How will you remember Alshon Jeffery’s Eagles tenure?

Recency bias would have us recall the Saints drop, or the myriad injuries, or the accusations that he told Josina Anderson a bunch of inside information.

But if you put all that garbage aside and go back to what matters – Alshon’s first year – then you’ve got a guy who should go down in Eagles lore as an uber-important piece of the Super Bowl team. Alshon went for almost 800 yards and scored nine touchdowns in the regular season, and then added 200+ yards and three postseason touchdowns, including this beauty in Minnesota:

That play took place early in the game, but was important for a lot of reasons. It gave Eagles fans a glimpse of what was to come, and instilled the idea of ‘hey, maybe they’re gonna win this thing.’ It got Nick Foles going (even more than he already was) and served as a confidence booster for the rest of the group, which went out and made some tough catches in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters. It just felt like a big “momentum” play at the time.

Alshon had two other receptions in the Super Bowl. One took place on the opening possession, when they moved the sticks on 3rd and 4. That kept the drive alive and led to a field goal, which was important as a way to establish the offense and get some points on the board. The other catch took place early in the second quarter, a 21-yard completion that set up LeGarrette Blount’s touchdown run on the very next play.

Jeffery didn’t catch a pass in the second half, but finished with three receptions for 73 yards and a score. And he was flawless in the Minnesota game, catching all five of his targets for 85 yard and two touchdowns, those points putting the Eagles up 21-7 and allowing them to never look back:

That’s Alshon’s Philadelphia legacy. It didn’t end the way anybody wanted it to, but he was so clutch on the Super Bowl team. He made big catches, scored important touchdowns, and did most of it with a torn rotator cuff, which we didn’t know about until after the season. He really was a blue collar, Philly tough kind of dude that year.

All of the other shit will go away over time. People will eventually forget about the New Orleans game in 2019, and the injuries and the Josina stuff. When you look at it 10 years from now, those storylines will still be there, but the cream of the Super Bowl and the 2017 season will rise to the top. It might take some time for those narratives to re-arrange themselves, but they will.

Thanks for the memories, Alshon.