Super Bowl LII - Patriots: The Eagles Won The God Damn Super Bowl

[MDS]

skip past the making of the ring crap and get to the last half

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2xv92aY0Vo&feature=player_embedded

1300 mark tim haucks wife talks to doug. she is milfy AF. romey?

[SD]

BDawk talking about the Vet and the significance of that ring...who's a misty eyed Hoyda? This guy

Do teams usually do it up like that for ring ceremonies?

[hbionic]

MDS, you nailed it. She is milfy as farg. Jesus, how is every guy there not mentally nailing her as they're talking to her. Even the cameraman zooms in.

[ice grillin you]

BDawk talking about the Vet and the significance of that ring...who's a misty eyed Hoyda? This guy

Do teams usually do it up like that for ring ceremonies?

you gonna be ok?

[Rome]

Lol

[QB Eagles]

1300 mark tim haucks wife talks to doug. she is milfy AF. romey?

I dunno, I think Rome is all about the blondes.

What I learned from this video:
1) The rings were made in hardcore Cowboys country.
2) Jalen Mills might own the dumbest shades known to mankind.
3) Zach Ertz wore a hat with a feather in it.
4) Doug is awkward as farg in social situations but charges in with no fear anyway (OK I guess I already knew that)
5) I somehow feel like Jim Schwartz knows how to party

who's a misty eyed Hoyda?

This team is legendary. I can't imagine ever having a fan experience in my life that will compare to this. The 2008 Phillies were life changing but I've bled green since I was a toddler and I couldn't have written Eagles fan fiction that would have topped this season. My brain knows sports are dumb but you have to be a robot to not feel the magic of this, especially after all of our years really believing this day would never come.

[SD]

In my entire lifetime I don't know that any sports figure in any city in any league at any level has done a bigger 180 than Pederson.

[QB Eagles]

In my entire lifetime I don't know that any sports figure in any city in any league at any level has done a bigger 180 than Pederson.

In my heart I still don't 100% believe that he's actually good... but there's this giant fact I can't deny.

[General_Failure]

He's Andy Reid with the capacity to learn from his mistakes.

[ice grillin you]

two of the last three posts have made me hate the eagles

[hbionic]

 

[Tomahawk]

Movies can be culturally significant, but whether or not they win an award is not important, or consequential, by any unbiased measure.

fly over state take

Did an Oscar make any movie you saw better or more worthwhile, or are you that desperate for validation?

I flew over your shteinhole state on my way to Europe; where have you been to develop such an attenuation for Mid-America and such a culturally acute awareness of what it's like to be off the East Coast, Bigs?

[ice grillin you]

How Ray Didinger and his son helped make Philly Special

David​ Didinger promised his dad that​ if the Eagles won​ the Super Bowl,​ he'd​ find​ him at​ U.S.​​ Bank Stadium and give him a hug. So after finishing his assignment as a cameraman for NFL Films, that's exactly what he did.

Ray Didinger was on air analyzing the victory for Eagles Postgame Live. He noticed David approaching the set and asked host Michael Barkann when their next break was scheduled. Barkann wondered whether Ray needed to use the bathroom.

"I said, 'No, David's back there. I owe him a hug,'" recalls Ray, while sitting next to his son at a back counter for lunch at Village Whiskey.

When the Phillies won the World Series in 1980, Ray was working as a sportswriter, and David was in the stands at Veterans Stadium. They didn't get to see each other afterward. In 2008, the roles were reversed. David was shooting the game, and Ray was in the stands at Citizens Bank Park. They looked for each other following the Game 5 victory but couldn't connect.

Going into the Super Bowl, they weren't going to let that happen again. This was the Eagles. Ray, 71, has dedicated much of his working adult life to chronicling the ups and downs of the franchise and its connection to the city. David, 45, spent countless Sundays at The Vet and grew up a massive Philadelphia sports fan. If this was it, if the Eagles were finally going to win the Super Bowl, he couldn't let the moment pass without sharing it with his dad.

Ray saw David and wanted to give him that hug during a commercial break. But Barkann insisted they share the moment on live TV. Eagles fans feel like they know Ray. After games, they turn to NBC Sports Philadelphia to hear what he thinks because they know he's a voice of reason. If Ray says it's time to panic, it's probably time to panic. If Ray says everything's going to be OK, well, that's probably true too.

Ray prides himself on being a professional. He was uncomfortable sharing such a personal moment on TV, but soon realized there was no talking Barkann out of it. So the Didingers let the audience in. And then Ray broke down.

"That was the fan coming out of him," David says. "That wasn't professional Ray Didinger. That was 13-year-old Ray Didinger, which is cool to see. I brought it out of him."

"It just brought all the years of following the team, from the time that I was a little boy, from the time that I was 10 years old carrying Tommy McDonald's helmet at training camp, that 10-year-old boy is still in there," says Ray. "It just for years, after 50 years of being a reporter, has been tucked away a long time. But you never lose touch with that side of you. That emotion never totally leaves you. So when they won, and then particularly being able to share the moment with him, it was the culmination of a lot of things. I was thinking about all the Sundays at Franklin Field. I was thinking about the summers up in Hershey with my parents. I was thinking about my parents, his grandparents, how much this would have meant to them. And I think it was reflective of what a lot of people, thousands of thousands of people in this area were feeling exactly the same thing.

"When I got home, all the emails that were sent to me, the letters, the notes from total strangers by the hundreds, people saying, 'Next to Philly Philly, that was my favorite moment was your hug with your son because that's what we all were feeling. That's what we all were doing."

When they finally got a chance to talk about the actual game, David had a scoop for his father: That amazing play at the end of the first half — the one where Corey Clement tossed the ball to Trey Burton who threw a touchdown to Nick Foles — Foles had actually called that play, not Doug Pederson.

How did David know? He was watching and listening to Foles the entire game. David flew from Philadelphia to Minnesota on Thursday night, and on Friday, he was told that his assignment was to focus solely on Foles, who would be mic'd up.

The wire for Foles was already weaved into his pads and jersey by the time he got to the stadium on gameday. David was antsy when he arrived a little after 10 a.m. He'd been to 20 other Super Bowls, but this one was different. This was the team he'd grown up with and the quarterback who had a chance to bring down Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. He set up his camera at the 50-yard line facing the Eagles' bench. His job would be to shoot Foles from the second he came out of the tunnel until he left the field after the game.

David had to sign a confidentiality agreement beforehand, agreeing to not tell anyone — not even Ray — that he was going to be shooting Foles and listening to him the entire game. Finally, before pre-game warmups, he slipped his headset over his ears and heard Foles clip his shoulder pads on. Foles ran out onto the field and started throwing, with Carson Wentz doing the same next to him.

"Foles was saying, 'Look at you throwing, man! Look at you!' I just noticed how calm he was," David recalls. "He was talking to people like it was just another Sunday afternoon. He didn't get caught up in the moment. And there wasn't one point of the day where he got caught up in the moment. He stayed level-headed the whole time, never raised his voice to anybody, never yelled at anybody, never cursed. I know it sounds silly talking about an NFL player like this, but he played the entire game like a gentleman. He just did. Nothing fazed him at all."

It's a fascinating lens through which to watch a game. When Foles unleashed a pass, David didn't follow the ball. He stayed on Foles and guessed at the result of the play based on the quarterback's reaction. When the Eagles' defense was on the field, David still focused on Foles, who was often sitting next to Wentz and Nate Sudfeld on the bench.

With 38 seconds left in the first half, the Eagles faced a fourth-and-goal from the Patriots' 1-yard line when Pederson called timeout. That's when David captured what would become one of the most iconic scenes in Philadelphia sports history: Foles jogging over to the sideline and suggesting "Philly, Philly." Pederson, momentarily stunned, looking down at his play-call sheet, then up at Foles, pausing and saying, "Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it."

When David heard, "Philly, Philly," he knew something was up. He'd heard countless play calls in his career, but never one like that. Even in the first half, Foles had been using the Eagles' usual complex west coast verbiage to call plays. This one was only two words.

"I was like, 'What in the world is this?' I had no idea," says David as he plays the footage on his phone with Ray seated next to him. "And he's coming back out of the [huddle], and at this point right here, when he starts putting Clement behind him, I went, 'Something's up.' Because he can't call another timeout. And when he goes right here, the defensive end pinches in, and Foles delays for a second. Watch this, see how he goes in like that, as soon as he broke out and looked up, I had a feeling that the ball was coming. All I thought to myself was, 'Oh my God, just catch it, just catch it, just catch it, just catch it.'"

The announced attendance that night at U.S. Bank Stadium was 67,612. But the only person who had eyes on Foles the whole time was David. He looked up at the top of his viewfinder to make sure the red light was on, that he was recording. There was a split-second of paranoia before he could confirm that everything was good, that he'd captured the moment on camera.

Ray, meanwhile, had a much different experience. He was at the stadium but watching from the NBC Sports trailer, which housed reporters from both Philadelphia and Boston.

"There was a Boston guy who was standing next to me throughout the whole thing, and the Boston guys were so cocky, and they were so sure they were gonna win," says Ray, getting into full storytelling mode. "So it comes down to that play, and this guy says, 'What's this timeout? What are they taking a timeout for? They're gonna kick the field goal. Why are they even talking it over?' And I said to him, I said, 'They're not kicking the field goal.'"

David laughs and interrupts his dad for a moment.

"This is the Philly fan coming out of him now," he says.

Then Ray continues. He's more animated and breaks out a Boston accent as he imitates the other reporter.

"'What are you talking about? You gotta take the three points. What are you, stupid? How dumb can this coach be?'" he says. "And I said, 'How many times have you seen the Eagles this year?' And he said, 'Oh I've seen 'em a couple times.' And I said, 'Well I've seen 'em every week, and I'm telling you they're not kicking the field goal.'

"He says, 'Well that would be the stupidest goddamn thing I ever saw! Passing up three points in the Super Bowl? Jesus Christ!' He says, 'I know this coach hasn't been coaching long, but how stupid is this guy?'

"So here comes Foles back on the field. He looks at me, he says, 'Jesus Christ! They are gonna go for it!' Now, of course, I have no idea what they're gonna run. I have no more idea what's coming than anybody else does. But they run the play and of course score the touchdown, and this guy, his first reaction is, 'Nah, nah, nah, nah. That can't be legal. That can't be legal. There's gotta be something wrong with that. That formation, that something, that can't be legal. They gotta call that. They're taking that back.' And I said, 'I don't think so.' And then he says, 'What the hell do you call that thing anyway?'

"And I said, 'In Philadelphia, we call it a touchdown.'"

David's heard the story before, but he clearly loves taking it in again as he cracks up and points to his dad.

"This guy is a ball-buster. He really is," David says. "People hear him on the radio, this guy, he's one of the funniest dudes."

When David was born, all of Ray's friends seemed to think they had a good idea about how he was going to raise his son.

"I had people saying, 'Oh I know what kind of father you're gonna be. You're gonna have the football in the crib with him,'" says Ray. "And I said, 'No, no I'm not.' If he's interested in sports, if he wants to play, fine, I'll support him 100 percent. But I'm gonna let him find his own way. And if he grows up and he wants to join the band and play the french horn, that's fine too. All I want him to do is just find out what it is that makes him happy and then do it to the best of his ability. He doesn't have to go play sports to please me. So that was my attitude about him and his sister [Kathleen] throughout. Let them find their own way. Because I always feel if you try to make a kid do something he doesn't want to do, he's not gonna do it well anyway. He has to love it or it's a waste of time — his time and your time."

As it turned out, David did love sports — ice hockey, football and baseball. He didn't get to go to Eagles games with his dad because Ray was working, but the two still shared a bond through the Philadelphia teams.

"It was awesome growing up," says David. "I mean, how many dads come home from work in the banking industry or the insurance industry and they come home and they pour a gigantic glass of scotch and sit there and don't want to be bothered? And here's this guy coming home, he pulls out a Diet Coke and says, 'Let's watch SportsCenter.'"

David initially had no intentions of working in sports. He went to culinary school and was working in the food industry when Ray called him one day and told him they were shooting a piece at Temple for NFL Films. He asked David if he wanted to stop by.

Ray had no idea that David would completely change career paths that day. He just wanted to hang out with his son. But someone at NFL Films was moving from the shipping department to the camera department, so there was a job opening. It was a mailroom job, but if David wanted it, it was his.

"What I told him was — because he had gone to culinary school, he was a chef, and he was doing well, and he was good at it. But I could tell he didn't love it. It was a job. But he really loved sports, much in the same way that I do. And I could see that in him," says Ray.

"I said, 'David, there will always be jobs in the food industry. If this turns out to be something you really don't like or it doesn't work out, you can always get a job in the culinary industry. It's the one industry in the world where people, they always have to eat. So you don't have to worry about that. If this doesn't work out, you can always go back, but I know how you are and I know how you love sports. I really think in this environment with this company, you could really thrive.'"

David decided to go for it. He got to know everyone in the building as he delivered mail. He asked if he could go to some games and help out. He learned how to load film and eventually switched to the media services department where he watched football all day and cut up film. He worked his way up, got a shot behind the camera and impressed. He's never looked back. David spent 12 years at NFL Films and now shoots games across different sports for a variety of outlets.

As David tells the story of his career path, Ray beams with pride. Football has been a part of the family for generations. Ray's grandfather owned a spot called Ray's Tavern on Woodland Avenue near 65th in Southwest Philadelphia. When Ray first started writing for the Philadelphia Bulletin, his grandfather would cut out his articles and tape them on the mirror behind the bar.

Ray's dad (David's grandfather) was a navigator on a B-24 bomber during World War II and a huge Eagles fan. Every summer, he would take two weeks off from the steel plant and the family would drive to Hershey to watch the Eagles practice. He was a man of few words, but Ray said he knew how much it meant to his father that he wrote about the Eagles for a living.

"Where I really saw it was the weekend in Canton when I got the McCann Award, when I got in the Hall of Fame," Ray says. "My mother and father came up from Florida and went up to Canton with me and my wife and David and his sister. And the day when I got inducted, the hug I got from my father that day was unlike any other hug I had ever gotten from him before. And I mean, he didn't have to say anything. Just the way he hugged me said everything."

Not unlike the hug Ray and David shared on TV.

"I absolutely was thinking about him when that moment hit. When the Eagles won the game, my first reaction was, 'God I wish dad was here to see this. I wish mom and dad were here to see this,'" says Ray. "But my first thought when I hugged him was, 'This is for Grandpa.' Because I know how much he would have enjoyed it."

This is the only difficult part about the victory for David and Ray. They think about those who spent years following the Eagles, watching games at the stadium or in their living rooms. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, cousins, aunts and uncles. Those who waited and waited for what happened on February 4 but didn't live long enough to see it.

"I get emotional just thinking about what it did for this city and what it did for him," says David, pointing to his dad, his eyes starting to water. "Thinking about the people that just didn't see it that I wanted to see it, that's what makes me most emotional about it."

"My father would have enjoyed it immensely," adds Ray, getting emotional himself. "But the real capper would have been knowing that he got the shot, to know that his grandson got the shot of all shots. I think that would've meant as much to my father as anything because the Eagles won the game, and 'my grandson' got the shot that everybody will remember. For him, that would be the absolute, absolute ultimate."

The story about the origin of the Philly Special has been told many times by now. Offensive coordinator Frank Reich asked assistant Press Taylor for his five favorite gadget plays. Ever since Taylor was a graduate assistant at Tulsa, he's kept a folder of plays he likes. This particular one had been run by college teams and by the Chicago Bears. It wasn't the only one that Taylor gave Reich. But it was the one the Eagles chose. They had it in the playbook for weeks but didn't use it until the Super Bowl.

During post-game press conferences and in the locker room, players and coaches were peppered with questions about the play. As David was packing up his things, he watched Pederson on the Jumbotron and heard him reveal to everyone that the play was called "Philly Special." But still, nobody knew Foles made the call until NFL Films made the in-game sound and footage public.

"The part that puts that in perspective was it was only me and my sound guy and our sound guy on the ground and Pederson were the only four guys that heard him say it," says David. "Nobody else did."

Ray was on TV the day after the Super Bowl, and they were interviewing Foles, who was at Disney World. Even then, the quarterback didn't take credit. Barkann asked Foles what he thought about Pederson calling the play.

"It would have been really easy for Nick to say, 'Well, the truth is I called that play,'" says Ray. "And not totally disrespectful, but just, 'I actually called that play.' He could've. Michael teed it up for him. And what Nick said was, 'Well, we talked about it.' Which was, 'I'm still gonna give the coach credit.'

"If this wiring had not come out, to this day, everyone would still think that Doug called that play. I mean, Nick would have never come forward and said, 'Hey, that was my call.' The only reason anybody knows is because this exists. ... To me, that showed so much class on his part to not take any of the credit for himself but, 'I've gotta make sure I'm not big-footing the coach.' That, to me, tells you volumes about the kind of guy that Foles is."

Ray's impression of Foles aligns perfectly with what David observed through his headset after the game.

"He's up there holding his daughter, and Wentz went up on the stage and goes, 'Can you believe this? Can you believe this?'" recalls David. "Foles goes, 'Man listen, we've gotta get you healthy so you're back for next season.' And Wentz says, 'Me? Dude, will you stop worrying about me? You just won the Super Bowl!'"

It was only recently that David truly realized the significance of the role he played in documenting perhaps the most iconic moment in Philadelphia sports history. A friend of his described a scene 50 years from now with David's grandkids at Lincoln Financial Field. During a break in the action, they'd show the Philly Special footage on the Jumbotron, and David's grandkids would lean over to the fans in their row and say, "My grandfather shot that."

"That put into perspective like, 'Oh my God, you're right,'" says David.  "It's one of those things I still pinch myself thinking about. I mean, I could have had the Dion Lewis wire. I just lucked out when they said, 'You got Foles.'"

Ray may know better than anyone why the Super Bowl meant so much to this city. He's dedicated most of his working life to covering the Eagles, starting off as a newspaperman at the Philadelphia Bulletin and then the Philadelphia Daily News. It was a life he enjoyed immensely and a job he thought he'd stick with for 40 or 50 years.

But the medium changed, and he continued to get new opportunities — to tell stories at NFL Films, to connect with fans on his WIP radio show with Glen Macnow and to offer reaction after games on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Fans want to know what Ray thinks because he's put in the work to understand the game. He doesn't yell or speak in hyperbole. He offers compelling insight through a measured tone and says what he thinks. That method has worked out pretty well for him.

As he was setting up for the parade broadcast at the Art Museum in February, a man approached Ray to share a story.

"He was all wrapped up in blankets," recalls Ray. "He had camped out all night. And he pulled out this picture. And it was a picture of a little boy and an older man at Franklin Field. And he said, 'That's me and my father at the 1960 championship game. We were there that day when the Eagles won the championship. My father and I always talked about the fact that if the Eagles won it again, we were going to see it together.'

"And he said, 'My dad died six years ago.' He said, 'But when the Eagles won, I knew I had to be here for this, and I took this picture out of our album and I brought it with me. It's sort of like we're here together.' And he said, 'You know what I mean?' And I said, 'Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.' And I think that was everywhere. Whether it was an uncle or a grandfather or your mother or your aunt or your sister, whomever, nobody won this game alone. Everybody shared this victory with somebody."

Whenever Ray hears strangers talking about the play, he has to interject and tell them about David. He can't help it. It's too amazing not to share.

"I actually did that on the subway last week," says Ray. "There were two guys sitting on the subway, and they were talking about the game, and they were talking about the play. They're just talking among themselves, and I'm just sitting there. My stop came, and I got up to get off at my stop and I leaned over and said, 'My son took that shot.'"

"Really?" says David, hearing the story for the first time. "Now I will start telling people you're my dad."

They both start laughing.

"See this guy?" David continues. "He's the best. He is awesome."

On the last play of the Super Bowl, David had to stick with Foles, who was on the sideline. The quarterback's reaction would tell him whether the Eagles won or lost. Foles stood briefly with his hands on his head and an exasperated expression on his face. That's when Sudfeld came over and assured him it was over. The Eagles had won the Super Bowl.

"That's when it hit me," says David. "And then when the guys came out and gave Foles the hat and he puts the hat on. My eyepiece starts filling up. I'm crying. That's when I stopped being a cameraman and started being a fan."

David continued to do his job until Foles left the field. He saw Foles thank Halapoulivaati Vaitai for keeping him clean all day. He shot the footage of Foles' wife handing his baby daughter to him and the two takes where he announced he was going to Disney World on a private jet as the Super Bowl MVP.

David then packed up his stuff, found Ray and shared the moment with his dad that neither will ever forget.

"That one moment of him and I kind of just, it was the visual image of what thousands of people were feeling," says Ray. "And I think that's why it resonated. That's why people really liked it. Because it wasn't just about us. It was about everybody. And it was about the whole city. We just happened to have the moment. We're on television. We can kind of represent it."

Adds David, "To share it with him, that was awesome. Other than my wedding and my daughters being born, that was the greatest night of my life from the Philly Special to seeing him after. It was unbelievable. To find him after, it was just –"

He pauses to gather his emotions and find the right words.

"To have that moment on tape, to know I could turn on the TV and see me hugging him, I'll take that to the grave with me. I really will."

[phattymatty]

Barf.

[Tomahawk]

Movies can be culturally significant, but whether or not they win an award is not important, or consequential, by any unbiased measure.

fly over state take

*dumb

Foles played like shtein until they said he was MVP