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San Francisco Radio Host Says Eagles Fans aren’t “as Scary as they Think”
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Mark Willard is one of the hosts at 95.7 the Game out in San Francisco, which is run by former 97.5 the Fanatic program director Matt Nahigian. It’s the same station that features The Morning Roast with whiners Bonta Hill and Joe Shasky, though Hill left the station and is no longer in sports talk radio.
Said Willard about Eagles fans:
There’s some truth in what he says about the playoffs. Of course the stadium is going to be loud in January. You would hope that any NFL stadium is loud during the postseason. It’s kind of like the Chris Rock skit in which he talks about people wanting credit for “some shit they’re supposed to do.” But I don’t think Eagles fans are walking around and puffing out their chests specifically about how “scary” they are during the postseason, which is a nebulous concept anyway. How do you even measure that? How do you measure intimidation factor or scariness outside of polling opposition players? George Kittle and Maxx Crosby spoken positively, in recent years, about the atmosphere out here, so we’ll take their words as the bigger compliment.
Eagles fans just have more passion for the game than most fan bases. They travel and take over other stadiums. They tailgate harder and get more hyped up for football. Focusing on home games doesn’t tell the real story, for instance, this guy talking about Seattle. Seattle has a louder atmosphere because the building is designed to keep sound in. It’s steeper with a partial roof. The Linc has large gaps that allow the crowd noise to go right through the north end and into the parking lots. I guarantee that if you put 68,000 Birds fans inside of Lumen Field that it would be louder than 68,000 Seahawks fans.
In terms of crowd noise and the overall environment in South Philly, it seems to fluctuate. It’s almost like a momentous kind of thing, like it builds upon itself and crests. If the Birds string a few decent drives together on Sunday, that place is gonna sound like the Roman Coliseum and the Niners are toast. But if San Francisco plays well, we do have a habit of getting quiet and bothered. Sometimes it can be hard to pick the rowdiness back up when the team is playing like shit, but that goes for most American stadiums. Our ceiling out here is a lot higher, and that’s the difference.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com