More than usual, I really want the Eagles to smash the Giants on Sunday. Losing to New York on Thursday Night Football in the Meadowlands two weeks ago, coupled with the Phillies getting eliminated from the postseason in humiliating fashion the same evening, made for one of the worst sports nights of my life. The Giants are just 2-5, but rookies Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo played like seasoned vets and embarrassed the Birds.
As I was watching that, still licking my wounds from the Phillies’ meltdown in Los Angeles, I thought, “Wow, it’s going to suck playing these guys for the next half-decade or more.” Not only are they good, they’re annoying stylistically with their all-out play style and raucous personalities. I already loathe them. It was one single game and the duo are already poised to fly up the leaderboard of my most hated New York athletes of all time. This is how villains are born.
That got me thinking. Who are the biggest Eagles villains? Sure, the Dallas triplets in the ‘90s are certainly at the top, but for the players I saw with my own two eyes, who made me scream expletives and frustrated me to no end, there are legitimate candidates. Now, Eagles fans are a special breed and I could include some of the team’s own players on this list, certainly, like Jason Babin or Nnamdi Asomugha, but I’m more so leaning toward the players we were dying for the Birds to beat on Sundays.
Five players immediately jumped to mind. Here’s how I’d rank these Eagles villains…
5. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints
Brees, a Super Bowl champion and future Hall of Famer, was 3-0 in his career in the postseason alone against the Eagles. The infuriating thing is that he beat the Eagles across three separate eras. Brees’ Saints took down the Eagles in the 2006 Divisional Round, the 2013 Wild Card Round and the 2018 Divisional Round against three different coaching regimes.
That’s such a wide spectrum of closing out the Eagles’ season. In that first matchup, I was in seventh