Sploosh.

They're the Eagles. The f**king Eagles. No one likes them. They don't care. And they just obliterated a team most of you hate even more. Brace for some extreme homerism.

There’s no place like home when the local team wins the Super Bowl.

There are fireworks popping off across my little suburban neighborhood. Car horns are blaring. Neighbors have taken to their porches and front steps. There are E-A-G-L-E-S chants echoing through the streets.

The social networks tell me that Philly itself is lit, but not actually on fire. The city has survived enough recent parades to make me mostly confident that mood will remain ecstatic-not-catastrophic throughout the night.

I was fortunate enough to see the Eagles win Super Bowl LII in person in 2018. Friends and neighbors were jealous. But there is no cheering in the press box, no celebratory beer(s) in the media shuttle. I experienced and enjoyed that win. But not like this. Not like this.

Some of my buddies are in the French Quarter as I write this, and based on the texts I am receiving, they are having a swell time. But the Quarter is always a swell time. Right now, Center City, Old City, South Street, Manayunk, the Great Northeast, University City, Conshohoken, the Main Line, Haddon Township, and even tiny Mount Ephraim are all the French Quarter.

A Super Bowl victory is a civic event. The emotional parade begins the moment the game ends — or midway through the third quarter in the case of Super Bowl LIX — continues through the actual parade and, if you open your heart wide enough, can last until they hang the banner next year. The excitement flows through your neighborhood, through your soul. Casual fans are jubilant. Tiny tots are jubilant. When I call my mother in the home tomorrow, she will be jubilant. And she hasn’t been jubilant about ANYTHING since my first Holy Communion.

I want to be out in the streets right now. I’m jealous of my wife, who gets to “teach” to a half-empty school tomorrow. I’m jealous of my sons, whooping it up on college campuses. (Mike is in the heart of Eagles country; CJ is on the Eagles/Giants/Jets Exit 9 borderline, which I’m sure has been overrun like the Chiefs offensive line tonight.) I’m going to search for an open tavern the moment this article is finished, then post up at the coffee shop for hours tomorrow, just to be out among the world.

The analytical, journalistic part of my brain wants to write about how the Eagles thumb their noses at conventional NFL thought, again and again. They didn’t fold when Nick Foles replaced Carson Wentz in 2018. They didn’t become rebuilding mourners when Wentz melted. They didn’t succumb to their feelings when the 2023 team swooned. The Eagles embrace analytics as much as any team in the NFL, but they just built a Super Bowl champion around a free agent running back and an off-ball linebacker. Head coach Nick Sirianni doesn’t do anything except win, more frequently than all but a handful of coaches in NFL history.

And Super Bowl Jalen Hurts? Go ahead and list him 17th-best in the NFL or wherever, you film-sniffing podcasting geniuses of quarterback microanalysis. Fret over his limitations. Claim Justin Herbert would have won the Sooper Dooper Bowl by six touchdowns if he had this supporting cast. I regret to inform you that your opinions don’t matter. Mine don’t either. All that matters is fireworks popping, car horns honking, strangers hugging, shot glasses emptying. The Super Bowl is the point. Hurts just brought jubilation to a region of six million people. Quibbling about his sack rate or passing over the middle just makes an analyst look silly and small.

So much for analytics and journalism. The Eagles just curb-stomped the unstoppable “team of the decade.”