These Thursday Night Football openers for the Super Bowl champs are meant to provide a platform for a city, team and its fans to throw one last party to recapture the magic of last season. The only problem is that, this time, it includes an actual football game and rarely does it go according to plan.

All of the trappings and vestments of assorted pomp and its requisite circumstance are there – the trophy, the banner, the familiar highlights, and the chants – but beyond some branding and framing, the production usually feels much different.

But for the Eagles last night, this was some weird 2017 cosplay shit. Like some draw me like one of your French girls, Jack shit. Only in this case the French girl is Matt Ryan panicking in the red zone, and the drawing is just a diagram of a famous play. Dan Quinn might as well have been dressed as April O’Neil for Doug Pederson to be his Master Splinter, because last night was a fetish-y reprisal of all the legends you’ve come to know and love with vigor. From the jersey patches with LII on them, to the opponent, to the TV-facing-left end zone, to the QB injury, to the storyline, to the play, to the ritual cucking of Tom Brady with devastating post-game quotes, everything about last night was an ode to the Champions.

This similarity applies to the Falcons as well, as they’ve now lost at the Linc three years in a row, with a high of 15 points for a grand total of 37 in the three Lols. Right on down to Matty Icccccccccccce, who crawls back into his shell at the mere whiff of adversity, throwing up a balloon to Julio Jones on the side of the end zone to end the game.

It was poetic, last night. The familiar staccato of disrespect and dumbassery. It was like they moved the line in favor of the Falcons just to strike the perfect chord of contempt.

The ultimate cover tune came early in the third quarter, when Doug Pederson played his platinum single. It’s not like the play is literally drawn all over the city with its name on a statue outside the stadium. How in the world could the Falcons have seen that coming? Perhaps because the act of doing something that is hiding in plain sight is so brazen that I can only describe it as Pederson unfurling his balls, hoisting them upon Dan Quinn’s head, and draping them over his shoulders, which struggled to free themselves to point to yet another hilarious eventual misfire in the end zone.

Pederson admitting that they lifted the play from the Patriots and Lane Johnson describing it as “the one that Tom dropped” just adds to ultimate troll. And let’s get weird:

The yard line Agholor was on when he threw the ball? The 52nd.

OK, now we’re just reaching. But if you want real, solid, money numbers, I don’t pick bets often, but when I do, they’re fucking gold, Jerry:

The latter is even more impressive considering that I checked FanDuel and noticed that the second half over-under was 21.5 but only 20.5 on SugarHouse. That’s value, baby. I even provided you the link to book it. Total number of points scored in the second half after the Eagles got two? 21. I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’D READ ANY OTHER SITE!

Certainly, you don’t even have a choice for the broadcast. It’s NBC, Al and Cris and Michelle and you’re going to like it. Flailing about to fill time during the lightning storm – which was presciently predicted in NBC’s lightning strikes twice promo for the game – Michelle Tafoya was just BLOWN AWAY by Dan Quinn’s experience with thunderstorms and how, surely, having to sit through 1-2 during practice in Atlanta would prepare his team for the delay and not at all afford Matt Ryan more time to crawl up inside his own head and take a big shit. Her amazement at the Falcons’ thunderstorm contingency plan to, um… wait… was surpassed only by Cris Collinsworth, oh he who no longer knows what a catch is, and his love of the RPO, which he’s bringing back for a second season. Or is it a third? I don’t know. Al Michaels has been sleeping the whole time. But at least someone woke him up for Nick Foles’ catch before he promptly drifted back into not-giving-a-shit land, which sucks, because he’s a great announcer when he wants to be. But at this point I’m pretty sure Aaron Rodgers would have to have penetrative sex with his race car girlfriend on the field, while tossing a game-winning zip between eight defenders, coming off a hard snap, rolling out of the pocket, to win the game, on the frozen tundra, with no helmet and missing a cleat, to get a real rise out of the grand wizard of sports. Then again, maybe he just can’t see, because I can’t think of any other reason why NBC would implement the green zone. The yellow line was perfect, an inevitable creation of sports and technology. It needed no peer. But along comes a giant green box that serves no actual purpose other than to obfuscate the actual existence of the useful yellow line. Mind-boggling.

This has nothing to do with that, but watch Jim Schwartz throw his headset:

And let’s leave you with an old man creeping:

The Eagles are 1-0 and are probably going to win the Super Bowl again. Ya boi next week. Carson the week after.