In 2015, I will not be celebrating my birthday. I will never again buy three dozen eggs. If anyone ever asks me what six-squared is, I will simply say, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The number 36 has officially been retired from my life.
Yesterday, the Eagles announced that they were parting ways with the best running back I have ever seen don the green and white. Brian Westbrook (and his #36 jersey) is officially a former Philadelphia Eagle. And, this one kind of hurts.
It’s not unexpected. It’s not tragic (even in the overused sports sense of that word). It even kind of makes sense from a football perspective. In fact, it’s a move that -gulp- I think I would have made if I were running the team. But, that doesn’t make it any easier to cope with the fact that I will never again get to see Brian Westbrook play for the Eagles.
The guy did it all, and he did it with quiet confidence and off-the-charts classiness. Here is a guy who was never once given a real “break” in the game of football–at least compared to his NFL peers. He didn’t get a D-I scholarship, so he went to Villanova. He dominated there on the field and in the classroom. He set all sorts of all-purpose yardage records, but did the NFL coming knocking down his door, like it did with LaDainian Tomlinson, who parlayed a simliar career at a slightly more respected program into a top 5 overall draft choice? No. The Eagles picked him in the third round…THE THIRD ROUND. And, who is to say if anyone would have picked him if he played in a small school in, say, Kansas, where there is no NFL team in the backyard to see him play on a weekly basis?
So, he shows up to the Birds as a third-down back/punt returner, and he turns into probably the best Eagle during the best decade of the franchise’s existence.
There are plenty of memories of B-West that I will hold with me for as long as I understand the game of football. But I think the one overarching memory I will have of Westbrook is the feeling of security that he gave me, as a fan, while watching him play for my team. We all know that I am an admitted McNabb apologist. I think he gets a bad shake with the Eagle fans and the Philly media. HOWEVER…there is one thing that I will freely admit–never, in a big game, does McNabb make me feel confident that he will get it done. He does get it done WAY more than people give him credit for, but even at his best, he does not instill any confidence in us Eagle fans–even me, an ardent McNabb supporter.
But, Westbrook, on the other hand, was the exact opposite. No matter what the situation, no matter what the opponent or the circumstances, I always felt that if we had Brian Westbrook on our team, we had a chance. Be it a screen pass, a grueling third-down conversion, or, when the chips were really down, a punt return. Hell, this undersized “scat back” even turned himself into, arguably, the best pass-blocking halfback in the NFL.
I know that Westbrook’s days are probably over, so I’m not bitter at the Eagles (a la the Brian Dawkins fiasco), but I am in a bit of mourning for the great career and the great memories created by one of the most intelligent, hardest-working, humble, and GREATEST players that we will ever see.
You left your mark, Mr. Westbrook, you left your mark.
