Eagles fans upbeat after a final win gives them rest, home-field advantage, and a No. 1 seed
“It’s the best place to play," said Darius Guzzi, 26, of Vineland. "...I think we're going to the Super Bowl."
Eagles chants and shouts of “Go, Birds” filled the cold Sunday evening air in South Philadelphia as fireworks exploded out of an illuminated Lincoln Financial Field.
The mood was joyous as fans poured out of the stadium, having witnessed the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants, 22-16, and clinch a No. 1 seed in the playoffs.
Although many fans expressed mild disappointment that the game wasn’t more of a blowout, Philly pride and optimism remained strong. “I think we’re going to the Super Bowl,” said Darius Guzzi, 26, of Vineland. For one reason, he added: “Because of Jalen Hurts.”
With Sunday’s win, the Eagles secured home-field advantage through the playoffs and a first-round bye. The team also provided what some fans said was a needed boost going into the postseason. The 14-3 Eagles lost their previous two games, both played without star quarterback Jalen Hurts.
“I think the first-round bye week is a key factor in the playoffs … and home field advantage,” Guzzi said. “It’s the best place to play.”
Wearing an Eagles onesie that he wore at the last regular-season game of the team’s Super Bowl-winning 2017 season, Darryl McDuffie, 51, of Franklinville, was excited, too.
”We’re feeling better than last week,” he said as he walked to his car with his wife, Valarie. Now, “we can get rested.”
For good luck, Michael Young, 53, of Norwood, wore a hat shaped like a Super Bowl ring.
He was relieved for the game to have ended with a victory despite the Giants’ tightening the score.
”We’ll take the win,” he said. “I’m looking forward to time to rest.
“I didn’t want them to have to work too hard for that win,” he added.
Hours earlier, fans in green manned makeshift barbecues, played flip cup, and tossed bean bags at cornhole boards in the parking lots along Pattison Avenue, with the background of Lincoln Financial Field.
The Eagles were guaranteed a playoff berth regardless of Sunday’s outcome with the Giants. Yet before kickoff, an undercurrent of unease ran through the tailgating celebrations.
The Giants did not play many of their starters, giving the Eagles a big advantage, but all eyes were on Hurts, who played after sitting out due to a sprained SC joint in his right shoulder.
”He’s always been the hardest worker out there,” said Anthony Cooper, 24, who drank with almost a dozen friends as he waited to attend his first Eagles game. “This is a key game, though.”
In a parking lot adjacent to Citizens Bank Park, Matt Dailey, of Wilmington, watched an early game on a television set up in the bed of a friend’s truck. This Eagles team, he said, reminded him in some ways of the one that won a Super Bowl in 2018. ”You’ve got a fun group that likes each other,” Dailey said.
The Eagles will face a hard road in the playoffs, he expected, but he said he believed that the win Sunday would set them up to follow the same path as that championship team.
”I like them if we clinch this No. 1 seed,” Dailey said.
Nearby, more than two dozen women bustled around a friend wearing a white veil and a shaggy green coat. The tailgating was the bachelorette party for Kaytlyn Mroz, of West Deptford. She was with friends and family, 14 of whom had tickets to the game, too. Just one was a Giants fan.
”In this day and age, everyone needs to go for a long weekend to a tropical place, and that is not me,” Mroz said. She planned in July to hold her bachelorette party at the Eagles’ last regular-season game, and it was an unexpected bonus to have a relatively warm January day and high stakes.
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Amid their optimism for the Eagles, several fans said that they thought about Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who went into cardiac arrest on the field last Monday after taking a hard hit in a game and remains hospitalized.
”I think about how traumatic that has to be” for the Eagles players, said Mandy Naegele, a Williamstown resident and part of Mroz’s party.
Mroz is a lifelong Eagles fan and has a brother who played football. ”Of course I watch these games but there is that very real side of it,” she said. “It’s very scary.”
Barnebas Temesgen’s youngest sons, Ermiyas, 9, and Mathios, 11, are obsessive Eagles fans, and Sunday’s game will be their first in person. Even as they slammed into each other trying to catch the football thrown by their 15-year-old brother, Samuel, Temesgen said injuries such as Hamlin’s made him wary of letting his sons play competitively.
”I think I’m going to hold on until they’re a little bit bigger,” he said. “It makes you think.”