Wariness over Eagles gives way to optimism

There have been longer civic waiting periods for local sports fans than the one that stretched this year from Jan. 4 to Sunday's opening game for the Eagles. It just doesn't seem that way.

The Phillies played baseball for 98 years before winning a championship in 1980. Now that's a long wait. The Flyers and Sixers are trying to end droughts that have lingered for more than a generation. Those are becoming considerable waits as well.

But the Eagles - finally, the Eagles - appear headed toward breaking their own eternal streak of frustration. Their last NFL championship was in 1960, three weeks before John Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States.

Oh, they've teased before. Went to a Super Bowl under Dick Vermeil, the hot, young coach of his era. Enjoyed a brief blustery run with Buddy Ryan, who failed to live up to his own immodest hype. Built slowly into a powerhouse and eventually went to another Super Bowl when Andy Reid, who was young when he started, remade the team in his methodical image.

Any of those might have worked out and ended the wait, but none of them did. So, welcome to the front of the line, Chip Kelly.

Realists, pessimists, and Eagles fans know that nothing is ever assured. Every silver lining can be enveloped quickly by a dark cloud. Every dog might have his day, but tomorrow is a question mark. The glass is not only half empty, but usually has a leak as well. A frown is just a smile turned upside down.

You get the idea.

This time, though, as noted NFL expert Bullwinkle J. Moose would have said, this time for sure.

Kelly came to us not so much as a miracle worker, but as a sleight-of-hand artist with a knack for making the opposition look the wrong way. Like Vermeil and Reid in their time, he's young, different, and smart. Unlike any of his predecessors, however, no one else in the league has one of these. There is only one Chip Kelly, and the Eagles have collected the entire set.

That's part of why the 246 days that have passed since the Eagles lost in the playoffs on a last-second field goal have come and gone on leaden feet. The anticipation that has built for the opener against Jacksonville and the beginning of the next chapter is not because we know what comes next, but because we can't possibly.

When Kelly arrived last season - a whirlwind of sports science and up-tempo offense and headbanger music at practice and scrubbed collegiate optimism - there was a wariness among the population that was exceeded only by its weariness for Reid.

Four months later, after turning a 4-12 team into a division winner despite the installation of new offensive and defensive systems, despite losing the starting quarterback five games into the season, despite a defense ranked last against the pass, it's fair to say the wariness had given way to the expectations that greet Sunday's kickoff.

"It's Year 2, and we have a bunch of guys that have been around us, and we have been around them, so you feel like you're a little bit closer in terms of what we are trying to get accomplished," Kelly said.

What can possibly go wrong this time?

Well, several things. The team might not be as healthy this season. Quarterback Nick Foles could struggle to replicate his remarkable finish to the season. The my-way-or-highway release of DeSean Jackson might come back to bite Kelly. The defense, with only one new starter, could be as porous as last year. The schedule, which includes four of the five other teams in the NFC to have double-digit wins last year (not to mention a trip to NFC North winner Green Bay in mid-November), could make it difficult to even equal their 10-6 record.

All of those are possible, as is the prediction by some that an offseason to study Kelly's sleight of hand will have opposing defenses less likely to look the wrong way.

Sure, sure. And the hopes of the locals have been ruined before by a shiny present that looked great until it came out of the box.

That's for another day, though, one that might not even arrive this time. This day is for those silver linings against a midnight green background, for having the smartest kid in the class on the sideline acing the test, for heroes that don't fade and long waits that finally end.

Once again with feeling, Eagles fans.

This time for sure.

@bobfordsports