Lincoln Financial Field, an ‘upscale’ Vet, is ‘just a building’ where Eagles fans, rabid as ever, congregate

The artificial turf at Veterans Stadium was unforgiving. It caused injuries and possibly even cancer. The Arizona Cardinals once instructed their players to avoid running their offense in the direction of the parts of the turf that covered the Phillies’ pitcher’s mound. Brian Billick, months after winning a Super Bowl as coach of the Baltimore Ravens, once refused to play a preseason game on the field’s new turf after extended rain made it unplayable.

Former Eagles coach Andy Reid said he was “embarrassed.” Even worse, the other elements of Veterans Stadium were on display the night he said that. Six arrests were made after some disappointed fans smashed will-call windows and at least one object was thrown on the field. The press elevator got stuck and stranded 18 people for 41 minutes.

Veterans Stadium had a makeshift criminal court and a place for unruly fans to be detained. Its walls were so old and worn that feral cats had a field day chasing after the stadium’s many rodents. And Eagles cheerleaders in 2002 sued the 29 NFL teams that played at the stadium between 1983 and 2002 alleging that visiting players spied on them through holes in the door that separated the locker room from the cheerleaders’ shower room.

It’s against that backdrop that the description from Chalfont’s Monica Dimps of Lincoln Financial Field — home of the Eagles since 2003 — makes sense.

“I think it’s still the same as far as being passionate, it’s just upscale,” Dimps said Sunday in H Lot, before the Eagles hosted the Browns. “But at the end of the day the fans are still just as passionate as they always have been.”

The Linc may be 21 years old, but it is indeed “upscale” compared to its predecessor. Compared to its peers? New NFL stadiums have sprouted, some with more modern amenities than those inside Lincoln Financial Field. The Eagles’ home is actually the 10th newest among the current NFL stadiums, though newer stadiums are on the way in Buffalo and Nashville and proposals are on the table in Chicago, Cleveland, Jacksonville, and Washington.

Right now, Eagles fans like the mix of new and old, they said in interviews with The Inquirer. Plus, the game-day experience, they say, is less about the building and more about the people they share the stadium with and the players on the field.

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Montgomeryville’s Larry Stella has been a season-ticket holder since 1986. His seats were under an overhang at Veterans Stadium, and when the stadium finally got video boards, he had trouble seeing them. The seat in front of him was occupied by Delaware County’s Mike Del Rossi, who was one of many fans who used to bring headphones into the stadium to listen to Merrill Reese call the game on the radio while he watched the game on the field.

Stella would sometimes tap Del Rossi on the shoulder to get a better understanding of what happened on a previous play. A friendship was formed. And all these years later, the two still tailgate together every home game. A group of about six or seven has morphed into what usually is a 40-person tailgate.

Stella and Del Rossi have attended funerals, weddings, vacations, and birthday celebrations with each other.

“There’s our families, and then the family we chose … this family,” Del Rossi said.

Stella has seen a lot in nearly 40 years of Eagles games. Count him as someone who wishes the old place was still here. He pointed to some of the venues that opened around the same time as the Vet, like Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium, which opened in 1972, one year after the Vet.

“How come those stadiums can last, but Veterans Stadium was not that old?” Stella said. “It’s keeping up with the Joneses. We just want to come play football.”

The Linc, he said, “is a totally different atmosphere.”

“I hate when people say we changed as fans, but we definitely did,” he said. “The Vet was sometimes like a war zone. We sat through a Monday night game with a flare going across the field. We definitely intimidated other teams, which was great because I don’t think we have that over here as much.”

To be clear, Stella knows the old building had its faults.

“It was not a good place for the players to play and it really wasn’t good for the fans, either,” Stella said. “Not enough bathrooms, all the way down the list.”

Times, they have changed. Prices, too.

“I always used to say, when it gets to $100 a seat, I’m out,” Stella said. The cost of his ticket for the Eagles’ home opener vs. Atlanta: $245.

On the menu ahead of the Monday Night Football home opener at his F Lot tailgate was sliced filet, shrimp scampi, meatballs, sausage, chicken burritos, and cheddar and bacon mashed potatoes.

As Stella went over the night’s choices, he was preparing to man the flattop grill with his daughter. The prices may have changed and the building hasn’t quite felt the same in 21 years, but Stella isn’t going anywhere.

“I love football,” he said.

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Monica Dimps and her husband, Wung, typically attend at least one Eagles home game per year. It has evolved over the years, but the tailgate hosted by a Cowboys fan with a big RV usually consists of about 40 people. Because the host likes the Eagles’ rival, the tailgate is usually planned for the Eagles’ home game vs. Dallas, but this year’s game is Dec. 29, and the weather at that time of year can be rather unpredictable.

The Dimpses were just getting set up this past Sunday, but a warm October sun shined on what ended up being a perfect fall day for football.

The family football atmosphere in and out of the stadium keeps them coming back, Monica said. Wung pointed to the diverse audience, and as he spoke, a plane carrying a banner in support of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris flew overhead.

“You see the diversity, and even if there are differences, that’s put to the side for today,” Wung said. “Everybody is saying hello and sharing food and sharing drinks and that’s what’s cool about it.”

The couple have shared plenty of memories at Eagles games in both stadiums. Among their favorites is the October 2006 Eagles home game vs. Dallas, which fell a week before Monica’s birthday. It was the first game Terrell Owens played at the Linc as a member of the Cowboys, and the Eagles rolled to a 38-24 win.

“It was the best game ever,” Monica said.

“That’s my most memorable Eagles game, it was with her,” Wung said.

But the couple go their separate ways when the Eagles and Raiders meet, which isn’t very often. Wung grew up going to church and wouldn’t get home to his television sometimes until late in the afternoon on Sundays. The Raiders were usually on, and so they became his team. He lifted up his Brian Dawkins jersey Sunday morning to reveal a Raiders T-shirt.

Wung has the last laugh for now. The Raiders won the last time the teams played in 2021.

Dawkins, Wung said, is his favorite Eagles player of all time. Monica prefers Reggie White. “They don’t make them like him anymore,” she said.

But it was Randall Cunningham who made Monica fall in love with the Eagles.

“Cunningham and the Buddy Ryan days, you can’t beat those,” she said. “He was the first era of the most athletic quarterback. He was just so exciting to watch and the Eagles back then were just defense all day.”

The Dimpses went to see Wung’s Raiders play in Miami last November. The tailgate scene there “didn’t compare” to Philadelphia’s, Monica said.

At the Linc, “it’s football in the stadium and then outside of the stadium. It just carries out,” she said.

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John and Chris Masluk have been going to Eagles games together since the early ‘90s, and the couple from Lawndale rarely miss a game.

Chris watched the Eagles lose the NFC championship game to Tampa Bay in 2003, the final game at Veterans Stadium, with a broken shoulder. “As long as she could move her shoulder, she was good,” John said. She once attended an Eagles-Cowboys six weeks after giving birth to the couple’s youngest child in 1995 while John stayed home.

You see, you don’t miss Eagles-Cowboys games, which came up just before she made that point about the game in 1995. The couple couldn’t recall the last Eagles game they missed — Chris thought the last one she missed was the famous fourth-and-26 playoff win over Green Bay in January 2004 — but one was coming up. A wedding forced the couple to be out of town for Sunday’s home game vs. Cleveland.

Just send a check and a card and call it a day, it was suggested to them. But the person getting married is a close friend of one of their sons.

“If we really pushed it, we could come back for it,” Chris said.

But if it were a Cowboys game?

“Dallas game, I’d be here,” she said. “No way I’d miss a Dallas game.”

The Masluks hosted their tailgate in D Lot, where the green van they park on their street in Lawndale housed some of the necessities. But every once in a while, you need help from others. The couple pointed to someone across the way at their tailgate. Years ago, the Masluks ran out of ketchup. But they noticed someone walking nearby wearing a customized Eagles jersey with the name of someone they recognized from their parish.

The answer was no, no relation. But in the meantime, could he spare some ketchup? Of course.

And that 2003 heartbreaker, the last game at the old Vet? The Masluks got to experience the opposite feeling two years later, when the Eagles topped the Falcons to reach the Super Bowl.

“We were waiting for years for that,” Chris said. “He was crying. Men were crying. That was great.”

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Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” blared from a set of speakers in D Lot three-plus hours before the Eagles and Falcons kicked off their Week 2 Monday Night Football game. It was an apt song selection, the Eagles playing a meaningful game at home for the first time since their New Year’s Eve embarrassment vs. Arizona last year.

Colin Ramage said his sister, Morgan, is a good DJ who always picks the right songs before games.

Colin, 26, and his sister represent the next wave of Eagles fans. Colin, a South Jersey native, has been coming to Eagles games with his father, Scott, and Scott’s friends since he was a little kid.

“We started when we were here drinking Capri-Sun and Gatorade and now I’m sharing a beer with my dad and his friends,” Colin said. “It’s cool to see the levels of being a fan and enjoying Philadelphia sports.”

The Ramages previously had tickets in the upper-level corner in section 231 but are now in section 109, behind one of the end zones in the lower level.

“In 231, you can see the whole game,” Colin said. “I played football, so it’s like you’re watching film. You can see the whole play develop. You see the linemen. You see the wide receivers. You see the [defensive] backs all responding to the same play. In 109 you get a little more gritty action. You feel like you’re in the play because you’re a little closer.

“The Linc really gives you two different aspects whether you’re high or low. But you’re still a part of the game.”

This was before a game when the Eagles entered 1-0, and Colin sounded optimistic about the 2024 season. Saquon Barkley joining an offense featuring one of the league’s better wide receiver duos was reason for hope. And Jalen Hurts, despite his inconsistencies, had made Colin a believer.

“He speaks in quotes,” Colin said. “It sounds like he’s saying stuff off an Instagram caption, but everything he says, I believe in it.”

Perhaps his view has changed. The Eagles are 3-2 and have some faults, though plenty of season remains. What didn’t sound likely to change was Colin’s feeling about the whole experience. He’s been coming to Eagles games for about a dozen years. There have been ups and there have been downs. Like those before him, the ones whose football fandom was framed by the Vet, he’ll keep coming back to the Linc, not for the stadium itself but for all the things it represents.

“The Linc is just a building where we all congregate,” he said. “It could be a field in North Philly. It could be a beach in Ocean City. It doesn’t matter where we are. It’s a nice stadium, but the purpose is the people that come to watch the game and the people that play the game.”