Once again the Eagles ended a season filled with promise and expectation with a frustrating defeat in the playoffs. Under head coach Andy Reid, it’s an annual rite of January that his team will frustrate and underwhelm when the playoffs begin. That’s just what the Eagles do when the playoffs start.
This time it was the Green Bay Packers who perplexed Reid with a rarely seen running attack that just made the Eagles’ inability to cash in on opportunities all the more maddening.
You know… different year, same crash-landing result.
So as the Eagles push into their second half-century without a championship (the third-longest drought amongst NFL teams and 15 years longer than the Flyers’ epic run without a title amongst Philly teams) it’s only fair to size up the latest failure with the other mind-numbing defeats.
Here are the Eagles’ worst non-Super Bowl losses in the playoffs in no particular order of disappointment:
2003 NFC Championship at Lincoln Financial Field (Jan. 18, 2004)
Panthers 14, Eagles 3
You know the phrase, “It was like watching paint dry…” In the case of this game such a statement would be unfair to paint, the color spectrum and the periodic chart of elements. Truth is, it would have been preferable to watch paint dry than this football game.
Usually the numbers don’t tell the entire story of a game, but this one sure did. Donovan McNabb, playing with torn cartilage in his ribs, went 10-for-22 with 100 yards passing and three interceptions by 5-foot-9 cornerback, Ricky Manning Jr. Eventually, Koy Detmer came on to relieve McNabb, but it wasn’t enough to boost the Eagles.
Of course what would a playoff loss in the playoffs be without complaints of Reid’s coaching moves? What would we talk about if we weren’t befuddled about the coach’s decade-long aversion to a running game… even when it’s working? The word after this game was that lineman Jon Runyan pleaded with the coaches to keep running the ball, especially since Correll Buckhalter and Duce Staley combined for 137 rushing yards.
No, this one might not have been the most disappointing loss in team history, but it was easily the ugliest.
2002 NFC Championship at Veterans Stadium (Jan. 19, 2003)
Buccaneers 27, Eagles 10
This one began with Brian Mitchell’s 70-yard kickoff return to set up a touchdown run by Duce Staley that had the old stadium shaking behind the raucousness of the fans in its final football game. It ended with Ronde Barber returning an interception 92 yards with a crowd so quiet that Barber could be heard celebrating his run in the upper reaches of the stadium.
From here the Buccaneers went on to trounce the Raiders in a Super Bowl most thought was destined to be the Eagles’ to lose… only if they got there, of course. In fact, the scene in the parking lot before the game was as celebratory as it could get without the brush fires or flipped over cars. There was even one enthusiastic gentleman in moll of the parking-lot scene urging the Eagles to “Beat the Bucs” while parading around with a deer head trophy.
Wrong type of Bucs, dude.
Maybe we should have seen how it was going to turn out based off the overconfidence beforehand?
1988 NFC Divisional Game at Soldier Field (Dec. 31, 1988)
Bears 20, Eagles 12
The Fog Bowl
Unbelievably, Randall Cunningham threw for 407 yards on 27-for-54 passing with 254 of those yards spread amongst Keith Byers and Keith Jackson. However, Cunningham also threw three interceptions and by the time the thick fog rolled in off Lake Michigan and visibility was reduced to nothing, the Eagles’ chances of finding the end zone also disappeared.
Unbelievably, The Fog Bowl seems like something perfectly suited to happen to the post-1960 Eagles. That’s especially the case for the late-80s to mid-90s versions of the team where it could be argued that those Eagles’ teams were amongst the most talented in NFL history to never win a Super Bowl. It was almost as if the Eagles of this era had a starting pitching rotation with four aces but couldn’t quite get to where they were supposed to be.
The Fog Bowl personified this era. The Eagles, specifically Cunningham, did everything but score a touchdown and win the game. And for once, it seemed as if the folks watching at home and the players on the field saw the same exact things. The same goes for Verne Lundquist and Terry Bradshaw calling the action in the broadcast booth:
Lundquist: "Cunningham will throw … or run. Sacked for the fourth time. Wait a minute …"
Bradshaw: "He got rid of the ball, Verne."
Lundquist: "Must have. He completed it to somebody. And we're not trying to make light of this, but it is actually impossible for us to see the field."
Cunningham says the Eagles could have played with more than 11 players and no one would have been the wiser.
“When that fog rolled in, you might as well close your eyes and close up the shop,” Cunningham told ESPN.com. “That was it.”
The fog rolled in late in the second quarter with the Bears leading 17-6. From that point all the Bears had to do was go into a stall… for 30 minutes. Nevertheless, Bears quarterback Mike Tomczak insists the game was won because the Bears were better.
No so, defensive stalwart Seth Joyner told ESPN.com.
“Some wins you win by domination, and some wins you win by default,” Joyner said. “He needs to go back and look at the film.”
Needless to say, there are a lot of Eagles’ playoff games that could be said about.
1978 NFC Wild-Card Game at Fulton County Stadium (Dec. 24, 1978)
Falcons 14, Eagles 13
When punter Mike Michel was forced into kicking duties and missed an extra-point in the first quarter, it hardly seemed like a big deal. After all, with five minutes to go in the game the Eagles led 13-0 and were poised to win their first postseason game since the 1960 NFL Championship.
But Falcons’ QB Steve Bartkowski threw two touchdown passes to take the lead, with the game-winner coming on a 37-yard pass to Wallace Francis with 1:39 to go in the game. Actually, it was the ensuing extra point that proved to be the winning score in the first-ever wild-card playoff game (video).
Still, the Eagles had a chance to win the game. Ron Jaworski appeared to have hit rookie Oren Middlebrook at the goal line with 45 seconds left, but the ball fell out of the receiver’s hands. Jaworski overthrew Harold Carmichael with 17 seconds left, to set up a 34-yard field goal attempt, but of course, Michel shanked it.
Needless to say, that spring coach Dick Vermeil drafted barefoot kicker Tony Franklin in the third round of the and Michel, just 24, never appeared in another NFL game.
So why was Michel kicking at all and why didn’t Vermeil go out and get a real kicker when starter (and Temple alum) Nick Mike-Meyer went down with a rib injury? Better yet, why didn’t Vermeil get a real kicker before the Eagles’ first playoff game in 18 seasons especially since Michel missed three of the 12 extra points he attempted? Good questions, huh…
Actually, reports from 1978 say Vermeil did try out a bunch of kickers only Michel was the best of the bunch in practice. Though the missed kick was Michel’s last play in an NFL game (his 35.8 yards per punt average not good enough to get him a job punting), reports were that Michel rarely missed in practice. Nevertheless, kicking in practice against some guys off the street and in the playoffs is a little different.
Daily News beat writer Gary Smith, now with Sports Illustrated, wrote:
This was like taking a driver’s ed class at the Indy 500.
Sunday’s defeat was nowhere as bad as losing because of a missed extra point or because the fog was too thick to run the offense. But then again, when it comes to losses in the playoffs Andy Reid deals in quantity, not quality.