First of all a great quote. Eagle CB Sheldon Brown, on the pressure on David Akers as he prepared for the game winning field goal with three seconds left: “I know why I didn’t try to be a field-goal kicker, because I would have peed myself.”
BTW, I was at the game, and it was awesome. I had been to two previous Eagles games, the devastating loss to the Giants early in the season when we blew a huge 4th quarter lead and the meaningles Falcons game last week. But they were nothing compared to this. The crowd was out of control, and on its feet for probably half the game. The place was electric. The best chant was when the Giants lined up for a field goal and my entire section started chanting, “Ro-mo! Ro-mo!”
But I’ll have to be honest. Call me a sissy all you want, but I’d still rather be at a Phillies playoff game than an Eagles one. This cult of Eagle-mania is, to be perfectly honest, a little frightening in its intensity. The shouts of “Break his f****** legs!” and “Rip his f****** head off!” throughout the games are a bit much. And the riding the Giants fans non-stop and throwing beers at them and stuff, I dunno. There’s nothing wrong with a needling the opponents’ fans and all, but damn, they paid their money too. Give ’em a second to watch the game without constantly calling them a slew of names, all of which imply that they enjoy the company of other men or have an Oedipal complex. If you got something creative to say, then go for it. Otherwise, just shouting the same words over and over gets a little old. Then again, when I went to a Redskins game a couple of years ago, the fans were just as bad, so it might not just be Eagles fans, but NFL fans in general. I dunno, there jsut seems to be an ugliness to it that I don’t find at other sporting events.