Post Rivalry

New York Giants v Philadelphia Eagles, November 4, 1991

Veterans Stadium, Section 249 Row 5

A Monday Night match up. I did not have a ticket to this game. I may have picked on up from the ground inside the stadium. The seat referenced above must have been the one I picked up from the ground.

JFK Stadium was still up. Parking in that lot was were we always tailgated. There was good pissing places around there that did not require a long walk. JFK was demolished in 1994 to make way for the new home of the NHL Flyers.
The warehouse across the street where we pissed were demolished in the early 2000s to make way for the Eagles new stadium, Lincoln Financial Field.

That means I pissed on 3 stadiums. Texas Stadium on the outside wall, Fed Ex Field on the outside wall and inadvertently, the spot where the Eagles would call home a decade or so later.

I worked with a guy who worked in the stadium on the side. He hooked us up with a security guard under the stadium. We would slip the guy $10 each and he would look the other way as we walked in the underground tunnels. If we got caught we promised not to rat the guy out.

I would look for dropped ticket stubs just in case we were ever asked later during a game for some type of proof of admission. We typically just walked around and stole views where ever we could. A bonus was we got an empty beer cup and a side door for free beers throughout the game. We just tipped the worker who our buddy hooked us up with. Another $10 tip was win-win for all involved.

This game lacked a little of the fire from years past. The Giants were removed from their Super Bowl victory the previous Super Bowl. They were not displaying the fervor of a team who looked like they wanted to repeat. The Eagles fired wildly popular Buddy Ryan and replaced him with Rich Kotite. The Eagles would go into a multi year slid until the Andy Reid era began.

Jim McMahon was the field general for the Eagles with Jeff Hostetler leading the Giants.

The opening quarter was scoreless. It wasn't until Roger Ruzek hit a 38 yard FG to put the Eagles ahead 3-0 in the 2nd. McMahon connected with Keith Jackson for a 73 yard TD and Ruzek kicked another FG in the 2nd to put the Eagles ahead 13-0 at the half.

James Joseph ran an 11 yard run into the end zone in the 3rd. The Giants Rodney Hampton poked in the team's first score from the 1.

Ruzek added to the Eagles lead with a 25 yard FG. This was followed by a Joseph 1 yard run for Philadelphia to put the Bird up for good at 30-7.