McNabb remembers watching the Rams celebrate last year's victory in the NFC Championship game in St. Louis and he remembers how it felt to be on the losing end. The Philadelphia Eagles lost 29-24 and all McNabb can remember now is that he never wants to feel that deep sense of bitterness and dejection again.

"It definitely is extra incentive," said McNabb, who will lead the Eagles (13-4) into their second straight appearance in the NFC Championship game, this time at home in Veterans Stadium, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (13-4).

In many ways, McNabb and the Eagles organization, head coach Andy Reid and the city of Philadelphia are flying in the face of history on Sunday afternoon, confronting what's gone on before in Philadelphia and desperately hoping to make some memories of their own.

	“	It stays with you. It keeps you focused, knowing what it was like to lose that game and what it takes to get back and win it this time. ”
		— Bobby Taylor, Eagles cornerback

"That was pretty much the reason I went out to see the celebration in St. Louis," said McNabb, who is fully healed from a broken leg, which sidelined him for two months. "It was an emotional game for me. And you get so close. But you visualize us getting back to that spot again and doing it at the Vet."

To add more to the sense of history, Sunday's game is the last football game at Veteran's Stadium.

"That was sort of motivation going through the offseason, of getting back to this point, and obviously, changing the outcome," said McNabb. "It's been on my mind ever since the season started. We still have that taste in our mouth. Obviously, we're excited about this opportunity and we want to do whatever it takes to win."

Last year's NFC championship game was actually closer than the score would indicate. Eagles defensive end N.D. Kalu missed blocking a fourth quarter punt by a fingernail. And, in their final drive, the Eagles were just 52 yards from going downfield and scoring the winning touchdown.

"It's hard to get over a loss like that," said Reid, "right down there toward the end. That becomes a distraction only if you allow that to get in there and mess with you."

By the sounds of it, the loss is still messing with some members of the team.

"It stays with you," said cornerback Bobby Taylor. "It keeps you focused, knowing what it was like to lose that game and what it takes to get back and win it this time."

Getting back to the NFC championship game the next season does not guarantee you will win this time. Far from it.

History is replete with teams that have lost successive championship games. Just since the 1970 merger, in fact, the history is daunting. The San Francisco 49ers lost back to back NFC championship games in 1970 and 1971; the Cowboys in 1972 and 1973; the Los Angeles Rams lost three straight from 1974-76; the Cowboys lost three straight from 1980-82; and the Niners again lost back to back NFC Championship games in 1992 and 1993.

In this city, the memories of the last NFC championship game have faded into a ephemeral '80s dream. On a frigid afternoon at the Vet, the Eagles beat the Cowboys 20-7 on Jan. 11, 1981. The signature moment, played over and over and over again as the only great highlight of Eagles football at the Vet, is Wilbert Montgomery's 42-yard romp through the Cowboys' secondary for a first quarter touchdown.

That was the only championship game played at the Vet. For the Eagles organization, championship games are separated not by years or decades, but by generations.

In 1947, 1948 and 1949, the Eagles played in back to back to back NFL championship games, losing the first one, then winning two straight -- thanks mainly to Steve Van Buren's brilliant running.

In 1960, the Eagles beat Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers in the only NFL championship game that Lombardi lost -- 17-13 at Franklin Field. Twenty years of frustration followed until Dick Vermeil's Eagles finally prevailed in the 1980 season. Led by quarterback Ron Jaworski and Montgomery and middle linebacker Bill Bergey, the Eagles dispatched Dallas and made their only trip to the Super Bowl.

Jaworski was picked off three times by the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XV and the Eagles lost 27-10.

But all those names are cemented into the collective memory of a city that has had very few great sports teams. The Phillies were the losingest professional baseball team of the 20th Century. The Sixers have not won an NBA title since 1983. The Flyers haven't done it in hockey since the Bee Gee's were singing Stayin' Alive.

So names like Jaworski, Montgomery, Bergey, Harold Carmichael and Vermeil have remained vibrant today because no Eagles team or Eagles head coach has been able to duplicate the magic of that 1980 season.

Vermeil -- a name which means "gilded silver," by the way – benefited the most. His face still adorns billboards in Philadelphia. Of course, he came out of exile and won the Super Bowl with the Rams three years ago. But that still hasn't scarred the patina of gold which coats his reputation in Philly.

So, in that sense, Reid is confronting some history in this game, too. Let's face it, Vermeil will always be the crowned prince of pro football in Philadelphia. And Buddy Ryan, who won a division championship, is this town's Uncle Buck – loved forever despite his many flaws.

But Reid would be undisputed king. For that to happen, however, Reid must lead this Eagles team to a win on Sunday and then perhaps a Super Bowl championship.

To his credit, Reid is ignoring history this week. But as he surveyed the assembled national media at the NovaCare Complex this week, Reid understood the gravity of the moment.

"It's exciting," said Reid. "The emotions of the Vet, being the last game, I don't think that will be involved. But just the fact that they have a chance to play in front of their home crowd in a game of this magnitude is something that I think is exciting for them."

But, he said, it's critical for this team to remember what happened last year. "It's very important you go back and you focus on the details and the things that can directly effect a football game," said Reid, "and you don't lose your focus on that, mastering the game plan. It's as simple as that. You're still taking your one play at a time approach and do the best you can on that play and that's the reality of that."

But then there is the reality of what's going in this title-starved city right now, a city that has often felt dumped on and forgotten, a city H.L. Mencken once called "a well-lit cemetery."

Even the venerable Philadelphia Inquirer, the newspaper of record, ran a long feature story on Tuesday titled "Eagles fans shouldn't fly too high; this is Loser Land." The next day, believe it or not, the author of that article was not run out of town. On the contrary, the newspaper printed many letters in response and only half of them disagreed with the article, suggesting that they won't be believers until the Eagles confront and slay the demons of history on Sunday.

Sal Paolantonio covers the NFL for ESPN.