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His Birds couldn't even get to the big game.

"Being an Eagles fan was like getting punched in the face, every Sunday," Asztalos, 47, said.

Now, he's raising four Eagles fans — but being a kid devoted to the Eagles isn't what it used to be. Asztalos' children are already on pace to see more playoff wins in their young lifetimes than he did through his entire childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood.

In terms of who's doing the punching now, "It's been like, I get to hit these kids," said Hank Asztalos, 13, clarifying that he calls other teams "kids."

For Philadelphians born in the late '70s and early '80s, sports championships — not only Super Bowls — were mostly something that other cities got to enjoy. In contrast, being a Philly fan meant signing up for heartache. For these fans, it's mind-boggling, and maybe even a little troubling, to raise a new generation that roots for a consistently winning team.

"They take all this winning for granted," Asztalos said.

Asztalos' 11-year-old daughter, Rosey, says her father doesn't understand how fun it is to root for the Eagles of today.

"So you think it's more fun now than when I was a kid?" Asztalos asked.

"Yeah," Rosey said.

"Well, we saw a lot of losses when I was a kid," Asztalos said. "You guys see a lot of wins."

"Exactly," Rosey said.

There wasn't always so much winning: The Super Bowl era of the NFL started in 1966, and the Eagles made it to the game for the first time in 1981. Their next appearance wouldn't be until 2005, resulting in a second loss.

Then came the magical run that brought the Lombardi down Broad Street in 2018, against all odds. Carson Wentz tore his ACL after playing a MVP-caliber season, and Nick Foles took over ... everyone knows the story.

"I almost feel like you should have to sit through some misery before feeling the joy," said Sheil Kapadia, 41, the host of the Ringer's Philly Special podcast.

Hungry dogs run faster, after all.

But Eagles fans are no longer quite as hungry — and following the Birds no longer means signing up for despair. That irritates some veteran fans about the younger generation.

"Everybody's jumping on the bandwagon," said James Adams, 72, wearing a bomber jacket memorializing Eagles championships going back to the 1940s. "I'm a true fan. I know the history."

For younger fans, the outcome of the forthcoming Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs feels like a foregone conclusion — with all due respect to Patrick Mahomes.

One woman described her nephew asking, "What day do we go to Frankford and Cottman?," as if descending on the Northeast's answer to Broad Street were a routine event in a typical Philly year.

Kapadia, who has followed the Eagles and the NFL for years, warns fans not to take the team's recent frequent Super Bowl appearances for granted.

"You really could go the rest of your life without seeing this happen again," Kapadia said.

Other parents who grew up as long-suffering Eagles fans claim the years of defeat taught them some of the key lessons of adulthood: to lose graciously, to be resilient, to savor even the small triumphs. (Not the qualities that usually come to mind when describing Eagles fans, we admit.)

When the Eagles lost to the Chiefs in 2023, Heather Scott, 40, found her children absolutely devastated, sobbing on the floor.

Scott, a lifelong fan who grew up watching games with her father and grandfather in South Philly, so close to the stadium that she could hear the roar from a touchdown before it reached her TV, unleashed the Philly-specific version of "When I was a kid, I walked to school five miles through the snow."

"I remember saying to them, 'I grew up with a losing team. We were lucky just to get this far,'" Scott said. "But for them, it's just like, 'We want it all.'"

The fan rallying cry used to be Maybe next year, Scott said. But her kids enter each season confident the Eagles will make it to the Super Bowl, and probably win.

Some of that optimism seems to be seeping into the older generation.

"This is probably a rarity this year, that I go into the Super Bowl with confidence, vs. being anxious," said Vern Moore, 65, who has seen all four Eagles Super Bowl appearances so far.

Maybe the kids who are Eagles fans today just have higher standards. Mike Hoch, 43, who grew up a fervent Eagles fan in the Northeast, said his 10-year-old son, Dom, is sometimes far more critical of Jalen Hurts than he is. Having watched some "pretty bad quarterbacks" through the years, Hoch appreciates Hurts.

"I watch him get frustrated at things that I'm like, 'Oh, it could be a lot worse, buddy,'" Hoch said. Father and son were sitting in front of a basement wall displaying nearly 600 signed Eagles helmets, part of a family collection.

Still, Dom loved the season. It was certainly more fun to cheer for a winning team, he said.

And what about his father? Does he wish the Eagles would stop being so good, so his son could experience the true purity of Eagles fan pain?

"Oh, no," Hoch said. "Not at all."