The Night the Rain Fell in Philadelphia
In a bizarre turn of events, the Philadelphia Eagles season has finally ended.
What a way to end the NFL’s 101st season.
Philadelphia couldn’t help themselves. Even eliminated from the playoffs in the paltry NFC East, they found one last way to confound and enrage the sporting world.
Down by just three points in the 4th quarter, Doug Pederson and the Philadelphia coaching staff turned to third-string quarterback Nate Sudfeld.
This name may not sound very familiar to those not acquainted with the Eagles’ quarterback room before Sunday, but Sudfeld has been here for years. Quietly standing there, waiting for his opportunity.
I would go as far as to say that the city of Philadelphia has gotten quite comfortable seeing him alongside Carson Wentz on the sidelines. He’s Mike Kafka with more athleticism and a bigger arm.
The pride of Indiana.
On Sunday night, however, Sudfeld’s life would change forever. In front of a national audience, many of whom consisted of anxious New York Giants fans, Sudfeld’s supernova burst. This is pretty much how it went.
That is when the internet absolutely lost its shit. Pederson failed to recognize, or more than likely didn’t care, that he was taunting gamblers, television executives, Cris Collinsworth, and the greater New York area.
Pretty much the only people that we’re cool with it were Eagles fans. Unless you’re really tapped into Eagles Twitter, you’d never have known that the tank was ON.
I’ve calmed down now, but full transparency, I hit a dark place during that fourth quarter. Fire everyone, cut everyone type mood. That said, it's because I threw some shekels on the Birds to win outright.
Back to what I said about the gamblers — they were pissed but not as pissed as the New York faithful.
At least Giants fans had a bad night too.
So that’s that. Philadelphia walks away with the 6th overall pick, and Sudfeld collects an almost Nathan Peterman-flavored stain on his resume.
Now, Philadelphia has a long-ass offseason ahead of them and a mountain of cap space to shed. The Eagles are currently accountable for $271MM versus OverTheCap.com’s salary cap estimate of $176MM for 2021. Yeesh.
If Sudfeld’s fourth-quarter ‘heroics’ are any indication of what's to come, and I believe they are, we’ve got a lot of rain in the forecast.
