A Restaurant Owner in AZ Warned His Staff to Gird Their Loins for Philly Fans, 'the Most Obnoxious, Rude Fans in the Country'

The Washington Post. Getty Images.

As a general rule, it's wrong to lump a large, diverse, disparate collection of people into one stereotype. Worse, it's lazy. The kind of simplistic, hackneyed, cliche'd sportswriting I grew up on. Reductive thinking that takes one or two character traits and assigns them to every fan in a group of millions. Bostonians are super negative and always fearing the worst. New Yorkers are angry. Midwesterners are humble and friendly. Southern Californians are flaky and consumed with celebrity. And so on. 

But just because these are cliches doesn't mean they can't be broadly true to some extent. Take for example, Eagles fans. While it might not be entirely true that 100% of them are insufferable, aggressive, rapacious, feral maniacs, the description fits enough of them that they not only don't reject it, they embrace it. They accept it as their defining characteristic. 

After all, no hacky sports journo wrote these episodes; Philly native Rob McElhenney did:

In fact, it's a proud tradition that has spanned generations of Eagles fans:

Sporting News - There was a jail at Lincoln Financial Field, but it was shut down shortly after it was opened. The Eagles' old home, Veterans Stadium, had a jail for unruly fans that lasted awhile.

The Eagles decided they needed a jail because of what happened during a game against the 49ers on Nov. 10, 1997, according to SFGate. The Eagles were losing, and a fan decided to pull out a flare gun he had smuggled in and fire toward another section across the stadium. …

But it went further than that. Veterans Stadium was also outfitted with a courtroom, where Judge Seamus Patrick McCaffery and volunteer judges would be ready on game days to handle fans who were detained by security. The fans were taken to Eagles Court, where they would sit in a holding cell and wait for sentencing.

Which brings us to the current day. And the owner of The Village Tavern in Scottsdale warning his staff to brace themselves for the onslaught of tourists coming in from Philly:

Ladies and Gentlemen, The first team for the Super Bowl has just been decided. The Philadelphia Eagles and their fans will be in town to represent their city. 

With that being said, if any of you are from Philly, please don’t take this the wrong way, but Philly fans are some of the most obnoxious, rude fans in the country:) :)

The smiley faces, conciliatory language, and calls for hospitality aside, there is truth in these words. This is most definitely a call to arms. Like an ancient king letting blow the horns and ordering his subjects to man the ramparts and prepare for battle, because barbarians will soon be at the gate. 

This is the third trip to the Super Bowl for this franchise in the last twenty years. The other two were against New England. And while I didn't go to either of them, I know a lot of people who had the misfortune. And the stories are legendary. To use a sports fan cliche for Jacksonville in February of 2005, everything you heard about the people there is that they were decent, earnest, hardworking folk; doing their best to be welcoming in a city that was really ill-equipped to host a Super Bowl. And that the people of Philly descended upon them like the Viking horde in a mid-2000s "What's in your wallet?" commercial. People in Donovan McNabb jerseys going up to preteens in Tom Brady shirts and screaming in their faces. Assholes in Eagles sweatshirts chewing-and-screwing on their restaurant tabs. And generally running amok. The stories in Minneapolis in early 2018 were more of the same. Just colder, more indoors, and made worse by the fact they actually won the game that time. Which only dialed the obnoxiousness level up to infinity

So good for Bob Mayo to let his people know this won't be just another fanbase stepping off the plane in a few days. To get them mentally prepared to brace themselves for the lawless band that's coming like the Orc army attacking Minas Tirith. It's going to take all the bravery they can muster to withstand what's to come:

Courage, Arizona. Courage for you and your friends.