Eagles fans who planned on traveling to Seattle are angry after the Seahawks game is flexed to Monday Night Football

Daniel Matson Sr. doesn’t get to see his kid that often. His son, Danny Matson Jr., is stationed at an Army base just outside of Seattle, 2,400 miles away from his home in Oaklyn, N.J.

And seeing as the pair are lifelong Eagles fans, the idea since October had been for the elder Matson to fly to catch the Birds’ game against the Seattle Seahawks.

It was all going swimmingly, until last week.

“Then the good-old NFL decides to make history and flex a Sunday game to a Monday,” Daniel Matson Sr., 47, said.

The Matsons are two of at least hundreds of Eagles fans planning to head to Seattle for the game, which initially was scheduled for Sunday, Dec. 17. Now, the game has been flexed to ESPN’s Monday Night Football and will take place Monday, Dec. 18, at 8:15 p.m.

The flex caused a mad dash to rebook airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals, and planned events for locals heading to the game. Daniel Matson, luckily, was able to switch over his itinerary within about an hour of the announcement — at an estimated cost of an additional $1,000. He’ll have to take another day off of work — he works at a local heating and air-conditioning company — but the way he sees it, there wasn’t much of a choice.

“What are you going to to do?” he said. “You’re kind of helpless. You either sell your tickets or change your plans.”

For the junior Matson, 21, there’s another layer of bureaucracy involved. As a specialist in the 1st Special Forces Group at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, he has a limited amount of leave, and changing the plan requires a last-minute leave request that will need to go through his chain of command for approval. Before the game got flexed, no leave was required.

“Usually you just say you’re going home,” Matson Jr. said. “But going to an Eagles game, it’s like, ‘What?’”

While he’s optimistic that his Eagles-related leave will be approved, the plan isn’t changing either way. Even if he has to work the day of the game, or the day after, he’s going — he’ll just be tired the next day when he wakes up at 4 a.m. to get ready for physical training.

“Head-to-toe in Eagles gear, I’ll be there,” Matson Jr. said. “It’s the Birds. It’ll be worth it.”

As complicated and costly as it has gotten for the Matsons, some fans had even more complicated logistical issues. Vince Rizzuto, president of Philly Sports Trips, had organized an excursion for more than 100 of his customers to see the game — the company’s first time in Seattle — and had to rebook the itinerary for all of them after the change was announced.

Of those traveling with Philly Sports Trips, two people canceled, Rizzuto said. The company offered refunds to those who can’t make it, and everyone else was taken care of.

“So, 2% [canceled],” Rizzuto said. “The percent of people who are pissed off is a lot higher.”

It’s a similar story at Phans of Philly, which also organizes Philly-related sports trips. Owner Joe DiBiaggo said that they began offering customers an updated itinerary ahead of the official announcement as rumors of a flex swirled, and about 75% of their 100-plus-strong group took them up on the offer before the news broke. He said the company was able to rebook the trip and not charge customers extra for the trouble.

“Now, we’ll have a big block party on Sunday, and then go to the game Monday,” DiBiaggio said. “We’ll get together and laugh at this whole thing.”

Green Legion, meanwhile, had about 250 people going on their trip to Seattle. The flex, media director Mike Diaz said, was “not really a problem.”

“We planned for the possibility of this late-season game potentially being flexed,” Diaz said. “It does not affect those who chose to travel with us.”

But for whatever trouble the flex may have caused travelers, there’s one thing the Birds can do to make it up to the fans.

“As long as the Eagles win, I guess it will all be worth it,” Matson Sr. said.