Road Game Travel Tips: Family Trips are Historically Fun
Jul 10, 2020, 1:11 PM | Updated: Jul 20, 2020, 1:40 pm
Week 12: Seattle at Philadelphia, Nov. 30, 2020, 5:15 p.m. Pacific
SPONSORED – A stuffed animal walked onto the train with a beverage.
Even for Philadelphia this counted as odd, a fan who had attended the playoff game earlier that day boarded the train wearing a fuzzy white mascot’s head with a yellow beak and eyes that are appeared particularly focused. It was an Eagles fan so much as an eagle as a fan, and he was bemoaning his team’s loss in the first round of the playoffs.
That was the second of what will be three games Seattle has played in the span of 53 weeks in the city of Brotherly Love. It’s identified with one of the world’s most famous imaginary boxers in Rocky Balboa, but should be remembered for being where Joe Frazier made himself into one of the best boxers in the world in real life.
That’s just one of many instances in which Philadelphia’s reputation gets in the way of what is a much better reality. It’s not nearly as bad of a place as some would have you believe.
Yes, Philadelphia fans once booed Santa Claus, but first of all, that was a long time ago. Second, it was a replacement Santa during a halftime ceremony, and the poor fellow seemed to be potentially compromised by some of the liquid fuel he’d consumed.
Philadelphia fans haven’t seemed any less hospitable nor more menacing than the fans you’ll find in other pro-football outposts, and that was before they won a championship. The fact that Lincoln Financial Field is located out off the highway alongside the city’s other sporting venues makes a great setting for a game in what is the country’s seventh-largest city.
Arrival: Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) is the largest airport in Pennsylvania, and Alaska Airlines serves it with two daily non-stop flights from Sea-Tac. There’s great rail service from PHL to the city center via SEPTA’s regional rail system. Trains run every 30 minutes. First train from the city center to the airport leaves at 4:52 a.m.; the last train from the airport to the city center leaves at 12:30 a.m.
Stadium: Lincoln Financial Field. Make sure to check out Headhouse Plaza, which is located inside the north gate and is open year-round. The plaza is huge, 110,000 square feet, features an absolutely enormous video screen, concession points and other entertainment.
Last time here: Jan. 5, 2020, Seattle 17, Philadelphia 9, wild-card playoff game. Seattle beat Philadelphia twice in the span of 42 days last season, beating the Eagles 17-9 on Nov. 24 and then coming back and winning by the exact same score in the wild-card playoff round. Including the playoffs, the Seahawks are 5-0 at Lincoln Financial Field, which opened in 2003. Not only that, Seattle has won the past five regular-season meetings against Philadelphia by a combined score of 122-62.
Dining: It’s not the kind of meal you’ll have that poses as big of a choice as where you’ll have it. Because you’ve got to get a Philly Cheesesteak and for 40 years, Geno’s Steaks and Pat’s King of Steaks have operated across from one another at the intersection of 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia. Pat chops the beef into bits. Geno slices his rib-eye thinly. A couple of ordering instructions:
1) Specify the type of cheese you want with the usual three options being provolone, American or Cheez Whiz.
2) Add “with” to the specific type of cheese if you want onions; add “without” to the cheese if you don’t want onions.
So “provolone without” gets you a cheesesteak, no onions, while “Whiz with” gets you the best kind of cheesesteak. At least in my opinion: Cheez Whiz with onions. Geno’s Steaks, 1219 S 9th Street, (215) 389-0659; Pat’s King of Steaks, 1237 E Passyunk Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19147, (215) 468-1546; Cosmi Deli, 1501 S. 8th Street, (215) 468-6093.
