Super Bowl LII: The Hater’s Guide to the Philadelphia Eagles

(EDITOR’S NOTE: the following is not to be taken seriously)

It’s a profound honor, a sacred privilege, and a blessing unlike any other to cover your 2017 New England Patriots and their quest for a sixth world championship against the Philadelphia Eagles.

And in perhaps the most fitting tribute to the football team that represents the hopes and dreams of the six states in the New England region and Patriots fans all across the United States of America, I have once again, for the third time in four years, decided to use my powers for evil.

Congratulations, Philly! You’re going back to the Super Bowl for the first time in 14 years!

One minor detail: the two guys that sent you home in a pile of thoroughly defeated man-boob sweat last time you fell ass-backwards into a Super Bowl are still here.

Get ready to see that Rocky statue in a Tom Brady jersey, Philadelphia. If the Phillies and the 76ers, of all people, won a championship before the Eagles did, hey, Eagles, I’m not saying you’re the problem, but with all due respect, and I mean with ALL DUE RESPECT, you’re the problem. The Process worked before you did. JFC.

So for those of us that don’t waste valuable brain space on recognizing Philadelphia as anything but fitting punishment for taking the wrong exit off the Jersey Turnpike, pull up an iceblock and pour yourself a tall glass of Haterade.

Hint: the Haterade here is both two-for-one AND bottomless.

Wait, why would it be two-for-one if it’s bottomless?

Because screw you, Eagles, that’s why.

Eagles fans cheered when Michael Irvin broke his back

Look, if anyone understands the concept of good old fashioned divisional hatred, it’s New England. Try having the Yankees gloat over their twenty-whatever World Series rings your entire life. We get it.

That said, it takes a truly disgusting, rancid trashbag human being to cheer for a player getting injured.

Or in your case, Philly, a stadium full of them!

Back in 1999, Cowboys all-time great Michael Irvin took a nasty shot from Eagles defensive back Tim Hauck that sent his head straight into the turf. Irvin couldn’t move, very possibly could have been paralyzed, and had to be carted off the field on a stretcher, and Philly fans sat quietly and respectfully, hoping that Michael Irvin would be OK...

...JK, Eagles fans partied in the stands like it was 1999 even when their own players told them to stop!

Even Cincinnati fans know better than to cheer an injury, and their stadium is basically the capital of North Kentucky. You’re outclassed by KENTUCKY.

Like true hipsters, Philly deflated footballs before it was cool

It makes total sense with all the amazing music that Philadelphia has blessed the world with that you’d be hipsters about everything. Including deflating footballs!

Oh please, you didn’t think we’d let this one slide, did you?

Here’s former Eagles backup quarterback Jeff Blake in 2015 saying that he’s always deflated his footballs to help him play better:

Former NFL quarterback Jeff Blake says he oversaw the deflation of footballs on the sideline right before games during his career. Speaking on “The Midday 180” out of Nashville, Blake said the practice was common.

”I’m just going to let the cat of the bag, every team does it, every game, it has been since I played,” Blake said. “‘Cause when you take the balls out of the bag, they are rock hard. And you can’t feel the ball as well. It’s too hard. Everybody puts the pin in and lets just enough air out of the ball that you can feel it a little better. But it’s not the point to where it’s flat.

”So I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s not something that’s not been done for 20 years.”

Let’s see, my memory’s not so great, when did Jeff Blake play for the Eagles?

2004. The last time...they went...to...the Super Bowl.

Makes you think.

More probable than not, am I right?

Philadelphia hates Santa Claus

Seriously, what is WRONG with you people? Can’t you just go to the bathroom and get a beer during halftime like a normal person?!?

Take it away, ESPN!

So how the story goes as to what happened to Santa Claus during a halftime show against the Minnesota Vikings at Franklin Field. He was also pelted with snowballs from angry fans.

Frank Olivo, a former Atlantic City craps dealer, would go dressed as Santa Claus the final Eagles game of each year and when the Santa hired didn’t show up because of a snowstorm team officials spotted him in the crowd and asked him to fill in.

What happened to Olivo next became of the more synonymous narratives told about Philadelphia sports fans and their negative attitude towards their sports teams.

They booed and threw snowballs at Jolly Old Saint Nicholas.

”He was a sitting duck,” described longtime Eagles fan and former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.

Bills fans are royalty compared to you heathens.

Eagles fans threw batteries at Doug Pederson when he was a player

What is it with you people and throwing things?

Let’s let Doug Pederson - yes, the head coach of YOUR 2017 Philadelphia Eagles, the man who overcame season-ending injuries to his MVP-level ginger quarterback and nine-time Pro Bowl left tackle to guide the Eagles to their first Super Bowl in almost two decades - tell a fun story about his disastrous tenure as an Eagles player!

But no matter how rough it gets on Pederson in his first year calling the shots in Philadelphia, it’s hard to imagine it being any worse--from the fans--than it was during his playing career and stint as Eagles starting quarterback in 1999.

The reason? Eagles fans threw batteries at him. Yes, the ‘Eagles fans throw stuff at their players’ narrative has new legs, this time from the head coach of the franchise. Here’s what Pederson told Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News:

“Those big ones,” Pederson said. “Those ‘D’ ones. I was spit at. Beer (thrown at him). But hey, listen, whatever.”

Wasting beer AND the kind of batteries that every Christmas toy in the ‘90s needed 16 of to function. Classic Philadelphia.

The Eagles hired a man that killed Taco Tuesday

WHAT KINDS OF MONSTERS ARE YOU

...but then it’s OK for Mark Sanchez to go out and grab a mystery-beef-and-orange-glue hoagie after a game because he won? Who’s a good boy? You! You’re a good boy!

Terrell Owens

MISTER I LOVE ME SOME ME!

I’ll always respect the heck out of T.O. forever for almost single-handedly defeating the 2004 Patriots and his own coach’s brain-dead ineptitude in the Super Bowl when Owens put up 122 yards, put the Eagles on his back, and still had a freaking screw in his leg. I’ll also always respect him forever for the singular feat of being, objectively, the third-best wide receiver in history of the game that somehow was still such an unbearable, prissy, fake tough guy, passive-aggressive-to-the-point-that-even-Taking-Back-Sunday-would-say-”give it a rest”, narcissistic Mean Girls clown show that the Hall of Fame STILL looks at him every year like “Yeah, NOPE.”

That’s talent.

Who got Michael Vick back into the NFL? You guessed it, the Eagles!

Hey, if there was ever a guy who deserved a second chance, it’s Michael Vick, right?

Yeah, a second chance at picking up garbage on the side of the road for the rest of his natural born existence, maybe.

(Also, fair is fair: if we’re going to hate on Atlanta for Michael Vick, Philly deserves exponentially more hate for being like “Well, we have Donovan McNabb, how can we make this team better...hmmm...hey, look who just got out of jail!”. Hope that one good season was worth it.)

Philadelphia is where Buddy Ryan’s career went to die

Buddy Ryan is the architect, the mastermind, the evil genius, the man with the plan behind THE GREATEST defense the NFL has ever been privileged enough to witness. Shove it, 2013 Seahawks. Pipe down, Purple People Eaters, and maybe teach your boys how to not throw up on their own shoes in the NFC Championship. Put a crabcake in it, 2000 Ravens. The 1985 Bears defense set everyone they played to “Rookie” mode in Madden and beat the New England Patriots into a smoldering pile of red jerseys, overly detailed Pat Patriot logos, and “Hey, where’d the ball go? I blacked out”.

So of course, Philadelphia ran Buddy out of town after 3 winning seasons.

Why? Because he committed the unforgivable Pennsylvanian travesty of...(checks notes) losing in the playoffs and compiling an 8-2 record against the (justifiably) hated Cowboys?

Yup!

“I’ve been fired before, but usually it’s for losing. I’ve never been fired for winning before”

-Buddy Ryan, 1991

The Eagles clock management in Super Bowl XXXIX is an insult to football fans everywhere

Nothing warms my cold, salty, five-time Super Bowl Champion heart quite like the part in the 2004 Super Bowl when Bill Belichick looks right into the camera during the Eagles’ slower-than-a-white-girl-going-to-Sunday-brunch-after-her-birthday-week drive in the 4th quarter and goes “I remember on the sidelines saying ‘We’re up 10 points, right? I mean, do I have the score right?’”

Staring at a 10-point deficit with 5 minutes and 40 seconds left in THE SUPER BOWL, Andy Reid and the Eagles hit the gas like their lives and the first Super Bowl trophy in franchise history depended on it and:

• drove 79 yards down the field. Good.
• Scored on a Donavan McNabb bomb to Greg Lewis. Better!
• Wasted four minutes of the clock in the process, leaving them with 1 minute, 48 seconds left in the game and the Patriots with the ball.

Math. It’s not for everyone.

Let’s let Patriots all-timer Tedy Bruschi, who picked off McNabb earlier in the game (and let’s be serious, when a 6’1’’ 250-lb linebacker intercepts you, you deserve to lose forever) tell us what happened - or, in this case, didn’t happen!

“I’m expecting to break the huddle and I’m expecting the Eagles to be right behind me, but they’re still in the huddle. The seconds are ticking away, I look to the guys and say ‘I don’t know what they’re doing, but this is the defense we’re running, and when they come and line up, let’s play it well.”

“I wasn’t going to say ‘Hey Donovan, you might want to hurry this up’, you know?”

Even Troy Brown, one of the quietest, most reserved Patriots in history, got in on the action:

“You know, nobody ever really figured it out.”

Oh, and save your “BUUUUUTTTT DONAVAN MCNABB WAS SICK!”. He’s said on multiple occasions that he wasn’t, which is even better because it reduces the last quarter in the biggest sporting event in America to pure, top shelf, 100-proof ineptitude. Does life GET better? I submit that it cannot!

Hey, speaking of interceptions, I want this to be my iPhone background for all of eternity, at least until Malcolm Butler intercepts Nick Foles five times on Sunday:

Jerry Lodriguss / The Philadelph

Just to make sure we didn’t miss anything, the divisional hate in the NFC East just might be the finest in all of this great country of ours, so of course we had to ask some friends. If you’ve ever seen your hammered friend blow up a bottle of champagne on New Year’s Eve like an amateur, that’s how the hate came out here.

*sniffles*

It’s...so...beautiful!

Mike (Giants):

To quote the License Plate Guy...the only good thing about the eagles going to /winning/ losing the Superbowl is they might actually burn that city to the ground.

Todd:

Phuck the Phillies?

Jersey (Cowboys):

I grew up in PA, and I can say without a shadow of doubt that Eagles fans are the absolute worst human beings on the planet - they are garbage people. They trash talk constantly and are cocky AF about a team that’s NEVER WON ANYTHING. It makes no sense.

My parents went to a Cowboys-Eagles game back in the 90’s - they didn’t wear any Cowboys gear for fear of harassment. Well, it didn’t work. Eagles fan threw coins at their heads while they were seated, and the women wouldn’t let my mom use the restroom. The Cowboys won (duh), and they had to follow a cop (who told them to “get lost”) to their car.

Kevin (Cowboys):

reasons why the eagles and their fan base suck: #1 their fan base is so miserable that they once threw snowballs at Santa. #2 the fans are such brainiacs that they climb light poles to celebrate wins so often that the city GREASED the poles before the game to keep the fan base “safe”. #3 they helped revive Mike Vick’s career. # 4 TRIED to revive Vince Young’s career # 5 anybody remember the Philly DREAM TEAM? Yeah, neither do I. # 6 Chip Kelly and his genius college style offense that was going to revolutionize the PROS!. Man do I hate that cheez-wiz suckin team, but they’re playing quality ball without their key players this year and it’s hard to argue that.

I love it!

Oh, and one more thing...

Wawa sucks.

There, I said it. And if your response to that is “MAZZACHUSITS doesn’t have anything like WAWA!”, well, no shit, pal, we don’t get our dinner at a gas station.

Although honestly, given the rest of the trash you guys shove into your cheese-holes, I can kind of see the appeal.