‘I’m trying not to cry’: Eagles fans mourn playoff loss

The sound inside Chickie’s and Pete’s was like thunder, hundreds of voices swelling together as “Fly, Eagles Fly” trumpeted from speakers of the jam-packed South Philadelphia restaurant.

A thousand miles to the south, Eagles running back Boston Scott had just scampered into the end zone at Raymond James Stadium, putting the team within ... ah ... 24 points of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. There were, at that moment, about 12 minutes left in Sunday’s wild card playoff game.

“Oh, my God!” Marie Williams yelled from a small table at Chickie’s. “We got on the scoreboard!”

It was that kind of a day for the Eagles — they were even more overmatched by the Buccaneers than the 31-15 final score suggested — and for their long-suffering fans.

“I’m disappointed. I came into today with some hope that we could pull it off,” said Williams, 65, of West Oak Lane. “I did not expect it to be like this.”

“You got to move on,” implored her son, Michael Williams, 46. “We got three [first-round] draft picks!”

Nothing could have kept fans such as the Williamses from watching the game alongside other Eagles diehards — not the still-raging Covid-19 pandemic, nor the threat of a winter storm, or the likelihood of some playoff heartache.

That’s because the Eagles are more than a football team, more than a Sunday afternoon escape. They’re a civic soap opera, one that the city hasn’t been able to turn away from for nearly 90 years. A bad season, like the four-win train wreck of 2020, just ensured that the 2021 season would be all the more compelling, layered with intrigue and possibility.

Maybe Nick Sirianni would prove to be a capable first-time head coach, and not an iffy gamble on the part of Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie.

Maybe Jalen Hurts would play well enough to convince everyone he was the answer at quarterback, and not a riddle.

Maybe this team, a hodgepodge of young kids and veteran holdovers from the group that won Super Bowl LII, could find a spark and go on a run.

The season started ugly, with Eagles losing five of their first seven games.

“But then they shifted the needle in the right direction in the second half of the season,” said Joe Wertz, a season ticket holder for four decades.

Wertz, 66, of Ridley Township, didn’t expect the Eagles to topple the Buccaneers, but didn’t expect them to get pancaked, either. Still, he’s optimistic about the team’s future.

“We’ve lived through worse times than this,” he said.

It was unsurprising, but no less annoying, to see the city’s dream of a long playoff run ended by Tom Brady, the Buccaneers’ ageless quarterback.

In 2005 — when Hurts was just a boy of 6 — a then-20-something Brady led the New England Patriots to a 24-21 victory over the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX. Some Eagles coaches accused the Patriots of cheating during that game, but Brady went on to collect more Super Bowl trophies and NFL records with relative ease.

The Eagles got their revenge in 2018, beating Brady and the Patriots in the thrill-a-minute Super Bowl LII. (Brady infamously did not shake hands after the game with Eagles quarterback Nick Foles.)

“I hate Tom Brady,” said Monty G, the instantly recognizable uber-Eagles fan.

He sat quietly at a table at Chickie’s and Pete’s, an expression of genuine hurt spreading across his face. An eagle sculpture, its wings outstretched, sat perched on the brim of his cap.

“I’m hurting. Jalen, he wasn’t ready,” the 52-year-old said. “I thought it would be close. I thought we had a plan.”

Monty G’s connection to the team runs a little deeper than most. In 2020, he was hospitalized for four months due to complications from COVID-19. He said former Eagles players, including Brian Dawkins, sent him get-well wishes.

“I prayed I’d have another week with this team,” he said Sunday. “I’m trying not to cry.”

The end of this season, though, just means that the countdown to the next has already begun.