This time, we didn’t leave disappointed

"Su-per Bowl, Su-per Bowl," they yelled, over and over, into the Philadelphia night. It was so loud, so clear. You could hear the words piercing the cold and the wind and the history. The history most of all.

The Gatorade shower drenched Andy Reid with about a minute left. For some reason, the first thought was of Buddy Ryan, the great coaching hope of a previous, unfulfilled lifetime. Ryan said he never wanted to be showered that way. He said, "They did that to George Allen and he died of pneumonia. " But for Buddy, when it turned playoff time, Gatorade (along with offense) was always a nonissue.

Jeffrey Lurie was on the field as time expired, surrounded by the celebration, holding a single finger aloft, repeating two words: "One more. " Owners. Leonard Tose got the Eagles to a Super Bowl and then pretty much gambled the franchise away in Atlantic City. Norman Braman assembled and then dismantled a team, laughing (and cha-chinging) his way back to Miami. Lurie learned on the job for a few years, and then he did nothing but deliver consistent excellence that always fell one game short.

Two minutes, 1 minute, zeroes. And Brian Dawkins yelled, "First of all, hallelujah. "

Policemen on bicycles guarded the hastily assembled podium. Fireworks - first red, then golden, then green and blue - were fired from the stadium's upper rim, burning bright and dancing and then disappearing beneath a full moon.

On the field, there was joyous chaos. Donovan McNabb took a semivictory lap after pulling on the commemorative hat and T-shirt that are on sale as we speak. Freddie Mitchell took his own lap, holding up his boxing-style belt as the "People's Champ," the buckle catching the stadium lights as he waved. Later, Dawkins carried the George S. Halas Trophy around on his own victory lap, passing it from teammate to teammate after a while, as if it were the Stanley Cup.

Shiny confetti was shot up into the sky and Lincoln Financial Field looked like a snow globe. Clouds of real snow, the remnants of Saturday's storm, came flying out of the upper deck, riding on a breeze unlike any of us can easily remember.

Eagles 27, Falcons 10. And Mitchell said: "People have waited 20 years for this. Philadelphia, there you go. "

They have waited 24 years, actually, and they all have the flashbacks to prove it. You can saw a limb off of most of those people in the stands and count the rings, like a tree - Marion Campbell there, and Rich Kotite's wet chart there, and Randall Cunningham's scrambling there, and Reggie White's manhandling there, and Bobby Hoying, and Tommy Hutton, and Mike Mamula, and St. Louis, and Tampa Bay, and Carolina.

To argue that they were all bad times, from the 1980 season to today, would be laughable. But in case you haven't noticed, the last two decades of Philadelphia sports have not exactly been a sweet spot in time. The malaise has been fed by a bunch of things, by modern media and by modern expectations, but it has been fed by the losing most of all.

And so, to witness the scene - dancing in the aisles; chest-bumping through parkas - was to see the actual, physical, public fulfillment of dreams.

"This is really who it's really for, in my mind," Ike Reese said. "This city has endured a lot of heartbreaks, a lot of disappointments and a lot of letdowns for their sports teams. To still be able to stick in there with us, I just felt like they deserved the game, even more so than some of the players.

"You have some players that have been here from the start of this thing, but as players, we come and go. This city is going to be here. That's who this team belongs to, the city, and they're the ones who deserve it today. We still have one more gift to give them because this is just part of what we wanted to do. "

And so it went, as the locker room slowly emptied. Butch Buchanico is the Eagles' director of security but, as he says, "I'm just like those knuckleheads in the stands. " He said he cried on the field during the presentation of the trophy to the winners of the NFC Championship Game, to the team he has rooted for since childhood. Now, an hour later, he was lugging the trophy around the Eagles' locker room.

First, he had taken it down the hall to show the players' families - to allow them to touch it, to share in the experience. Then he carried it back to the locker room, covered in fingerprints, and ran into Andy Reid.

Through everything, Reid had yet to touch the object of this city's perennial, fanatical affection. He seemed almost reluctant, but then he took it from Buchanico, just for a second. He felt its heft, and quickly handed it back.

"There's a little substance to that," Reid said, laughing, hurrying away.

A little substance, a little history.

So this is what it feels like, finally.