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We are days away from the 2009-2010 NFL season, and like many, I am psyched. I wanted to tie in a blog to the upcoming football season, and also have a little fun. Today I look back at a Philadelphia Eagles game around the day I was born. I did a little research, and I found an interesting game for a few reasons.

Being born on December 6th, 1986, it was hard to find a game that was played on a Saturday. The next day, at Veterans Stadium, Buddy Ryan marched his Philadelphia Eagles onto the field to play Gene Stallings’ St. Louis Cardinals. The outcome? A tie with a final score of 10-10. Someone show this game to Donovan McNabb immediately!

Looking at the overall 1986 Eagles season, the Birds stunk. Ryan led his team to a 5-10-1 season. The Cardinals weren’t that much better either, with a 4-11-1 finish in ’86. Little did I know that the day after I was born, Randall Cunningham would have a terrible game. Number 12’s day consisted of 124 yards passing, although he didn’t play the entire game. Randall and Matt Cavanaugh combined for 354 yards for the game. St. Louis had 356 passing yards, and 461 total yards that day at The Vet. Be glad you, nor I, played fantasy football back then.

As you look more into the stats, it makes you cringe. Randall was sacked 10 times for a loss of 95 yards. Was Winston Justice on the line? Cardinals QB Neil Lomax was only sacked 4 times for a loss of 34 yards. Both teams were pretty even with first downs, with Philly having 25 and St. Louis having 23. The scoring for the game was abysmal, with a field goal in the 1st quarter by the Eagles, one in the 2nd by the Cardinals, no points in the 3rd, and a touchdown each in the 4th. Not a single point was scored in overtime. See Donovan, games do end on a tie. Being less than 24 hours old at the time, even I could hear the boos.

Do you like penalties? Well, if you’re a fan, then you sure got them on this day. For the Cardinals, they had 9 penalties for a total of 73 lost yards. On the other hand, the Birds had 6 penalties for 40 total lost yards. What wasn’t so bad was each team had one turnover and the Cardinals had one fumble. Looking at the rush yards, attempts, and touchdowns, the Eagles had 46 atempts with 230 accumulated yards and one touchdown by Randall Cunningham. The Cardinals were just 105 yards with 26 attempts, and no trips to the endzone. Looking at all this information, it really is hard to pick a winner that day. It also shows why this game ended in a tie on this particular Sunday.

If you took this game and played it in the year 2009, you can only imagine what kind of heat Buddy Ryan and Gene Stallings would get. Can you hear the Philly and at that time St. Louis fans picketing to get their quarterbacks out of the huddle? There were so many mistakes made in this game. Practice must have been a living Hell for the birds. As I grew older, I got more and more into my football team. I was always taught that I should support my home team no matter how good or bad they do overall. You thought the 0-16 Detroit Lions were bad last season? If I could go back in time and have one birthday wish on December 6th, 1986, it would be that this game would have never happened.

Josh Usher has been a fan of sports and sports entertainment for over 20 years and bleeds green.

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