If you're making a list of the most intimidating NFL stadiums to go to as a fan wearing the opposing teams' jersey, Lincoln Financial Field in Philly is at the top. Multiply this by 100x when they're playing the Pats. On Sunday, Josh, Griffin, and I went to "The Linc" and did interviews outside the Pats vs Eagles game while wearing Pats gear. This is what happened.
In the car ride over to the stadium, there was definitely some discussion about the possibility of getting murdered. Not on the field (obviously), but as actual human-beings flaunting our Patriots fandom in a sea of green at the tailgates. It's one thing to go to a NE vs PHI game wearing Pats stuff. It's another thing going with mics, cameras, lights, and probably the most obnoxious Pats fan I know (Griffin) running interviews.
We knew we were drawing a lot of attention to ourselves and we knew what we were up against. The first 20 minutes consisted mostly of people yelling "Fuck the Pats," and telling us that Tom Brady sucks his own dick and makes out with his kids. You know, the usual. There was also a fixation on "41-33" (the final score of Super Bowl 52 when the Eagles beat the Pats). We tried to remind them that the Pats beat the Eagles in Super Bowl 39 and also won five other Super Bowls in the last 20 years. They didn't seem to remember any of those.
There were a couple of close calls with drunk fans early on. Griffin had a few guys push him around, grab the mic from him, and even had one lady shove him in the face before subsequently flipping him off. There was also a huge guy who told us to piss off and swung at the camera pretty hard. Besides those instances, it honestly wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. We've started to notice that when you walk around with a mic and camera people loved to get involved and be a part of it, even when you're in enemy territory.
One of the best parts of going to all these tailgates is the people we get to meet. My favorite person we met on Sunday was probably the monstrosity of a human who was doing the macarena (2:45 in our last video). He described himself as a "blue-collar guy who fucks on the weekends." He promised to take us on a tour of West Virginia so keep an eye out for that video. Despite the hostile environment, I would say that that the reception to what we were doing was still about 90% positive.
It was a pretty bad game but the Pats ended up winning as everyone expected. I was surprised at how many Eagles fans admitted that they were probably going to lose. We didn't stay for the game because we wanted to get content out and the tickets were expensive. We knew this was some of the funniest footage we've gotten so we wanted to start working on it right away. If you haven't seen the recap video yet check it out here: RECAP VIDEO
This weekend we're going to be in Foxboro covering the Pats again for the Cowboys game. It'll be nice to walk around wearing Pats stuff and not get absolutely shit on for once. Looking forward to that. Let's fucking go.
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