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This article was originally published in the Inquirer on November 8, 2004.
There are close losses and blowout losses. Losses to make you weep and losses to leave you encouraged. There are losses forgotten by dawn and losses that scar a generation.
The Eagles, who hadn't experienced a regular-season loss since late last December, were introduced to the woodshed yesterday, taken there and spanked to a humiliating fare-thee-well at the cold and calloused hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And thus died the Perfect Season.
The stumbling, bumbling Birds played more like they were 0-7 than 7-0. Their abject ineptitude in their 27-3 defeat was a disconcerting reminder of how they have swooned in the playoffs, how they have tended to shrivel in spotlight games.
This was a defeat so thorough and so embarrassing that it could distort the Birds' condition. No day in Philadelphia is more dreary or defeatist than a Monday after an Eagles loss. The mourning is magnified, and perspective takes a beating.
But before the funeral corteges start down Broad Street, the fact is, the Birds are halfway through the season and they are 7-1. No team in the NFL is better off.
This was a loss made more galling by the way the Eagles were physically manhandled and overwhelmed, shoved about with casual disdain. But it was one loss and one loss only. And the Birds remain, until proven otherwise, the best team in the NFC and no worse than the third-best team in the entire NFL.
This loss will feel knife-edge keen because the Birds simply aren't used to losing. This was only their second defeat in their last 19 regular-season games, their first in the regular season since Dec. 21. But this is Philadelphia, where overreaction is considered a birthright, and these are the Eagles, who, lately, have perfected the Big Tease.
This may feel like the end of the season, but in fact, it is only halftime.
"There's a whole lot of season left," said Eagles coach Andy Reid, even more terse than usual, his cheeks scarlet from the wind at Heinz Field and the unresisting manner in which his team had been dominated.
What gets obscured in all the hand-wringing of Eagles loyalists is the remarkable performance by the winners. The Steelers have just completed a remarkable double. On back-to-back Sundays, they have administered losses to two previously unbeaten teams. Last week, it was New England, 34-20. This week, the Eagles. That's two victories over once-perfect teams by a combined margin of 38 points. Impressive stuff.
The Steelers won both games in the same manner - by bursting out to 21-3 leads, thus rendering pretty much useless their opponents' game plans and, in the process, hogging the ball. Their time of possession yesterday was almost 42 minutes, leaving the Birds with barely 18.
Not that the Eagles could do much when they did have the ball. They failed to convert a single third down into a first down, which was a continuation of a disturbing trend.
The Steelers beat the Birds despite the absence of Duce Staley, the ex-Eagles running back who suffered a hamstring injury on Friday, and despite the presence of Ben Roethlisberger, a rookie quarterback.
Staley was replaced by Jerome Bettis, a.k.a. "The Bus," who has been on restricted duty, called on in short-yardage situations only, since Staley's arrival. The Steelers called his number a wearying 33 times, and frequently, wheezing, he would take himself out and kneel along the sideline, gulping for oxygen. But he would always return to bull the pile forward. He ended with 149 yards rushing, and those who tackled him will count their lumps and contusions this morning.
Roethlisberger equaled the NFL record for consecutive wins by a rookie QB (six) and, despite his inexperience, more than held his own against the offerings of Jim Johnson, the Eagles' wily defensive coordinator.
Whither the Eagles now?
The hallmark of the Reid era has been their resiliency. They almost always rebound after a defeat, and they play extraordinarily well in November and December. So their future is hardly as bleak as yesterday's defeat.
On the flip side, all of their weaknesses were mercilessly exposed by the Steelers - their anemic running game, their inability to stuff opponents' running games, and their deteriorating offense, which has scored a scuffling 18 points its last two games.
Troubling, too, was what appeared, from a distance, to be a verbal dust-up between quarterback Donovan McNabb and tempestuous receiver Terrell Owens.
Of the first four passes thrown by McNabb to Owens, three were uncatchable. The fourth required Owens to make a twisting, reach-back catch that left him exposed for a thunderous hit. Afterward, Teeee-Ohhhh was found speaking forcefully to McNabb along the sideline while McNabb was walking away.
Reid claimed not to have seen it, but, then, he claims not to see most of what Owens does. His - and the players' - spin was that Owens' words were "in the nature of encouragement. "
None of this matters all that much if the winning resumes. If it doesn't, then Reid could find himself having to quell a muttering chorus.
Yesterday, McNabb struggled. The offense clanked and coughed. The usually reliable defense was pillaged.
"Some games get away from you," Reid said.
But the season hasn't.
