Lincoln Financial Field
Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Eagles vs. Indianapolis Colts
Today, I took Christopher to see his first Philadelphia Eagle’s
game. The Eagles were hosting the
Indianapolis Colts, which featured QB Andrew Luck at the helm. Luck is Chris’s favorite player and that is
because I told Chris that Luck is his favorite player. That’s right, I am forcing my son to choose
his favorite player, which of course means it is not really a choice. Now why would I do this one might ask? Its simple.
Chris can have a bit of a temper.
When he plays football, he gets really mad when he gets tackled. Its not that he is afraid of getting tackled,
he just doesn’t like not scoring when he carries the ball. If somebody does tackle him, then he gets
quite angry at the tackler. Now what
does this have to do with Andrew Luck….well just see this clip here
That’s right, confusing defenders with kindness and praise. Take the psychological high
road.
So while I have never really bought into the fact that athletes
should be role models, Chris really needed a good role model. This has really helped with his temper. He has become a big fan of Luck (first non
Philly favorite athlete). So when the
Colts were coming to town, I knew I had to take him. The fact that it was a preseason game was all
the better. I didn’t have to try to get
tickets for a regular season game, and I didn’t have to expose my 7 year old
son to the crazy Eagle fans that he would see during a regular season game.
So, we start to make the trek down to Lincoln Financial
Field. Of course we had to stop and get
soft pretzels on the way.
Kick off is in an hour, and sure enough Broad Street is
closed for some unbeknownst reason. This
means we had to go park far away, like really far. Probably a good mile. We started to walk towards the stadium with
kickoff getting ready. We showed up at
the gate and we could hear the opening kick.
The Eagles were kicking to the Colts.
That meant Andrew Luck was going to be playing on that drive. Because this was the first preseason game, I
assumed he was only playing the first drive.
We came in the main gate, and of course our seats were all the way on
the other side of the field. Great. The Colts go 3 and out and punt. That means Chris may have missed Andrew (our
whole reason for coming). We try to
hurry and get to our seats. As this
happens, the Eagles go 3 and out and punt.
The Colts are getting the ball back.
We can hear on the monitors that Luck was out for the second drive. We are trying to run up the steps to get to
our seats. First play was an incomplete
pass. Still have to go up more
steps. Second play was a 3 year
run. Almost at our seats. It was now 3rd and 7 with 2 more
flights of steps to go. If this is an
incomplete pass, then the Colts punt, and that will be the end of Luck. We run up the last flight. The Colts are breaking huddle walking to the
line of scrimmage. I point out Luck to
Chris saying “There he is. He is about
to hike the ball.” Luck drops back,
fires a ten yard completion to Andrew Johnson for a first down, trots off the
field, and on comes Matt Hasselback to replace him. That’s right, we just got to see one play
(but a successful one) from Andrew. That
was enough. Chris was exited. We then went to our seats and I just got to
relax, feeling a moral victory for making sure Chris got to see at least one
play for Andrew.
The cool thing was after he came out, Luck was still very visible on the sideline for the rest of the game, so Chris could always see him. (below standing in the middle of this pic with arms crossed)
We got to see Matt Hasselback, a former Super Bowl starting QB who at the time of this game was the oldest QB in the league
And future Hall of Fame kicker Adam Vinateari.
The game was fun. The
Eagles were up at half time. They scored
3 first half touchdowns, including a punt return. Chris was having a blast. All I cared about was that he was having a
blast. Anything happening on the field
was irrelevant to me. As the 3rd quarter was about half way done, I was just lounging in the sun.
Couldn’t care less about what was going on. Just wanted my son to have a good time. The Eagles had gotten possession of the ball
on their 20. Then the crowd started to
make some noise as #11 trotted onto the field.
After a two year absence, he was back in the NFL….Chris asked what
everyone was chanting. I told him it was
the two greatest syllables ever spoken by any human
TE – BOW
 |
| Tebow's first snap |
The man was back in the NFL, playing for the Eagles, and I
got to witness his first completion for the team. It was fantastic. It was like watching “Rudy,” only this was
real, and Chris was eating it all up.
For all he knew, Tim Tebow was as good as Peyton Manning or Tom Brady.
Tebow Touchdown
So Timmy played the rest of the game, scored a TD at the
end, and Philadelphia was treated by having the following 3 people all a one
venue…..Tim Tebow, Andrew Luck, and Christopher Bugey.
What an awesome day!!!
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