Eagles

Re-Writing Friedrich Nietzche’s “Twilight of the Idols” as Though He Was Talking About the Philadelphia Eagles

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Oct 12th, 2026 · 12:28 PM EDT

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Sorry for no observations on Sunday. I was on the road for six hours, driving through a multi-state monsoon, and missed the Eagles game entirely.

In lieu of delayed reactions, I have something different for you. I have taken passages from Friedrich Nietzche’s Twilight of the Idols and re-written them as though he was talking about the 2-3 Birds.

Why have I done this? Because why not? After all, “there are no facts, only interpretations.”

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Maxims and Missiles

1

Idleness is the parent of all psychology. What? Is psychology then a—vice? Or is it just what happens when the offense once again goes three-and-out?

2

Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he really knows, which is that there is no point in having Jalen Hurts play quarterback if you aren’t going to run him. He is a dual-threat QB and always has been.

3

Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be both – an Eagles film guy on Twitter.

4

Once for all I wish to be blind to many things, like the Makai Lemon orbit motion followed by a bubble screen.

5

Which is it? Are Cowboys fans a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of Cowboys fans?

6

From the Philadelphia Eagles school of life.—That which does not kill me gets me closer to a heart attack, or stroke.

7

Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A principle of calling offensive plays that actually have a chance of working.

8

Can an ass be tragic?—To perish beneath a load that one can neither bear nor throw off? This is the case Jerry Jones, and of the Eagles’ offensive line, which featured on Sunday only one starter from the 2024 team.

9

What? Art thou looking for first downs? Thou wouldst fain multiply thyself tenfold, a hundredfold? Thou seekest first downs? Seek successful plays on 1st and 2nd down because the Eagles are always seemingly in 3rd and long.

10

Posthumous men, like Eagles fans after this season, are not so well understood as men who reflect their age, but they are heard with more respect. In plain English: we are never understood – because we are dead. This offense killed us.

11

There is an artist after my own heart, modest in his needs: he really wants only two things, a football team that throws the ball down the field and runs it north/south.

12

“Evil men have no songs.” —How is it that the San Francisco 49ers and their fans have songs?

13

“Refereeing intellect”; for eighteen years this has been a contradictio in adjecto.

14

By seeking the beginnings of things, an offensive coordinator becomes a crab. The offensive coordinator looks backwards: in the end he also believes backwards.

15

I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to an offensive system that doesn’t use RPO or zone read shows a lack of honesty.

16

Errors of pre-snap are seldom committed singly. The first time an offensive player always docs too much. And precisely on that account he commits a second error, and then he does too little.

17

The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of morality: we should all log off after the game, go outside, and touch grass.

18

What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of blitz pickup. Without music life would be a mistake. The Eagles fan imagines even Sean Mannion as a songster.

19

Thou runnest ahead? – Is thou Ameer Abdullah?

20

Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thyself?… A man should know what he desires, and that he desires something. Preferably a first down. In the third quarter. With the game still winnable.

21

What matters is whether I am acknowledged to be right! I am much too right, says the annoying-ass fan who wants everyone to know that he was out on the Eagles before everybody else.

22

The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight line, an actual scoring drive in the second half.

The Problem of Sirianni

In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their judgment of the Eagles’ offense: it is no good. At all times and places the same words have been on their lips,—words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of hostility to Nick Sirianni’s alleged involvement. Even Socrates’ dying words were:—“To live—means to be ill a long while: I don’t know why the Eagles can’t get one fucking first down in the third quarter.” Even the fanboys had had enough of it. What does that prove? What does it point to? Formerly people would have said (—oh, it has been said, and loudly enough too; by our Pessimists loudest of all!): “In any case there must be some truth in this! That there has to be something in the playbook that can beat the blitz.” Where is the hot route? Where is the inside tunnel screen with Dallas Goedert? Where is the read-and-pull game that worked so successfully in years past? “In any case there must be some sickness here,” we make reply, and blame it on Kevin Patullo and “four verticals.” These great offensive coordinators of all periods should first be examined more closely! Sages like Kellen Moore and Shane Steichen.

Does wisdom perhaps appear at Lincoln Financial Field after the manner of a crow attracted by a slight smell of carrion?

Things the Eagles Lack

Among Eagles at the present day it does not suffice to have talent; one is actually forced to appropriate it, to lay claim to it, to convert it into first downs.

Maybe I know the Eagles, perhaps I may tell them a few home-truths. Modern Philadelphia represents such an enormous store of inherited and acquired capacity – Saquon Barkley’s legs, Jalen Hurts’ dual-threat gravity, the residual physicality of Vic Fangio defenses that are doing their part to win the damn game – that for some time it might spend this accumulated treasure even with some prodigality. It is no Sirianni scheme that has ultimately become prevalent with this modern tendency, nor is it by any means delicate taste in play-calling, or noble beauty of the instincts for situational football; but rather a number of virtues more manly than any that other NFC clubs can show. An amount of toughness and self-respect, plenty of firmness in the trenches and in the reciprocity of blocking assignments; much industry and much perseverance – and a certain inherited soberness which is much more in need of a spur than of a brake. Let me add that in this locker room people still obey without feeling that obedience humiliates. And no one despises his opponent.

You observe that it is my desire to be fair to the Eagles: and in this respect I should not like to be untrue to myself, – I must therefore also state my objections to them. It costs a good deal to attain to a position of power; for power stultifies. The Eagles – they were once called a team of inventive offense: do they really scheme at all at present? Nowadays the Eagles are bored by intellect, they mistrust intellect; the hangover of championship success and the endless press-conference piety have swallowed up all earnestness for really intellectual things – “Fly Eagles Fly.” I fear this was the death-blow to Philadelphia philosophy. “Are there any Eagle innovators? Are there any Eagle play-designers? Are there any good Eagle third-down concepts?” people ask me at Wawa, while waiting for a sandwich. I blush; but with that pluck which is peculiar to me, even in moments of desperation, I reply: “Yes, the read-and-pull with Goedert running a shallow, three-yard route.” – Could I have dared to confess what plays are called to-day? Cursed instinct of mediocrity! The same under-center lean, the same predictable outside zone, the same three-and-out machine that has already produced fifteen of twenty-nine second-half possessions ending after three snaps, the same 0-for-12 third-down performances that would have made even the old pessimists of 2021 nod in recognition. Where is the hot route? Where is the tunnel screen? Where is the RPO package that once forced the blitz to declare itself? The offense has become a crow attracted by the slight smell of its own carrion.

What might not offensive football intellect have been! – who has not thought sadly upon this question! But this franchise has deliberately stultified itself for almost an entire coaching era: nowhere else have the two great modern narcotics, championship complacency and schematic conservatism, been so viciously abused as in Philadelphia.

Sloppy Football as the Enemy of Nature

There is a time when all the passions – the deep shot, the dual-threat urge, the second-half will to finish – are simply fatal. They wreck you with the weight of their stupidity. Bad decisions. Negative plays. Getting off schedule. And there is a later period, a much later period, when those same passions marry with the mind, when they get coached up, when they spiritualize themselves into something you can actually call on third-and-long.

Formerly, because the passions were dumb, men went to war against the passions themselves. The old moral-mongers of the headset all agreed: “il faut tuer les passions.” Kill the deep ball. Kill the risk. Kill the instinct to attack. The most famous formula for this is still the Sermon on the Mount of the film room: “if thy deep shot offend thee, pluck it out.” “If thy dual-threat quarterback offend the scheme, cut it off.” Thankfully no team has ever fully obeyed that. We come closer every time we go three-and-out.

To just annihilate the urges because they can be stupid, and because their stupidity has consequences, is itself an aggravated form of stupidity. We don’t admire the dentist who pulls the tooth just so it doesn’t ache again. We don’t admire the coordinator who pulls the hot route, the tunnel screen, the zone read, and every second-half shot just so nobody can question the scheme again.

On the soil this coaching grew from, the idea of spiritualizing the passion never had a chance. The early church of the process always preferred the poor in spirit over the intelligent. So how could they ever fight the passions intelligently? They fight them by excision. Their practice, their “cure,” is castration. They never ask, “How do we make this offensive scheme better? How do we coach Hurts’ running, the residual will of a Super Bowl roster into something that thinks?” They just remove it. Discipline means extirpation – extirpate the downfield risk, the situational creativity, the lust to attack the blitz instead of just surviving it, the second-half will to put the game away. But when you attack the passions at the root, you attack life at the source. That method is hostile to life.

What you get is the ideal eunuch of modern football: an offense made boring and off-schedule by having every natural instinct removed. Fifteen three-and-outs in twenty-nine second-half possessions. An 0-for-12 third-down night. And a coach who can still stand there and say, with perfect faith, “It is what I believe in.” Life ends where the Kingdom of the Hitch Route begins.