Eagles dominate Commanders, return to Super Bowl

Eagles. Chiefs. New Orleans.

It’s a Super Bowl rematch two years in the making. 24 long months since Kansas City stormed back from a ten-point halftime deficit against your Birds. (Maybe with a little bit of help. Still not over it.)

But there will be plenty of time to overanalyze and agonize over February 9 and the final game of the year. Today is a celebration.

In the email today:

• 🦅 'Boring' Eagles set NFC Championship scoring record

• 🎉 Philadelphia celebrates another NFC Championship

• 📆 The Sixers aren't tanking mostly because it's too late

  • 📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

  • 📊 Poll

  • 🔗 Links

  • 📺 Coming Up

The Eagles, in the words of a great man, get no respect. No respect at all.

The coach is a knucklehead. (OK, that was us). They’re overly reliant on Saquon Barkley. (That aged beautifully.) The Tush Push should be banned.

But of all the disrespectful, hateful and at the same time downright untrue charges leveled against the Birds, this one is the worst of the lot.

Hey, f*ck straight off.

The Commanders opened the NFC title game with an 18-play drive which included two fourth-down conversions and ended with a gutless 34-yard field goal.

The Eagles opened the NFC title game with (checks notes) a one-play drive.

What’s boring about that? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

While the Eagles were scoring like a professional gamer playing Madden in rookie mode all day long, the Commanders were:

• Running a desperation fake punt in the first quarter.

• Fumbling the ball (and losing it) three times.

• Committing braindead unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.

• Being threatened with a referee-awarded touchdown for the Eagles, which we didn’t even know existed.

• Seeing their quarterback dance in the end zone after scoring a touchdown which cut the Birds’ lead to 11 points.

If that’s what that’s what passes for “an interesting watch,” you can have it.

We’ll stick with this.

As another wise man once said, “you play to win the game.”

We can’t speak for you, dear readers, but we enjoyed the hell out of that win. And we will happily take another one just like it in two weeks.

After the game is over, the games begin.

All cities celebrate huge sports victories, but there’s something uniquely Philadelphian about scenes like this:

Look at the beautiful image below, for example. So much has to come together to make this moment. It takes an Eagles victory, creativity, some civil disobedience, just the right amount of alcohol to confidently but safely climb a traffic light, and a bizarre sideline moment from earlier in the season.

Every time the Birds win a big one, you can count on new fans going viral. Ok sure, not always for the best reasons. There are inevitably a few dumbasses in a huge crowd. But c’mon now, how great is this:

Or this.

Or this.

Nothing brings the city together like its sports teams. And with all due respect to the Sixers, Flyers, and Fightins, no club can touch the Eagles when it comes to the sheer size of its fan base. Is there anyone in any corner of the city who didn’t enjoy Sunday’s 55-23 beatdown of the Commanders?

(Note that Philadelphia-area Cowboys fans aren’t actual people, so they don’t count.)

With some luck, we will see an even happier celebration in two weeks. In the meantime, we’ll continuously update THE Philly Sports Website with the best footage of Sunday’s giant party.

Less than a week ago, the Sixers were playing with such little effort and with such awful results that the only rational conclusion was that the tank was on.

Except, in typical Sixers fashion, it’s never that easy.

During The Process, the Sixers landed in the bottom six of the league with regularity and with ease. There were two factors driving that “success”:

• The franchise said unapologetically that that was the plan.

• The players on the team at the time were so lacking in talent that they could try their absolute hardest and still rarely be good enough to win.

We all should have known that intentional tanking was not going to happen this season. Ironically, it was The Process that led the NBA to put in the guardrails described here:

In the 2024 NBA Draft, the Detroit Pistons (14-68 last season) picked fifth and the Charlotte Hornets (21-61) picked sixth. The Sixers, who stink on ice, are already 17-27.

There just isn’t a path to being bad enough to save their first-round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, especially with stuff like this happening.

After beating the conference-leading Cavaliers on Friday night and the mediocre Bulls on Saturday, the Sixers climbed back to a game out of the last Eastern Conference play-in spot.

Hopefully Paul George’s left pinkie finger MRI will come back clean. Because that’s what it has come to for the Sixers.

📆 This Day in Philly Sports History

On January 27, 2002, Donovan McNabb and the Eagles almost upset the Rams for the NFC Championship.

Almost.

📊 Poll

Results from Friday:

We realize now that it was very unnecessary to list all these names.

🔗 Links

• 🏈 Penn State is looking to poach Ohio State’s defensive coordinator.

• 🙄 We really need our Mayor not handing opposing teams’ fans material.

• 📹️ Video replay assist might be on the way to stop Patrick Mahomes from cheating.

• 🖕If you don’t love seeing Daniel Snyder miserable, we can’t help you.

• 🔑 American Madison Keys upset the world #1 to win the Women’s Australian Open tennis championship.

📺 Coming Up

Games before our next send.

Monday, January 27, 2025

• Devils at Flyers, 7:00 p.m. (NBC Sports Philadelphia)

Thanks for reading. See you tomorrow.

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