Today was the first day I’d been in C@L (pronounced, “Seattle”) for a football Sunday. (I was in Jersey getting engaged for week 1, in Europe at the airport for week 2, and actually in attendance at the Linc and Meadowlands, respectively, the past two weeks.)

Whilst I’m sure you’d all be thrilled to hear the details of my recent travel adventures (I slept in 10 different beds in four countries and four U.S. states in the month of September), the relevant details in re: my return to C@L are as follows: this is the first week that I actually saw what the rest of the NFL looks like. That is, this is the first week I watched football at a bar with 23 TVs (though since it’s Left Coast you have to be at said bar by quarter of ten at the latest). Let me tell you what I learned about the rest of the NFL, and especially the NFC:

(They’re. Not. Very. Good.)

That is not to say that the Eagles are super-duper right now. They’re pretty stinky. But the rest of the NFC is not very good. At all. Two of the three teams that beat the Birds have already won today.  The NFC South is pretty sloppy across the board, the Niners are useless, the Arizona - Rams game was a crapfest, and the best thing that the Vikings did this week was not show up for work.  It’s very difficult to argue that the NFC East isn’t far and away the strongest division in the NFC right now. 

Which is, all things considered, decent for the Birds.  Sure, it doesn’t earn them additional wins, but it makes me feel better about their prospects for the near future.

Special Mention: I caught the better part of the second half of the Nerdbirds (Seahawks) - Steelers game earlier.  The Steelers pooped on the Nerdbirds.  Hurt their feelings, called them names.  The Nerdbirds only had 144 total yards on offense, and I don’t really know how they got those.  If the Eagles had played that badly (and C@L was worse than the Eagles were last Sunday), the local and national media would be killing McNabb and Reid around the clock for the next six days. 

I turned on C@L sports-talk radio on the way home from the bar, and people were calling and talking about how “the defense looked okay”!  And how we shouldn’t overreact to one game because of “all the good things they’ve done over the past few years.”  !!!!!!  Are you kidding me?  You people are acting like this is just a TV show (and occasional live event) and that a loss doesn’t demand two full days of public inquiry and civic distress!  I hate to play the “West Coast is soft” card, but, um, you people are soft!  That team was terrible today!  Where’s the hatred?  Where’s the vitriol?  Where?

This is all just a long way of saying that I’m looking forward to a full week of Birds media coverage.  Now that the Phils (and all their good vibes) and the bye week are out of the way, we can get back to 24/7 hating and/ or screaming. 

It’s good to be back.