LeSean McCoy
Sports Saturday
There are many interesting stories amongst the NFL teams battling this “wild card weekend,” but the Philadelphia Eagles stand out. As the season began, there were major questions about the team. Could first year coach Chip Kelly bring his explosive brand of offense from the University of Oregon to the professional ranks? Could he do so after escape artist Michael Vick, the team’s quarterback, went down with an injury?
Early on there were stumbles. The Eagles started off 1-3 and then 3-5 and it wasn’t clear that their former college coach was ready for the professional ranks. Then, however, the team turned it around, scoring the most points in its history. Back-up quarterback Nick Foles was the hottest quarterback in the league for a while, at one point matching Peyton Manning’s barrage of seven touchdowns in a game with no interceptions. Running back LeSean McCoy ran wild against opposing defenses. In one memorable blizzard game, he was the only one on the field who could keep his footing.
And here they are, perhaps poised to make a major splash as they host the New Orleans Saints. The Saints, of course, have the sublime Drew Brees as their own quarterback, but they don’t play well outside their dome. Think of the Eagles, then, as Tennyson’s eagle, prepared to drop like a thunderbolt on its unfortunate prey:
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Tennyson subtitled his poem “a fragment,” which is what the Eagles’ story is at the moment. They watch from their mountain walls.
