Eagles fan steals the show with beer drinking antics

A fan of American football team the Philadelphia Eagles caught viewers’ eyes last weekend with his beer drinking antics before his side’s divisional game against Atlanta.

Local radio station WMMr identified the mystery chugger as former paratrooper JT Evans of Pottsville, PA

The man was spotted by viewers of NFL Network’s ‘Gameday Morning’ live show on Saturday 13 January ahead of the Eagles game against the Atlanta Falcons.

As host Melissa Stark and former wide receiver turned analyst Steve Smith Sr. talked about the upcoming game outside the Lincoln Financial Field in Philly, an Eagles fan (among a fairly boisterous crowd) was seen to point at the camera, raise two fingers, nod and then swiftly ‘shotgun’ a beer, pointing and nodding again at the camera when done.

‘Shotgunning’ a beer is when a small hole is punched into the bottom of a can of beer, held to the mouth and then the opening tab is pulled which causes the beer to drain very quickly out of the hole.

Having presumably already consumed one can of Miller Lite in this way, the fan returned a third and then a fourth time at various intervals to repeat the feat, indicating with his fingers which beer he was on and with a look of mischievous sincerity in each case – causing a good deal of amusement to those watching.

The various clips can be seen here.

Local radio station WMMR tracked the man down and identified him as JT Evans of Pottsville, PA, a former 101st Airborne paratrooper and veteran of Afghanistan. Evans was interviewed by the station and gave a bit more background to his antics.

He explained that having got to the pre-game tailgate early he and a friend were hanging around when they noticed Smith come out of his trailer for a live spot. After a slightly abortive first attempt at shotgunning a beer with some encouragement by friends, he found the right place in front of the cameras and decided he would down a beer each time Smith and Stark appeared from their trailers.

Although Stark and Smith appeared not to notice – scene-stealing or wanna-be scene-stealing fans in the background tend to be an occupational hazard for presenters across all sports – Smith later found Evans and showed him the messages he had been receiving from friends who had noticed Evans’ shotgunning stunts. Both presenters were apparently highly amused.

Given it was 10.30am, there was the potential that at that rate of drinking he wouldn’t make the game that afternoon but Evans told the radio hosts that the four beers were spaced out over 30-40 minutes with few in-between and he slowed down his consumption afterwards having “learned his lesson” from a game the year before. He had, however, shouted himself hoarse during his team’s victory which sees them advance to the NFC Championship game (the semi-finals) – one game away from the Super Bowl.

Evans also admitted he’d been “catching a lot of flak” for his choice of beer as Pottsville is the home of the Yuengling Brewery.

Readers may recall that last August Eagles player Lane Johnson promised to “give out beer to everybody” if Philadelphia win a Super Bowl – an off-hand remark he may regret if Philadelphia’s luck holds and all their fans are as thirsty as this one.

Philadelphia’s opponents next weekend will be the Minnesota Vikings who pulled off a spectacular win against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.

With just 10 seconds left on the clock a Saints defender missed Stefon Diggs who caught a pass and dashed in for a touchdown at the death to win the game leading to pandemonium in the Vikings’ home stadium.

Tipsy fans subsequently invaded head coach, Mike Zimmer’s post-game press conference though he didn’t seem to mind.

One can only guess how many sore heads there were on Monday morning across Minnesota.