This is a somewhat quiet time of the year, so I thought I'd take some time and look to the past for a few articles. Let's start with Buddy Ryan, probably the most colorful coach the Eagles have ever had.

The main reason I'm an Eagles fan is Ryan. I grew up in North Carolina in the late 1970's and early 1980's. There was no clear cut team to pledge your allegiance to. The Carolina Panthers didn't come into existence until 1995. With no local team, you watched whatever games were shown. DirecTV didn't exist yet, so you couldn't just go to a sports bar and watch who you wanted. You truly were at the mercy of the networks. I saw a lot of Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins games.  Because of Tom Landry, I gravitated to the Cowboys. For some reason, I was a huge fan of Landry's. In 1984, I became aware of a pretty good defensive coach in Chicago. That coach was Buddy Ryan. The first game that caught my attention was a showdown between the Bears and the Los Angeles Raiders. Chicago won 17-6, but the game was a brutal slugfest. Each team had at least one quarterback injured, as well as other players. That was my kind of game and immediately I began to really pay attention to the Bears.

The 1985 season belonged solely to Chicago. They went 18-1, including the playoffs, and won the Super Bowl. Their defense dominated the NFL. Forget about stopping the opponent, the Bears wanted to kill the quarterback and create havoc. They lived for sacks and turnovers. This is when the world met Ryan's brainchild - the 46 Defense.

I became obsessed with reading about the 46, Ryan and the Bears defense. One of my most cherished possessions is the Super Bowl preview issue of Sports Illustrated from January 1986. It broke down the 46 Defense and gave a lot of background information on Ryan. I was absolutely fascinated by the scheme and the way Ryan used his players. He was unconventional. He took great risks. The Bears got burned on occasion (such as the Monday night loss to the Dolphins, their only one of the season). Ryan didn't believe in playing it safe. To him, football was about aggression and taking chances. He wanted to dominate.

Just after the Super Bowl, it was announced that Ryan would become the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. I knew the Eagles had quarterback Ron Jaworski, running back Earnest Jackson and wide receiver Mike Quick on offense. I knew the best players on defense were safety Wes Hopkins and some young defensive lineman named Reggie White. I didn't know much more. The Eagles had losing seasons from 1982-85 and fell out of the limelight after the departure of coach Dick Vermeil.

Any team that had Buddy Ryan as head coach was going to have my interest. Buddy went to Philly and told the world that he was going to build them into a champion. He boasted and bragged and made all kinds of promises. I think the city and organization needed a jump start like that.

Ryan spent the first couple of years trying to find his kind of players, build up the defense and establish his system. The team really responded to him after the players' strike of 1987. Ryan had refused to do anything with the replacement players and his guys loved him for that. The final record was 7-8, but three of those losses were in the strike games.

1988 was the first year that the Eagles really played BuddyBall. The team finished 10-6. The defense got burned quite a bit. They only finished 14th in points allowed and 27th in yards allowed. The defense did make plays, though. They had 42 sacks and 32 interceptions. This was a step in the right direction.

Like Ryan's risky, attacking defense, the offense was all over the place. If you wanted consistency and efficiency, look elsewhere. If you wanted big plays and lots of excitement, Cunningham and his crew were the guys to watch. That made for a lot of fun during the regular season, but it would prove to be the Eagles' undoing in the postseason. The 1988 team won the NFC East, but lost in the playoffs in the bizarre Fog Bowl game in Chicago. You would almost always bet that fog would help a coach like Ryan who was a defensive guy, but the 1988 team was as much offense as defense.

Talk about lousy timing.

The Eagles went 11-5 in 1989 and 10-6 in 1990. Ryan had built the team into a winner as promised. The defense began to dominate. The 1989 unit held seven teams to 10 points or less. They had a staggering 62 sacks and still picked off 30 passes. The 1990 unit was a notch below that, but still a force to be reckoned with. Those teams were a lot of fun to watch, but were also very frustrating. I love the memories I have of that time, but will find myself playing the "what if" game a lot of times as well. What if there was no fog in Chicago? What if wide receiver Cris Carter got sober and stayed in Philadelphia? What if assistant coach Doug Scovil hadn't passed away and was able to really mentor Cunningham? What if Ryan had been able to build a decent offensive line? Those Eagles teams were a major tease. The team was successful, but didn't win in the postseason. For a month, they'd look like a Super Bowl team. Other times they would struggle with mediocre opponents.

Not only was the team winning and playing good defense, there was an attitude and mentality that Ryan had established. The NFL was for the most part a league of conformists in the late 1980's ...at least outside of Philly. Ryan gave the Eagles an "us against the world" mindset and the players seemed to love that.  The team wore black shoes at a time when they were not allowed by the league. Ryan publicly attacked owner Norman Braman when the two disagreed on an issue.  The rebellious attitude went onto the field as well. That led to some very undisciplined play. The 1990 team set the franchise record for penalties in a season. There was the infamous Bounty Bowl game against the Cowboys in 1989. Dallas coach Jimmy Johnson alleged that Ryan offered his players a bounty if they injured Cowboys placekicker Luis Zendejas, who had been cut by the Eagles earlier in the season. Linebacker Jessie Small had knocked Zendejas out of the game with a really hard tackle.

Ryan did things his way. He didn't care who it bothered, or whether he was right or wrong. The Eagles were his team and he was going to run them as he saw fit. This made the Eagles a lot of fun to watch and follow back then, but with some perspective you can see how flawed his attitude was. The problem is that Ryan needed to work like this. That was his personality and part of what made him good at coaching and motivating players. Ryan's style made his players fanatically loyal, at least the defensive players. In a sense, he was almost like a literary figure from a tragedy. His biggest strength was also his biggest weakness.

Ryan is one of those coaches who is meant to either be a coordinator or a guy to come in and start the turnaround of a franchise. He wasn't made to be in it for the long haul. Teams weren't going to mature under him. They were going to live off emotion and attitude. That's a good short-term answer, but not something you can sustain for a long period.

The Buddy Ryan era sputtered to a close. He was fired after a playoff loss (what else) to Washington. He promised a lot of things, but didn't deliver nearly what he'd said. Ryan did make the Eagles into winners. He did build a special defense. His teams also provided us with a lifetime of highlight plays. Unfortunately, the highlights all came in the regular season. I'm glad I got to follow the team back then. I'm especially glad that I was young at the time. The Eagles were more style than substance, something much more appreciated by young people. Ryan may not have given me any playoff wins or championships, but he did make me an Eagles fan.

For that, I'll be eternally grateful. Thanks, Buddy.