Last night Jordan Matthews overcame a season of drops, misfortune and inconsistency to deliver one of his most impressive performances as an Eagle. The second year receiver had 295 yards on the night and of course the explosive game winning touchdown but it led us to thinking, Matthews symbolises EVERYTHING that Philadelphia stands for.
This Rocky speech sums it up perfectly. “It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward”. Matthews was reportedly showing up to practice at 5:30 AM, earlier than anyone else to make sure he was ready for the Dallas game and the mistakes were ironed out, safe to say it paid off.
The opening weeks were exhausting for Matthews and fans alike. Drop after drop, fumble after fumble, and mistake after mistake..he simply wasn’t living up to the expectations. You can only imagine what it would do to a player mentally if at the start of every game they would commit the same mistake they worked so hard to alienate. But after 9 weeks, he finally solved it. He overcome the mental demons and the apparent hand injury and became the man this city new he could be.
He didn’t have a single drop on the night and caught close to 80% of his passes. This city stands for the underdog. The man that everybody looks over time after time. The man who will not stay down and will get up after each and every fall. The fans will never abandon this team because of the heart and passion it takes to be an Eagles fan and an Eagles player. Matthews is that guy. Everybody doubted him and put him down for weeks and he responded in the best way possible, by having the best game of his season and arguably his career, he’s a true Eagle.
It will be interesting to see where he goes from here, if he can keep this momentum rolling and if this confidence boost will be enough to re-enstate him ad a number one receiver. But if we learned one thing last night it’s this, Jordan Matthews has heart..and plenty of it.