Quarterback by John Feinstein

Author:John Feinstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2018-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

15

One of the most surprising facts about week two of the 2017 NFL season was that the game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs had become one of the must-see games of the weekend.

Both teams had been expected by most to come into the matchup 0-1. The Chiefs had been a playoff team the previous January, but opening up against the Patriots in Foxboro had looked to most people like a lock loss. Add in the fact that many so-called experts were wondering if New England might go 19-0, and there weren’t a lot of folks expecting the Chiefs’ 42–27 victory that included a 21–0 fourth-quarter margin.

“I guess it’s tough to go 19-0 from 0-1,” Alex Smith had joked.

The Eagles’ opener wasn’t nearly as daunting, facing a Washington team that had gone 8-7-1 the previous season and didn’t appear likely to be a whole lot better a year later. Then again, the Eagles had been 7-9 that same season, had been swept by Washington, and had won one—that’s one—road game from September to January.

The 7-9 had come after a surprising 3-0 start that included a stunning 34–3 rout of the Pittsburgh Steelers in week three. After that game there had been suggestions that both rookie coach Doug Pederson and rookie quarterback Carson Wentz begin polishing their Hall of Fame speeches. Canton was 401 miles—and just a matter of years—from where the two were residing in Philadelphia at that moment.

Reality hit soon after that. The Eagles went 4-9 the rest of the season. Pederson’s play-calling was questioned, and Wentz finally made some rookie mistakes. Some in Philadelphia wondered aloud if Pederson was too much like his mentor, Andy Reid, under whom Pederson had both played and coached. Reid was semi-revered in Philadelphia for making the Eagles a consistent winner until his final season, but he was questioned because the team had gotten to the Super Bowl (in 2005) but had never won it in fourteen seasons under Reid—and in the fifty-one years since the game had been invented.

The Eagles’ last title of any kind had come in 1960. Their quarterback was Norm Van Brocklin. Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, and no one in the United States had heard of the Beatles yet.

Now, though, the Eagles had a chance to be good. Very good. At least that was the way Alex Smith saw it.

“You didn’t have to watch their defense on tape for very long to know it was going to be a long, grinding day,” he said. “They were fast, aggressive, and mean. I was very glad we had a couple of extra days to get ready after playing on Thursday night.”

They also were playing at home.

Arrowhead Stadium opened in 1972 and was part of a two-stadium complex: a football stadium adjacent to a baseball stadium. This was during the time when multipurpose stadiums were the rage and most NFL teams played in stadiums that also housed baseball teams.

Because Arrowhead was built strictly for football, it had better sightlines than a multipurpose stadium and became a model for future NFL football stadiums.

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