Annual Eagles Column Year 10: Winning is the Only Option

(Image created by Ryan Beckler)

Editor’s Note:

Flight attendants, please prepare the c̶a̶b̶i̶n̶ column for takeoff. Oh hi there, that was supposed to be a practice run. Didn’t realize we were on the air. Let’s take this from the top.

YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE at Year 10 of my annual Eagles column. Some quick background for anyone who is new here, and we love newcomers 👋. It has become tradition that every summer when the Eagles report for training camp, I write a column. It is far and away the most important thing that I do on the Internet and if we’re being honest, one of the most important things I do in life as a whole— my absolute pride and joy.

The column got its start being somewhat analytical in nature, however we now often take a more metaphorical look at the state of the franchise. I never like to tell people how to feel when it comes to sports. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but at its core, if I execute what I set out to do, the column is meant to capture the mood of the fanbase heading into the season, and for the non-Eagles or even non-football fans, don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of relatable references for you as well. The 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 columns can all be found at their respective links.

If the last two paragraphs were for the newbies, consider this for the OGs. Loyal readers may recall from last year that I went on a big tangent about the concept of turning nine years old and how the number was significant because the inaugural version in 2014 was centered around Nick Foles, far and away the most important number 9 in Eagles history.

We’re not going to wax poetic about the number 10 other than to note that I think it’s really cool when you can say you’ve done something for a decade, and I’m not referring to stuff like going through the school system. I’m talking about stuff we do voluntarily as adults.

If you’ve done something for 10 years at the age of 32, it tells me one of two things:

1. You got married at a very young age, in which case a sincere congrats. I hope it’s going well.
2. You are stuck in a toxic corporate job that you got fresh out of college, in which case, please get the fuck out and let me know if I can be of any help.

This is usually the part where I tell a story about how I wasn’t sure if the column was going to continue, if I was going to take a year off, etc. That reached a crescendo last summer as I was dealing with the after effects of a traumatic layoff that still to this day has a major psychological impact on me.

That aside though, I ain’t got no story for you this summer. This was full steam ahead. Super Bowl hangover? Fuck it, the column’s coming back. Wedding planning? I’ll find time for both. The column’s coming back. There was no question about whether or not Year 10 was happening, and that’s what makes me so excited about this edition.

Ultimately though, it matters what you think. Were it not for you, the readers, I would simply be talking to myself, and believe me, I do too much of that already.

A couple of housekeeping items before we take flight:

1. The tradition lives on of the column being neatly divided into chapters, so you can take a break without losing your place, akin to reading a great book.
2. Perhaps my favorite tradition also continues — Each chapter title is also a song title, linking out to a Spotify playlist, so if you prefer to read with music, you can jam out along the way.

One final note:

My Venmo handle is @Drew-Balis. I’ve had people suggest to me in the past that I should put the column behind a paywall on Substack, Patreon, etc. I do not have a desire to do that. I don’t do this to make money. I have other ways of doing that, but at the end of the day, it does help to ensure writers like yours truly will continue to invest the time and effort into delivering quality work, so just as you would tip a Lyft driver if they provide excellent service, I would ask that you consider doing the same if you deem the column worthy of five stars.

For those who don’t want to do that, which is totally fine, my non-monetary ask would be that you share it on social media, text it in your group chat, send me a testimonial that I can use to promote it. My goal on Column Day and in the forthcoming days is for this link to be everywhere on the Internet, and you can help me achieve that.

A heartfelt thank you to anyone who will read this year’s column. I sincerely hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

Here’s to the next decade 🍻🚀

Chapter 1: Welcome to My Nightmare

Sunday, February 12th, 2023, 11:35 pm ET

Sweat drips down your face. Your 2017 Super Bowl Champions hat wobbles atop your head. You can feel your DeVonta Smith jersey clinging tightly to your neck.

It feels like deja vu from the nightmare of 80 minutes ago, except now the scene is totally different.

An announcement over the intercom starts up. You’re not expecting a good update.

“This is the last call for Spirit Airlines Flight 3835 direct to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Final call for boarding.”

Even running at your fastest with no luggage, you’re still still a good six minutes from the gate. LaGuardia is fucking massive.

‘Why are so many fucking people at the airport right now,’ you mutter to yourself while glancing at your Fitbit watch and attempting to maintain speed. ‘Weren’t they watching the game? Who flies on Super Bowl Sunday?’

Checking the watch was probably a mistake. You don’t want to know what your heart rate is at the moment. It’s already buzzed twice to alert you.

A35, A36, you still have half the terminal to cover to reach A73. A group of five is walking side-by-side, slowly you might add, blocking a good chunk of space.

You manage to squeeze your way in between them and keep moving, regaining your balance after nearly slipping. That could have been bad.

If you go down, there’s no way you’re making this flight. From what you quickly saw online, it’s the last one until sunrise. You have to make the flight. There is no other choice.

The A73 sign appears visible now as you make your way through the 60s.

‘Don’t look at the time. Don’t look at the time,’ you think to yourself. ‘It will only make you more nervous.’

You make a slight right turn with your body as you reach the gate. You definitely pulled some muscle along the way. You’ll deal with that later. There’s much larger problems at the moment.

Outside of one middle-aged woman sitting at a table with her laptop charging, it looks like a barren desert.

The gate attendant is beginning to walk away. You flag him down, slightly out of breath.

“Sir, I need to be on this flight,” you say while rummaging for your phone inside your pocket to hold up the basic economy boarding pass.

“We closed the gate three minutes ago,” he says. “I can’t let you on.”

“Has the plane taken off yet?” you ask in response.

You know the answer. You look out the window and the aircraft is still there.

“No,” he answers back quite succinctly.

You’re unsure if no had a double meaning there, but you go with it in the literal sense of the question.

“Okay, then I need to be on the flight. I have a ticket. Even if I didn’t, I’ll stand in the bathroom if I have to, but I’m telling you, I need to be on the flight.”

“I’m sorry, kid,” he says with the slightest hint of a smile. “Rules are rules. I can’t let you on.”

You turn your back and begin walking away to figure out a new plan. Your hat falls to the ground. As you go back for it, he picks it up for you.

“Wait a minute,” he says. “Eagles. Aren’t you a little late here? Wasn’t the game tonight?”

“Yeah,” you say softly while looking up alternative flight options on your phone.

“What happened?” he asks. “Did they win?”

It’s probably a peaceful life to be this innocent about things.

You shake your head side-to-side a few times.

“Damn,” he says. “So what are you going out there now for, especially if they lost? This doesn’t make any sense.”

“I really can’t tell you that,” you say. “I just need…”

“Okay look,” he says while handing you back your hat. “I really shouldn’t be doing this, like I could lose my job, but my third cousin is a big Eagles fan and he’s out in Arizona. Follow me. Let’s get you on this flight. Now listen. Once you board, you go immediately to your seat. Buckle up and don’t cause any issues.”

“You got it,” you say as the two of you get closer to the plane. Keeping up with his swift walking pace shouldn’t be this difficult after the past two hours of what felt like a full on sprint, but you feel as if your body is about to crash.

You’re exhausted, dehydrated, and still in complete shock from the game, but at least one thing appears to be going right now.

“Let me see your ticket one more time,” he says as you approach the plane.

You hold up your phone.

“Damn, last row, middle seat. Spirit. You must be really desperate to get out there. You’re in for a rough flight.”

“It can’t be worse than the past couple hours,” you quip back.

“Alright, here we are,” he says as you reach the plane.

A flight attendant greets you with a skeptical look.

“He’s good,” the gate attendant says to her. “Was feeling a little sick pre-boarding and lost track of time.”

That was an impressive white lie even if there’s a hint of truth to the sick part.

“Thank you,” you say as he begins to walk away. “I promise I won’t forget you for this.”

The flight attendant motions for you to start moving again.

As you make your way through the aisle, it appears that much of the flight is already asleep. A few who are awake shoot you a dirty look under the belief that you held up the plane.

You’ll accept those right now. You made the flight.

Chapter 2: Jet Airliner

Sunday, February 12th, 2023, 11:57 pm ET

You squeeze your way into seat B24 and fasten your seatbelt.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard flight 3835 direct into Phoenix. We are looking at being in the air for approximately 5 hours and 10 minutes. That should have us landing around 3:07 am mountain time in Arizona. We thank you for flying Spirit, and my heart also goes out to any Eagles fans aboard.”

The gate attendant wasn’t lying that you were in for a rough flight, but you were ill prepared for that. You’re unsure if it was an intentional shot or just simply catching a stray.

“Tough loss,” says the man next to you in the aisle seat. “They had it and they blew it.”

You nod your head and feel the plane beginning to move. That’s about all you can muster. You’re not good at sleeping on flights, but you might as well try.

Typically you’ll wait until you’re up in the air before even attempting to sleep, but you’re tired enough to doze off here.

You wake up some time later, disappointed to see your airplane mode phone displaying 2:10 am ET.

“I’m sorry they lost,” says the woman next to you in the window seat.

If one more person says something about the game, you’re going to lose it. You don’t respond, instead looking to your left.

The aforementioned man in the aisle seat is now sound asleep. You need to use the bathroom, but that’s clearly not happening. The person in front of you has reclined the seat as far back as possible, and legroom was already limited to begin with.

This is truly a disaster that started at the beginning of the second half of the game and has continued ever since.

A flight attendant finally makes her way back with the beverage cart. “Water, please,” you say in a raspy voice.

You chug it within a second of receiving the cup.

“Wow,” she says. “More?”

Before you can even complete a nod, she continues “You know what? You’re the last row anyway. Here, just take the whole bottle.”

“Thank you,” you whisper in an attempt to not awaken the man in the aisle seat. You chug the three-quarters full bottle within the next 30 seconds. As you complete the final sip, he pops up and you take this as an opportunity to slide by and use the bathroom.

Water has a way of making things better, especially when your mouth is still burning from the wings you ate before kickoff.

It’s been a miserable night, but at least your body feels slightly better as you slide back into your seat for the duration of the flight.

You manage to fall back asleep again for what seems to be a decent amount of time. Feeling physically rejuvenated, you wake up to the eight magic words of “Flight attendants please prepare the cabin for landing.”

‘This absolutely sucks, but when we do win another one, it will be part of that story,’ you think to yourself.

Deplaning feels like an eternity. It’s pitch black in Phoenix, and you’re the second to last person to exit.

Super Bowl memorabilia dons the airport gift shop as you follow the signs for rideshare. For the wee hours of the morning, the airport is packed. Several folks look as if they came directly from the game, donning Eagles or Chiefs gear while awaiting their flights home.

Thankfully no one says anything to you, but you feel bad for all of the fellow Eagles travelers going through this. Your flight home from Minneapolis wasn’t until Tuesday morning, and even with a recovery day, that would have been absolute hell had the Eagles lost.

Chapter 3: Highway to Hell

Monday, February, 13th, 2023, 3:29 am MT

You’ve never seen an airport terminal so crowded. This isn’t 3:30 am crowded. This is the day before Thanksgiving level of crowded.

You punch up State Farm Stadium in Uber and Lyft, figuring you’ll get there and then figure things out.

This is going to be a lot harder than anticipated. What should normally be less than a 25 minute ride is projected well over an hour with game traffic not yet dissipating. Not to mention, prices are well over $100, but time is money right now.

Your first driver on Lyft — you always prefer Lyft to Uber if possible — Carl cancels within a few seconds. Clearly he took a look at the traffic and decided absolutely not.

You pivot to Uber and get matched up with Harry. Only four minutes away, this is great. It’s nice to not be traveling with any luggage as you watch people with massive suitcases slow down traffic every time a driver needs to stop and pop the trunk.

All of a sudden you hear your phone vibrate in your right hand. It’s an alert saying that Harry has arrived. Unfortunately, you don’t see him anywhere, and even in the dark night sky, his bright red car should be hard to miss.

There’s no time to waste. You decide to call him.

“Hello,” you hear on the other end following three rings.

“Hi! I just figured I’d give you a call to try to make it easier. I’m right outside the doors, here, wearing a black jersey and waving a black hat.”

This probably isn’t the best choice of attire for the middle of the night.

“This place is a mess,” Harry says on the other end. “It looks like everyone’s wearing black right now. What gate are you?”

You look around for any other type of signage and come up empty.

“I don’t know. I’m not familiar with this airport. I’m standing by the rideshare section watching other passengers get picked up. Let me know where you want…”

“Yeah, I’m gonna have to cancel. I can’t find you anywhere.”

You feel a pit in your stomach, a mix of frustration and nerves.

“Please don’t do that,” you say in an elevated voice. “We can figure this out.”

You toggle back from the call screen to Uber and are greeted with a cancellation notification.

“Jesus Fucking Christ,” you say aloud while hanging up the phone.

Back to Lyft you go. Hopefully the third time’s a charm. It really can’t get much worse.

You’re paired with a driver named Doc who’s three minutes away. There’s a new driver badge below his name, and he either lacks a profile picture or it isn’t showing up.

‘It can’t be,’ you think to yourself. ‘No way. It’s gotta be a coincidence.’

You’re having trouble standing still and opt to pace in a mini circle, completing a few 360 rotations to kill time.

One minute away. You can see the car getting closer on your screen. He hasn’t canceled, at least not yet.

It’s a white Prius, which makes it easy to recognize in a sea of mostly black Camrys. You’re generally not a fan of white cars, but this is optimal here. The only downside is that the windows are tinted, so you can’t see inside as you approach the car.

“What the hell did you get yourself into this time, Kid?” you hear as the driver rolls down the window and comes to a momentary stop.

Aside from that one time at the airport, you haven’t been called Kid since last summer at open practice. Most Lyft drivers would not call a 32 year old Kid.

“Doc?!,” you say while freezing in place with the door half open.

“Come on, come on, get in the car,” Doc says while looking back at you and motioning with his right hand. “I don’t wanna hold up traffic like these assholes.”

Still in shock, you finish opening the back door on the passenger side and sit down.

Doc speeds off before you even have a chance to fully close it.

You take a quick glance at your phone before turning it over on your lap. You’d probably be more excited had you not just lost the Super Bowl less than eight hours ago.

“Doc, what are you doing here?” you ask.

“What are you doing here, Kid” Doc asks back without answering. ‘I was looking for you all week, but I didn’t expect to see you now, and what are you going to the stadium for when the game already happened?”

This is gonna be awkward, and Doc will be disappointed in you.

“Well Doc, you see, I wasn’t here for the game. I didn’t go to the game. I watched the game at home, and after it ended, I figured I had to come out here and see…”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute!” Doc cuts you off while looking back at you. You motion with your finger to request that he keep his eyes on the road.

“YOU didn’t come out for the game?!? You were there in Minneapolis. You drove across the damn country and back the following summer, against my recommendation, I might add. How many road games did you go to this year, two or three? How did you not go to the game? You’re on a nine game winning streak. Goddamnit Kid, we would have won!”

“Yeah, I feel bad, trust me, Doc,” you say while rolling down the window. “It just wasn’t in the cards for me this time. I gotta say though, I never expected to run into you, and driving Lyft no less.”

You hope that pivoting the conversation will steer it away from the topic of you not being at the Super Bowl.

“Yeahhh, “ Doc says. “I’ve been out here since last September. You know I remember when you told me before practice last summer about how you got laid off, and I started thinking about what’s important in life and all, and I was just like fuck it. I don’t want to waste my life working to make other people money. So I quit the shop two weeks later, moved out here. I don’t have a lot of responsibility, got very few expenses right now, so I’ve mostly been hanging out, was at the game in October where that kid stepped in for Jake and made the field goals to help us win, what’s his name Dicker or something?”

You nod your head.

“My place out here. The apartment complex, they got a pool, so I sit around there a lot. It’s a good break, but I’ll tell you Kid, the one thing I started to miss was being around cars, and I ain’t never heard of these apps before a month ago, but they mentioned there was a driver shortage and were looking for people with everyone coming in for the game, so I was like why not? I can do this. I’d be good at this. I’ve been at it for a few weeks now. Work when I wanna work, it’s cool.

Plus I get to talk to and meet all these people. Got a cousin who works security back at the Philly airport, so he would tip me off as to when flights out of there were due in and all. I made bank this week.”

A light just went off in your head, but before you can fully connect the dots and ask about it, Doc continues.

“Drove so many Eagles fans around town last week. They were definitely more friendly than the Chiefs fans too. I couldn’t get the Chiefs fans to talk much. We must have outnumbered them four to one or something like them, I really thought we were gonna win.

You know football. Why you think we lost? I mean we were up 10 points at halftime, what the hell happened, Kid?”

You were not exactly in the mood to relive this so quickly, but at least discussing why you weren’t at the game appears to be a thing of the past now.

“I don’t know, Doc,” you start out saying. “I mean I know, but this is just such a mind fuck for me right now. I think if the game is played 10 times, we win 7 of them, maybe 8. Pat just played an unreal second half for them, and the Quez drop was a real killer.”

You pound your left fist into the console that’s separating the back seats before continuing.

“Catch the mother fucking ball, Quez. Let’s just play this out for a second. If he makes that catch, I think we score seven on that drive instead of three. We’re up 31–21 instead of 27–21. The Chiefs wouldn’t have had time to come back at that point. People are gonna talk about the defense overall, the fumble, the false start before the fumble, Kenny slipping before the false start before the fumble, I don’t know Doc, the Quez drop is the one that will stick with me until we win another one. Jalen put it right on him. Catch the mother fucking ball.”

“Yeah, Kid, we had it, “ says Doc. “That’s what makes this gig nice though. I needed to blow off some steam, so I just hit the button and went out driving. Might as well make some dough along the way.”

Doc is making sure to focus on the road like you suggested, but you lift your head up and nod to ensure he can see you in his rearview mirror.

“Hey, whatchu you going to the stadium for anyway?,” Doc asks. “It’s a real mess over there.”

“Well, I figured I’d try to find Nick,” you say. “I figure he might need me right about now.”

“He ain’t gon be happy with you if you weren’t here for the game,” Doc says back.

A normally patient person, your tolerance is wearing thin here.

“I know, Doc,” you say. “I…

“Alright Kid, well you’re lucky you found me. They ain’t at the stadium right now, but I drove a couple players back from dinner at the beginning of the week. I’ll take you to the team hotel.”

Before you can respond, Doc slams on the breaks and does a massive U-turn. You’re fortunate that you can barely see anything. That probably wasn’t safe. It brought back memories of some old road trips with Chip, but from what you can tell, you’re still alive.

“It’s not far,” Doc says. “About five minutes in the other direction, I’m just glad I asked when I did while we’re still close to the exit.”

“Doc, wait!,” you yell, putting your hand on the back of his seat. “I appreciate this, but how do you know? It’s a pretty long night with press conferences and all. Are you sure they’re not still at the stadium?”

“Yeah, you gotta trust me on this one. When I drove the players, I didn’t pry or want to eavesdrop too much, but I heard them talking about the postgame schedule and their itinerary for the whole week.”

Doc sounds incredibly confident. You have no rational reason to doubt him. He doesn’t even bother to have you change anything on Lyft. As you seemingly get closer to the hotel, your phone says you’re going more out of the way.

“You think we’ll get back and win another one, Kid?” Doc asks as he pulls up to the circular driveway of the hotel.

“I’m here to try to make sure we get off on the right foot in making that happen,” you say while opening up the door. “Great to see you, Doc,” you add while extending your hand for a fist bump.

“I had no idea you were out here, but independent of what happened earlier tonight in the game, I’m glad you’re happy, man. You deserve it.”

“How long you out here for, Kid?” Doc asks. “Don’t be a stranger, text me.”

“Not long, but you got it, Doc,” you say while fully stepping out of the car. “You still got the same number?”

“Hell yeah, Kid, 215 for life.”

Chapter 4: Heartbreak Hotel

Monday, February 13th, 2023, 4:22 am MT

You walk at a swift pace into the hotel. You’re not exactly sure how to play this at first, but as you whip your head around your hat once again falls to the ground, and this time it gives you an idea.

Previously to your detriment, the attire now works to your advantage.

The front desk attendant looks tired as you approach, allowing you to make the first move.

“Hi. I accidentally left both my room keys in my room if you could give me another please.”

“Last name,” she says without looking up from the computer.

“Sirianni,” you say, trying to sound confident.

“Okay, I’m gonna need to see some ID,” she says while typing.

You contemplate saying you left your wallet in the room too, but that probably won’t work.

The phone next to the computer rings.

“Hang on a second,” she says while picking it up.

You nod as a second turns into a minute and a minute turns into two.

“This is gonna be a while, here,” she says, handing you a card inside a small envelope.

You grab it and scurry off. On the envelope, there’s four numbers reading 2414. This just saved you a ton of time and headache.

The hotel is dead silent as you make your way over to the elevator bank and press the button for Floor 24 once inside.

Another alert from your Fitbit indicates that your heart rate is increasing as you approach the room. You stop in the middle of the hallway and take a deep breath. Even though you have a room key, that was simply a means to finding the correct floor and room. Using it would be too weird, so you opt for a knock instead.

There’s no answer at first, but you can hear some rustling, which keeps your hope alive.

The door swings open, and you’re greeted with “Dude, what the fuck?”

Nick looks just as you’d expect a head football coach to look eight hours after losing the biggest game of his life. It’s reminiscent of two summers ago when he surprised you early on a Saturday morning at your New York City apartment, but he looks even more disheveled now than you did then.

You’re not entirely sure what to do here.

“Long night,” you say in what could be interpreted as both a question, a comment, or a combination of the two.

“You cannot be fucking serious right now,” Nick says while placing his hand on the door. “I don’t see you all week, and you show up NOW. No…”

You stick your arm out as Nick goes to close the door. It makes light contact with your forearm.

“Nick, wait,” you say. “I understand why you’re upset. Hell, I’d be upset at me too. I am upset at myself too, but I promise you, you don’t want to close this door. I’m here now. I’m here.”

Nick swings the door back open with an exasperated look on his face.

“You show up in the middle of the night to my hotel room after we just lost the fucking Super Bowl.”

The circumstances are different, but the delivery is borderline resembling the initial Melanie-Jake reunion in Sweet Home Alabama.

“I don’t hear from you all week. Where the fuck were you?”

Answering questions directly isn’t normally a strength of yours, but you decide it’s in your best interest here. “I was home, Nick, in New York. I watched the game at home.”

“You watched the game at home?” Nick asks.

“Yes,” you say, realizing a few seconds too late that it was probably a rhetorical question based on Nick’s mocking tone.

“It would have been a fucking expensive trip, Nick,” you say. “Were you paying for it? Believe me, I feel awful. There’s part of me that thinks I cost us the game. I couldn’t make this one work, but I’m here now. I figured you might need me after this, might need a friend and all who wasn’t directly involved.”

Nick notices you fidgeting with the room key in your right hand while talking.

“Let me see this,” he says. “How did you even get this? How did you find us?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you say. “Let’s get outta here. Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

Nick stares point blank at you for a few seconds. “I am way too tired to drive anywhere, and I’m not waking Big Dom up. I’ll call you in a week or two. I’m going to sle…”

“You got four months to sleep, Nick,” you interject before he can complete his thought. “I got someone who will drive us around, wherever we want, don’t worry.”

Nick lets out a decent sized yawn while putting his shoes on.

“Alright,” he says in a monotone voice. “I’ll meet you by the front doors in five.”

You place the room key atop a closet just inside the door and flash a thumbs up.

Chapter 5: The Sound of Silence

Monday, February, 13th, 2023, 4:38 am MT

Perfect timing. Doc’s Prius pulls up right as Nick makes his way over to the doors. You file in first and slide over to the back seat on the passenger side with Nick seated behind Doc.

In normal circumstances, you would make it a point to introduce Doc to Nick, but now doesn’t seem like a great time.

“How do you know this guy again?” Nick whispers while tapping you on the shoulder.

Just as you go to answer, Doc asks “You wanna go somewhere in particular, Kid, or am I just driving?”

“Just driving is good, Doc,” you say.

Doc proceeds to do this for about 20 minutes. With the sun a few hours away from rising, you can’t figure out exactly where you are, but it appears based on his speed and lack of stopping that traffic has dissipated.

You try to break the ice with a softball question for Nick seeing if his family enjoyed being in Arizona, but Doc unknowingly interrupts you.

“Ooo baby, boys I’m afraid I got some bad news.”

You’re not sure you can handle anything else right now. Nick probably can’t either.

“I got a big ride request right now. Someone going to Tucson. Can I drop you off at the stadium, Kid, like you were saying before?”

Nick definitively shakes his head. That’s probably the last place he wants to be right now. A burning volcano might be preferable.

“Yeah, that will work, Doc,” you say.

You apparently were closer to the stadium than you realized. Doc makes a slight right turn and comes to a complete stop. Before you can even rise from your seat, Nick is out of the car and feverishly pressing buttons on his phone.

“What are you doing?” you ask while running behind the car over to Nick’s side as Doc speeds off into the distance.

“Now, I’m calling Dom,” says Nick. “I gotta get out of here.”

“Wait,” you say while trying to reach for his phone. “Don’t you think I should see the place, especially with me not being here for the game and all?”

“You can see the place,” says Nick. “As for me, I’m calling Dom.”

You’re probably going to need Nick’s help to get into the stadium. There’s no way it’s as easy as the hotel, but there’s a bigger concept at play here.

“Nick, listen,” you say. “Far be it for me to give you life advice here. I mean you already made more money than I’ll probably ever make. You were minutes away from winning a Super Bowl. You’re the more successful person here, but if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that facing your demons head on is the way to go.

And look, I don’t like this place either. You remember the diatribe I went on last spring about how I hate playing in Arizona, but you coach long enough, and you’re gonna be back here at some point. They seem to play the Super Bowl here every seven years. So let’s just get it out of the way now. Let’s go in the stadium.”

“Alright, you made some good points,” says Nick letting out a half sigh. “Let’s do it, but I’m not staying for long.”

Chapter 6: It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

Monday, February 13th, 2023, 5:17 am MT

You approach the closest gate and are greeted by a group of security guards. It’s surprising to see them still working hours later, but you’re not shocked after seeing how intense the operation was in Minneapolis.

You defer to Nick as he approaches one while reaching into his pocket for a lanyard. The guard is an imposing figure but seems to have a friendly disposition when he begins talking. “I know who you are, Coach,” he says.

“Who’s he?” the guard says while pointing to you a few feet away.

“He’s with me,” says Nick as you were about to open your mouth. Phew. you didn’t exactly have a plan there beyond winging it, so you’re grateful Nick had your back.

You go through a metal detector, climb a small flight of stairs, and make your way onto the concourse. Lights are still on, illuminating the field. If you squint, you can see remnants of red and yellow confetti around the 50-yard line. It hurts to look at it, both the physical act of straining your eyes and the metaphorical pain of seeing said confetti.

From looking around, it objectively appears to be a very nice stadium, a much better Super Bowl venue than Minneapolis, but that’s in the eye of the beholder, and you don’t want to acknowledge its beauty right now.

“I’m exhausted,” you say. “Let’s sit in the seats,” motioning for Nick, about 20 feet behind you to follow suit.

You let him catch up and go in first. The section number is unclear to you, but he makes his way down to the third row and files all the way into Seat 16. You leave a seat in between, taking 14.

If you tried, you could probably fall asleep in this thing right now, but that’s not the goal. The seats are around the 40 yard line, and you can spot a few people cleaning up trash across the stadium, but there doesn’t appear to be anyone on your side.

Four minutes of silence begins to feel like 40. You can only survey the scene for so long and begin thinking of how you might be able to get Nick to talk.

He suddenly makes it easier than expected.

“Alright, what do you think?” he asks.

You take this opportunity to rip the bandaid off.

“You should have gone for it on 4th and 2, Nick,” you say. “You coached a good game overall, but you messed up a little bit there. It’s not why we lost. The Quez drop is going to haunt me all offseason. JG was terrible in the second half. I’ll give credit to Pat and Andy too. They were unbelievable in the final 30 minutes, but yeah, we needed to stop the bleeding there.

I don’t even think it will get talked about that much. So much happened inside of that game. Punting on 4th and 2 isn’t the reason we lost, but had we gone for it, we might have won.

I think we would have won,” you say while letting out a deep breath.

“Wait, really?!” says Nick. “The 4th and 2? I thought that was a pretty clear cut decision. We were on our own 32 yard line. Most coaches if not all punt there. No analytic in the world would say to go for it in that spot.”

“Nick, I’m not sure that’s true,” you respond, passing your phone over for him to look at something. Your phone’s down to 35% and in your rush to make the flight you forgot your mobile charger. That will be a problem for later. You can airplane mode if need be.

“But even if it is true, we didn’t get this far, we didn’t get to the Super Bowl with you being like most or all other coaches.

I know it was 4th and 2 and not 4th and 1 where a QB sneak wasn’t on the table, but remember when you went for it from our own 34 against the Niners and we went down and scored? That’s a case of feeling the moment.

Our defense had put up zero resistance in the second half. I personally think too much is gonna be made of Siposs mishitting the punt and what happened there. Yeah, it sucked, and he shouldn’t be on the team next year, but he could have pinned them inside the 10 and Mahomes and that offense would have gone 90 yards and scored.

Our best shot was to keep our offense on the field.”

You stop talking for a minute. You could really use some water, but outside of an open bottle underneath your seat, there’s none in sight, and drinking that doesn’t sound like the greatest idea.

“But we did tie the game after they scored,” Nick says.

“Yeahhh, that actually could have been a whole lot worse. I actually thought Andy made a huge mistake not going for two and trying to make it a two score game, to get up nine. I mean if he does that, maybe it’s less heartbreaking at the end, but then we’re in serious trouble. Regardless, when you break down the risk and reward, it’s a no brainer for me. We needed to get the lead back. Obviously it was too far to just straight up push Jalen forward, but you put the ball in his hands there, and I’m super confident he would have found a way to move the chains.”

You pause for a second and contemplate if you should say what’s now on your mind.

“You know, I wasn’t gonna bring this up because I know you weren’t here, but we won the Super Bowl in a very similar situation. Down by a point midway through the fourth quarter, fourth down. Now granted it was only 4th and 1 and we were 13 yards closer, but Doug in that case, he felt the moment.

You’ll learn from it. It won’t define your legacy, but if you want my honest opinion, that’s it. I was shaking my head when I saw the punt team running onto the field.

Bottom line is the game should have been ours. Shit, there’s probably at least five, at least five and maybe more moments — I think about Kenny slipping, the Seumalo false start, Jalen fumble, the catch Six made before halftime that they inexplicably ruled not a catch, the Quez drop, the 4th and 2, the holding call on Bradberry — and if one of them goes differently, just one, we win. Hell, if you take away that whole sequence with the fumble, we might be looking at a blowout. Honestly, we probably should have been up by 21 going into halftime, and then if that’s the case, we just start sitting on the ball and bleeding out the clock.”

Eye contact was never a super strong suit of yours. You stare straight ahead as you finish the sentence at a somewhat rapid speed. Were it not for the bright lights, it would feel as if you were truly looking into the abyss.

“I don’t agree with you about 4th and 2,” Nick says. “But I get your larger point. We had it. It’s part of the game, but it sucks knowing this team will never be together again. I…”

“Nick, let me stop you for a second. I’m not sure what you were about to add, but I’ll just make it clear that this was far and away the best Philadelphia team of my lifetime. You were better than the 2004 Eagles, better than the 2017 Super Bowl team, better than the 2011 Phillies team that won 102 games and then fucked itself in the playoffs. You were better than all of them, and that’s what is gonna be the hardest part.

Most people aren’t gonna be angry at you guys. No one hates you. You made us all incredibly proud.

Just to make it to the highest altitude and not actually summit though, it hurts. It’s a really weird dichotomy where you’ll be one of our favorite teams ever but also gave us one of the most crushing losses of our lives.

I wanted that so fucking bad for you. I wanted that so fucking bad for us.”

Chapter 7: You Learn

Monday, February 13th, 2023, 5:55 am MT

You pound your hand on the seat in front of you multiple times and swing your leg over to stretch out more.

“So what’s gonna happen now?” Nick asks.

“What do you mean?” you answer.

“You were a part of this in 2004. What are people gonna say now, gonna do now?”

“Got it,” you say while slumping slightly in your chair. “I mean it was different. I was 14 then, and you know that team had been together longer. They kinda carried some baggage from previous heartbreaking losses. So it’s far from apples to apples, but basically people are gonna lament the same moments, decisions, and all that I just went through. Some of the more casual fans are gonna check out for a bit as a way of protecting their peace, and that’s okay. The sickos like me will still be here.

We’re gonna mourn and recover for a couple weeks, and it won’t take the pain away at all, but from there, we’ll get ready for the combine, free agency, draft, and get ready to do it all over again.

I will also say though that I think the next month is super critical for you. We’re not gonna win next year’s Super Bowl in the next 30 days, but if we’re not careful, we could lose it. There was a lot of finger pointing 18 years ago and a lot of stuff that came out after the game, and this is where your strong locker room culture and the core values you talk about are really gonna be put to the test.

From the little I saw while on the way to the airport, I thought you guys handled the postgame comments well. Super accountable. You didn’t bitch and complain like the 49ers did after they played us, but as the dust settles, some guys are gonna do podcasts, they’ll go on Twitter, people will say stuff.

And even though you’re not gonna be around them, what you really want to avoid is creating a situation where the offense is mad at the defense for their poor second half or people on the defense get mad at Jalen for the fumble. I don’t think they actually would. I mean Jalen balled out and played his ass off, but those hypotheticals are the stuff you really want to stay away from. We didn’t know it at the time, but with the benefit of the learnings now, I would say that the 2005 Eagles probably set themselves up for a rough season in late February and early March, six months before we even played a game. And we can’t have that.

I’m not sure if I fully answered your question, but if you’re asking me if the reaction will be the same as 2004, no, I don’t think it will, and you have 2017 to thank for that. Had it not been for that, this would have been beyond catastrophic. I don’t even have the words, and I’m really good with words. Make no mistake about it, this absolutely fucking sucks, but people will get back on their feet quicker than they would have a decade ago.

BUT. There’s a big but here.”

You get this line in just before Nick was about to interject. He defers to you and motions for you to continue.

“I think this thing moved quicker than anyone anticipated, Nick,” you say. “Going into the season, most folks thought we were a good team. My expectation was for us to at least win a playoff game and hopefully reach the NFC Championship Game, but we overachieved for even the most optimistic of fans.”

Nick nods in your direction.

“And that’s awesome,” you say. “ But now, it’s no longer really about the climb. Now it’s about summiting. That’s what we’re gonna be judged against. At the end of the day, this season is still viewed as a massive success even though we didn’t finish the job. Next year that won’t be the case. It just won’t.

Winning is the on…”

You were on a serious roll here and wish Nick would have let you continue.

Chapter 8: Carry On My Wayward Son

Monday, February 13th, 2023, 6:06 am MT

“So what do you think Howie is gonna do?” Nick asks.

You begin to pace back and forth in the row of seats. Now that you got to rest for a bit, sitting has made you antsy.

“I don’t know if you’re asking the right question there,” you say. “Before we get to Howie, what are you gonna do? I mean we went from two weeks ago thinking this coaching staff was gonna stay together to now you gotta replace Shane, and from what I read yesterday morning, it seems like JG is getting the Cardinals job, and that’s not even mentioning that it might be in your best interest to move on from Michael and get a new special teams coach.”

“Michael will be back,” Nick says. “The coordinator spots are obviously on my radar, and I remember you talking about how important that is. You really made it a point to emphasize that, so even though I may not like this, I’ll ask your opinion: What do you think?”

“First off, I’m not crazy about bringing Michael back, but that’s…whatever…you want some stability and don’t want to have to replace all three assistants, I get it. Offense, I mean you and I both know it’s gonna be Brian.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing or that you have a problem with it,” says Nick.

“Brian seems great,” you say back, attempting a more upbeat voice. “You know I’m just always a little skeptical of internal promotions following 2017. I have some major PTSD there, but my gut says he’s the right man for the job. I don’t want to hold Mike Groh and Press Taylor against him because that’s not fair to Brian, and he’s his own person. I’m just probably in my feelings about Shane. It seemed to me like he was a little slow to get some of the plays in last night, but I thought he had a dynamite season. One of the best play callers of my lifetime.

Defense, look. I know you’re close with him, or at least you were close with him, I’m sure you’re not pleased after tonight, but in the event he doesn’t get the Cardinals job, I think it would be really hard for JG to come back here, and he won’t admit it, but I think he knows it too.

That Arizona job stinks. They’re in a good division. They got an owner with a bad reputation, a shit roster, and an injured quarterback with questions about his work ethic. I get there’s only 32 of these things available, but if JG was as good as he thinks he is, he would wait it out, but he knows the situation here is gonna be too corrosive.

I don’t have a clear name in mind right now. I mean if you showed me a list of candidates in a week, I could certainly give my opinion, but I think it’s an opportunity for you to bring in some new ideas. Dennard, Nick [Rallis], Tracy, they seem like real good position coaches, but they’ve never done this job before. We’re gonna be a target all offseason. Every team who isn’t the Chiefs is gonna watch what the Chiefs did with the orbit motion and try to figure out how they can replicate it against us, so let’s bring in some fresh eyes to counterpunch. Think about some of the best defensive minds in the NFL — Pete, Tomlin, Bill — and that’s where I’d start my search. Look to pluck someone from that tree.”

You stand up and stretch. Sunrise is still more than an hour away, but it’s not as dark as when you first arrived.

“Be back in a minute,” you say. “I’m gonna go try to find a water fountain. I’m dying here in this heat.”

You make your way back a few minutes later, slightly less thirsty.

It comes as a pleasant surprise that no one has found the two of you and asked you to leave yet. It’s even more of a surprise that Nick hasn’t left on his own accord. You sit back down.

“What were we talking about?” you ask. You know the answer, but this is a good way to ease back into the conversation.

“We covered coaches,” says Nick. “So what do you think Howie’s gonna do in free agency?”

You stare at the field for a second, particularly focusing on the 20 yard line where the Lombardi trophy was painted into the grass.

“I’m not sure there’s a recent Super Bowl participant who will bring back more talent on offense. Obviously the Jalen contract could have a domino effect on other moves. We know that. We know it gets harder when you have to pay your quarterback, but he’s earned it and Howie will figure that out. I think Gardner’s as good as gone. I don’t think he’s a starter in this league, but I think he thinks he can be one, and he’ll go somewhere that gives him a chance to compete for a job.

I know you and Jacoby are close. Maybe you can pitch Howie on bringing him in as a backup. He’ll be expensive, but if Jalen were to miss a game or two again, at least you wouldn’t have to massively alter the RPO game in the offense.

Miles is gone. He’ll go get paid somewhere. He’s a nice kid and the touchdowns in the NFC Championship Game were fun, but he wasn’t good tonight. I think Seumalo is gone too, and my gut says Kelce comes back. Had we won, he might have gone out on top, but it looked to me like he had a lot of fun playing with this team. So under that scenario, Cam probably takes Isaac’s place at right guard, and I think he can do it. I know that wasn’t the original plan, but you have the best offensive line coach of this generation. Stout will coach him up and have him ready to go.

I know you don’t want to hear it, but I would look into that third wide receiver spot. I’m just so fucking pissed at Quez, man, catch the fucking ball.”

You once again pound your fist into the cupholder in front of you. This time it hurt and left some marks. Nick glances over at you and out of the corner of his eye, you can see him begin to shake his head. You’re not sure if it’s at you or Quez.

“He needs a fire lit under his ass with some competition at the very least. I know he’s a 6th round pick, not supposed to be here, feel-good story and all, but for a team that’s chasing the ultimate prize, he makes too many mistakes.

Running back. Heading into the draft, there’s probably gonna be a lot of folks interested in Bijan, the kid from Texas, with the 10th pick. I wouldn’t hate it if you did it, but I probably wouldn’t do it, and if you don’t do it, there’s a guy on Day 2 I love. His name is Zach Charbonnet. Played at UCLA. I got you covered on the scouting report and character check there by the way,” you say waving your phone in the air.

This probably wasn’t the time for jokes, and you’re not sure it landed. Nick doesn’t react for a few seconds so you continue.

“If Howie calls UCLA, there’s no way he’s getting accurate information. I’ll do it and just relay the info to you guys, but I’m telling you, I think this kid would be a really nice fit as a Miles replacement. Very decisive. Good vision.”

Nick doesn’t say anything but gives a hint of a smile, and that’s more than you were expecting. Heck, you yourself probably won’t smile for a good few weeks.

“Defense?” Nick asks. “That’s obviously more complicated.”

“Yeahhh. It’s gonna be different for sure. Less talent and accomplishments on paper, but I don’t think it will get gutted quite as much as people think. Eppsy I think is gone. Kyzir is gone. TJ, I’m kinda 50–50 on, but either way, Nakobe will slide into one of those linebacker spots.

I actually think Hargrave will be back, but it’s gonna cost us. Howie should move on from Fletch, but I can see a world where he doesn’t.

BG’s gonna have a market, but I think he’ll be back, and I’d prioritize him even if it costs us a guy like TJ. There’s not many guys who could rehab from a torn achilles and have his first double digit sack season at age 34. I mean that’s unreal. What a fucking player.

Bradberry, I think leaves. Nothing against the holding penalty, it was a tough call, I just think he gets paid somewhere else. We kinda knew this might be a one year thing when we signed him, but the interception against the Giants was awesome.

You realize you’ve gotten off track a bit.

“What about Chauncey?” Nick asks.

“Wow,” you say. “The sleep deprivation must be really kicking in. I can’t believe it took me this long to get to Chauncey. I think Chauncey will be back, and if he’s not back, he’s one of my favorite one year Eagles ever.

Look, I’m not sure how you feel, and you don’t have to tell me. I’ve heard from people I talk to that he can be kind of a pain in the ass to coach and deal with in the locker room, and yeah a few of the interceptions were more luck than skill, but I think you could use his confidence.

He thinks he’s Dawk, Ed Reed, and Troy Polamalu baked into one body, and he’s not, but he plays like he believes he is. Just a total vibes player. I would LOVE to see him back.

I think when you break it down a little more realistically, the high-level goal should be to get one of Hargrave, Bradberry, or Chauncey back, and I’d probably prioritize Chauncey. I don’t think two out of three is completely impossible, and Hargrave’s a close second, but I do have some concerns about how he’ll age. Giving that type of money to a guy who’s gonna be 30 on Opening Day carries some risk. Chauncey, you know you’re gonna get at least three or four more prime seasons.

Anything else?” you ask. Your mouth is incredibly dry at this point, and you could use a break from the constant talking.

“I think we’re good,” Nick says. “You made it very clear that you like Chauncey. That was an impassioned plea if I ever heard one.”

“Follow me,” you say with your voice cracking about halfway through.

Chapter 9: Jump

Monday, February 13th, 2023, 6:52 am MT

Sitting in the seats for too long made you stir crazy. You have a new idea.

You make your way down to the first row and walk over two sections.

“Where are you going?” shouts Nick from a distance, having barely moved. You continue to motion for him to join you, pausing for about 20 seconds to allow him to catch up.

As Nick — somewhat reluctantly — joins, you glance down at the field, pointing with your thumb for emphasis.

“No,” Nick says, already anticipating what you’re suggesting. “No.”

“It’s about a 10 foot jump, but we can make it.”

“NO!” Nick says once again with added emphasis. “And if you do it, you’re gonna destroy your ankle. Guys were saying to me early on how bad the field was. I’m not going back down there. No.”

“Nick,” you say while stretching to prepare for the jump. You’re unsure it’s going to help, but it probably can’t hurt.

“If I’m willing to do it, I think you got this. You’re a far superior athlete to me. Yeah, I might turn an ankle, but it’s alright. I want to show you something.”

You hear “No” for a fifth time. It’s too late though. You’re already in the air and on the descent down. Your left foot touches down a half second before your right while you reach your hands forward to try to balance. You fall slightly as your hands make contact with the grass.

Nick wasn’t kidding about the field. Your left ankle feels a bit ginger, but the pain seems to subside after taking a few steps.

You look up, preparing to once again convince Nick to join you. He’s not there. You’re incredibly confused. The jump and its aftermath took no more than 17 seconds. There’s no way he could have left that quickly.

All of a sudden you feel a tap on your shoulder. You’re anticipating some stadium worker telling you that you need to leave.

“There was a ramp one section over that led directly to the field. You just didn’t see it,” says Nick.

“Wow, alrighty then,” you say. “Well the jump was fun, and I didn’t die.”

This time as you continue walking Nick seems more willing to follow.

Your ankle feels okay, but the sound of confetti crinkling beneath your sneakers makes it figuratively more painful.

You get to the 20 yard line. As you extend your left leg, your foot touches the edge of the football portion of the Lombardi trophy that was painted onto the field. You were fixated on this earlier, and it’s caught your attention once again.

Nick stands a few feet away from you.

“This right here,” you say while putting your hand to the ground. “This is our motivation all offseason, and I’m not even talking about the trophy.”

Nick probably gets the symbolism here but you continue.

“This is where Jalen’s Hail Mary throw landed. This is where it ended,” you say while making a slight divot in the grass.

“He stepped on Kelce’s foot as he was throwing,” says Nick. “It would have been closer to the end zone if not for that.”

“Oh yeah, I know,” you say with a slight smile. “I’m not blaming Jalen at all. I mean if we’re being honest, we knew that play had probably less than a one percent chance of working. I just figured I should fully feel the pain. You guys deserved a better ending. We deserved a better ending.

The fact that Jalen didn’t get the ball with 1:40 to go and a chance to counter. We would have at least gotten that to overtime, at least.

You know I was thinking about it earlier in the week. I think this team was the most-well rounded NFL team since the 2013 Seahawks. I can’t think of a Super Bowl winner nor runner up over the past decade who if say it was a hypothetical seven game series, we would have beaten all of them. This was one of the best teams in modern NFL history, and it fucking sucks that we won’t be remembered properly because we didn’t win the final game.”

You turn to Nick to see if he’s listening.

“So what did you do all day?” Nick asks.

This was a random way to break his silence.

“I’m not sure I understand,” you say. “What are you talking about?”

“What did you do all day leading up to the game? That had to be torture to not be here,” says Nick.

“Got it,” you respond. “It wasn’t terrible. The only real downside was I slept like absolute shit. I purposely went to bed early and was still tossing and turning with nerves most of the night, and when that happens, you just wake up and feel like your mind is racing from the jump.

The afternoon hours as things got closer definitely felt like an eternity, but the morning was kinda fun.

“I gave this epic pump up speech on the radio,” you say.

This elicited a slight laugh.

“What did you say? Do I even want to know?” asks Nick.

“Hell yeah,” you say. “My boys had me and my dude Justin on at the same time because we had been shouting each other out on calls, and I started by telling a story about how I refused to take a red multivitamin the night before, fishing out a green one with a fork because the color red wasn’t allowed. I said it was our day and told everyone to get locked in and do their own superstitions.

You weren’t here for this, but I mentioned that we watched every snap of 4–11–1 in 2020 for days like this. I talked about how after tonight this team would never be together again. The whole two weeks in between the NFC Championship Game and the Super Bowl I had been calling and giving real football thoughts. I had talked about how Suh was part of the Bucs team that beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl in 2020. I mentioned that DeVonta was gonna cook whatever corner the Chiefs put on him, which he did by the way.

And then I mentioned that all of that was out the window. The specific line was:

‘You know, I’ve been calling, I been giving you guys analysis, you know, X’s and O’s, I talked about Suh connection, I talked about DeVonta. I AIN’T GOT NO MORE OF THAT. TODAY, WINNING IS THE ONL…”

“Hold that thought,” says Nick while answering the phone.

Nick’s timing is terrible right now.

As he talks on the phone, you survey the stadium from field level. The scoreboard is still lit up, displaying 38–35 with a bunch of zeros for the other categories.

You look back down to avoid making eye contact with it. Nick’s phone conversation is hard to decipher. All you hear is “Got it. Okay. Sounds good.”

He hangs up and looks towards you.

“Gotta go,” he says. “That was Dom. Apparently people panicked when they realized I wasn’t at the hotel. I gotta get back.”

You were not ready for this abrupt ending at all. “But don’t you want to hear the end of my speech?” you say pleading for Nick to stay for just a minute or two longer.

“I can’t,” says Nick.

You’ve got nothing in terms of ideas to persuade him. It’s been a long night.

“Alright,” you say. “But we’re cool, right? Believe me, I feel awful that I wasn’t here, and if I could have pulled it off, I would have.”

“Yeah, we’re cool,” says Nick while quickly hugging you before taking off in a sprint for the ramp.

You once again catch the scoreboard out of the corner of your eye as you watch him disappear in the distance.

This was a pretty unfulfilling trip if there ever was one, but there’s nothing left for you to do in Arizona.

You booked a one-way ticket on a whim and despite feeling like a zombie can begin planning your trip home.

Monday, February 13th, 2023, 9:03 am MT

“Kid, wake up. Wake the fuck up.”

A light shake becomes a bit more powerful. Your eyes open and you let out a scream, unaware of where you are nor what’s happening. You bang your elbow against an apparent door while trying to get your bearings.

“Kid, it’s me.”

You look forward with a blank stare.

As your eyes begin to come into focus, you see a man facing towards you in his car. You don’t remember getting here.

“You passed out as soon as you got in my car.”

“Where am I Doc?” you say while rummaging around for your phone.

“You’re at the airport. Flight leaves in 56 minutes. I figured out the password on your phone and got you a ticket. Got you an aisle seat.”

Still not fully with it, you unlock your phone to a boatload of notifications.

“Now before you thank me, I put the tickets on your credit card that was linked to the phone. They ain’t free, but the next flight to New York wasn’t for six hours.”

You form a slight grin and extend your right hand towards Doc.

“Thanks, Doc,” you say while matching his firm handshake. “As usual, you saved my ass.”

“Take care of yourself now, Kid,” adds Doc. “I mean it. You look awful.”

“You got it, Doc,” you say, while preparing to make your second beeline to and through TSA in less than 12 hours.

Chapter 10: The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Thursday, April 27th, 2023, 9:27 pm ET

You pick up your face down phone after intentionally going dark for the past nine minutes and counting. Jalen Carter is the newest Philadelphia Eagle.

You find Nick’s number in your contacts and rush to place a call. He doesn’t pick up. You’re not at all surprised.

“RUN IT BAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCKK BABYYYYYYYYYYYY,” you scream into the phone upon hearing the voicemail prompt.

This might be the only voicemail you leave anyone for all of 2023. Text is usually much easier, but written words on a screen could not properly communicate your excitement here.

Thursday, April 27th, 2023, 11:52 pm ET

You once again pick up your phone from the same exact position as before.

Your one draft pet peeve is that people are not to tip the picks. It’s been that way for years as the evolution of social media made it more of a thing. You don’t learn the news until Roger Goodell delivers it.

Nolan Smith is the newest Philadelphia Eagle. You’re equally if not more excited about this than the Jalen Carter selection. Nolan seems like a wonderful kid. You can picture him and Brandon Graham being friends.

You’re watching Nick and Howie deliver a press conference while doing this. You know full well that he’s not answering

“RUNNNNN ITTTTT BAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCKK BABYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY,” you scream into the phone again.

Chapter 11: Born to Run

Saturday, April 29th, 2023, 12:09 pm ET

Day 3 of the draft is typically a fun Saturday, but you’re reeling from two nights of barely sleeping combined with a controversial Beat The Hammer loss the day prior.

Madly in need of some vegetables, you decide to venture outside for a salad. Unbeknownst to you at the time of that decision, the Eagles trade up into the early portion of the fourth round. This wasn’t supposed to happen, and while exciting, you’re now scrambling to get back in front of a TV before they’re on the clock.

You make it with a few minutes to spare.

Kelee Ringo is the newest Philadelphia Eagle.

This routine is becoming second nature at this point as you pick up your phone once again.

You’re beginning to wonder which is a better bit that the Eagles are most definitely in on: Boston Scott always scoring a touchdown against the Giants or drafting as many Georgia defensive players as possible.

“RUNNN ITTTT BAAAACCCCCCCKK BABYYYYYYYY,” you yell for a third time into the phone. By now, you’re surprised Nick’s voicemail isn’t full.

It’s a good thing it’s not. 65 minutes later, D’Andre Swift is the newest Philadelphia Eagle. While nothing compares to draft excitement, the Swift trade has particularly piqued your interest. It’s been too long since you were a good screen team, and he can bring that element to the offense.

“RUNNNNNN ITTTTTT BAAACCCKK BABYYY,” you yell through the phone once again. You’re a pro at this now.

You sit back and take a bite of the remaining salad while continuing to scroll through the tweets you missed.

You haven’t officially won anything yet. You haven’t run anything back, but life is good for late April.

Chapter 12: A New Day Has Come

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 7:20 pm ET

The bottom of the third inning of Phillies-Orioles heads to commercial. Your MLB.TV broadcast feed has been a bit choppy tonight and only picked up some of the sound, but you’re pretty sure you heard an E-A-G-L-E-S cheer at Citizens Bank Park.

Training camp is nigh. Fan excitement is high. The quest to run it back and this time finish the job begins tomorrow.

You reach for your phone and hunt for the seldom used FaceTime app. This app for whatever reason always has a way of confusing you, however after a few seconds of looking around, you figure out how to start a call.

“Yooooooooo,” you yell as Nick answers your call in what appears to be the backdrop of a home office. An Eagles helmet sits adjacent to him atop his desk.

He appears to look much better than the last time you saw him in Arizona. You both do.

“Surprised you still have time to do this, being a big star now and all. Don’t you have some radio show to call?” Nick asks while letting out a laugh.

“Hey, that’s not until morning,” you say with a laugh of your own. “I got all night. Plus, a month ago I hard core defended you. A show topic centered around whether you were an elite coach or if people needed to see more, and I made a big time case for you.”

“Oh yeah? What’d you say?” Nick asks.

You were not planning on the conversation starting out like this, but that’s alright.

“I talked about how it took a lot of selflessness to give up play calling in the middle of 2021. Basically every coach in my lifetime Andy, Chip, Doug, there were all moments where they got stuck and it would have helped them to take a step back, but they either were too much of a control freak, had too big of an ego, or didn’t have someone they trusted to hand it off to.

I mentioned the concept of speaking truth to power. That during that same time you basically had to go to Jeffrey and convince him that if we were gonna make the playoffs, he had to be on board with you running the ball more, that the personnel for a pass happy offense wasn’t there at the time. You changed the entire offensive identity on the fly. I know you’re not gonna want to talk about that now, no worries.

And then I mentioned how last year in the three playoff games we came out like gangbusters. To me, the first sign of a well-coached, prepared team is do you score the first time you get the ball? And Giants, Niners, Chiefs, every time, we got the ball and it was 7–0 from the jump. We know it doesn’t always happen, but the easiest way to increase win probability is to march down and score first.

This stuff though. It’s all great, but it’s not important right now.

You ready to go tomorrow? Is this like adult first day of school vibes for you? By the way, I left you some voicemails during the draft. Did you ever get those?”

“People still check their voicemail?” Nick responds back with a pretty wide grin on his face.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” you ask.

“What’d you say on the voicemails?” asks Nick while laughing.

“Oh it wasn’t anything special. I just thought you would find it funny. I basically every time we drafted a Georgia played just yelled ‘RUN IT BACK BABY’ with some added emphasis, and then I also did it when we traded for D’Andre, so it was four voicemails overall.

I will keep you here until FOUR.”

Nick has a confused look at his face, apparently not picking up the Mean Girls reference.

“Don’t worry about that,” you say. “I’m just really on one right now. Training Camp eve baby! Let’s fucking gooo.”

“So what’d you think of the offseason overall?” asks Nick. “You recovered from losing Chauncey?”

You get up to grab a fresh bottle of water from the refrigerator and proceed to answer.

“I think Howie did a really nice job overall,” you say. “You know, a month ago I did my first 53-man roster projection, and I mean, we’re loaded with talent. It’s a matter of what we do with it when the lights go on, but take a guy like Milton Williams for example. Nick, I’m telling you, that kid is good. He could start for half the teams in this league, and he’s gonna be our fourth defensive tackle if that position group stays healthy.

Yeah, I won’t lie, I’m gonna miss Chauncey. I think our safeties will be fine playing near the line of scrimmage, but I’m a little concerned if that Reed, Edmunds, Sydney trio can cover. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned, especially if it’s Reed and Sydney, and I hear great things about Sydney, but that’s just a whole lot of youth there. I know you didn’t coach Malcolm Jenkins, but we were spoiled for years by having a lot of experience and wisdom at safety between him and Rodney.

Hell, we won a Super Bowl because Rodney identified that the Falcons were running sprint right option and yelled for Jalen Mills to bump Julio.

So yeah, I think we’re gonna miss Chauncey, and if you and Howie don’t like what you see from that group, I wouldn’t be shocked if Budda Baker is this year’s Chauncey, but I also think in the case of Chauncey specifically, it’s hard to negotiate with a player who seemingly doesn’t want to be here.

You probably know more than I do, and you don’t have to say it, but I got the sense that talks turned really sour there. It’s not like we chose to give Fletch the money over Chauncey like some people thought. There was money for Chauncey, but it seemed like he had just kinda moved on. I mean just last week he called us ‘fucking obnoxious,’ right?

Chauncey in my opinion was a great Eagle, and I really don’t like to do revisionist history and rip a player on the way out or in this case after he’s gone. All I’ll say though is if you look objectively at the interceptions he had last season, a few of them are on just tipped balls, deflected passes, bad quarterbacks. Some other safeties in his position would admittedly have made those plays too.

Linebacker I think we be aight. Nakoke’s gonna be fine. Even if he’s not a stud, I trust him to be competent, and that’s all he has to do for the defense to be good.

Sean seems great too. Really like what I hear out of him. I’m sure they’ll be some growing pains, and I think the biggest subplot of the season is gonna be how quickly your coordinators acclimate, but I really love that he spent a year under Pete Carroll. I could go on here for an hour about this, but Pete in my opinion is one of the most underrated defensive minds of the past decade. If even one percent of his knowledge rubbed off on Sean, we’re in good hands.

I like the Olamide signing in terms of pushing Quez, and two things there. One, I don’t know if it’s gonna be Ozzy, Oz, O.Z., but there needs to be a nickname for him. Yeah, he has to earn it, but I don’t want to say Olamide all season. That’s just a mouthful to pronounce or type.

And second, I know you talked up Quez a lot at your OTA wrap up press conference, and we can get more into that press conference later. There’s one other thing in there I really want to highlight, but I know you gave Quez a lot of praise. You’re gonna defend your players, I get it. Just bear in mind that a lot of people don’t want to hear it and have major Quez fatigue.

Love how the offense looks though. I really think Cam will be fine at right guard. I mentioned this back in February, but I’ll say it again because one can never give Stout enough praise. This is one of the reasons you employ the best offensive line coach of a generation. Stout will have him ready to go.

And running back, you know, I don’t worry too much about that. We’ll piece it together. We got Boston for the two Giants games, and then the rest will come into place as long as other components of the offense are clicking on all cylinders.

You run your fingers through your hair while racking your brain to see if there’s anything major that you missed. If there is, you can’t think of it, at least not this second.

“Are we as good as last year?” you ask rhetorically. “Probably not if I’m being honest with myself. When you look at guys who left like Hargrave, Seumalo, TJ. Last year’s roster was just incredibly loaded. That’s a once in a quarter century roster, but I think we’re very good, and if we play our best in the biggest moments, very good can be good enough.”

Chapter 13: Gives You Hell

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 7:41 pm ET

You shake your head slightly and let out a defense mechanism type of smile.

“I know, Nick, I know you probably don’t want to romanticize this too much, but last year’s team was just SO good. We were on such a fucking run.”

“It was a great run,” says Nick with slightly less enthusiasm than you.

“The Giants playoff game,” you say. “I think that is THE most fun I have ever had at a sporting event, and I went to the Super Bowl in Minneapolis. We of course had more work to do, but that one was incredibly personal for me. You repeatedly nodding into the camera when we were up 21–0. I was metaphorically doing that from Section 226.”

“I know you alluded to this before and talked about your hatred for Joe Judge when he was there, but just from living in New York and all?” Nick asks.

You are now fired up. An alert from your Fitbit tells you that your heart rate has increased to 131.

“More than that,” you say. “That’s only a small part of it. I’ve always kept this pretty close to the vest, have told very few people but here goes.

So back towards the end of 2019, I was stuck in a job that had turned very toxic. It was once good and I still to this day keep in touch with some folks from it who are good people, but it unfortunately got bad. So tensions were pretty high on the team. The culture was just really breaking down, and my manager and I had been at each other’s throats for probably a few weeks now.

So it’s late December, about a week and a half before the holidays. I’m supposed to send this project out on a Wednesday night. Now my part of the project is done Tuesday mid-afternoon.

You following so far?”

Nick nods while also fidgeting with a pen.

“Alright. So yeah, I have my part done a day in advance. So let’s fast-forward to Wednesday now. More than 24 hours have passed by. It’s past 5 pm at this point. Said manager comes in with about 20 different comments, an hour or two before this supposed deadline, and the only reason I see them right away is because I get a bunch of automated emails from Google Docs. No heads up or nothing. So I go back and I addressed all of them. Now we’re approaching about 7 pm. Most people have gone home for the night.

Now this was a 4–5 person project, and I notice that a couple other people haven’t even filled in their parts. So I try to get in touch with them, and they’re overloaded with work. They ask me if they can have the night to work on it. I say, sure, why not. No one on the receiving end of something like this is looking at it this late at night. 8 pm at night or 9 am the following day. There’s not much of a difference in my mind. We’re not curing cancer.

So these folks work mad late to finish their parts. I come in the following morning and send it off. I really don’t think much of it. A couple hours go by.

Now it’s around noon, and for context here, this is an open floor plan, so people can very easily hear conversations even if they’re not the intended target.

So my manager from across a row of desks asks me ‘What happened last night?’ in regards to the project being sent this morning instead.

I calmly answer back that people needed more time to work on it, so I gave them that. The next thing out of her mouth in a very condescending tone is:

‘Ok…but it was due yesterday.’

“Now again, to set the scene, there are approximately 15 other colleagues seated in very close proximity to us who can hear every word of this.

And at that point, I just lost it. One thing I’ll admit that I’m not always good at is responding on the spot. So I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I knew full well what I was going to do.

I took my laptop, sat in some downstairs hallway, and for the next three hours, just rage applied to every job I could possibly find. I didn’t care what it was. I just knew that I had to get out of there.

My whole thing is, and look, I know it’s a little different for you where we might not see eye to eye here. I know when you guys watch the film you put up the player’s number to signify that they messed up, but corporate work isn’t football practice. There can be accountability without publicly embarrassing people.

If you have a problem with something I did, you pull me into a room and talk to me about it privately. We don’t blast people in front of their coworkers. As that was happening, I got three separate Slack messages from people who heard what went down, saying variations of ‘That’s fucking bullshit,’ ‘Wtf just happened.’”

You’re afraid to know what your Fitbit might say now.

“Alright, I get why that would upset you,” Nick says in a measured tone. “I think you could have done certain things differently too, but that was definitely shitty what that person did, but what does any of this have to do with the Giants? That’s the part where I’m getting lost.”

You let out a deep breath and continue.

“Oh yeah, I probably buried the lede there. So this person was a Giants fan as were a few other tangential folks. So the next week, I get called into a meeting with HR where I’m told that ‘People have noticed that your energy level is considerably lower during football season, especially when the Eagles lose.’

Now look, at this point I’m just trying to maintain what’s left of my mental health and survive until another job offer comes in. We had borderline reached quit without a job level of toxicity, and I wish I had the guts to actually do it. I was miserable.

So I knew one way or another, I was out of there soon, but I took all of it very personally. Yeah, I’ll admit, that final month or two, I was kind of a shit employee. I was just checked out and didn’t give a fuck, but I had slaved my ass off for more than five years. I treated people with respect, consistently stayed late, too late. Outside of these couple folks who had heavy influence, I was generally well liked by most of my peers who I worked with.

Bottom line. I didn’t deserve to be publicly embarrassed like that. I would NEVER have done that to someone else if the roles were reversed.”

You pause to make sure Nick is still with you.

He appears to be listening intently now.

“So that six word sentence ‘Ok…but it was due yesterday’ stuck with me. I at one point had it taped to a wall behind my desk at home as motivation. I would buy my time and wait for the moment.

As soon as the Giants beat the Vikings and it became clear they were gonna be our first opponent, I don’t think the stakes had ever been higher for me. This was a personal Super Bowl.

It felt like the longest week ever, and that’s factoring in that the game was on Saturday and not Sunday!

Actually, let me double back and correct myself, because to say the stakes were high on a personal level would be a massive understatement. They were astronomical. I felt confident, but I also knew that losing and having our season ended by that fucking team would have been catastrophic. Combine the Joe Judge sanctimonious fake outrage with this, and I had come to hate this team more than the Cowboys.”

Nick out of the blue interrupts you, and you weren’t expecting this because you were seriously cooking.

“But hadn’t you already won?” he asks. “I mean you escaped a toxic work environment and seemingly found better.”

“Now I can understand why you’d think that, Nick,” you say back in a very stern voice. “But this felt like a referendum on that whole thing, on the past three years, even if it wasn’t in reality.

I posted a video from my seat of when the defense was introduced 10 minutes before kickoff, and all week long, I had been drinking lemon water in the morning to prep my voice, make sure the pipes were ready to go. That became my superstition that I took all the way up to the Super Bowl, every day.

So Justin, who I mentioned back when we were in Arizona, you remember Justin?”

Nick nods his head.

“Yeah, so Justin responds to this video of me just screaming, welcoming the players onto the field. And he says something along the lines of ‘Wow, the hot tea has Drew on another level. Let’s gooo.’

And I didn’t actually tweet anything back because at that point I’m getting locked in, and it would have taken too long to explain, but in my head, I was like ‘Buddy, that ain’t the lemon water. This is three years of pent up frustration just ready to be unleashed all at once.’

I wasn’t just focused. I was focused, and make no mistake about it, I was mad.

In this instance, I was by myself, but Justin and other people who go to games with me will tell you that outside of making noise when the opponent’s offense has the ball, I’m usually somewhat reserved. I won’t talk much if at all as a play is unfolding.

When the Giants went for it on that 4th and 5 down 7–0, which reeked of desperation by the way, and Haason and BG ran that stunt and Haason closed in on Daniel Jones, I audibly yelled:

‘HIT HIS ASS. HIT HIS ASS.

FUCKING KILL HIM!’”

You catch Nick’s facial expression out of the corner of your eye, and he appears to be having a tough time not laughing at this point.

“Nick, I wasn’t talking about Daniel Jones. I was talking about what happened three years ago. Karma’s a fucking bitch, and it was unfolding before our eyes.”

You pause for a second and take things in a likely unexpected direction.

“Nick, let me ask you something,” you say. “You ever seen the movie Searching For Bobby Fischer?”

Nick shakes his head to indicate no.

“Alright, I won’t spend too much time on this, but I’ll give you a quick summary. You know, I’m sure you can relate even more so, once the season starts, I don’t really have time for movies or shows. I’m currently watching 90210 with Jaime, and I guarantee you the Super Bowl’s gonna be here before we finish it, but anyway, usually in the summer before things ramp up, I try to watch a couple movies, and I enjoy chess movies so I went with that one this year.

So it centers around a child chess prodigy named Josh. He’s a pretty nice kid, and some question if it hurts him in major competitions. Does he have that killer instinct to close the deal when it matters?

Now there’s this other prodigy by the name of Jonathan, and he’s a thorn in Josh’s side throughout the film. Josh doesn’t think he can beat him, and Jonathan’s thing is, when he gets checkmate against an opponent, he looks them in the eye and says ‘Trick-or-treat.’”

Nick seems captivated now, as he should. It’s a great movie.

“Now I don’t know if you and your brothers ever played chess or anything, but technically in competitive chess, you’re not supposed to talk to your opponent outside of saying ‘Check,’ ‘Checkmate,’ etc when appropriate, so Jonathan really shouldn’t be doing this, but it’s gonna all connect in a minute.

So Josh and Jonathan are facing off in the finals of a major competition. To our knowledge, they have never played each before, but Josh seems haunted simply by his presence. The cinematography really plays this up throughout the movie. Jonathan comes out hot, but a few minutes in Josh finds his footing and forces a check situation with his knight.

Jonathan has to move his king to get out of check, allowing Josh to take the queen. Now, instead of pressing the clock timer with his hand, he hits the clock with the queen, slams it firmly on the table, looks Jonathan point blank in the eye and with a hint of a smile says:

‘Trick-or-treat.’

The game’s not over, but he knows he’s got him.

That was my trick or treat moment, Nick.

The following morning I go on Instagram, I go on Facebook, and this is what I posted.”

You share your screen and show him the posts in question.

“Alright then,” says Nick. “So you basically sat in the bushes and waited three plus years for your time to strike? Waited for the kill shot.”

“If you want to word it like that, it wouldn’t be unfair nor inaccurate,” you say.

You scroll through the Instagram post so Nick can see all of the images.

“I probably don’t want to know what some of these mean, but what’s that one?” he asks. “The one of the man standing there in a coat and sunglasses. Who’s that?”

“Oh that’s a meme,” you say. “The origin is…basically, it’s like meant to signify showing up to the funeral of one of your haters just to let them know you’re still here.”

You can feel your heart rate dropping as you begin to settle down now that you covered most of that.

“I started this thing last season where before every game, I would predict the first touchdown, the first interception, and the first sack.”

You toggle your screen once more, this time going to Twitter.

“Nick, I hit all three of them! Can you imagine if this was available as a bet parlay?!”

“Let’s goo!” says Nick, making a clapping motion with his hands. “That’s impressive work right there.”

“We can move on in a minute because I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me go on about this, but I was on cloud fucking nine the following morning.

I felt as if it was the universe winking at me. Settling a score. Setting something right.

Anyway, let’s talk sched…”

“So how’s what happened here compare to…what’s that guy’s name you always used to talk about? Kylie or something?”

“Oh, you must mean Kyle,” you say. “Your friend Kyle. That fucking loser.”

You were not anticipating going down this road.

“Yeah. That guy,” Nick responds.

“In terms of comparing stuff, it’s really apples and oranges. I don’t really know how to answer that, but listen man, Kyle ought to be thanking me.”

You pause for a second, half expecting Nick to react, but he remains silent so you continue.

“For about 10 minutes, I made Kyle relevant. I made people care about what a nobody had to say.

You know when I won in Beat The Hammer a few months back, him and about 10 other clowns should have been congratulating me, but they ain’t man enough to do it, and they know it.

“Anyway, you wanna discuss the schedule?”

“What people say about you really seems true,” Nick says out of the blue while spinning a football to himself.

“What are you talking about, Nick” you ask, now skeptical as to where he’’s taking this or what he’s referring to.

“Who’s people? What are they saying?”

“I can’t reveal people’s names,” Nick says. “But I talked to some people who know you and…”

Now it’s your turn to interrupt.

“And why would you do that, Nick?” you ask.

“Well I mean I talk to you every summer, and we get into these deep conversations. I feel like you know a ton about me, and there’s not a lot I know about you. If it wasn’t for Big Dom, I wouldn’t even really know your name.”

“Yeahhh, I’m alright with that, Nick,” you answer back. “But alright, I’ll go along with this. What did these quote unquote people say?”

You look up, doing your best to make eye contact with Nick through the screen.

“They said that you’re a winner,” says Nick. “That wasn’t always the case. They said that as you’ve gotten older, you worked your ass off to become a winner, but sometimes they wonder if it comes at a price.

They say you’re incredibly loyal. You’ll jump off a bridge for someone you care about.”

“Yeah, I actually like the phrase ‘Put your balls on the table,’” you say back.

“Yeah, that got mentioned too,” Nick says. “They said you won’t find a nicer nor generous person when it comes to people you care about or identify with, but when it comes to people you don’t like, when it comes to people you feel have wronged you, in those situations you’re out for blood.

The story you just told about the Giants and everything there made me think of that,” Nick says.

“Yeah, I won’t argue with any of that,” you say while taking a look up towards the TV. “You got good sources, Nick.”

You were just about to pause your train of thought until something that Nick said popped into your head.

“Hey, you mentioned not really knowing my name. Well here,” you say. “This is a wedding invitation. I’m sure you’re gonna be having meetings with coaches and Howie going over roster decisions and all, but if you need a few hours off, you should come by. Bring anyone you want, but the invite’s specifically for you.”

“Sweet!” Nick says, sounding legitimately excited. “Let me see that date one more time, so I can put it in my phone.”

“Hell yeah,” you respond.

Chapter 14: Shipping Up To Boston

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 8:21 pm ET

“Alright, so schedule?” Nick asks. “I know this is always a passion point for you.”

Thankfully he took the words right out of your mouth here.

“You know it,” you say. “I’ll give it to you straight, Nick. I think overall it’s a whatever schedule. It’s a little insulting that we’re, as a marquee franchise, starting on the road for the fourth straight season, and I wouldn’t be shocked if Jeffrey says something to Roger there, but it can have its advantages too in terms of slightly less pressure.

A lot of people are making a big deal out of that November through mid-December stretch. It is what it is. We knew going in we were gonna be playing good teams. I’d rather play them later in the season when they’re more likely to not be a good team because of surprise injuries or just how the season’s gone as opposed to facing them early.

But speaking of early, the first game scares me…A LOT. If you flipped around the Bucs and the Patriots game, I would feel a thousand times better. Don’t get me wrong. It’s always tough to play in Tampa. We haven’t performed at our best there, but Bill [Belichick] with four months to prepare, that’s just a really tough assignment.

The Tom jersey retirement and him being there. I don’t read too into that, but Bill hates us, man. I guarantee you he’s gameplanning right this second. He started gameplanning the night the schedule came out. If we had a hidden camera in his office, we’d see it right now.

I know we’re gonna be ready. We have the superior roster. I expect us to win, and I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, but we just gotta make sure we’re prepared for everything. I’m talking trick plays, onside kicks, defensive looks we’ve never seen before.”

“The Lions tried a surprise onside kick on us Opening Day last year, and we were ready,” Nick retorts.

“Good memory, Nick,” you say. “Shout out to Zech. We were all over that. I go back to the Bobby Fischer movie for a second, and it actually ties into some of what we were talking about in Arizona about feeling the moment. Josh has two ‘teachers’ so to speak throughout the movie. One is very traditional, by the book. He preaches playing conservatively, not bringing the queen out too early. He’s incredibly smart and accomplished, but there’s spots where that’s imperfect advice.

And then this other guy Vinnie, a Washington Square Park hustler, is like fuck that. Play from the gut, you’ve gotta risk everything. In order to win, you gotta go to the edge of defeat.

If we want to consistently beat the Bill’s of the world, the Andy’s of the world, the best coaches, and in the case of the Chiefs the best quarterbacks, THAT’S the mentality we need to have. In order to win, we have to take extreme risks.

The margins are just so small. The Detroit opener ended up being a three point game. Same score as the Super Bowl actually, just reversed. I hate that I just thought of that, but yeah, it goes to show stuff like that makes the difference between winning and losing.

And winning or losing a game just has a domino effect from there.

We gotta put to rest this 18 year streak. You know what I’m referring to when I say that, Nick?” you ask.

“Yeah,” Nick says. He seems sure of himself. “The whole thing about no back-to-back NFC East winner. Yeah, I don’t read into that, but I know what you’re talking about. Do you believe in it?”

You answer by saying “I think this team is really going to put it to the test.

Dallas will be on our heels, but we have all of the pieces to put an end to the streak. You know my thing about not making predictions until right before the season, but I’ll say that I expect us to make this happen. I don’t want to get going about the Giants again because if I do, it’s a runaway train and I’ll never stop, but I expect them to take a step back, and I don’t project the Commanders as serious contenders.

You know I want to win however possible. Beating Cooper Rush was fun last year. If they’re bad, beat em because they’re bad, but I think the world is probably excited for two Jalen-Dak matchups this season. Between injuries and other playoff seeding scenarios, we’ve really only ever gotten one, and we’ll have the better quarterback, but we gotta play like it.”

“We will, “ Nick says with a supreme level of confidence.

“We got you.”

Chapter 15: Remember The Name

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 9:04 pm ET

“I know you do,” you say.

You’re hoping the conversation continues to go longer, but it is now past 9 pm, and you let out a yawn before regrouping.

“So you ready to do this again?” you ask. “You ready to go tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Nick says. “I mean tomorrow is kinda light. Guys will basically just report, do a conditioning test, get settled in. We’ll take it easy the first few days, but we’ll make sure to get good work in too. I’ll address the team tomorrow night, and that will be our first official type of meeting.”

“Well if you talk about anything similar to what you did during the press conference a few months back, I’m sure they’ll come out ready to go, wanting to hit someone even though they can’t.”

“What are you referring to?” Nick asks, as you let out a laugh at your own joke.

“The press conference you gave at the end of OTAs in early June,” you say.

“Yeah, I know, but what about it?” asks Nick.

You did not expect that you were going to have to spoon feed this one, but that’s alright.

“Unprompted, you brought up your opening press conference where you were nervous and people made fun of you for it,” you say.

“Oh yeah,” Nick says. “I didn’t think too much of it though as I was referencing it. I was just kinda talking.”

“I did,” you say.

It’s well documented that you don’t know how to wink, but this would be a prime spot to do it if you were able to.

“It tells me that you and I aren’t that different when it comes to revenge and proving people wrong. You don’t have to admit it, but you know as well as I do how much that bothered you. Don’t lose that chip on your shoulder, Nick. Revenge, grudges, they’re a powerful thing when you channel them properly.

You’re probably gonna sign a contract extension soon. I think a lot of coaches, they establish themselves. They achieve generational wealth, and they kinda get…complacent isn’t the right word. They want to win, but losing no longer eats away at them like it once did when they were trying to prove themselves. I saw in your eyes how much it hurt you to lose that Super Bowl.

Don’t lose that.”

You add in a “No pun intended,” to lighten the mood slightly.

“I think you might be reading into this a little too much and tangled up in the vengeance stuff,” Nick says. “Really it’s just….”

“Did I ever tell you about this story from when I was in fifth grade?” you ask.

Nick shakes his head.

“Alright, I’ll make it quick,” you say.

“Why do I feel like I’m not gonna like this?” Nick asks rhetorically.

“I think you will,” you say. “So I have this science teacher in fifth grade who always picked on me. Multiple times a week, she calls me out in front of the entire class, asking if I’m paying attention. Her specific line was ‘Are you with me?’

Well, I’m getting As on all of the tests, so clearly I’m paying attention. So this continues throughout the year. I tell a couple friends that I’m gonna get some revenge on her at some point. They ask if I want their help.

I say no, that I’m not gonna force it. If the moment presents itself, it will come naturally. Months pass by, and we get to the point where there’s only a week or two left of school. My friends mention that I haven’t done anything yet.

Now in my school district growing up, middle school began in sixth grade, so our fifth grade elementary school class had a ceremony called Move Up Day for students and their families. You could think of it as graduation without the diplomas.”

Nick nods his head to indicate he understands.

“So during this ceremony, they have us play a game called Who Wants To Be A Middle Schooler, a spin off of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. There’s different subjects, and students are being picked randomly out of a hat to go up on stage and answer questions.

My name gets picked. I walk up on stage, and the way the pattern is set up, I’m getting a science question. Now before the question is asked, our principal is up there playing the role of Regis Philbin and interviewing the students who get called before they actually answer the question. I forget exactly how the science question is worded, but the answer is inertia, letter D. I know it as soon as I hear the question.”

Nick appears to be getting impatient based on the look on his face.

“The punchline is coming. I promise,” you say. “So he asks me:

‘You like science as a subject?’

I say ‘Yeah, it’s kinda cool.’

Now he follows up and asks ‘Do you like your science teacher?’

To add a little background, our principal was a cool dude. We liked him a lot, but he had no idea what he just did. He just put a beachball on a tee for me.

So I sit there in silence for close to 10 seconds. I say ‘D, Inertia.’

I shake his hand, walk off the stage. I high-five a bunch of my friends while walking back to my seat as people are clapping. I look over, and this science teacher is standing off to the side with her arms folded.

Now could I have just lied and said I liked her? Maybe, but do I regret it? Absolutely not. That was nine months in the making. Principal threw me a hanging curveball, and I hit it out of the park. Fuck around and find out. Don’t be mean to people if you can’t handle them defending themselves and it being thrown back at you.

Alright, that’s the end.”

“That is some story,” says Nick.

“You can pretend you don’t like it, but I know you well enough to know that you do,” you say with a grin.

“And let me just add, in addition to seeing it in you, I see it in your kids too, and this is not meant to be creepy at all. Obviously I don’t know them, but I see Taylor up there at the press conferences. We’ve seen more of her, so I’ll focus there, but I’m sure Jacob and Miles are great too. My wife loves Miles.

You watch Taylor up there, and you can tell she’s already got it, that she’s gonna make it in life, slam dunk. We don’t have to discuss your kids. That’s not the goal here, but I mean it as a serious compliment, so I wanted to mention it.

Chapter 16: Hurts So Good

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 9:23 pm ET

Nick readies himself to speak, but you make sure to get one final line in to tie the story to a bigger point.

“The best thing. The best thing you and Jalen have going for you as a duo is that you both feel slighted. You both feel disrespected. People wrote you off based on your opening press conference. Before that, no other team interviewed you for a head coaching job. Jalen was a late second round pick. The entire league passed on him. He lost his job at Alabama to a guy who he’s proven to be a superior NFL player to.”

“So you’re sold on Jalen now?” asks Nick, as if he already knows the answer.

“Oh dude, I’m all in,” you say. “I underestimated how much of a leap he was capable of making.”

You pause for a second before continuing.

“I’m just making sure he’s not standing behind you and that I don’t have to apologize to him like you made me do with Slay last year.”

“Nah, you’re all good,” says Nick while laughing. “The Slay stuff was egregious. Jalen, I could tell you wanted to like him and just needed to see more.”

“I saw more,” while nodding your head repeatedly. “We saw a hell of a lot more.

I know a bunch of people like to put out quarterback lists this time of year, and I know you don’t have time to worry about that in your job, but here’s how I always frame it right now.

Patrick is the best. Doesn’t mean we can’t beat him in November or more importantly if we see him in the Super Bowl again, but he’s the best. Joe Burrow is second. He went to an absolutely shit organization and completely changed their image, made them cool. Jalen’s third, and he’s on Burrow’s heels, I just give Burrow a slight advantage there for the lack of stability around him in terms of infrastructure.

Then there’s a biggggggg gap after the top three.

Trevor Lawrence is fourth. I think a lot of people around here don’t think as highly of him because he was bad when we played the Jags last year, but that game was weird with the rain. That whole day was weird.”

“You’re not wrong,” Nick says. “That game was weird.”

“The weather. Doug’s return. Being down 14–0. I thought that was one of your best games of the season for what it’s worth. It could have been easy to just pack it in, say it wasn’t our day, but we fought back and got it done.

Anyway, back on track, so yeah, Patrick one, Burrow two, Jalen three, gap, then Trevor four.

You, and I mean you in the universal sense, can argue 5–32. I don’t care. I’ll let other people waste their time on the rest. Herbert, Allen, Lamar Rodgers, yeah, they’re all good, but it’s just not worth my time.

Is there stuff Jalen can get better at? Sure, that’s always the case. I think a project for you, him, and Brian obviously is focusing on the third quarter. There were times that stretch gave us issues last season, figuring out how we’re gonna come out of the break firing.

I’d actually like to see some hot routes put into the offense to counter the blitz. Occasionally when things break down, he’ll roll to the right immediately, and there may be other ways to attack that. I think separately Swift could really help in the screen game too. I know sometimes it’s hard to run screens out of shotgun with the run-pass option, but it’s a way to give opposing coordinators something else to think about and account for if you every now and then throw them a different look.

But those things can be worked on, and I think what some national folks miss with Jalen at times is just how much processing he’s responsible for pre-snap and at the mesh point once the play begins. He has to make so many split-second decisions of whether he’s keeping the ball, handing it off, where it’s going on a throw.

I don’t want to name them and give them extra attention, but people who have Jalen further down on these lists, go turn on last year’s Saints game where it took more than 29 minutes to get a first down with Gardner and nearly put the one seed in jeopardy. That ought to Illustrate how good Jalen is.

The most important thing is we got our guy. Our guy is in the top three, and he’s far and away the best in our conference, which is a big part of the battle right there. To win it all, we gotta get back to the final game first.”

Chapter 17: Don’t Fear The Reaper

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 9:42 pm ET

“He’s unbelievable,” Nick says with a smile as wide as the length of a football field.

“So is the contract,” you respond. “Let me tell you, that’s incredible work by Howie. I wanted Jalen to get paid. He should have no obligation to leave money on the table. We know it gets harder once you pay the quarterback, but it seems like we found something that works for everyone.

Plus, I talked about Trevor earlier. My gut says Burrow and Herbert extensions are gonna get done before Opening Day. Factor in Lamar already being signed too, and Trevor is really the only star who will be playing on a rookie deal.

So for the next couple of years, it’s a pretty even playing field. We’re all in the same boat and just gotta take advantage.

I think my favorite side effect piece is that it should keep money open for Six after the season, and…”

“Who?” Nick asks.

You’re a little surprised Nick didn’t ask about this back in February, but the timing then probably wasn’t great.

“Oh, I refer to DeVonta as Six,” you say. “That’s my guy right there. In fact, I’ll hit you with a hot take here, Nick. If you told me in a hypothetical world that I can only play the season with one receiver, I’m picking Six over AJ.”

“Okay, hold up a minute,” Nick says. “Where is this coming from?”

“It’s nothing against AJ,” you say in a tone that probably sounds a bit defensive. “Nothing. AJ is AWESOME. I just think Six is THAT good. It may sound crazy, but it’s not.

I don’t think he’s quite Justin Jefferson level, but I think Six is a potential Hall of Famer. There’s a prominent caller on the radio known as OG Wade. Probably the biggest Jalen fan out there. He was a believer from the beginning. He refers to Jalen as his son. It’s a good bit. Six is my son.

You break down the numbers, Nick, and aside from less touchdowns, Six’s second season was better than AJ’s second season statistically. I think Six has better hands. Remember AJ dropped that ball against the Commanders that led to an interception? Hopefully they’re both here for a long, long time, but if you go back and think about some of the real key moments from last year, Jalen’s looking for Six. The 4th and 3 against the Niners. Six. The play before halftime of the Week 3 Commanders game. Six.

You talk about dawg mentality. That kid is a DAWG! Stone-cold winner. All he has ever done from the age of 18 on is win, and remember his rookie season, that Week 18 game against the Cowboys? Remember when he put himself back in the game after you told him he was done playing?!”

This prompted a long laugh from Nick.

“I was joking around with him after he did that,” Nick says. “I was like ‘Dude, I told you once you broke DeSean’s rookie record you were done! What are you doing?!’”

“What he was doing was going for 1,000 yards,” you say with a chuckle. “That was the moment when I was sold. I was like this kid’s DIFFERENT.”

You can feel a tear falling down the left side of your face.

“I don’t mean to cry. I just love that kid.”

Chapter 18: Sunny In Seattle

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 9:56 pm ET

“Alright, let’s switch up the topic to something a little lighter,” Nick says.

“Which road games you doing this year? I know you’ll be at a bunch of games at The Linc, but what’s your plan otherwise?”

“It’s funny you bring that up,” you say while peering over at your laptop sitting beside you on the couch. “I have a tab open right now looking up flights to Seattle in December.

I’ll also probably be at the MetLife games. Jets, I got a wedding the night before, but I’ll figure that out. Giants, it will depend on playoff and seeding scenarios and if it may make more sense to watch from home, but I get the sense that the New York teams aren’t the ones you’re asking about.”

“Correct,” Nick says.

“I figured as much,” you say. “Yeah, when the schedule came out, I originally looked at Tampa, LA, and Seattle as possibilities, but those first two, I’ve been there before, not for games, but I know the cities. I ain’t never been to Seattle, so I started fixating on it”

“Yeah, Seattle is definitely the move,” Nick says.

You are not so sure about this for multiple reasons.

“Well, here’s the thing, Nick,” you begin. “I really want it to be, but you have to understand, if I book Seattle, I’m putting A TON of faith in you, in us.

I told you before last year that Arizona was a house of horrors for us. Well, Seattle hasn’t been quite as bad in terms of number of years, but it’s pretty bad. We never play well out there. The 2017 Super Bowl team went out there and laid an egg. It was the only bad game we played all season.”

“We won in Arizona last October,” Nick chimes in.

“We did. We did. That’s the thing. The biggest factor when committing to an Eagles road game that requires big travel is feeling like we’re gonna win, having zero doubt about it. Nothing’s ever given, but what made Chicago so great last year is that we were pretty confident, and I know that was sort of an ugly game.

Had we lost that game, Nick, the city of Chicago would have been ruined for me, which would have been a shame because it’s my favorite city, and I’d like to live there at some point.

I could make it easy. I could do Tampa or Los Angeles. I actually think the Bucs game on Monday Night has sneaky trap game potential where we gotta make sure we’re focused, but conventional wisdom would say Seattle is by far the hardest of the three.

I think they’re good. I wouldn’t be surprised if they pushed the Niners for the west. So I want to do it, and I’m probably gonna do it. I’ll make a decision before Opening Day, but just know that I’m putting an insane amount of confidence in you if I do.

It would be an endorsement that this team is different. That all the past statistics and narratives about Super Bowl hangovers, about repeating in the NFC East, about Seattle in and of itself, it would be an endorsement that none of that matters.”

You pause to give Nick the floor.

His remarks are rather succinct.

“Book Seattle. I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”

Chapter 19: Turn Up The Radio

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 10:07 pm ET

You smile and nod upon getting the answer that you were hoping for.

The game at this point has ended. You got so into the conversation that you hadn’t paid attention and don’t even know who won, but the MLB.TV screensaver on your television is a clear indicator of its conclusion.

“Hey,” Nick says. “You mentioned the radio before. What am I in for with Angelo’s replacement? Are they gonna grill me like he did?!”

“Wow, I’m shocked it took that long for this to come up! I’m glad you asked,” you say.

You stop to gather your thoughts in an attempt to answer in the most honest way possible.

“Look man, you know this from your two years talking to him. There is no one in the business who is a better interviewer than Angelo. I don’t know if I told you this two years ago or not, but I put him in a class with Larry King, Anderson Cooper, Barbara Walters, insert your favorite nationally known news broadcaster here.

So making comparisons would be apples and oranges. You don’t simply replace LeBron or Michael Jordan. What I can tell you is that the new Morning Show is incredibly, incredibly good at what they do.

I’m safely assuming that DeCamara will ask most of the questions with Ritchie sometimes peppering in. I don’t know how it works behind the scenes when you have your call in time the morning after a game, but Seltzer, their producer, will probably be the first person you talk to before you’re on the air. Nicest guy in the world. That’s my dude right there.

Yeah, look, I’m sure it’s gonna take them a little to figure out what works and develop their own style. Angelo was very good at the art of the follow up question, using one question to set up the next. I’m not sure what route they’ll take there, but I know when they had Howie on after the draft, they didn’t lob him softballs. DeCamara will probably take the lead on it. He’s a super nice guy, but he’ll ask tough questions when they need to be asked. They’re gonna bring it, but a couple things to consider here:”

Nick appears locked into this part of the conversation.

“They love the Eagles just like we do. They want the same thing, which is to win football games and win the Super Bowl, and ideally if things go the way we plan, everyone’s gonna be in a good mood on most of the calls. You’ve gotten good at the media stuff. I wouldn’t change anything on your end from what you did with Angelo.

Plus you just need to answer questions about football. You don’t have to face him in a trivia contest with millions of people listening like I did. You got this.

If I was in person, I would extend a fist bump right now. I’m glad you’re taking this part seriously because it is important, but you’ve got it.”

Chapter 20: All Too Well

Monday, July 24th, 2023, 10:20 pm ET

You let out another involuntary yawn. It’s past your bedtime, but this is probably good prep for the season. Eagles night games are the one time you stay up late these days.

Nick senses you’re tired based on this.

“Alright,” he says. “Anything else we need to talk about? We hit a lot. Anything you want me to mention in my first address to the team tomorrow night?”

This will be a good note to end on.

You put your face rather close to the phone. You have a tendency to do this when you’re either excited, nervous, or both.

“Look, I’ll qualify this statement with no one wins the Super Bowl every year. That’s just a fact. We know that well. If we make it back to the big stage, play our asses off like we did, and Mahomes or Burrow plays a lights out game, no one’s gonna hate you guys. No collective group of people loves something more than Philadelphia loves the Eagles, but we don’t want to focus on that hypothetical part.

I mentioned this last year. The city always turns to you. The hockey and the basketball team, forget it. I think they’ll make the playoffs, but my gut says the Phillies aren’t going back to the World Series. They could, but MLB playoffs are a real crapshoot, and the Braves are really good.

And by the way, their slow start is definitely a lesson to take to ensure it doesn’t happen to us, but I’m not as concerned there. Last year, they were an 87-win team who got hot at the right time. It’s basically the football equivalent of going 9–8 and then going on a run. We were a juggernaut.

That was actually one of the most interesting dynamics I had ever seen in that we had an undefeated football team in late October and early November, and for a couple of weeks, that wasn’t the main story. I watched the Texans game on my computer monitor. I never thought the day would come when I would do that.

I hope I’m wrong on that Phillies prediction. I would love a setup where we have a 2:37 pm NLCS home game on Sunday, October 22nd and then we all walk over to The Linc for Sunday Night vs. the Dolphins a few hours later. It would be like what we do for open practice in the summer, but multiply it by a million. Right now though, just going with my gut, and we’ll see what happens at the trade deadline in a week or so, but my inclination is — we’re on the road the two weeks prior with the Rams and Jets game — my inclination is that when we come home for that Dolphins game, which should be an electric atmosphere, that the spotlight will be solely on the Birds.”

You’ve noticed the time change by multiple minutes on your phone since this began. It was probably not the ideal moment to be long-winded, so you try to wrap it up rather succinctly.

“Just tell them that. Tell them that:

Winning is the only…”

“Whoops, hang on one second,” Nick says. “Got another call coming in. I’m gonna answer it from my computer. Let me put you on mute for a second.”

You also put yourself on mute while saying “Godfuckingdamnit” out loud.

You hear the sound of Nick’s voice again a minute later.

“Sorry about that,” Nick says. “I actually gotta hop on another call with Howie and go over a few final things before tomorrow.

You said the wedding was…oh yeah I got it right here,” he says while holding up a screenshot of the website.

“6 pm kickoff, huh?” Nick says.

Certainly an interesting time for a football metaphor.

“Yeah,” you say back with a hint of a giggle.

“Nice,” says Nick. “We’ll probably still be getting some work in then, but I’ll try to make an appearance later in the night.”

You figure there’s no point in going back to your previous point about the team address. You don’t want to keep Howie waiting.

“Yeah,” you say with a smile. “You don’t have to RSVP or nothing. Just show up. Bring your kids. Kids aren’t permitted for other guests, but we’ll make an exception for you. Bring anyone.

I know we don’t play for two more weeks after that, but in terms of game prep and all, it’s basically the last free Saturday we have for 24 weeks. I mean I’ve already done a lot of preliminary work, but I know the following day, I get into studying the Patriots in detail. So if you want one final night to not think about football before fully locking in, we’d love to have you.”

“Take care of yourself,” he says with a wave before FaceTime makes its proverbial hangup sound and your screen fades to black.

Chapter 21: Dazed and Confused

Tuesday, July 25th, 3:33 am ET

You wake up in the middle of the night and pick up your phone. It’s at 1%. You evidently passed out on the couch, forgetting to plug it in along the way.

Feeling a bit like a zombie, you chug some water, use the bathroom, and fall immediately back asleep.

The wee hours of the night give way to morning. Now fully charged — both your body and your device — you pull up your phone and take a quick look at the Patriots depth chart to start your day.

Tuesday, July 25th, 7:58 am ET

Just as you were going through the defense, you hear “So how’d it go with Nick last night?” as Jaime makes some coffee.

“It went well,” you say in a somewhat subdued voice. “It went real well.”

“I’m afraid to know what it would be like if it didn’t go well because you seem a little upset,” Jaime says.

“Yeah no,” you respond, this time sounding slightly more sure of yourself. “It did go well, really well. There was just one message I kept trying to emphasize to him, probably the most important part of the entire call. I was trying to tell him this going back to the morning after in Arizona, and just every time, it felt like I would get unintentionally interrupted.

You went to the Taylor concert because I remember I wanted you to bring that 38–7 sign to MetLife and wave it around. Doesn’t she have some lyric in a song about getting ‘lost in translation’ or something like that? It felt like whenever this came up that we got lost in translation.”

“Well, did you invite him to the wedding?” Jaime asks. “You can tell him there in person!”

That’s a good point that you hadn’t considered.

“Yeah, he’s invited!” you add.

“Great!” says Jaime. “Did he say if he’s coming?”

You pause for a second to recall the specific details of the conversation.

“You know, I’m not entirely sure,” you say with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “He indicated he would try but left it kinda open ended. I told him he didn’t need to RSVP or anything.”

Chapter 22: The Waiting

Saturday, August 26th, 2023, 11:01 pm ET

An hour remains of the wedding. No sign of Nick yet.

Dessert has just been served. You’ve been trying not to look at your phone and have been doing pretty well to this point, so if there’s any update to his status, you don’t know about it.

“It’s alright,” says Jaime. “He could still show up.”

“Yeah,” you say while biting into a cookie as a distraction. “We got some time.”

Just as you finish the sentence, you feel a tap on your shoulder.

“Sir, could you follow me to the door please?” says one of the waitstaff.

You quickly jog out of the ballroom, through the lobby, and swing open the door with Jaime a few feet behind you.

A Black Escalade sits out front. You recognize it immediately. While noticing the car, you initially missed someone standing next to a security guard hired for the wedding.

“Let him in,” you say to the guard.

“I can do that if you want, Sir, but I don’t have him on the list.”

“This is Big Dom,” you say pointing in the direction of Big Dom. “He don’t need to be on no list. He’s a fellow security person I might add. One of the best to ever do it.”

The guard nods and waves Big Dom through the door. It’s dark out, and you can’t see through the windows but are expecting Nick to emerge at any moment. Probably wrapping up a quick call or something.

“What up, Big Dom!” you yell while going in for a handshake and hug combo. “You drove Nick all the way here?! That’s awes…”

You’re about to make a beeline for the car when Big Dom stops you before you can complete your thought, holding his hand out in a manner that only an experienced security pro could.

Chapter 23: I’m Gonna Win

Saturday, August 26th, 2023, 11:04 pm ET

“Nick couldn’t make it,” says Big Dom.

A four-word sentence feels like it takes forever. Your heart begins to sink.

“Got caught up in some film stuff,” Big Dom continues. “He said since you didn’t go to the Super Bowl that you would understand and all.”

It feels as if your heart has dropped all the way down beneath your stomach, but that’s a fair point. You’re crushed, but you do understand.

You nod to acknowledge his comment and show that you respect it.

“He does have something for you though,” Big Dom says while waving for you to come closer.

“That’s alright Big Dom,” you say, still sounding a bit dejected. “I don’t need a gift from him. You didn’t have to drive two hours to give me an envelope.”

Big Dom doesn’t hand you an envelope. He instead extends his phone in your direction. Now you’re confused. You wonder if this is some Venmo QR code thing.

You begin to extend your phone as well, when Big Dom signals for you to put it away and places his phone in your left hand.

You move it to your right hand as you hear Big Dom say “He wanted me to show you this.”

“Monday’s practice schedule?” you ask while passing the phone back to Big Dom.

“Oh my bad,” Big Dom says. “Give me a second. Here you go.”

Big Dom passes the phone back to you and adds some context. “It’s a video of Nick talking to the team after the preseason game the other night. He specifically asked that you see it.”

You crank up the volume on Big Dom’s phone as high as it will go and move it closer to you. The music emanating from inside the ballroom is proving to be stiff competition right now, but you can clearly hear Nick’s voice as he stands in the center of the locker room.

‘We have concluded the preseason, gentlemen. Everyone attack rest for the next couple of days, and come in Monday full on ready to go. I don’t care that we’re still over two weeks out. For all intents and purposes, we are in game week.

There’s an opportunity to do something special here, and we’ve got all the ingredients to do it. We’re gonna take it one day at a time, but make no mistake about it, the city, our fans, they expect a lot from us. They expect us to finish the job.’

There’s still a little time remaining in the video, but you pause it for a moment, beginning to tear up. This isn’t even necessarily related to what Nick is saying. You always get emotional when it’s clear that the season is just about here.

Big Dom indicates for you to play the final few seconds. You tap your finger on the button and hear Nick end with:

‘WINNING is the only option.’

——————————————————————————————————————

Congratulations on making it to the end of our adventure! To reiterate what I mentioned at the beginning, I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading my column as much as I enjoyed writing it. My Venmo handle is @ drew-balis for any tips. Your readership means the absolute world to me, and I would greatly appreciate if you shared the link so others can enjoy the column too💚🦅🏈🏆