NFC Championship Game: Carolina Panthers 14 vs. Philadelphia Eagles 3 (Final)

1/18/04 | me

[baseballfanjm]

It's game time!

[Johnny_Cipher]

One more time and Philly will be the NFC's version of the Buffalo Bills (only the Bills did actually make the Super Bowl).

They've still got a ways to go to equal or better the Viqueen's history of futility. But they're coming up fast.

[evets]

"There's no words. Each year gets harder" -James Madden, 27, of the city's Tacony section. Nearby, a friend tried comforting Robert O'Sullivan with a hug, but he shrugged it off. "This was it," the 43-year-old resident of Upper Darby said. "This was our time." Others raged at the stadium. "Burn it down!" cried Ryan Hughes of Mount Laurel. "Somebody give me a lighter... . Burn it down!" And in the nearly empty stands, Carlos Martini, 21, of Northeast Philadelphia, sat with his head between his knees, unable to leave. Across the field a knot of Carolina fans whooped and hollered. "I wonder what that feels like," he said. "I just want to know what it feels like to win like that." "I'm not too happy right now, not too happy at all," said Tim Miller, 25, of Northeast Philadelphia, who spouted expletives at the stadium's JumboTron as McNabb threw an interception near the end of the second quarter. Two interceptions and no Eagles touchdowns later, an ominous noise rose from the stands. "Yeah, they were booing," said security guard Ricardo Tucker, 21. "It's getting ugly in here." "If they don't win, everyone's going to be flipping out," said Purvis, 20, a junior from the city's Mayfair section surrounded by tense dorm mates. "It is destiny," said Bill Lennox, 21, of Southwest Philadelphia, who was at the stadium. "My dad smashed at least five TV sets watching the Eagles while I was growing up. I had to believe." Then Lennox spoke the unthinkable, beginning a sentence with: "If the Eagles lose..." His friend Justin Lang, 21, responded with a backhanded slap. "What did you say?" snapped Lang, hitting Lennox hard enough to spill his friend's beer. "Sorry, sorry," Lennox said. "Don't quit on me now," Lang said. "These past three days have been crazy at work. I can't concentrate, can't work on anything," said Holly Bracken, a 32-year-old sales manager from Ocean City, N.J., who was 9 when the Eagles lost Super Bowl XV. "They're not going to let us down, not this team, not this year, not this time," proclaimed Bill DiMenna, 39, a designer and draftsman from Runnemede. Loretta Wonderlin, 67, leaned over the railing and shook a 12-inch troll doll named Touchdown at the field below. "We're definitely going to win," squealed Wonderlin, an Avon representative from Delran. "That's what he [the doll] told me - 10 points." As the game ended, it was a funeral inside the American Legion Post 832 in Northeast Philadelphia. Chuck Devlin, a 73-year-old veteran, pulled the cigar out of his mouth to hum Taps. Nursing a beer nearby, Jim Gallen, 57, shook his head. "We are the most frustrated fans ever. This hurts." But the older Devlin had seen worse. He already saw a summer sun on the horizon. "Just wait till the Phils play. We've got to win sometime."

[discostu]

Both the Panthers and the Pats engaged in a lot of brutality on receivers. I'm always suprised more teams don't utilize that free 5 yard, in a league so dependant on timing routes punching receivers in the gut is great pass defense. And the teams that do that tend to get free jewelry at the end of the year.

[cardinal4]

All Im saying is there comes a time when you have to produce, make plays. This was for all the marbles....for the 3rd time. Reich had when it counted. Mcnabb is going to see the game in HDTV. There comes a time when nothing elses counts, a time to reach down deep and come up with whats needed to persevere. Maybe Mcnabb didnt want it that bad?

[ConservativeMan55]

LOL! And you ain't exaggerating either!

[Moby Grape]

I can't stand to listen to MOST sports creatures speak...so many worn out phrases:

"Both sides of the ball"
"We just have to execute...on BOTH sides of the ball"
"We just need to play our game....(as opposed to playing backgammon)

[jaugust]

Ah, the great Sports Illustrated jinx. I rememeber last season when SI had Favre on the cover toward the end of the season; everyone knows what happened after that.

[cardinal4]

I also remember an aging Steve Deberg being a hired for days before a playoff game in KC. He had what it took. Some just want to win more than others, I suppose. The Chiefs won their playoff game. I forget who their starter was, though..

[jaugust]

As I told someone last night, I'm not in a position to judge whether or not McNabb should have stayed in and led his team. I've never had a rib injury so I don't know what that feels like. I do however recall in Jerry Kramer's book, INSTANT REPLAY, that Bart Starr had problems all during the 1967 season with injured ribs. His roommate had to help him in and out of bed every day for practices and on game day. Starr would get shot up with painkillers, start the game but would be unable to finish because of the pain. When he couldn't play, Starr had a solid backup in Zeke Bratkowski. I remember "Brat" winning a few games for the Pack during that time frame. I would think that taking a bad shot to the ribs would be painful; breathing would be difficult. I'm not going to deal in speculation. That's for the Monday morning QB crowd.

[Redleg Duke]

Oh, silly me! I never even realized that!

Let me guess...the receivers were all caucasian...right? And they must have been conservatives too!

[SamAdams76]

Your post about the reactions of Eagle fans after the loss yesterday was very interesting. Grown men practically in tears. Sitting with their heads between their knees as if they just heard that a close family member died. Fans threatening to "burn down the stadium" and such.

I am a big football fan myself but I have never understood why some fans take the game so personally. I mean, even the players don't take it so hard. Sure, the losers are always disappointed but after the game, you see them shaking hands and congratulating the winners.

I'm also a big Red Sox fan and when they lost Game 7 last October to the Yankees in spectacular fashion, I accepted it. It (the victory) just wasn't meant to be. I appreciated that the team took it as far as they did and did not get all broken-hearted about it (like many other people around here did).

It's just a game. And what's more, the players and coaches of a given professional team rarely have ties to the city they play for anyhow. When the Red Sox season was over, the entire team went to their respective homes. Pedro Martinez went to the Dominican Republic, Nomar went to California, etc., etc. Nobody on the team calls Boston their home. They are just here on contract and many of them will be someplace else on contract next year, playing for some other nondescript city that means nothing to them personally. Oh, I'm sure that the players want to win and want to be associated with a winning team. But whether that winning team resides in Boston or Cleveland matters little to them.

While I am a fan of my hometown team (the Patriots), I can also appreciate the successful teams from other places like Green Bay, Dallas and lately, Carolina. In fact, if the Carolina Panthers beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, I'll be happy for them. They seem to be a group of fine players that are also well-coached. I wouldn't begrudge them a victory over my Pats if indeed they are the better team. Certainly I won't be crying like a baby and wishing to overturn police cars and set them on fire.

[Lead Moderator]

If I had been around, maybe. But I wasn't. Use abuse to make such requests- that way your request will get seen in a more timely fashion.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

No sideline injury report? Weren't you listening? He had his ribs hurt by a cheap shot. Seperated cartilege was later determined to be the precise problem, but it was obviously on the ribs.

As to "exposing McNabb", did you notice that the Eagles, for all their terrible receiving, had more passing yards than the Panthers? 150-100? Where was Smith? Shutdown 3 rec. 26 yards.

The Panthers capitalized on their opportunities while the Eagles made mistakes that turned into costly intereptions. The interception of a ball for Staley at the end and a ball for Pinkston a bit before that, both close to a TD, was the difference in the game. Its been said many times but fate or destiny isn't something that hits you on the head, its something you make. Carolina did it last night, and the Ealges didn't because they dropped easy balls or flubbed plays. Simple as that.

[N. Theknow]

Once again a "running" quarterback will not win the Super Bowl.

Running quarterbacks can get you into the playoffs but they cannot produce when the championship is on the line.

Put his receivers' heads on swivels where they are looking more for where the defensive hitters are and they don't have time to follow the QB. He can put it in their hands but they don't see it coming until it's too late to catch it. Even if they do catch it, they are fully exposed to a blast from a full tilt defensive back.

Unfortunately, for Philadelphia, they will not win until McNabb is no longer McNimble enough to run and has to concentrate on being an NFL quarterback.

[Capt. Jake]

Cheap shot? Good players play until the whistle blows. That's exactly what Favors did.

[Tricorn]

"No sideline injury report? Weren't you listening? He had his ribs hurt by a cheap shot. Seperated cartilege was later determined to be the precise problem, but it was obviously on the ribs"

Yes, we knew it was a rib injury. But there was no reporting about it. They must have known by halftime, if not before, the precise nature of the injury, but the audience didn't. We didn't know what the injury was until well after the game. I watched all the coverage and didn't hear about this cartilege thing until this morning. What struck me was how blase the analysts were about their boy McNabb standing on the sidelines watching Koy. They treated it as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"As to "exposing McNabb", did you notice that the Eagles, for all their terrible receiving, had more passing yards than the Panthers? 150-100?"

I saw lots of terrible quarterbacking too. I saw a classless McNabb throw a ridiculous interception and then make a big classless stink in front of millions of people intended to make it clear that the interception was his receiver's fault. A real team player there.

Koy had half of those passing yards against a soft prevent defense, relatively speaking. Hats off to Koy. At least he would throw the ball. McNabb would just stand in the pocket until he got hammered. He played as if he had been coached not to make mistakes. This would explain the standing around in the pocket forever and the throws into the ground etc.

"Where was Smith? Shutdown 3 rec. 26 yards."

Um, in case you didn't notice, the Panthers led from the git-go and didn't need to pass but 14 times. Once it became obvious that the McNabb-led Eagles offense was going NOWHERE fast, and the non-existent Eagles run defense couldn't stop the run if their season depended on it, the Panthers breathed pretty easy.

Interesting to me that after the Packers game, the Packers, to a man, came out in defense of their leader, Brett Favre. I didn't hear any of this kind of defense of McNabb from his teammates. I would imagine the Eagles players are getting tired of hearing about him too -- especially while they're playing and he's standing on the sideline. The media may want to re-assess their boy.

Staley was the only player who looked to be playing hard. Nate Wayne might want to spend some time in the weight room this off-season so he can out-muscle a 2nd team scatback at the goal line next time.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Philly has been overated all year

Can you name another team that has gone 46-18 or better in the past four years regular season? You think McNabb had nothing to do with that? Aren't you amazed at what the Reid-McNabb Eagles could do with 8 starters injured? Still go 12-4?

For comparison:

Philadelphia 46-18

Closest to them:

Tennessee 43-21
St. Louis 43-21
Green Bay 43-21

The rest aren't even close:

Miami 41-23
Baltimore 39-25
New England 39-25
Pittsburgh 38-25-1
Indianapolis 38-26
Denver 38-26
Oakland 37-27

And the ones besides these aren't even worth mentioning.

[rintense]

Yeah, the difference is Manning blamed HIMSELF solely for the loss against the Pats. He said that when a QB throws an INT, its the QBs fault, and no one else's. What did McNabb say? Other than the obviously biased (and sickening) commentary by the FOX analysts, the game didn't bother me. In fact, I am very pleased the Panthers won. They deserved to win. But listening to Manning after the game made me realize the difference between a good QB and a great one- humility and heart. Peyton will have is day. McNabb, on the other hand...

That game yesterday was all about McNabb, not the Eagles. You could hear it in the commentary, you could see it one the sidelines, and you could hear it in the oddly strange silence of team support for McNabb after the game. Anytime a player becomes larger than the team, the team is doomed.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Cheap shot - purposefully tackling a man down on the field in a manner so as to inflict an injury.

[Moby Grape]

Do you remember the Minnesota Vikings...great records in a weak division...get to the playoffs or the Super Bowl and get their due.

Question for you? Where is Philly in the rankings of the overall NFL? Where are they passing, rushing, defense, etc?