Philly fans are a rare breed who breed rare moments.
For personal reasons, I found myself at Corporation Bar & Grill over on Andrew Higgins Blvd near the WWII museum right as the second half of Super Bowl LIX kicked off. At this point, the bar was occupied by only Philly fans, a few locals, and one very confused couple decked out in Minnesota Vikings gear.
By 2:40 left in the third, the Eagles built a 34-0 lead, and that’s the moment Eagles fans truly began to blossom.
The following entries are the top 10 moments from the Philly fan base that I got to see, starting from about halfway through the third quarter when I arrived downtown to about midnight when I left the French Quarter.
#10: Philadelphia Iced Tea
With 9:56 left in the fourth, a man with long gray hair wearing a Randall Cunningham jersey pressed his way to the bar and demanded a Philadelphia Iced Tea.
The bartender gave the man the blankest possible stare. The patron proceeded to instruct the bartender to pour Jameson, Jose Cuervo, Tito's, Captain Morgan, and Crown Apple into a large plastic cup.
“It makes me feel safe,” he followed up earnestly. The drink cost him $35.
After brief research, I can find no evidence that such a drink exists in any formal sense.
#9: Predicting Philadelphia’s next governor (14:30 left in the fourth)
A group of four middle-aged Eagles fans sat at a high-top table.
Eavesdropping, their conversation began with jokes about how Travis Kelce would take Taylor Swift’s last name but then took a hard turn toward local politics. The topic of discussion: The next governor of Philadelphia.
After a strong 3 minutes of bashing Cherelle Parker and weighing in on who they think will rise to the top in 2027 one of them said, “Wait, we all mean the mayor of Philly, right?”
His friend replied, “Mayor, governor, whatever.”
#8 The halftime show smelled around the world (8:50 to go in the 3rd Quarter)
A man exited the restroom. He sat back down with his group, where you could hear them poking fun at how long he was in the restroom.
“I think that halftime show made everyone sh*t themselves,” he replied awkwardly. This silenced his friends.
#7 Dreams of roughing the passer (:34 left in the 3rd Quarter)
A man who looked like Santa’s cousin from Kensington sat directly to the right of me, burying Budweiser after Budweiser. Unlike most Philly fans, he was very quiet, only silently nodding whenever the Eagles did something worthy of his approval.
Right after Patrick Mahomes completed a 24-yard pass to Xavier Worthy to finally put the Chiefs on the scoreboard, he let out a disgusted grunt and muttered to himself, “I’d like to illegally rough Patrick Mahomes.”
#6 Committed to the cause (Postgame)
Outside of Brothers Chicken, a young woman in a Chiefs shirt stood hunched over, hands on her knees, preparing to vomit.
A group of young Philly fans stopped to observe her. One of the women in the group bragged loudly to her friends, “That’s how much more committed I am to my team. I threw up on the way TO the game…TWICE!”
#5 Sometimes the flock eats its own (Postgame)
A fight broke out between two Eagles fans because one started the “Fly Eagles Fly” chant and another prematurely began the "E-A-G-L-E-S" finale far too loudly and directly into his ear.
The man who initiated the chant lost it and gripped both hands around the other's jaw, trying to wrench it open viciously, which made little sense because you think the point would be to get him to close his mouth.
More Philly fans tore the two apart before any real damage occurred. They made up and went on chanting.
#4 Helping others build core childhood memories (:58 left in the 4th)
I’m sure there wasn’t a single non-Philadelphian who wasn’t completely nauseated by the “Go Birds” chant by the end of Super Bowl Sunday.
From my estimation, though, the person most repulsed by it had to be this child who sat on the steps of Hancock Whitney Building on Poydras, right before the game ended.
The kid couldn’t have been older than 13. With his parents next to him, he did his best to cope with the pain of seeing his home team get blown out.
A couple of older Philly fans strolled by casually, flapped their arms, got up in his face, and squawked, “Go birds, kid!”
#3 Rolling out the yellow carpet
Someone had the bright idea of covering a section of Bourbon Street in a thick carpet for the Super Bowl.
Around midnight on Sunday, the carpet was soaked with rainwater, beer, and hand grenade juice.
One Eagles fan dropped his cargo shorts around his knees, urine splashing onto the already saturated carpet, exclaiming, “I have no regrets.”
#2 What do Mahomes nipples have to do with it? (2:24 left in the fourth)
After Mahomes completed his second touchdown pass a voice boomed from the back of the bar, “Patrick Mahomes doesn’t have matching areolas!”
#1 Come hellfire or highwater… Go Birds... Go Birds
The Bourbon Street evangelists know no rest, not even on Super Bowl Sunday. They stood rigidly among the teeming hordes of Philly fanatics, preaching God’s truth, denouncing the devil and his angels, and all the rest.
There was a moment when an evangelist yelled through his bullhorn—a passage out of the Gospel of Mathew, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. Our Lord said that man would never learn to live in peace on this Earth.”
As the recitation commenced, one Philly fan dropped to his knees in reverence. As the preacher finished, the fan threw up his hands towards the sky and shrieked, “GOOOO BIRRRRRRDDDDDS!!!”
I don’t know if that kinda thing gets you through heaven’s gates, but maybe it counts for something…