Heaven and Hell

The Body Bag Game is one of the things Eagles fans love most. The team beat the crap out of the hated Redskins and knocked 7 players out of the game. And this happened on Monday Night Football. The nation got to watch as Buddy Ryan’s team destroyed the Skins, literally and figuratively.

Here is a long story on the Skins, the Body Bag Game and the fallout from it. This is from the Washington Post so they don’t focus on the good guys (Eagles), but it is still a very good read.

I didn’t know that game was a huge source of anger for Joe Gibbs. It forced him to make changes with how the team practiced and the Skins used the loss as motivation for the next year and a half. At the end of that time, they were Super Bowl champs.

The Skins got revenge on the Eagles when the teams met in the playoffs in January of 1991, which would be Ryan’s last game. Gibbs had a simple and clear message for his team.

“If you lose this game, Buddy Ryan is going to call you a bunch of fat asses like he did last time. If you don’t mind being called a bunch of fat asses, that’s your business.”

Gibbs rode his team hard and let them know the Eagles had humiliated them on the scoreboard, by knocking players out and with endless taunts.  The players didn’t really need to be reminded. The Eagles comments weren’t the kind you soon forget.

Worse than the defeat were the accompanying insults. As the game wore down, an Eagle reacted to one injured Redskin lying on the turf by yelling, “Do you guys need any more body bags?” Another time an Eagle shouted, “You guys are going to need an extra bus just to carry all the stretchers!”

After the game it was even worse. The Eagles publicly poked fun at the Redskins, with Eagles defensive tackle Jerome Brown telling reporters, “They acted like they didn’t want to play us anymore.”

That Monday night was Eagles ecstasy, but payback, as we know, was a bitch.

Here is some of the game, definitely an all-time Eagles classic.

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