Well, that was something. My in-laws (Wife's father, sister, brother, and their son) were also going and they were driving because my FIL isn't getting around as well anymore and they wanted to park in the handicap lot to make it easier for him. My son wanted to go with them so he could hang out with his cousin on the way there and back. So for the first time in several years we drove in and parked instead of taking the Broad Street line from Fern Rock... big mistake.
As I'm sure you know, the home opener draws a lot more people the the area and lots who just hang out and tailgate through the whole game. I'd guess 2-3x the normal traffic? Well, the home opener after a Superbowl turned out to be 2-3x that, We are about 1 to 1.5 hours away and left at 4:00. It took us 1.5 to 2 hours just to get in the vicinity of the stadium. Probably almost an hour to get to the lot with handicap parking just to be told all the handicapped spots have been full for two hours. So we dropped my father in law and sister in law and searched for parking. Half an hour or so later we found a single handicapped spot in a sea of cars a half mile or so away at Philabundance and used the HC tag there. Not sure much further we would have had to go without the tag.
After the game my BIL and I walked back to the car to bring it back and pick up the rest. All streets blocked and not allowing any traffic to go towards the stadium. I had to explain to about 6-8 cops, one at each blockade, our dilemma but fortunately each one let us through to get back. At one point we were the only car stopped on the side of the road to pick up our family and a police bike motorcade with the Falcons bus went by us wondering why we were stopped there. So at least we got to wave to the Falcons on their way out. We pulled into our driveway at 2:30 AM. (The weather delay that screwed up the banner reveal didn't help there much either) My 10 yo still made it to school the next morning but I can't say how useful he was that day. We had his fantasy draft at our place that night and he passed out pretty hard once his friends were gone. I'm never driving in and trying to park there again until my kids are old enough to drink and we hang out and tailgate all day... so maybe 2029.
Anyway, the first half was a typical Thursday night sloppy snoozefest except for the Falcons constantly being in our redzone. "Hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror" or something like that. So the first half wasn't that exciting and the fans were feeling it. The modified Philly Special was a great call: A. because it worked & 2. because it got the crowd back into it. Things picked up after that and the goalline stand at the end of the game was right under us in our endzone and one of those things that will be a pretty memorable moment for a long time, glad we were there for it and my kid stayed awake the whole time.
My kids still remain undefeated at Eagles games! I think we're up to around 10 games at this point.