But you can ridicule it.

Hear me out: The stereotype has been set and it isn’t going away. Deserved or not, it’s been here too long and journalists are far too lazy to correct an image that works for them on a national level.

So instead maybe we should start nicknaming sections of the statium for ‘baby eaters’, ‘cannibals’, ‘murderers row’, ‘convicts’, ‘press box terrorists’ and the likes. Many more signs reading ‘Kill Buck’ and ‘BOO ESPN’ should be out in the stands. We should make public displays of burning the other teams in effigy. Pinatas of Nobel Peace Prize winners, Ghandi and Mother Theresa should be beaten to bits. I know that doesn’t have anything to do with football or reality, but neither does the stereotype that our majority of ‘good’ fans get.

We aren’t the press darlings – and as this has been going on for the 30+ years that I have been paying attention, we probably never will be – so at least we should have some fun with it and build our bad reputation into legend. If we can’t make them love us, let’s make them fear us.

At least as far as it being a bit of an intimidation factor. If the visiting team is at all bothered by the booing then I say give ‘em more. Booing the home team is fine if the fans see lack of effort…they’re pretty good at spotting lack of effort. If you have the cajones to wear the other team’s jersey in our stadium and/or parking lot then you should be prepared to be heckled unmercifully. There are idiot fans in every city who take it too far. Most of what I’ve seen is good natured and everyone, including the hecklee, is laughing. Yes, the Irvin thing was dispicable. Why should we care about what the media thinks of our fans? As IggleGreen says, I’d rather them fear us then love us. BTW, I was at the Santa Claus game. He deserved the boos. He sucked.

i am a loyal philly fan… longer than most of you but that’s just a function of age… i’ve been to games in practically every city in the country… i now live in Orange County, CA and go to as many games as I can when Philly teams play out here (LA, Anaheim, San Diego)… I was hoping to see the angels beat the yanks so i could go to a philly/angels world series game… the point is the absolute worst… most obnoxious collection of fans in the entire country… are equally divided between NYC and Philly and its not something to be proud of… it speaks to fact that underneath all the bravado, a great many people who call themselves fans of their teams from NYC and Philly are just a bunch of self hating drunks and losers… they aren’t sports fans… they are just a**holes… too bad beacuse they give the majority of people who love their the teams a bad rep…

I remember that Brian Dawkins in an interview once said how much he loved the city of Philadelphia and the fans…..and in the same breathe he said…..‘not everyone can play in Philly’. Philly fans are a special bred. Philly has always lived in the shadow of NY….the BIG Apple….Times Square, Empire State Buidling, etc. NY, like Chicago, has a song named after it. Even when they mention the large metropolitan cities in the country…Philly is usually mentioned as an after thought. LA is well known, Chicago is well known, NY is well known, Miami is well known, Detroit is well known, San Francisco has a song and is well known, Dallas was known as Americas team…..Green Bay, a small town, is well known. But mention Philly and people say…..‘oh, you guys booed Santa Claus….lol. Having been born and raised in Philly and lived in various other places around the country, when someone mentioned the Santa Claus incident I say proudly…..’yeah, we booed Santa Claus and we might boo you too’….lol.
Most players who have played for the Eagles over the years have nothing but good memories of playing there. They loved the fans and they loved the city. When Dawk said that not everyone can play for the Eagles, it meant that in order to play there you have to understand the fans and the city. What most people don’t understand about Philly is that the people there appreciate hard work and dedication. Philly fans support their team like no other city and we feel we can also be critical of our teams. When they play well they receive all the love that the City of Brotherly Love has to offer…..but when they play bad…..well, they are treated like a child who was disobedient. They are punished and disciplined and sent to their room….lol……but we still love them. To give a recent example of the love the city has shown…..take Jeff Garcia. He was a pro bowl quarterback for the SF 49ers for several years….bounced around the league….started several times…..came to Philly and replaced Donovan and took us to the playoffs. He was here one year….and recently, when he returned for a short time, said that Philly was the best time of his entire career. Why? He felt the love, he understood the city and the team and the organization. Just listen to the enthusiasm of the players who came to the Eagles from other teams….listen to what they say about the love they felt when they got here….from the fans and the organization. Listen. Yes…….the fans can be hard, they can be demanding…….and there’s a few bad apples among the majority. But you will never ever find a city with more dedicated fans….through the good times and the bad times. And we sell out every game. So to all you haters………if you can’t take the heat, get out of the pot.

Well as I mentioned a couple of times before in some other posts, I live in Denmark and became an Eagles fan about 4 years ago. I love Eagles, I basically live and die with every game. Ive never seen some of the old Eagles games, but Ive read about them, Ive seen a documentary about Eagles(the history and great personalities of the team) and if it happens that when you guys recall some of the old time players and I dont know who they are, I look them up on Internet and read about them to expand my knowledge about the team and I have quite a few mates here in Denmark just like that. So Eagles fan base have some good fans overseas too, just wanted to let you know that.

I heard and read a lot of times about mean, cruel, intollerant, crazy Eagles fans. Ive heard about Santa and Irvin episodes and snowball game. But correct me if Im wrong Irvin episode was back in 1999, the snowball game was in 1989 and Santa Claus episode was in 1968, which is 10, 20 and 41 years ago respectively. Now based on that I have a message to the entire NFL nation: GET OVER IT PEOPLE! 41 years ago and you still bring that story back, Im sure that half of the people whom were at that game are already dead!

Times are changed, Im sure there are some crazy folks out there, who call themselves Eagles fans and behave themselves in stupid way, but you find them everywhere, some cities have more of them some less. Im sure that statisticly they are not more then 10-20% of the entire Eagles fan base.

I’ve always seen Eagles fans as passionate fans, fans who live and die with their sports teams, not just Eagles. Philadelphia seems to be a city with a lot of sports history and there are families that have been fans of the same teams in few generations now, which explains also why you guys from Philly are even more passionate then the average fans.

It is important though to mention that Ive never been in Philadelphia and havent yet experienced a game at the Linc, but Ive met a native Philadelphian here in Denmark, he is an exchange student( great guy by the way), he told me alot about Philly and the fans and it seems like my impression about Philly is quite right. He told me that you can seat in the bar and people will talk about Eagles, Phillies, 76ers or Flyers. They could start to sing Eagles song without any reason and I almost got tears in my eyes, because it sounded like (sports)paradise in my ears. You see, football isnt big at all in Denmark and I have some friends here, we watch games together and talk about football, but when I go out and get a couple of beers and randomly start to sing Eagles song… Well people look at me like crazy, I guess you can imagine that.
So no matter what other people, analysts, journalists etc. say about you/us forget it, dont let you get affected by it and hold on what you have there guys, because it is simply beautiful. Im looking forward to come to Philly one day and experience it myself.

FLY EAGLES FLY!!!!!