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Gonzo: Eagles fans can't kick the habit

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. And you do. So do I. We should all go see someone.

The Inquirer's John Gonzalez says next year will be business as usual for Andy Reid and the Eagles. (Yong Kim / Staff Photographer)
The Inquirer's John Gonzalez says next year will be business as usual for Andy Reid and the Eagles. (Yong Kim / Staff Photographer)Read more

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem. And you do. So do I. We should all go see someone.

I was reading some information on MayoClinic.com the other day (what, it's not one of your regular Internet stops?) when an epiphany hit me harder than any tackle Asante Samuel has ever made. Here's the germane passage, the one that gives me pause:

"You may need the drug just to feel good. As your drug use increases, you may find that it becomes increasingly difficult to go without the drug. Stopping may cause intense cravings and make you feel physically ill."

Replace drug with Eagles and ask yourself how you're feeling barely a week after the season ended and you realize that, due to the poor performance of your suppliers (the infamous Andy Reid Cartel), you'd be forced to go without a football fix for many months. Did you obsess over the Cowboys' loss? Did it make you angry? Did the most extreme cases among you perhaps swear off the Birds and, in a fit of unbridled pique, promise to quit and go cold turkey until some combination of Donovan McNabb, Joe Banner, Jeffrey Lurie, or Reid was exiled to football Siberia? Yeah, those are all signs of addiction.

These are some symptoms according to the Mayo Clinic staff:

Focusing too much time and energy on the drug.

Drastic changes in behavior.

Failing in your attempts to stop using the drug.

Sound like anyone you know?

Over the last week, I was nearly crushed under the sheer weight of our collective commiseration. Even now, several days after watching The Big Debacle in Big D (Part II - Jerry's Revenge), the e-mails continue to roll in about what's wrong with the Birds and what needs to be done to fix them.

Turn on sports-talk radio for five seconds and you'll hear more of the same unvarnished emotion. Same goes for Comcast SportsNet. I was watching recently when Michael Barkann launched into a protracted, passionate monologue about the city suffering the same fate, year after year, when it comes to the Eagles. Remarkably, he didn't break down and sob, which surprised me because he strikes me as sensitive and a bit of a crier.

Griping is cathartic, but it also masks the real issue: It's us. It's our behavior. It's that we've become enablers to the very thing that drives us mad - the way the franchise is run and the team's continued failure to supply a Lombardi Trophy to Philly.

We can complain all we want that Reid and Banner and Lurie keep selling us a weak, inferior product. But that conveniently ignores the fact that we continually scarf it down, gobbling up the hats and jerseys and season tickets and mainlining the Eagles experience like fiends.

In the end, when the Eagles are off golfing or doing whatever it is they do in the off-season, we're left alone with unhealthy thoughts and an uncomfortable, if familiar, depression. It's sad behavior, but it seems unlikely that we'll ever change our ways.

"The fans have just been unbelievable," Reid said earlier this season, shortly after securing a fat contract extension. "They're fair. If we stink, they let us know we stink. If we're doing OK, they let us know we're doing OK. But they're always there. My hat is off to them."

He said it with a straight face, which was a neat trick because the sentiment was phonier than Mark McGwire's crocodile-tear interview with Bob Costas. It's the "they're always there" and "hat is off to them" parts that should concern you. If you go to a restaurant and the food is subpar or the service is lacking, you tend not to go back. Not Eagles fans. We talk a good game, but when the season kicks off, the Linc is invariably packed.

And that's really the rub. What incentive do the Eagles have to listen to our concerns or change their ways? Lincoln Financial Field might as well be a giant mint where Lurie can greedily print his own currency. Last year, Forbes Magazine ranked the Birds seventh on its annual report of NFL franchises, listing the organization's worth at an obscene $1.1 billion. Lurie, lest you forget, bought the team for a comparably reasonable $185 million.

Incidentally, you must see the picture of Lurie that Forbes used for that piece (tinyurl.com/luriepic). Lurie has a salt-and-pepper beard and wild eyes and a giant, crazy grin. It makes him look as though he was escaping from the sanitarium or perhaps dreaming about buying a knot of small islands simply because he can. Or maybe both.

Divest yourself of any delusions. Next year will be business as usual for the Eagles. They will acknowledge you only long enough to take possession of your cash. So long as the franchise remains profitable, your frustration won't register with the front office fat cats. They will do what they do, the way they've always done it.

And we will let them. Because we're sick. Because we have a problem.