Once again, the thrill of victory will have to wait

Another tease. Another punch in the mouth.

For a lifetime we have been waiting for these seven words: The Eagles have won the Super Bowl.

So we'll wait a while longer. But that's OK. That's all right. We're good at waiting, and enduring.

On a clear, crisp night in a cavernous stadium just inside the Florida-Georgia border, the two best teams in the NFL whaled away at each other for close to four hours, and it ended with the Eagles one brick shy of a load.

Philadelphia Eagles 21, dynasty-in-the-making New England Patriots 24.

So close. So excruciatingly close.

So the parade will be put on hold. Again. The Birds will come back down the mountain and regroup and give it another go.

And when you're over the ache, when the mourning is done with, when the numbness finally goes away, this consolation remains: The Eagles will be back here again. Soon. As soon as the next Supe, perhaps. They are young, they return the nucleus of their team, they are well-stocked for the coming draft, and they adroitly manage the salary cap.

They remain comfortably ahead of their competition in the NFC and surely will be ranked No. 1 in that conference at the start of the next season. And now they know exactly what is required to win a Super Bowl.

"The guys have got a taste of it now," said coach Andy Reid. "I'm sure they'll want to come back. "

"This was still a successful year," said quarterback Donovan McNabb. "I'm going to continue to hold my head high. We'll be back. "

They keep creeping closer. They finally got over the can't-win-the-big-one obstacle by winning the NFC title game after three years of failure. Now only The Big One remains.

In their first appearance in The Big One since 1981, they did not play well. They were unable to run with any effectiveness. Their passing game was tepid. Their defense was OK, but more than OK was needed.

More than anything, though, what doomed the Birds was crippling carelessness with the football. They committed four turnovers, including three McNabb interceptions. Good football teams will make you pay for those mistakes. Great football teams will bury you.

The Patriots are three-time champions because turnovers, and cashing them in, are at the core of what drives the Patriots.

Terrell Owens, who was center ring all week of Circus Maximus, started for the Birds, and promptly caught a pass on the second play of the game. Before he was done, he would have eight more receptions, for 122 yards in all, a remarkable performance for someone whose leg is held together by stuff from a bin in a hardware store.

But none of the other Birds could match that productivity.

"They were able to come up with the big play when they needed it," said McNabb, "and we weren't."

Sometimes, the game really is that simple.

Eagles loyalists, as boisterous and passionate as always, seemed to outnumber Patriots partisans all week in public gatherings, sometimes by margins of 10-1, and on game night they turned Alltel Stadium into an echo chamber for their frenzied spelling bees: E-A-G-L-...

The Birds were making the pilgrimage to the NFL's Holy Land for the first time in 24 years while New England was in the Supe for the third time in four years, so perhaps the novelty had worn off for Patriots fans. But not for Birds boosters. No sir. The wait for a parade felt interminable. And when the Birds scored, the Eagles fight song was sung thunderously and, it seemed, by almost everyone in the arena. It amounted to home-field advantage.

The game had no rhythm, lurching along at an uneven pace due to injuries, reviews of challenged calls and other delays, not the least of which was commercial after commercial after . . .

Neither team could sustain anything, until the Eagles finally stitched together an impressive 81-yard drive that ended with tight end L.J. Smith hand-fighting his way away from clutching linebacker Roman Phifer in the end zone and squeezing Donovan McNabb's bullet pass.

It was amazing. McNabb had been sacked three times, the Eagles had committed two turnovers and very nearly two more, and yet here they were in the lead. The game is not supposed to work that way. Maybe it was a favorable omen, but of course it's hazardous living on the edge that way.

McNabb did rally the Birds and it was 24-21 Patriots, inside the final two minutes. If the Birds could recover the onside kick, well, there's never been an overtime in the Super Bowl.

There still hasn't been. McNabb's third interception and the Birds fourth turnover of the game, in the closing seconds, sealed it.

"We'll be back," McNabb repeated.

There is every reason to think they will be.