This Eagles fan has attended every game this season — even after his death
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Karen and Craig Taulman and Craig's main urn. Photos courtesy of Karen Taulman
Craig Taulman was such a diehard Eagles fan, his loved ones say, nothing kept him from watching the Birds — not life, and certainly not death.
The big picture: The 45-year-old died from cancer in September, but he has still attended every Birds game this season. That's thanks to the Philly Sports Guy, who carries Taulman's ashes with him in a small green urn given to him by the family.
- The gesture has lifted the family's spirits — and they believe, in turn, Taulman has lifted the Birds to victory.
State of play: The Eagles won 10 straight games after Taulman began attending in spirit. The streak was broken last month with the Birds' loss to Washington — the same divisional rival they'll host in Sunday's NFC Championship game.
- With a win, the Birds will punch their ticket — and Taulman's — to the Super Bowl. (Jamie Pagliei, aka Philly Sports Guy, plans to take Taulman with him to New Orleans.)
What they're saying: "We have this belief that once you pass, you carry on," Lorraine McGlade, Taulman's cousin, told Axios. "We believe pennies are from heaven."
Catch up quick: Joe, Taulman's brother, remembered half-jokingly asking Pagliei at his brother's celebration of life if he'd take his brother's urn to the next home game.
- The Philly Sports Guy, one of Joe's closest friends, said yes, and has been doing it ever since.
- "It's like carrying my brother around," says Pagliei, who says the Eagles and Phillies went on a run after he lost his brother, Kenny, in 2022.
Flashback: Taulman, a former shift manager at a nuclear power plant, died about two months after being diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer.
- Taulman attended Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with plans to become a pilot before enlisting in the Navy and serving for six years.
In Taulman's devout Catholic family, you did two things on Sunday: went to church and watched the Birds.
- If he had to miss the latter because of work, he would tape the games and watch them later.
- "He was watching the Eagles until the week he died," his wife, Karen, tells Axios.
But that's not all. His basement and son's room were decked out in Eagles paraphernalia.
- He once showed up to the birth of his cousin's first baby sporting a satin Randall Cunningham jacket.
- And when his cousin skinned her knee chasing down a Cowboys fan in an Emmitt Smith jersey, he rewarded her with a pair of light-up Eagles sneakers.
At Taulman's celebration of life, everyone wore Eagles gear, including Karen, who donned a custom jersey with her husband's name and No. 45 — the number he wore while playing running back at Archmere Academy in Delaware.
- Friends and family would rib Taulman that he was like the television character Al Bundy whenever he'd wax poetic about football.
- "He always had a Bud Light in hand," Karen recalls. "The sh--tiest beer. Everyone used to make fun of him."
The bottom line: It's said in Philadelphia that every time the Birds win, an angel gets its wings. Taulman's family will raise a Bud Light toast to him this weekend.
- Fly, Craig, Fly, on the road to the Super Bowl.