Since 1999, Andy Reid would step to the podium to address the media - the oft-hyperbolic conduit to all who dwell and suffer in the Eagle Nation - and, after running through a list of injuries running the gamut from turf toes to torn knee ligaments to concussions, would make his patented pronouncement: "The time is yours."
But the time was never really ours, was it?
There is a way to be informative and respectful to those seeking answers to their heartache (re: Dick Vermeil, the only Eagle taskmaster in my lifetime that I call "coach") without throwing players under the bus.
And there is a way to not act like everything is classified information, as if a pro football team is the CIA, not worthy of the public who indirectly pays your salary.
A lot of nice things are being written and said about Andy Reid in the wake of his firing, which was officially official Monday morning.
I guess that is what we do in our culture. Richard Nixon, the president who lowered the respect level for the job for generations to come, even received posthumous platitudes when he died in 1994.
When it comes to Andy Reid - a man I've called many unprintable names over the years, mostly during brutal game-day decisions - I can't go there.
And I won't now.
Consider me the sober bartender pouring shots of reality.
There is no doubt of Reid's accomplishments. He took the Eagles to five NFC championship games, including four in a row. But he won only one, despite three being at home, and lost his only Super Bowl appearance.
There was a lot of hope in his tenure.
And even more nope.
He won seven NFC East crowns, but that rings hollow when one of our most bitter divisional rivals, the New York Giants, won two Super Bowls during that same time frame.
Miracles at the Meadowlands?
The joke is on us.
The Eagles winning their first title since 1960, five years before I was born, would be the real miracle.
Part of the Praise Parade, from as high up as owner Jeffery Lurie, is this talk about how Reid leads all prior Eagles coaches in franchise wins.
Kids, this is what we call a non sequitir.
When you coach 14 seasons, you better have the most career wins.
The truth, as we set down a second round of shots at O'Glantz's Tavern, is that his 14 seasons were several seasons too many.
After inexcusable losses, and/or stretches of losses, he would tell us - during "our time" - that it "begins with him" and that "he has to do a better job."
It got to be such blah-blah-blah, that we stopped taking it literally.
But we should have.
The NFL keeps no statistics on blown timeouts that led to decisive points being left on the field, or on how offenses don't start moving the chains until after the first 15 scripted plays are used up.
But it does track penalties.
Did you know Andy Reid's Eagles, going back to the beginning, were among the naughtiest third in the league in yellow flags?
That wasn't just when his teams were young and restless, and it goes straight to coaching.
His departure could have come after the loss to Dallas in the 2009 playoffs, when the Cowboys pretty much admitted that Reid's Eagles, despite their equal talent level, were strategically predictable.
Some point to signing Michael Vick as Reid's undoing, but Vick's play in 2010 actually kept Reid around for a few more years.
And really, people, Vick did his time for his crime and always acted with class off the field. On the field, after that one magical season, was another story.
Drink another shot of reality and get over it.
As for Reid being fired, it could have again come after the 2011 season, when his decision to move Juan Castillo from his longtime post as a successful and respected offensive line coach to learn-on -the-job defensive coordinator was only trumped by his decision to fire him once this season was already under way.
Reid suffered a major tragedy this year when his son, Garrett, died of an overdose during training camp. If he had asked for time off - maybe even a season-long sabbatical - the supposedly hard-hearted Eagles' fan base, family-minded types that we are, would have understood.
But he declared himself fit for duty, and clearly was not.
Reid drafted Donovan McNabb in 1999 to be the franchise quarterback, and put together an all-star coaching staff. Along with the leaders in place (Brian Dawkins, Troy Vincent, Jeremiah Trotter), and a blue print for success that was innovative for 1999, the assistant coaches - namely defensive coordinator Jim Johnson - probably propped Reid up a little bit.
Still, fools such as I remained among Reid's chorus of defenders. He wasn't Ray Rhodes and that was good enough for us.
We blamed the burned timeouts on McNabb, not Reid micromanaging him to the point that he was more of an on-field puppet than an on-field coach.
Disillusioned by the championship game loss to Tampa Bay in the final game at Veterans Stadium, the place where I grew up as an Eagles' fan, I started to question Reid during the following season, 2003.
The Eagles fell to 0-2 and didn't start winning until the idea of running the ball with three-headed attack of backs - Duce Staley, Brian Westbrook and Correll Buckhalter - was hammered into his pass-first skull.
Despite only having five touchdown catches by receivers, the Eagles hosted the NFC title game against Carolina.
And lost, 14-3.
For a man who reportedly jokes about the low score he would score on the Wonderlic test, which measures the intelligence of draft prospects, Reid's fatal flaw was thinking he was out-smarting that everyone else.
In the end, he out-smarted himself.
And we all ended up looking dumb.
It took admitting they needed a real playmaker at receiver, in the person of Terrell Owens, to get over the hump. Those dreams were partially dashed when Owens was injured late in the 2004 season on a horse-collar tackle that, of course, was outlawed the next year as a direct consequence.
He came back and played - and played well - on one leg in the Super Bowl. When not signed to a better deal in the offseason - a mistake, in retrospect - Owens began to act out like the child many superstar athletes are deep down.
They started 3-1 in 2005 but finished 6-10 and out of the playoffs.
The only other year Reid's Eagles started 3-1 but didn't make the playoffs was this past season, and we all know the start was a mirage.
Reid's teams always seemed to struggle out of the starting gate, and it cost them other chances for bigger dances as a result.
We'll discount the 0-4 start in 1999. They were 1-3 in 2007 and finished 8-8, but that was only by virtue of a three-game winning streak at the end of the year. Last year, when they also started 1-3, they were 4-8 before the fool's gold of a four-game winning streak put them at 8-8 and kept the pink slip in Lurie's pocket.
There is good 8-8 and bad 8-8, and these seasons were of the ugly variety.
The players all say they loved and respected Reid as a man, and expressed remorse Tuesday.
I can see why.
Over the years, it became apparent - from the days off at training (a direct correlation to the stagnant Septembers) to the breaks during the bye weeks - that the tail was wagging the dog with increasing velocity.
Case in point was Reid's most abysmal coaching decision this season - leaving LeSean McCoy in the game in the final two minutes of a blowout loss to the Redskins, another NFC East rival that has passed the Eagles by.
McCoy suffered a concussion and missed several weeks. Reid gave a nonsensical, "we were trying to win the game" when the "the time was ours" post-game press conference came.
Ridiculed, the rationale was modified to McCoy "wanted" to be in the game.
I'm sure he did, to get his carries and his stats - not as much for his ego, but to prove he is an elite back. And for Reid, a few more carries might mean a few less questions about misusing McCoy. Meanwhile, the franchise back's career was put in jeopardy, as each concussion begets the risk of another.
While NFL coaches rarely get fired during the season, I would have done so on the spot.
Instead, as we raise our last drink in a toast, it happened a day after the season.
The time is ours.
To a New Year.
To a new era.
To us.
Gordon Glantz is the managing editor/sports editor of The Times Herald. Contact him at gglantz@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 212. Follow his blog @Managing2Edit.