Eagles' Super Bowl makes no sense

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After the Eagles won the NFC Championship Game on Sunday night, I stood near the door to the locker room and waited eagerly. As soon as it opened to reporters, I rushed in, hoping to get a quick glimpse at the celebration. 

What I found was much different. There was no dancing, music wasn't blaring and no one was running around in dog masks. They left all that on the field. 

It was a happy locker room, but for the most part, it was quiet, almost contemplative.

My job on Sunday night was to write about Nick Foles, so once I crossed the threshold into the carpeted locker room, I made a beeline for Alshon Jeffery. After all, in just his second career playoff game, Jeffery caught two of Foles' three touchdown passes. Jeffery was sitting in a cushy black chair in front of his locker, still wearing his game pants with his gray NFC champions T-shirt stretched over his bulky shoulder pads. He was taking turns looking from his cell phone to nothing, nothing to his cell phone. I asked him if he wanted to chat.

"Not right now, man," he said looking up for a split second, before his eyes went back to defocus on the grainy wood at the back of his locker stall. "I need time to process all of this." 

I told him I understood and that I'd be back. 

But as I walked away, I couldn't help but think the Eagles are playing in the Super Bowl on Feb. 4 and I'm not sure it'll make any more sense by then. 

The same Eagles who were just supposed to be building around Carson Wentz after a 7-9 season last year. The same Eagles who had the least qualified coach ever leading the team and a guy who was once banished to the supply closet putting it together. The same Eagles who lost their Hall of Fame tackle, their Mighty Mouse, their middle linebacker, their special teams ace, their kicker and then, to top it all off, the guy who they were building around in the first place. 

None of this makes any damn sense and it never will. 

You know what really wouldn't make any sense? If they won it all. 

Maybe that's why this is their year. 

This thought process is almost directly out of the George Costanza playbook. Take what you thought you knew about the world and football and forget it. Nick Foles vs. Tom Brady: in a world that made sense, it wouldn't take long to figure that one out, right? Of course, you'd pick the G.O.A.T. over a guy who nearly gave up on football less than two years ago. And maybe that's exactly how it goes. Maybe the Hall of Fame quarterback and the Hall of Fame coach simply bowl over the underdogs. Maybe this fairy tale doesn't have a happy ending. 

Or maybe it does. 

This season certainly has a much different feel than the Super Bowl in 2005 against the Patriots. That season came after multiple trips to the NFC Championship Game that ended in failure. They were expected to be there that year. This time it's a complete surprise.  

One thing is for sure, this year, the team with all the pressure on them isn't the Eagles. They've been playing on borrowed time since Dec. 10, when Wentz went down. 

That's how they've been able to stay so loose. That's why they've taken the Vegas odds and the naysayers and have been able to laugh about it and wear dog masks in victory after two games they were supposed to lose. 

The Eagles are underdogs one more time and those German Shepherd masks are traveling with them to Minnesota. Maybe against all odds, they'll be wearing them on the field of U.S. Bank Stadium when they hoist the Lombardi Trophy as confetti rains around them. 

It wouldn't make any sense, but that would be pretty fitting. Then I'd eventually find my way to the winning locker room. 

Hey, Alshon, got a minute? 

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