Eagles fans cheer Super Bowl rout of Chiefs with rowdy street celebrations

This week is going to be about as green as it ever gets around here in February.

After watching their Eagles capture one of the sports world’s grandest of grand prizes in a shockingly stress-free demolition of the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, a green wave of celebration crested across the region Sunday night. And it’s likely to go on for days.

Will there be a parade? Did people climb poles? Did fans swarm Broad Street and Frankford and Cottman? Did strangers hug, horns honk, and fireworks go off? Did some celebrants get carried away?

Does Saquon Barkley play football?

Despite pleas by the mayor to please refrain from doing it — and the tragic death of an 18-year-old two weeks ago after the Eagles won the NFC title — celebrants in Philadelphia wasted little time getting back to serious pole-climbing.

Crowds on East Market near City Hall took down two light poles and took over a bus shelter, climbing on the roof-less top, and a newsstand.

Crowds tried to flip a police vehicle at Broad and Chestnut Streets. At one point, police on foot, motorcycles, and horseback lined up in front of City Hall, standing stoic as some fans shook the barriers and taunted them. About 15 people danced on top of a medic vehicle, and police said they were having trouble controlling the crowd at 13th and Market Streets.

Another group at 12th and Market Streets ransacked the contents of a truck — white towels — tossing them into the street and setting them on fire. Police used extinguishers to put out the fire and aggressively pushed back the crowd.

But for the most part what followed the Eagles’ convincing 40-22 triumph was an exuberant, outdoor inter-generational party as for one night, Philadelphians found common ground.

In the Northeast, Elisa Cora was one of the first to arrive to Frankford and Cottman Avenues, but she wasn’t alone. Her 3-year-old, Yasmin, held her hand tightly while her 10-month-old baby slept in a carrier. ”This is their first Super Bowl victory, I wanted them to know how fun their city is.” Alyssa Marquis’ son, Brentley, who “was not even five days old” when the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2018, got to dance with his mother.

Darren Johnston, armed with a replica of a street sign bearing the name of the intersection, arrived there having walked more than five miles from Winchester Park with his wife and four teenage children.

“Finally we have a place in this whole country that is united,” said Taryn Wood, 25, as she and Gracen Hasham, 26, both of Fairmount, stood outside the barriers at City Hall waving an Eagles flag.

About 1,200 miles away, the green wave took over the New Orleans Superdome and roared its approval at the Eagles’ dominance.

Their fans out-cheered, outroared, out-booed, and far-outnumbered the Chiefs’ partisans. From the warm-ups until the inevitable became official, the Superdome became the Linc South.

“I feel like Philly has taken over this city,” said NY1 anchor Jamie Stelter, a green-clad Philly native who was attending her first Super Bowl.

Even the poles took on a Philly flavor: Aware of the local tradition up north, some property owners greased Bourbon Street’s classic poles. Oddly, however, poles were not greased on Broad Street, as Philly apparently decided to spare the Crisco and go with the barriers.

With the Eagles having built a 27-0 lead in the third quarter, on a closed stretch of South Broad in Center City strangers hugged and a reveler shouted, “I love Philadelphia!”

This may not be quite what William Penn had in mind with his vision of a “greene countrie town,” but in the run-up to the Super Bowl, the Philly region already was turning greener than Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day. (Maybe that inspired the NFL to schedule a game there next season.)

And on a day that began with what looked and felt like icy litter from the sky, the Philadelphia area was ready for a Champagne ending — with some less tony hors d’oeuvres, of course.

An hour before kickoff, it was standing room only at Reale’s Restaurant & Bar at Frankford and Cottman Avenues in Northeast Philly. The crowd exploded after Jahan Dotson’s epic catch that preceded the first touchdown of the game.

All the passion, naturally was tinted with anxiety. These fans have been through a lot.

Anthony DiFilippo, who watched the came with 20 others in his Delran fan cave, said he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat. The whole world seemed to rest on what happened in the Superdome on Sunday night.

In the view of Eric Zilmer, a Drexel University neuropsychologist, DiFillipo was pursuing a key strategy to managing the stress — watching the game with fellow sufferers. Fans, Zilmer said, “are nervous wrecks, like parents watching their kids compete.” As an Eagles fanatic, he speaks from experience.

Even with a big lead in the second half, Matt McCurry, 24, who came with his family from Fairfax, Va., to attend a Convention Center watch party, “I’m just as nervous as I was at the start of the game.” As they say, it’s a Philly thing.

At Grumpy’s Tavern in South Philly, manager Keith D’Alfonso, who had his share of torment with the Eagles’ Super Bowl loss two years ago, said that this time around he was feeling “crazy” and “hyper.”

But in this case, the only down for the crowd was the halftime show: They wanted to get back to a game they were enjoying. During Kendrick Lamar’s performance, one patron barked, “OK, put the game back on.”

“We live and die with the Eagles,” said Jason Evenchik, owner of the popular Garage Sports Bar. That was hard to refute Sunday.

How dare pop superstar Taylor Swift, who grew up 60 miles from Philly and professed to be an Eagles fan, have a romantic relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce? A local radio station banned playing any of her songs until Monday morning. Her appearance on the stadium Jumbotron elicited a loud chorus of Philly-style boos.

Someone not from around here (say, Kansas City), might reasonably ask, what is with these people? Some local younger fans may be asking the same question.

In the interest of historical context, this is a fan base with a baseball team that waited 97 years for a World Series title. The pro football franchise didn’t win a Super Bowl until its 52nd iteration; the hockey team is celebrating its 50th Stanley Cup-less year, and it’s been 42 years since the basketball team won the NBA crown.

These days, the local sports faithful has entered a wonderland of fandom. Their Phillies have made the playoffs three straight years, and the Eagles are playing in their third Super Bowl in seven years, and came away with their second win.

Eagles Nation even has a province in Germany. A small but vocal group of vocal fans cheered on the Birds at the FC Magnet Bar in Berlin, where it was already Monday morning.

The Eagles’ dominance Sunday clearly signaled a new era, said Barnel Anderson, 53, a patron at Reale’s. “I’m flabbergasted that we are blowing them out,” he said. “We’re not going to be the underdog after tonight.”

If Sunday was any barometer, the fans are multiple sports titles away from satiation. They may be experiencing something bordering on — dare we say — entitlement.

One thing is indisputable: Philly fans love to celebrate, and have been known to cross the line at times.

Gustavo Peña, 29, who traveled from Virginia to watch the Super Bowl with his brother in West Philly, will never forget 2018. He celebrated in the streets of Tokyo, where it was early afternoon. At the time, Peña was in the Navy stationed in Japan. This time, he was going to a little closer to the action.

The last two weeks felt a lot like 2018, said Garage owner Evenchik: “There’s a similar magic in the air.”

In South Jersey, Anthony DiFilippo’s wife, Sue, agreed.

”We have a bottle of Champagne,” she said. “We’re opening it tonight.”

They were on to something.

Staff writers Emily Bloch, Ximena Conde, Beatrice Forman, Zoe Greenberg, Abraham Gutman, Robert Moran, Michelle Myers, and Julia Terruso contributed to this article.