that doesn’t quite maximize his real-life potential. And while Foles may one day wrest the “face of the franchise” moniker away from him as a franchise quarterback, should he continue to excel to that status during his first trip to the postseason, for now it’s up to Shady to be the “it” guy.
He’s certainly got the on-field credentials as the now two-time Pro Bowler has become the first Eagle to lead the league in rushing since Steve Van Buren (1,146 in 1949; 12 games) and set team records for most rushing yards in a season with 1,607 (besting 1,512 by Wilbert Montgomery in 1979) and most yards from scrimmage with 2,146 (surpassing 2,104 by Brian Westbrook in 2007)
He’s now No. 4 all time on the organization’s rushing list behind the three aforementioned backs.
And he’s now the most recognizable guy to go along with being the first guy you’ve got to game plan for when facing Philadelphia.
