This is actually what Buddy Ryan brought to Philadelphia: WIP sports talk radio idiocy, The Wing Bowl, the 700 level anarchy in Vet Stadium. He brought out the self-mythologized, entitled, Calvin-pissing-on-Aikmans-jersey side of Philadelphia sports fandom. If you cant win anything, create a spectacle. Spectacles sometimes have more impact than actual wins and erase actual losses from the historical record. Who needs rings when you can cripple a kicker?
Thats whats so amazing about Buddy Ryans Eagles legacy. Dick Vermiels teary-eyed press conferences almost brought a real-life Super Bowl winning team in 1980-81. He and Andy Reid, who won important playoff games for the Eagles more often than not, would both still probably lose out to having a stadium named after them in favor of Buddy. Winning percentages didnt mean half as much as the perception that Ryans insane defense-over-offense bluster was somehow more important than whatever the scoreboard said at games end.
Now that theres actual math to show the true value of wins and losses for most professional sports leagues, Buddys never gonna be revealed as any sort of genius for what he did as a coach. And imagine the outrage-takes that would result from Buddys petty battles with Tom Landry that carried over to Jimmy Johnsons Cowboy teams? Hed be run out of town real quick in the modern NFL. But what if there is some mystical side to winning that undermines all those empirical formulas? Because Buddy Ryan was the living embodiment of the Rocky statue of Philadelphia sportstouch it and its existence is real, even though what it represents is pure fiction. And thats why Buddy Ryan always won: because it felt like he did.
