For most football fans, the first full day of the NFL season is one of the most exciting days of the year. After the interminable offseason leaves us lacking, filling our Sundays with – gasp! – productivity as a replacement to the gridiron, the opportunity for another year of playoff hopes and Super Bowl dreams for our respective teams can once again take center stage.

Contemporary tradition – at least on the inaugural day - for the Philadelphia fan dictates otherwise.

Yes, for us, it was more of the same yesterday. Tell me you haven’t seen this script play out before:

“First game of the season. A team the Eagles should beat in its sleep. A slew of strategic errors by the coach and inexcusable mental gaffes by players resulting in a loss that should never have been.”

Must be Groundhog Day.

Andy Reid is now 3-6 on opening day as head coach, even though the team has had just two losing seasons during that tenure. During most of those defeats, the Birds were ultimately done in not by the competition, but by themselves.

This time was no different.

Even after a preseason filled with its share of apprehension, the most skeptical of observers could see that talent alone should have been enough to prevail.

Reid’s curt and arrogant responses to the “whys” of what happened in years past perhaps could be chalked up to Andy being good old Andy. Now it’s just old. We don’t need the pull-string doll approach anymore. The novelty act has worn off faster than Greg Lewis’ confidence.

(And did anyone else want to ram their head through the television screen upon hearing his answer to if he thought of using Brian Westbrook – recently voted as the top punt returner on the Eagles’ 75th Anniversary Team – at the end of the game? If you were not privy to the response, here it is, in its entirety: “No.”)

It’s true that hindsight is 20/20, but if Stevie Wonder were a Philly fan (is he?), he could have seen this one coming a mile away.

Plus, hindsight should be a non-issue. The coaching staff is paid good money to have foresight! A little common sense doesn’t hurt, either. Like having a legitimate backup plan when a skier/model doesn’t pan out as your return man (go figure).

Is yesterday any indicator of how the rest of the season will be? Perhaps not. But in a 16-game season, every game counts. And as commendable as it was for the Eagles to bounce back and finish at 10-6 last year, how different might the playoffs have been – consisting of a first-round bye and second-round home game – if gimmes such as the Giants’ and Bucs’ contests weren’t flushed down the proverbial toilet?

Instead, it was “I Got You Babe” on the radio and six more weeks of winter as we awoke.