Okay, I actually stole that title from an article about the Eagles two years back when they went 5-1 after McNabb went down with an injury. The biggest news item for Philly until the free agent period starts for real next month is that a deal has been made to send 3rd-string QB AJ Feeley to the Dolphins. I’m happy for the club, because they’ll get a 2nd round draft pick out of it, but I’m also happy for Feeley, because he has the potential to be a really good starting QB but would be stuck as a career backup in Philly. It’s a smart move for both sides and (considering recent injuries) just makes me anxious to see who Reid will pick up as the new number 3. Since Tim Hasselbeck looks to be staying in DC, I guess they’ll just look late in the draft.
As far as other moves going on these days, I’m curious about the whole Portis/Bailey trade turns out. Not to mention, just how much will Manning end up costing the Colts. There’s also a big WR swap going on that could mean nothing at all if the Cowboys don’t bother to get a good QB, too. All of this doesn’t matter at all if the Eagles don’t bother to get a real WR of their own such as McCareins from Tennessee, or *gasp* TO.
Normally these are issues I could talk about on the Eagles Message Board, but I’ve finally called it quits over there. It boils down to the age old Internet adage: “You’re all a bunch of idiots.” Well, maybe that’s not old, and maybe it’s not an adage, but it should be. Once in a blue moon you have some interesting football discussions or friendly banter, but in general they’re the biggest bunch of cliquish babies you’ll ever see. They act like some attention-starved teenagers with major inferiority complexes and a 5th grade education. I tended to get along with the opposing team fans who actually had a sense of humor and some real football knowledge.
You know what one of their favorite pasttimes is? Logging in under bogus nicks and posting anti-Eagles messages to see who will respond. Yeah, I know, you can’t even imagine the lameness. Then again, these are people who assume that anyone who just signed on the board must not be a longtime fan, because obviously all Eagles fans read the message board everyday, right? They honestly believe that everything Eagles (and possibly their entire lives) revolve around the MB. My last attempts at posting just proved to me that the majority of the posters there are an embarassment to the city of Philadelphia and the reason why so many people have a negative image of us. Needless to say, I’ve poked my head in to see if any pertinent info has been posted about the latest rumors, and leave after 5 minutes of reading inane chatter about how cool someone is because they’ve posted 1000s of useless messages and how pathetic someone else is because he criticizes the team and only has 10 posts to his name (nevermind that he actually understands football and the other guy is usually too drunk while watching the game to know the difference between a touchdown and a touchback).
Anywho, I’ve bitched enough for no good reason, because it all comes down to one simple fact about message boards.
Then there’s ebaumsworld… he has a few
I’ve seen some real winners online… Eva went on a San Jose Sharks forum (since out of the three of us, she can’t drive to see her team play… not at home anyway) to check up on how the team was doing. She said something like “all I know is Wayne got a goal, so I’m happy for him. How’s the rest of the team doing?”
Some guy comes back with “well at least the puck-bunny is happy.” (Basically, an unflattering term for a female fan who watches for the guys more than the sport.) At least this guy got slammed by other board members for the comment.
It’s amazing how little the actual team is discussed on some of these forums…
Also, we all know the real reason to move a white quarterback like Feeley out of Philly is so the NFL can showcase a successful black quarterback in McNabb
There are two really bad incidents on the Eagles MB that really got me pissed off – one involved a 12 year old kid and the other an opposing fan.
The little kid took it upon himself to search through all of the old posts to find people who doubted that the Eagles would do well and list them as not true fans. A bunch of people jumped on his bandwagon and they all patted each other on the back for being such great fans and never doubting Andy Reid. Their belief is that true fans always think their team will win every game and predict a Super Bowl every year. In other words, true fans have no reasoning abilities or knowledge of the game (of course these people also make fun of opposing fans for feeling the same way). In the end he claimed he was “fishing” (as I described in the post) and I realized just how pathetic these people were. I think that was the last time I regularly visited.
The other incident involved a cool Saints fan who went by the nick TheBayouBullet. Just before they were set to play, he posted this long article he had written to the board. I started reading, but when he mentioned Rush Limbaugh being right I was about to flip. Of course, being reasonable I continued and got to the part where he claimed the NFL was trying to promote Irish QBs (get it, ‘Mc’Nabb) and he was in fact a Leprechaun. It was funny, I chuckled, and 90% of those morons flamed him like crazy whether or not they read the full post (or any of it for that matter). We talked afterward and he couldn’t believe how awful the Philly fans were – he had posted similar articles to every team’s MB that the Saints faced and we were the only ones who didn’t seem to get it. After they lost to Carolina he wrote to me and told me that I was the only reason he didn’t come back and taunt everybody. He really wanted to because they deserved it, but out of respect for me (one of the very few to show any respect or class) he stayed away. I told him that after everything regarding his post I had slowed down going there and we parted in a friendly manner.
I guess the only reason I keep going to any message boards is that once in a blue moon you meet people like TheBayouBullet and it all seems worthwhile. Unfortunately you’ve got to wade thru a lot of jackasses to get to them.