Hate Dallas Week
It’s Eagles – Cowboys Week. While the NFC rivalry isn’t quite what it used to be, the games between the two teams still conjure plenty of hate from fans of both teams for the other. Don’t let local, front-running Cowboy fans with their Drew Pearson jerseys fool you – the game is just as big in Dallas as it is in Philadelphia. Unlike most of those so-called diehard fans, I actually saw a game in the dump that was Texas Stadium. Dem cowpokes were plenty fired up for the Eagles. (And, I must admit, a hell of a lot more civil than Eagles fans are to visiting Cowboy fans.)
Wilbert Montgomery busting through the line to kick-start the victory against the Cowboys in the 1981 NFC Championship Game, the cheap shot on Harold Carmichael ending his consecutive games played streak, the Donovan McNabb scramble and subsequent long bomb to the infamous Freddie Mitchell, the Bounty Bowl – they are just a few of the memories I have from the rivalry. I still remember a friend of my dad’s giving me a T-shirt with a Cowboy helmet in the center of a bull’s eye and the old Eagles logo flying above dropping a turd just where it belongs. Of course, growing up with a father and two of three brothers who were Cowboy fans, I’ve heard ad nauseam about the Cowboys’ Super Bowl victories.
I don’t like the fact that the league now tries to bunch together division games at the end of the season. It seems like the Eagles and Cowboys have played their second game of the regular season in the final, sometimes meaningless, game of the season for the last 3 or 4 years. I think it waters down the rivalry – and, no, not because of last year’s debacle for the Eagles in Dallas on back-to-back weeks in the regular season finale and playoffs to end the season.
It’s December and the Eagles haven’t even seen the Cowboys yet. Then they play the day after New Year’s in the season finale when fans have been more focused on the holidays and the all of the playoff scenarios could be decided.
As we cross over Hump Day this week, let’s hope fans get a little more stoked up for the game on Sunday night. It’s not the “walk over” many thought it would be for the Eagles just a few weeks ago. To help fan the flames of Dallas hate, I posted a couple videos below that I found on YouTube. The first is part of an NFL Films piece on the rivalry (admittedly, it’s a bit dated), followed by a treat for Birds fans old enough to remember their greatest victory against the Cowboys.
Wilbert Montgomery busting through the line to kick-start the victory against the Cowboys in the 1981 NFC Championship Game, the cheap shot on Harold Carmichael ending his consecutive games played streak, the Donovan McNabb scramble and subsequent long bomb to the infamous Freddie Mitchell, the Bounty Bowl – they are just a few of the memories I have from the rivalry. I still remember a friend of my dad’s giving me a T-shirt with a Cowboy helmet in the center of a bull’s eye and the old Eagles logo flying above dropping a turd just where it belongs. Of course, growing up with a father and two of three brothers who were Cowboy fans, I’ve heard ad nauseam about the Cowboys’ Super Bowl victories.
I don’t like the fact that the league now tries to bunch together division games at the end of the season. It seems like the Eagles and Cowboys have played their second game of the regular season in the final, sometimes meaningless, game of the season for the last 3 or 4 years. I think it waters down the rivalry – and, no, not because of last year’s debacle for the Eagles in Dallas on back-to-back weeks in the regular season finale and playoffs to end the season.
It’s December and the Eagles haven’t even seen the Cowboys yet. Then they play the day after New Year’s in the season finale when fans have been more focused on the holidays and the all of the playoff scenarios could be decided.
As we cross over Hump Day this week, let’s hope fans get a little more stoked up for the game on Sunday night. It’s not the “walk over” many thought it would be for the Eagles just a few weeks ago. To help fan the flames of Dallas hate, I posted a couple videos below that I found on YouTube. The first is part of an NFL Films piece on the rivalry (admittedly, it’s a bit dated), followed by a treat for Birds fans old enough to remember their greatest victory against the Cowboys.
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