The Eagles are playing the Bucs this Sunday…in Tampa…again.
Raymond James Stadium has become its own sort of personal hell for the Jalen Hurts-Nick Sirianni era of the franchise, for even as successful as it’s been.
But take it further back, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been a team responsible for some of the Eagles’ most painful scars, ones that to this day, still make fans wince at even the mention of them.
This is a look back at some of the major Eagles-Bucs memories ahead of Sunday.
This is an exercise in pain.
Here it goes…
This is the way the Vet ends
It’s January 19, 2003, and this is the year. This is the storybook ending.
Donovan McNabb, Andy Reid, and the Philadelphia Eagles had arrived the year before, pushing all the way to the NFC Championship Game until the “Greatest Show on Turf” Rams stopped them just shy of the Super Bowl.
It hurt, but it was OK. They were young back then. They’d be back. And they made it all the way back, this time hosting the NFC title game in the bitter cold of a raucous Veterans Stadium, in what would be its very last game before the Eagles moved into a new home across the street.
The only thing standing between the Birds and the Super Bowl was the Buccaneers, a team they had made a habit of whaling on in the couple of years prior.
It looked perfect. The Eagles would beat down on the Bucs one more time to send the Vet off with one more big win and themselves to the Super Bowl.
It was supposed to be all Philly. It looked like it when Brian Mitchell took the opening kickoff all the way to midfield, and then when Duce Staley ran it in quickly after for the first touchdown.
But then it wasn’t.
Joe Jurevicius happened. Mike Alstott, Keyshawn Johnson, and Simeon Rice happened.
Ronde Barber happened.
The Eagles lost, 27-10, and that was it, for the Vet and for what many thought was finally going to be the year.
It was an ending as bitter as the freezing cold inside the Vet, when it emptied out for an Eagles game for the very last time.
This is the way the Linc beginsNext year arrives, hope is renewed, and the Eagles come in with the excitement of a new home at Lincoln Financial Field.
They get another shot at the Bucs to open up, and a chance to prove that the NFC title game from just a few months ago was just a fluke at the worst possible time.
Instead, they just didn’t show up.
Warren Sapp and Keyshawn Johnson had no issue playing heels to the Philly crowd, and Joe Jurevicius further cemented his name into Philly sports infamy.
The Eagles got shut out, 17-0. It was a deflating start to the Linc’s life.
Stuck in between
The Eagles did the once thought impossible and rode the wave of an underdog run all the way to their first ever Super Bowl title in 2017.
We all know that story by now, and we know what followed, too.
The Eagles were stuck at a crossroads at quarterback, whether anyone wanted to admit it at the time or not. Carson Wentz was supposed to be the face of the franchise, but he tore his ACL and the Eagles finished the job with Nick Foles on a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime hot streak.
They kept Foles for 2018 because Wentz wouldn’t be ready to return just yet, but it was made clear that it was going to be Wentz’s team once he was cleared.
Foles started the season, but he didn’t have that same punch to his game, nor did the defending champion Eagles.
They barely squeaked by the Falcons in Week 1, but couldn’t make their way out of a 27-7 hole down in Tampa against Ryan Fitzpatrick and the Bucs despite a late push.
Foles completed 35 of 48 passes for 334 yards, but was sacked three times and handed the keys off to Wentz with the Eagles at a shaky 1-1.
They’d stabilize enough eventually to get back into the playoffs, but only after Foles took back over when Wentz had to go back out with a back fracture.
It was a complicated season.
The next one hits a wall
Nick Sirianni, the first-year coach, and Jalen Hurts, the first-year starting quarterback, had figured it out. Offensively, the Eagles would lean on their strong O-line and rushing attack to get them by, and took that to wins in six of their last seven games (not counting a meaningless Week 18 finale against Dallas) to rally into the playoffs.
The newly retooled Eagles, behind Hurts, Sirianni, and emerging star rookie DeVonta Smith, were on to something and caught the NFL by surprise.
They just couldn’t sneak up on Tom Brady, who still had a bit of gas left in the tank, and the defending champion Bucs in the Wild Card round as they got pummeled, 31-15, down in Tampa.
Still, the bigger point was that the Eagles were in much better shape than many initially thought, and it would serve as the launching pad for something much greater just a few months later.
The Eagles also didn’t have steadying pass rusher Josh Sweat for that playoff game because of an emergency procedure earlier that week, but the most important thing there was that he was OK from it. The circumstances were bizarre as he went on to detail the following training camp.
Then takes a look in the mirror
The 2023 Eagles were smoke and mirrors. They had gotten off to an impressive start following a breakout run to the Super Bowl, but they never looked as dominant, creative, or convincing.
Talent was always just barely keeping them afloat, then the bottom fell out from under them.
They spiraled down the stretch. Still made the playoffs, sure, but up against a revitalized Baker Mayfield and the Bucs in Tampa for the Wild Card round, and with no A.J. Brown, there wasn’t much well-placed faith that this version of the Eagles would suddenly flip a switch.
Then the implosion fully cratered.
The Eagles got walloped, 32-9, ending the careers of longtime pillars Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox with a whimper, and kicking off an offseason that left Hurts, Sirianni, general manager Howie Roseman, and the team as a whole under intense scrutiny that lasted all the way into the next season.
Take a wild guess who helped prolong that?
It doesn’t end
Yup, Mayfield and the Bucs.
The Eagles, even with some high-profile offseason additions like star running back Saquon Barkley, were shaky out of the gate to begin the 2024 season, which left Hurts and Sirianni under a still heavy microscope.
In Week 4, they were headed back to Tampa. An injury kept Brown out again, and concussions kept Smith and star offensive tackle Lane Johnson sidelined.
Going into the humid Florida heat that shorthanded, the Eagles got crushed again, 33-16.
It wasn’t just an ineffective, lethargic offense either. The defense had some horrendously sloppy tackling that did them in quickly that week as well.
The Eagles were 2-2, fans were calling for Sirianni’s job en masse, and the only saving grace seemed to be that an early bye week would at least afford everyone a chance to just breathe for a second.
But it ended up being the turning point for a title run.
The Eagles came back from that bye week far from perfect, but looking much better. They leaned on Barkley and their running game to a record-setting degree, the tackling got cleaner, and the defense got more controlling once rookie corners Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean were given more responsibility and Zack Baun and Nakobe Dean settled in as the leading linebackers.
One domino fell after another, and it took the Eagles all the way to another Super Bowl title via a stunning blowout of the dynasty Chiefs.
But it took another brutal day against the Bucs to set that all into motion, and there’s little appetite, both from the team and fans, to see another.
The Eagles want this time coming up on Sunday to, for once, be different.
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