a paragraph about Pats and the guess of the score

Re: a paragraph about Pats and the guess of the score
Hi translatorcz,

This paragraph has a lot of football technology which is a little hard to explain if you're not already somewhat familiar with the game. I'll explain broadly though, and you can ask follow-up questions.



Right. "Pats" is short for the "New England Patriots", and the other team is the Philadelphia Eagles. They're called "Pats" and "Eagles" for short. ("Iggles" is just a silly phonetic version of "Eagles.")



The Patriots had the higher score at that point in the game. The score was 24 to 10, and the Patriots had the 24 points.



You left off an important word -- falls short. "Falls short" means doesn't accomplish the desired goal. If I'm taking a test and need to score 80% to pass, and instead I score only 70%, I've fallen short. I didn't pass the test.

So, they tried a big comeback -- they tried to make up the 14 point difference to draw even or get ahead -- but they didn't quite make it.



In football, every offensive interval is called a "drive". For example, if the Patriots kick off to the Eagles, as soon as the Eagles get the ball they have started their drive. The drive ends with a score (like a field goal or touchdown), a turnover (like a fumble or an interception), or a punt.

The paragraph is referring to the last time in the game that the Eagles' offense had a chance to score.



In football, the way to continue forward progress on the field is to get 10 yards at a time. You have 4 chances to get 10 yards. Each chance is called a "down". If you do not go 10 yards even with 4 tries, the other team gets the ball.

It occasionally happens that things will look bad for a team as they try for the 4th time to get enough yards, but then there's a "miracle", they get the required yardage, and they are able to continue their drive. Alternatively, in this specific situation, the "miracle" could refer to not just getting a first down (enough yardage) but going all the way for a touchdown (7 points) which would have put the Eagles' score over the Patriot's, and likely would have meant they would have won the game.



Nope, those are players. They're referred to by their last names.



Sports cliche, in context it means they really tried. They played hard, didn't hold anything in reserve.



The writer is an Eagles fan -- he wanted the Eagles to win. Since they didn't, it meant his party (lots of people watching the Super Bowl together) was a little sad. To put a damper on is to make something less jouyous, basically.



When someone moves from one area to another, they may refer to themselves a "transplanted". For example, I grew up in Minnesota, then moved to Los Angeles -- since I never really felt at home in Los Angeles, I'd refer to myself as a "transplanted Minnesotan." From Minnesota, even if I didn't live there at the time.



No, do the city proud. Philadelphia. A city can be proud of their team if they played a great game and came close to winning, even if they didn't win.

Whew! Hope that helped.

Still need some football knowledge to understand. I'll check it up. Good thing. Collecting.

Any specific questions? I've come this far, I'll give it a shot. ;-)

Bravo Soz!