Following five seasons with the Oakland Raiders, Jon Ritchie, a fullback who was raised in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, a town 90 miles west of Philadelphia, became a free agent in 2003 and signed with the Eagles.
“They had the (NFL’s) best record since 2000,” said Ritchie, “and I was coming off of a Super Bowl (XXXVII) and I felt like they had a chance to get there. I wanted to get back to the Super Bowl and I wanted to get back home.
“I didn’t realize when I was playing out in Oakland that no one ever got the games back here, being that it was regional.