By Lisa Scottoline

It’s playoff season!
For me that means, Go Birds!
Yes, I’m an Eagles fan.
Lifelong. Die hard. I bleed green.
At least I did before menopause.
Anyway the reason this matters is lately I’m wondering if I’m a jerk.
Because I was listening to the radio, and they were talking about how awful Eagles fans were.
And then I read an editorial about how awful Eagles fans were.
And then I asked my bestie Laura and she said a lot of people think Eagles fans are awful, but I still love you.
OK, I didn’t know any of this.
Maybe I should have, since the stadium has its own in-house judge to send fans to jail when they get out of line.
Buzzkill.
Another hint is Robert DeNiro as an Eagles fan in The Silver Linings Playbook, a movie I love because it has an adorable Jennifer Lawrence and also my imaginary boyfriend Bradley Cooper.
But I thought that movie was just fiction.
But now I realize I was in denial.
Nobody tells us Eagles fans that we’re jerks.
Maybe because they’re afraid of getting punched in the mouth.
Me, I’m not that kind of Eagles fan.
But it got me thinking, like that Reddit forum, Am I The Asshole?
Like when I say I’m the Eagles fan, do people think I’m an asshole?
Because I’m kind of not.
At least you have to know me better to know what kind of asshole I am.
And if I really plumb my fandom with the Eagles, it comes from being a shariah Philadelphian.
This is my hometown, I’ve never lived anywhere else, and I have the accent to prove it.
But if I go deeper, my love for the Eagles goes back to being Frank Scottoline’s daughter.
My father wasn’t the Eagles fan that you expect, certainly not an asshole, and not even a sports fan in general.
But I used to spend every Sunday lying on the living room floor with him, watching games.
My family is big lying-on-the-floor fans.
I still am.
There is no couch that beats a floor.
The dogs love it cause we cuddle up.
And any time I watch an Eagles game from the floor, I remember my dad lying beside me, explaining about the offensive and the defensive teams, and telling me the names of the players.
He was a mellow guy so he never shouted at the TV. In fact I don’t think I ever heard my father curse.
Meanwhile my mother’s hobby was profanity.
So maybe you see why the divorce.
My father and I never went to a single football game. We didn’t have the money, but I didn’t know that. What we had was a soft rug, plenty of potato chips, real coke with sugar, and a father and a daughter lying on the floor for two games back-to-back, talking for eight hours.
And during playoff season, that would include Saturdays.
So yes, I’m an Eagles fan, but I hope you like me anyway.
Sadly my father has passed on, so now I watch the game with a cardboard cutout of Bradley Cooper.
You might think I’m kidding but I’m not.
I started doing it because I know from the children’s books that kids love Flat Stanley, and I started thinking, why can’t adults have Flat Bradley?
Well it turns out I can.
So I bought a cardboard standee of Bradley Cooper a few years ago, and then he got a little worse for wear.
I won’t tell you how.
Then my bestie Franca got me a new Flat Bradley, and he looked so good in his cardboard tuxedo.
You can check my social media during the playoffs and watch me make dirty jokes with a cardboard cutout of a man.
Why do I do it?
For fun.
Because if you ask me, I think fandom is about fun. It’s about belonging to a community, or a city, or a group of people who love the same thing.
I love fans of all kinds.
I love fans of anything.
I love people who love things.
To me, that’s what life is about.
It’s a loving kinship, with team gear.
So Go Birds!
We’re family.
Copyright © Lisa Scottoline 2025