How you know it's football season in the Philly region
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Left to right: Eagles superfan Barry Vagnoni; a special "Hungry Dawgs" tailgate lanyard for the season opener; "Halftime Holly" Teti in her disco ball helmet. Photos: Courtesy of Vagnoni, Sean Holden and Teti
At Philly's Jules E. Mastbaum High School, former Eagles chef Tim Lopez is cooking up a mean Texas red chili with his culinary students.
- In East Norriton, superfan Jess Gustaitis is admiring her new Super Bowl 59 tattoo — her second Eagles-inspired ink.
- In Newtown Square, "Halftime Holly" Teti is packing her "Mary Poppins" bag with goodies to dole out to kids attending their first Eagles game.
- In Reading, Eagles "nutjob" Barry Vagnoni is firing up his old-timey popcorn machine inside his massive "Locker Room" man cave for Thursday's Eagles-Cowboys season opener.
Why it matters: Before the first autumn leaves fall, Philly turns a deep shade of Kelly green.
How do you know it's football season here? Look around you. Fans adorn their homes with green lights and Birds flags. Eagles-crazed motorists honk at SUVs with Cowboy stickers.
- Every day becomes game day, Bethlehem resident and influencer Dom Holmes, aka "No Shirt Dom," tells Axios, with workers using their lunch breaks to replay highlights and break down Philly's next opponent.
The big picture: Across the nation, Eagles fans are united by a tribal devotion bordering on idolatry.
- But Thursday marks a full-out frenzy as the reigning Super Bowl champs defend home turf against Dallas, their hated NFC East rival.
Case in point: Karl Phelps, who's donning his "Friday the 13th"-esque "Philly Slasher" mask and driving 18 hours round trip from South Carolina to watch his team — as he does for every home game.
- "When I'm down South, if I yell, 'Go Birds'" to someone wearing Eagles gear, "and they don't yell it back, they're not true fans," Phelps tells Axios.
- Phelps says his boss has just accepted his trusty worker won't be in on Monday.
The intrigue: That obsession bleeds into Eagles fans' love lives.
- Gustaitis applied to be on Netflix's "Love Is Blind" show. Her only non-starter: Her soulmate can't be a Cowboys fan.
- "It's a way of life around here," Gustaitis, a fifth-year season ticket-holder who superstitiously leaves water ice and a soft pretzel outside her door on the eve of the season opener, tells Axios.
Zoom in: Dopamine-filled tailgates bring the most tantalizing parts of Carnival to South Philly, where new "Hungry Dawgs" founder Sean Holden is double-checking his grocery list for Thursday's massive party in lot N8.
- That's where you'll find Halftime Holly — equal parts Dolly Parton and Mary Poppins — in her disco ball Eagles helmet, toting her bespectacled treat bag into the fray.
- "My intent is to just spread the joy," she tells Axios. "Let's get this season started the way we ended it."
The intrigue: Lopez knows how the Eagles start their seasons. For 14 years, he helped cook up game-day feasts for hundreds of people in the Eagles organization.
- This year, he'll pull out a few recipes from his new NFL cookbook for two dozen students who want to learn to cook up their own spreads.
- Yes, but: One thing never changes: "Dallas f--king sucks," Lopez says. "But their food doesn't. We can hate the team, but don't take it out on the food."
The bottom line: Even at 78, Vagnoni never tires of hosting hundreds of guests, some of whom gave up season tickets to hang in his Eagles playground.
- The season-opener is "utopia. It's my birthday, my anniversary, Christmas, New Year's Eve, all of those wrapped up in one," Vagnoni tells Axios. "This place is going to be rocking off the foundation."