The Philadelphia Eagles are this year’s Super Bowl winner, the NFL champs, the “Champions of the World”. Fly Eagles Fly. We’re from Philly, no one likes us, and we don’t care.
What, might you ask, does this have to do with motor vehicle accidents or personal injury in New Jersey? Answer: not one damn thing.
Not everyone on my list is an Eagles fan and that’s ok. If not, you’re probably a Giants fan and if so, you have my sympathies. You had a tough year. If you’re a Dallas fan, well guess what, the Cowboys still suck.
I feel compelled to use my venue to express my thoughts on my beloved Eagles. Despite a love for the game and an above average knowledge of the game, I won’t go into Xs and Os nor the play of any individual player. I’ll leave that to experts (so-called as they are) on tv and online. Instead, I’ll echo the thoughts of two Philadelphians, Michael Smerconish and Jake Tapper, and I’ll step back and look at the bigger picture.
Wherever the winds of politics blow your personal flag, I think we can all agree that this country is more fractured than ever before. No longer are we getting our collective news from Walter Cronkite or Jim Gardner. The vast majority get their news from platforms that only reinforce their own views. TV, cable, streaming services, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, X, bloggers, websites, and influencers are all purveyors of news. Instead of bringing us together, it has fractured us into many different pieces and groups. Now, add politicians to the equation, acting as a catalyst to speed and strengthen those divisions. Instead of trying to heal our wounds and bring our divisions closer, politicians further strengthen these divides. They’re the bad kids that throw a firecracker into the campfire or flush an M-80 down the toilet just to see what happens. There was a time when the symbol of a slimy, dishonest, and selfish character was a used car salesman. Now, it’s the politician.
If you watched Philadelphia Eagles fans throughout the year, you saw us being, well…. Philadelphia Eagles fans. We have a reputation for being the worst fans in the NFL. It’s a badge of honor. We’re rude and obnoxious and in your face. Sure, we booed Santa Claus, threw snowballs at anything that moved, needed a judge and court inside the stadium, and I could go on. But you can’t deny our passion for the game and our love for the Eagles. The rest of the country loves to criticize and ridicule “those crazy Philadelphia fans”. Yet you’ll see more Eagles fans at an away game than any other teams’ fans at an away game. Hell, watching the Super Bowl felt like I was watching a game played at the Linc.
Overlook if you will, the knucklehead on top of the traffic pole and take a look at what’s going on from a different perspective. What you see is a region of people, with a host of differences, coming together for one solitary cause – the Eagles.
Men, women, boys, girls, and those in between. Old and young. Highly educated to no education. Book smart to street smart. Incredibly wealthy to struggling just to get by. Black people, white people, and every other shade, nationality, and culture. Those who love whomever they want and those who worship from their own “pew” of choice. All with singleness of purpose.
Are there other cities with passionate fans? Sure, there are. Look at the Green Bay Packers. They’re the only publicly owned NFL team. 538,000 people own Packer’s shares. The Packers have been a publicly owned, non-profit corporation since 1923. Who can forget the “frozen tundra of Lambeau Field”? Icons of the game have played there like Bart Starr, Brett Favre, Herb Adderley, Paul Hornung, Ray Nitschke, and James Lofton. And of course, they were coached by one of the most famous coaches of all time – Vince Lombardi for whom the Super Bowl trophy is named. As an Eales fan we can like them because one, their color is green, and two, our beloved Reggie White played there. But the Green Bay metropolitan area is home to only 332,000 people. And who the heck wants to live in Green Bay, Wisconsin?
The greater Philadelphia region is home to four million people. Philadelphia itself has approximately 150 regional neighborhoods and is surrounded by approximately 100 suburbs. The Main Line connects 17 Pennsylvania suburbs and the PATCO Transit Line connects Philly to 13 Jersey towns.
In addition to Philadelphia proper, Eagles fans populate the western suburbs of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery counties and the eastern suburbs across the river in Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington counties. But we go further than that. Eagle’s green spreads south to northern Delaware, north to Allentown and the Poconos, and east to the Jersey Shore. Travel to any large city in the country and you can find an Eagles-friendly bar. My son Alex found a place to watch the game in an Eagles bar in Rome while on vacation. Four generations of my family bleed green and I’m damn proud of it.
Four million people from all walks of life, greeting each other in their respective Wawas with two words, “Go Birds”. Go Birds indeed. Look what our Birds did for four million people. “One team, one city, one dream” united us all. So let me say to the rest of the country, look to Philly, learn from Philly, be more like Philly. That is all. Go Birds.
