“Retirement” is apparently a loose word in the WIP stratosphere, because on Monday morning, Philly media legend Ray Didinger – who retired last year – joined soon-to-be retiree Angelo Cataldi on WIP’s Morning Show to discuss the only thing on the menu: the Philadelphia Eagles are headed to Super Bowl LVII.
If there are any two men who know what this means for the city, it’s Angelo and Ray, and Mr. Didinger, who literally wrote the Eagles Encyclopedia, indeed had some thoughts about the second Philly appearance in a league final in the span of 90 days.
“Philly is a great sports town, but there’s no question the No. 1 team is the Eagles,” Didinger said. “We’ve seen the other extreme when they’re really bad, but when they make it to this point, there’s nothing like it. You saw it last night; within minutes after the end of the game, the city streets were full and crowds were out celebrating around City Hall and up in the Northeast.”
Related
As Ray noted, the Eagles’ history is littered with long stretches without success, and even in the Andy Reid era where the Birds made five NFC Championship Games, there was only one actual Super Bowl (a loss at that) to be had.
So now, to go twice in five years? That’s almost unheard of with two different on-field regimes outside of the “natural succession” type teams (read: teams like the Rams after Dick Vermeil turned it over to Mike Martz”), and definitely a first for Philly, at least in the Super Bowl era.
The Birds went to three straight NFL title games from 1947-49, winning the latter two, and won again in 1960. Then came 20 years before their first Super Bowl appearance, and droughts of 24 and 13 years between the next ones.
“There were a lot of people who never thought they’d see this team get to a Super Bowl, much less win one, so to have it happen twice in five years is a tremendous cause for celebration,” Didinger said. “It’s an exciting young team with exciting players and an excitable head coach.”
Related
