Philadelphia is currently a city of champions. From Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith right down to the Eagles fan reading this, it is Philly's time to shine. The Birds have won the Super Bowl once more and look poised to compete for years to come after a three-peat denial and a 34-0 40-6 40-22 shellacking of Kansas City.
This total domination comes not too long after the Birds' first Super Bowl title back in 2018. Multiple parades in under a decade?
"Is this heaven?"
"No, this is Broad Street."
It's a whole new world for Philadelphians and this city's fervent sports fan base. We now inhabit a reality where Eagles fans are no longer just hated for being unhinged, they're approaching territory where everyone else out there is going to loathe them for their team being unstoppable, too.
That's swell for the Birds and Philly at large, but does this juggernaut turn for the Eagles put added pressure on the other teams around the Sports Complex to get it together and bring about a parade of their own?
It absolutely should.
Let's rewind the clock…
It's Sept. 29, 2024. The Buccaneers just annihilated the Eagles in Tampa to drop the Birds to 2-2 entering the bye week. Morale is low. It felt like the season was over before it barely began! The Phillies, having already clinched the National League East for the first time in 13 years, won their regular season finale that day as well, poised to finally win a championship with their core after deep postseason runs the previous two years.
If you asked every Philly sports fan out there which team was closer to winning it all that day, the answer would've resoundingly been the Phils.
Well, the Phillies faltered in the NLDS to the rival Mets, falling pathetically in four games. This came on the heels of blowing a 2-1 World Series lead with home-field advantage stolen in 2022 in addition to collapsing following a 3-2 NLCS lead with the final two games of that series at home in 2023. Once was a fluke. Twice was a bad coincidence. Three times made it a pattern of coming up short when the lights were the brightest.
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Now, the Fightins are looking to get back to the postseason once more. As 2022 and 2023 taught everyone, just making the playoffs is all that matters, division titles be damned, but New York is now better after eliminating the Phils last fall and Atlanta is healthier. Players age and regress. It's baseball. It has an inherent randomness even in a 162-game marathon.
The likes of Bryce Harper and Zack Wheeler are still beloved in Philadelphia, deservedly so for their heroics the last handful of years, but when it comes to a lot of guys on this Phillies roster, even ones who were adorned during that magical "Dancing On My Own" run in 2022, the clock's going to start ticking and eventually extend to everyone.
It only takes one postseason to change everything, obviously. Look at the difference between the Eagles at this time last year compared to the state of the Birds right now. It's still easy to imagine a scenario though where it's early October, the Eagles are 4-1 and the Phils' bats have just gone cold yet again at the most inopportune time. I'm sure the Phillies players themselves have ample motivation of their own following these last three playoffs where they came up short, but, in terms of how they're viewed in the city's consciousness, another Super Bowl parade will only magnify things for the Fightins in 2025.
As for the other two teams down in South Philadelphia?
Well, the Sixers aren't actually cursed, but they sure feel that way often. They drafted one of the best scorers in the history of the sport and he can't stay on the court. Their prized free agent signing this past offseason has games where he scores two points. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. The Sixers were once the most important entity in my life, but I am increasingly resigned to believing that I will never see them win a title.
The Flyers appear two years away from being two years away. They're not relevant to the championship conversation for the time being.
Philadelphia has been a football town for decades and this era only amplifies that. If the other teams don't want to get left behind entirely, particularly a Phillies team that has been on the cusp the last three years, parades speak louder than words right now to the city.
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