PHILADELPHIA -- The list of words that an Eagles fan could have expected to use when describing the NFC Championship Game was long, and given this franchise's tortured history, not very pretty.
Nerve wracking. Cringe worthy. Agonizing. Heartbreaking. Calamitous. A #*!$*&@ total #&%&*. Bitter. Pathetic. A bloody mess (and that's just in the parking lot before the game).
But ... easy?!
No, of all the entries in the dictionary, the E word wouldn't have cracked the list for any of the 69,000 people inside Lincoln Financial Field and the other 1.5 million residents of this city watching in their living rooms and sports bars and, presumably, from behind their sofas.
Oh, sure, plenty of them believed that their underdog team could beat the Minnesota Vikings and reach the Super Bowl for the first time in 13 years. But beat up the Vikings? Turn the NFC title game, mostly a house of horrors for the franchise over the years, into a laugher?
That was hard to fathom. But as early evening crept closer to midnight, with each brilliant offensive play and gritty defensive stop, it became clear that the biggest sporting event for Philly in years was going to be one long party. Hey, maybe it really is always sunny here.
Eagles 38, Vikings 7.
Yes, you are reading that correctly.
This Eagles team, which lost its MVP candidate quarterback in Week 13, will advance to Minneapolis to face -- who else? -- but the New England Patriots. It'll be a rematch of Super Bowl XXXIX, when Tom Brady and Co. stole this franchise's most recent opportunity to fill its empty trophy case.
"We want Brady!" a few fans actually started chanting in the fourth quarter, but to be fair, most were smart enough not to join in.
It'll be Nick Foles staring down Brady in the big game, and after his performance against a very good Minnesota defense, maybe that's not as big a mismatch as everyone might thing. After this performance, maybe it's not such a crazy idea to finally imagine a parade down Broad Street.
Foles was brilliant against the Vikings. He hadn't passed for more than 300 yards in his past 24 games, but on Saturday night, he cracked 330 on 23-of-30 passing in the first three quarters alone.
Wasn't this supposed to be a dink-and-dunk offense with Foles? Forget that. He had passes that went 36, 41, 42 and 53 yards. He was firing bullets all over the field. The Vikings had no idea what hit them, and if you replaced their beer with truth serum, most Philly fans would admit they didn't, either.
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Philadelphia had waited more than a decade to host another NFC Championship, and based on the atmosphere in the parking lots on Saturday afternoon, it felt like most of the city had been drinking that long.
Some of the passion, like the spontaneous "Fly Eagles Fly" sing-alongs that broke out every few minutes and the countless fans who wore dog masks to support their underdog team, was great.
Some of it, though, wasn't pretty. You pretty much had to be armed like a Viking if you wanted to dress like one. Police on horseback had to break up a fight in Lot M, dragging a bloodied, bare-chested fan off the premises in handcuffs.
"Nothing was wrong, man! C'mon!" another fan yelled as one of the officers, with his nightstick at the ready, directed the aggravated man to the ground with dozens of onlookers.
"Now back up!" the officer yelled back, but to no one's surprise, the crowd barely moved an inch.
It didn't take more than a few minutes in any of the lots to understand that every police precaution was warranted, and that includes greasing poles throughout the city with Crisco to prevent climbing.
This is a football town conditioned by years of heartache to expect the worst. The last championship came in 1960, or seven years before the first Super Bowl -- the Jets, for further context, were still named the Titans and wore hideous blue and gold uniforms.
The ensuing 58 years have not been kind. Only twice in their previous six tries had the Eagles won the conference championship game, and both times, the Eagles didn't put up much of a fight. This time, after Wentz tore his ACL in December, few would have given them a shot to get anywhere near Minneapolis for the big game.
To think, the way this one started wasn't very promising, either. The Vikings took a 7-0 lead on the first possession, but before fans could assume the surrender cobra position in panic, the home team took over.
It started with veteran defensive end Chris Long crashing into Minnesota quarterback Case Keenum just as he released a pass, with the ball fluttering directly into the arms of a waiting Patrick Robinson. The Eagles cornerback returned the ball 50 yards for the game-tying touchdown, reversing field halfway on his journey as the crowd roared.
Next up: LaGarrette Blount. The running back, no stranger to big games in his long career, scored on a bruising 11-yard run to cap a perfect 75-yard scoring drive for the Philadelphia offense. It looked like the Eagles, given their offensive limitations, might be content to take that seven-point lead into intermission.
Then Foles made the biggest throw of his life. He somehow eluded the pass rush from Minnesota tackle Everson Griffen, who swiped at his arm and shoulder, and threw a 76-yard bomb to a wide-open Alshon Jeffrey. The lead was 21-7, and when the Eagles added a field goal on the half's final play, the score seemed too good to be true.
But it was true -- and the margin would only grow. A franchise that has suffered for most of the past half century enjoyed a most unexpected ride in the NFC Championship Game.
The Super Bowl can't be this easy. Can it?
Steve Politi may be reached at spoliti@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevePoliti. Find NJ.com on Facebook.