On Saturday afternoon, somewhere between the banks of the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain, an old ball coach will settle into his recliner and behold a ghost from a decade past. There will be a computer on his lap, and a notepad on the armrest to his right, and a multitude of observations running through his head. This is how Rick Gaille watches football. Because Rick Gaille is a football coach. And while a coach might leave the sidelines, the sidelines themselves never leave.
Eleven years ago, a couple of months before the Eagles’ last home playoff win, Gaille stood on one of those sidelines and gazed across the freshly cut turf at man who, tomorrow afternoon, will arrive at Lincoln Financial Field looking to snap that decade-plus drought.