A Brotherly Tale of Two Patriotic Cities

This Sunday is Super Bowl LII — which stands for 52 but also visually spells out LEE, which happens to be my middle name. Appropriate considering the circumstances. You see, this Sunday, on the holiest of our American holidays, my very being is to be wrenched in two.

My heart is divided, you see — and don’t @ me for it — because I am a hardcore fan of both the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles. I know this sounds like a First World Sports problem (boo hoo both of your teams made the championship), but allow me to explain my despair.

Although according to available personality and diagnostic criteria I appear to be an extrovert, I sure do hate meeting people.

I think it must be because of the inevitable “where are you from?” question I get in new interactions, my response to which is an awkward, bumbling meander of a story about how I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, home of Steve’s Prince of Steaks, but then moved in the seventh grade to western, rural Wilbraham, Massachusetts, to live with my uncles on a llama farm and go to private school.

I’m Philly — I literally yell at restaurants who deign to classify their cheesy mincemeat atrocities as Philly Cheesesteaks. Ask my girlfriend; her mortified stare is answer enough. I say mew-zam and har-ible and are-inge. I feel at home riding a bus or a train or an elevated subway. I play the Rocky Theme to get pumped up, Ben Franklin is my favorite patriot, and it’s water ice, not Italian ice god damnit.

But I’m also a New Englander. I like the fall colors in the trees, and hiking, and putting on boots to go shovel manure. I like eating fresh eggs from a chicken coop, and going to lakehouses in New Hampshire. I lived on Dunkin Donuts for two years straight — their sandwiches used to be ten times what Starbucks has and their bagels have so much cream cheese it’s almost worth the extra 75 cents.

But my strongest allegiance to both regions has always been through sports. I didn’t have a father growing up, but that didn’t affect me. My mom is a die-hard Eagles fan, and my best friend and his family were huge sports fanatics. When I was 8, Iverson and our joke of an NBA finals team (the image of Matt Geiger shooting still gives me PTSD) was my first taste of glory, and the frenzy that swept my school is one my first joyful collective memories. (I think my first collective memory is from kindergarten when a handful of students held me down in the playground so a very mean girl could kiss me. Not joyful.) I loved the Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell Phillies, the Vet and Citizen’s Bank. I loved Eric Lindros and Simon Gagne and the infuriating Flyers. But my true love was the Iggles.

I grew up idolizing Jeremiah Trotter and Brian Dawkins and those early 2000s Jim Johnson defenses. I was a husky, semi athletic kid who played every sport, mostly as a hustle defense guy. I was going to outwork and outwill you. No matter where I’ve lived, or how nice my clothes get, or how many courses my dinners stretch to, that’s always been my identity. And that’s what those Eagles teams did. I remember when LaDainian Tomlinson, in the midst of an 18 touchdown 2005 season (the year before he exploded the world with 28), was held to seven yards against the Eagles. Seven yards rushing! Trotter annihilated him every time he got to the line. It was lovely. I still have my Trotter jersey.

But truth be told, I’ve always had a bit of a split heart. Half of my family lives in New England. My first taste of gambling victory came during my very first Super Bowl party, when the underdog Patriots knocked off the juggernaut Rams 20–17. At the ripe age of seven, I correctly guessed the score and won $200, enough to retire on at that age. Thus began my love for the Patriots.

When the Red Sox made their run in 2004, I fell in love with them too. With Damon’s locks, with Schilling’s blood, with Manny and Papi’s power, with their joy for the game, with their knack for making very sad people very happy. They were both underdogs who had overcame tortured pasts, risen to the occasion, and made history. I was captivated, by their grit, by their swagger, by their narratives. I began to follow the Patriots and the Red Sox online, felt real emotion when I saw their scores scroll by on the TV ticker. I was a Philly boy, but I was being pulled north.

Now some people say — wait a second, you can only have ONE team. ONE city. For the most part, I agree. Especially in a climate today where streaming and 24 hour news cycles and Twitter can keep you connected to your teams, sure. But for me, when I moved to Massachusetts before high school, before the age of easy streaming, and in a household definitely not willing to spring for Red Zone or a sports package, it suddenly became near impossible to watch an Eagles game, or a Phillies game, or a Sixers game. And I had already harbored a growing passion for the Boston teams during my youth. And the cherry on top, except for the Celtics and Sixers, the teams weren’t even in the same conferences, and so I never really had to confront my allegiance, never had to put my fandom on the line.

And so, the Philly players I grew up loving moved on, and I fell deeper and deeper entrenched in the teams of my new location. I’ve been there for every Patriots and Red Sox championship — in fact, I like to imagine I’m part of the reason they win so often (not really, that would be insane…or would it?).

But this love of team and city does leave a divide in my heart and my identity, and, now here I am, on the precipice of the greatest sporting match of my adult life — the greatest one since 2005, when I was 12.

That’s the last time the Eagles played the Patriots in a meaningful game.*

*[Games since, for reference:

2007 — undefeated Pats team squeak by an Eagles team QB’d by AJ “Ultimate Backup” Feeley thanks to an Asante Samuels pick six.

2011 — Pats spank the Eagles in the midst of their “Dream Team” season

2015 — a blocked punt and 99 yd INT return propel an improbable Eagles win over a juggernaut Pats team. ]

I watched the game in the basement of my cousin’s house with the other kids, while the adults watched upstairs. I was scarred by prior Eagles postseason disappointments — their loss to the Buccaneers was the first time sports made me cry.

You see, I’m one of those people who believes that every action they take during the course of a sporting match directly affects the outcome of said match (Superstitious, I am not; I like black cats and the only reason I don’t walk under ladders is because I think it’s dangerous for the person on the ladder.)

When the Eagles played the Bucs in the NFC championship game, my friends and I played some quick pickup football before the game — my team won on a last second touchdown pass, and so naturally, the Eagles were destined to win (they were also the one seed, 12–4, and the better team). First possession, big TD, and the Vet was rocking. After that…not so much. I remember at one point during the game I was crying, and I was yelling “why why why” and I hated Donovan McNabb, and I threw a chicken wing against the wall and no adult even yelled at me. Sports.

Needless to say, when it was Eagles Patriots in the big game, my stomach was in knots (worse knots than usual for a lactose intolerant Jew, and the two butterscotch Krimpet TastyCakes I’d had before kickoff weren’t helping either.)

To be perfectly honest, here are only the things I remember from that game:

The Eagles lost on an Adam Vinatieri field goal and I remember thinking as soon as he lined up to kick it that the game was over, but that didn’t stop me from crossing my fingers and my toes. Damn, Vinatieri is great.

My uncle — a huge Beatles AND Wings fanatic — lost his damn mind when Paul McCartney played the halftime show. He kept yelling “now this is music!” as the Black Eyed Peas (apparently not music) had performed prior to the game. We thought it was pretty lame — especially after NippleGate the year before. After some musical maturity, I have since echoed his sentiments.

Terrell Owens was a goddamn American hero, playing on an ankle that was definitely still broken and mostly metal, and looking every bit as awesome as he had since his first play in an Eagles jersey resulted in a TD (sidenote: I wore my black Terrell Owens jersey to school the entire week before the Superbowl, one day of which the Philadelphia Inquirer recorded my Latin class signing the Eagles Fight Song in Latin. I still have it memorized and my mother still has the newspaper clipping on her fridge.)

Donovan McNabb turned the ball over a million times (actually 3, though 2 more were nullified by penalties), reportedly threw up on the field, and basically choked the game away. Side side note: McNabb gets a bad rap in Philly — dude was throwing to Todd Pinkston and James Thrash most of his career, which is the football equivalent of a wounded gazelle and a woodchuck. And yet, my enduring image of McNabb is rolling out to his right and then chucking the ball at the feet of his receiver, so there’s that.

And that’s it. That’s all I remember.

I was young. I wanted the Eagles to win, but I was so hurt from previous years, weighed down by my so called city of brotherly love, that I steeled myself. Philly fans talk a big game, but we’re cynics. Go down five, and we feel like we’re down twenty five. I let my brain talk my heart into the Patriots, the team that I had won money on, that I had grown to like, the team that I watched rip the hearts out of the oh-so-boring Panthers the year before (despite it being an awesome Super Bowl), the ruthless Evil Empire built out of a city on the cusp of the greatest run of championships ever, with the chip on his shoulder Golden Boy quarterback and hard hitting, touchdown catching defense. I talked myself into them.

And I haven’t looked back.

My New England fandom began when I still lived in Philly, but it blossomed once I moved. Being a New England fan gave me instant friends, an immediate conversation starter. I could name every player on the Patriots and the Red Sox. Kevin Garnett had been one of my favorite players for years because of his insane intensity — when he came to the Celtics I was overjoyed. I marveled at the history of Fenway and even bought an old No Smoking sign at a stadium garage sale that I still have and will put as a joke in my man cave (once I can afford one). My mom and I watched the Patriots every Sunday, no matter how much homework I had or snow was on the ground. We yelled at Tom Brady — we criticized Tom Brady, who is better at football than I am at breathing. We still text and call during the games. It’s been great.

The Eagles have broken my heart too many times. The Patriots have certainly hurt me — I was at the 10 degree Divisional round game in 2010 when the Mark Sanchez-led Jets beat the Pats behind one of the weirdest game plans I’ve ever seen Belichick employ (including a fourth down that led to a Jets TD). Also scoring a TD in that game — Ladainian Tomlinson. The Patriots do lose after all. And their losing hurts me — I scream, I drink, I don’t talk to people for hours. But they don’t hurt my soul, and for most of my life, they’ve been good and fun to watch. And everyone hates me for rooting for such a dominant team, which all fans of great teams revel in.

So sue me — I have two teams. They never play each other. They play this Sunday.

Really, this Super Bowl is a win-win situation. If the Pats win, awesome. Another championship for the greatest coach of all time, the greatest quarterback of all time, the greatest dynasty in sports history. If the Eagles win though? Wow. It would be the perfect Philadelphia story to lose their MVP candidate, replace him with someone with old ties to the city who is pretty much a bum, and go out and beat the Fascist WASPy Patriots. The city deserves it. And if they do win, as finicky as I am, I’ll imagine it’s because my Aunt Libby, who passed earlier this year but was as ardent an Eagles fan and as much a part of the city as a WaWa hoagie, had something to do with it.

Go Pats. Go Eagles. I live in LA now so who the fuck cares.