Eagles Used a Long and Winding Road

First things first: Did Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show offend anyone? Let’s run down the FCC-approved checklist.

Did Paul McCartney keep all his clothes on? Well, he took his jacket off but thankfully stopped there.

Was his performance tasteful? Let’s see ... Sir Paul (the title’s very dignified, at least) played four songs, three of them Beatles numbers, and absolutely nothing he’d recorded during the last 30 years. So, yes, that would seem to meet all obligatory decency standards.

Did the televising network interrupt the music for a gratuitous and shameless plug for itself and/or one of its upcoming programs? No, remarkably, Fox held off on that until the postgame show, when it brought on noted pro football expert Darrell Waltrip to name-drop one of McCartney’s halftime songs, “Drive My Car,” as a way to shill the network’s upcoming Daytona 500 coverage.

There you have it. The halftime show was a distinct improvement over last year’s, moving from “Hey Lewd” to “Hey Jude.” Only the postgame show was offensive.

I was hoping someone during that postgame wrap-up, maybe Eagle Coach Andy Reid, maybe Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb, maybe Darrell Waltrip, might address the Eagles’ bizarre clock management during the last 5 1/2 minutes of their 24-21 loss to New England.

Sorry, sideline reporter Pam Oliver had time for only two questions for Reid -- one about his level of disappointment, the other about Terrell Owens’ surprisingly effective performance -- because Fox had to make way for Waltrip to remind millions of Eagle fans writhing in agony to hey, buck up, Daytona is coming to Fox in two weeks!

Speaking of a bunch of young men going around in circles, what was going on with the Eagles during the end of the game? The Eagles were down by 10 points with 5 1/2 minutes left, they needed two scores to tie and they needed the first one to come relatively quickly. So what do the Eagles do? They get up slowly after short gains, they meander back to convene for excruciatingly long huddles, they wind up wasting nearly four minutes before finally putting the ball into the end zone and pulling to within three points.

By then, only 1:48 was left, leaving the Eagles with nothing but desperation time.

Talk about disgusting acts by football players. Even Joe Buck, feeling the pain of all Eagle supporters, was moved to wonder, “How many Philadelphia fans are screaming at the TV, ‘Hurry up!’?”

There was Eagle wide receiver Freddie Mitchell, waiting until the final three minutes to make his first catch of the Super Bowl, celebrating the moment by sauntering back to the huddle with 2:47 left and his team still trailing by 10.

“Even Freddie’s walking around,” Troy Aikman said, having difficulty comprehending the strange new why-hurry-up offense of Philadelphia. “You’ve got to get him lined up and get him on the ball. They’re still going to the huddle!”

Added Cris Collinsworth: “This is remarkable. I mean, Hank Fraley, the center, was saying, ‘Come on, get up to the line of scrimmage!’ And Donovan called them back to the huddle.”

Buck: “It looks like they’re worn out.”

Aikman: “I don’t know. This is the Super Bowl.”

The Eagles hadn’t played in one in 24 years. Maybe they’d forgotten one of the basic Super Bowl rules: In order to win, you stall when you have a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter, not a 10-point deficit.

Then the Eagles scored a touchdown and forced a Patriot punt, taking over at their own four-yard line with 46 seconds and no timeouts remaining.

Keeping to the game plan, McNabb chose the peculiar option of throwing a short pass over the middle to a diving Brian Westbrook, who, stranger still, decided to catch the ball to needlessly burn more precious seconds off the clock.

“Once again,” Collinsworth said, “the two-minute offense looks like a disaster for the Eagles.”

The clock kept ticking. The Eagles were still trying to figure out what play next to run. Aikman wondered why the Eagles hadn’t called two plays in the huddle, just in case the first one blew up in their faces.

Finally, with 17 seconds left, McNabb dropped back for his 51st and final pass of the game.

Mercifully, New England safety Rodney Harrison intercepted. At last, Eagle fans were put out of their misery.

Collinsworth, strong all game, noted the symbolism of the interception.

“Freddie Mitchell started the week by saying, ‘I’ve got something for you, Rodney Harrison,’ ” he said. “Rodney Harrison finished up the week by saying, ‘I’ve got something for you, Freddie Mitchell.’ ”

Then Collinsworth quickly turned the discussion back to the essential themes of the fourth quarter: Coaches and exasperated fans.

“Bill Belichick, when he was coaching with the Cleveland Browns, they had only one winning season there,” Collinsworth said. “And now saying that his record in the playoffs [10-1] would be better than the great Vince Lombardi, I don’t know that there’s a person in Cleveland who’s not scratching their head a little bit and not saying, ‘Are you believing what we’re seeing?’ ”

It had been a good four quarters for Fox. The replays were useful and, when needed, conclusive. The commentary was hard-edged when it had to be. If only Fox had quit when it was ahead, unlike the Eagles, who seemed to quit when they were behind.

Straining for profundity, studio host James Brown fell flat when he proclaimed, “History buffs know that the Boston Tea Party started a revolution. Now, the entire NFL knows the Boston Three Party cements a dynasty.”

Shortly after that, the entire NFL knew that Fox will be carrying the Daytona 500 in two weeks, thanks to Waltrip’s postgame product placement.

The Eagles weren’t the only ones wasting time. But then, that’s Fox. You can bring in McCartney to clean up the halftime show, but you can never persuade Fox, in the end, to just let it be.