Eagles fans are known for their overall critical knowledge of the sport and their short patience with a bad game plan.
Philly fans in general will turn on a player—even a very good player—in a heartbeat if they perceive a lack of concentration, a lapse in effort or a breakdown in fundamental execution. They will attempt to boo a head coach out of town if they perceive a lack of imagination in his play-calling, or a flaw in his in-game decisions or game preparation.
I don’t know what’s worse, actually—to be booed as a player, coach or as a team with the outcome of a game still in the balance, or to be given the silent treatment as fans turn their backs on you with a mass exodus from the stadium when a game appears out of hand.
Either way it’s a bad look—and the Eagles have had their share of bad looks in the past decade.
The opposite of Philly fans booing their home team would be the Seattle Seahawks home crowds, who keep cheering en masse for their guys even when bad plays happen or their team is down in the count. Frankly I find it amazing that Seattle fans still show such consistent exuberance and critical patience with a team run by Pete Carroll. Some of the moves Pete makes would get him second-guessed and booed a lot in Philly.
Maybe it’s the physical and emotional climate in Seattle—one which teaches patience with grey and dreary weather, and a more laid-back communal commitment to a positive attitude?
Anyway, what brought this line of thought about was an amusing piece which appeared in CSN Philly.com this weekend:
Quarterback Nick Foles missed playing in Philadelphia, boos and all, writes Dave Zangaro of CSN Philly.
“Crazy enough, you miss the boos from time to time,” Foles said at the NovaCare Complex on Thursday afternoon.
“I laugh just thinking about playing and getting booed but then going back and throwing a touchdown and hearing the eruption. It’s the only place that you get something like that. It’s a special atmosphere here.”
Foles, the guy who Chip Kelly once infamously called the starting quarterback of the Eagles for “the next 1,000 years,” is now the backup quarterback for at least the next two.
Foles, 28, signed a two-year deal, reportedly worth $11 million, earlier this week to re-join the Eagles. He was once a third-round pick, who became a Pro Bowler, got traded, struggled and is now a backup where it all started.
Odd piece, eh?
It makes me rack my brain to remember any Philly-based athlete that has ever said they “miss” the booing?
Some of the better athletes in the history of professional sports have played in this town and hated the booing so much they wanted to be traded.
Dick (Richie) Allen played for the Phillies, not the Eagles, back in the ’60’s and ’70’s, but the booing got to him and not in a good way. Around the time it got unbearable for Allen (1968) it was also getting really annoying for the Eagles under Joe Kuharich, who were coming off a 6-7-1 season in 1967 and stumbled to a 2-12 finish in 1968, and getting swamped with boos at nearly every turn in every game.
Allen’s boo-worthiness really dated back to a fight with a teammate (Frank Thomas) before a game on July 3, 1965. Fans took sides in a racially charged incident in which Thomas (white) was allegedly teasing black outfielder Johnny Briggs with racial insults, and Allen came to the defense of Briggs with a 40-ounce bat which ultimately landed square on the shoulder of Frank Thomas.
Depending on how the story was told, fans either cheered Allen for standing up against racial intimidation, or booed him as a Negro thug who ruined the career of Frank Thomas.
One has to remember the racially-charged tinderbox that Philadelphia had become during the ’60’s. Black players who were getting booed had to assume a racist motive, if not outright physical threat, in a lot of it.
In other words, they were the kind of boos no one could possibly “miss”.
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