49ers player's wife will "never" return to the Linc
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The NFC championship game between the Eagles and the San Francisco 49ers was rough. Multiple players, including quarterbacks Brock Purdy and Josh Johnson, were sidelined with injuries as the Eagles routed them, 31-7.
But according to a 49ers player's wife, San Francisco fans also got some rough treatment.
Sydney Warner, who's married to linebacker Fred Warner, sounded off in a recent TikTok.
"I'll probably never go back to that stadium, to be honest," Sydney Warner said. "I just couldn't handle the fans. Honestly, I just didn't feel very safe."
She said her husband told her not to bring anything with Niners colors, but she brought a red bag and tried to keep it hidden under her coat.
Sydney Warner claimed an Eagles fan got in her face at a concession stand after seeing her red gear, but other fans stepped in and told him to back off.
"I wanted to leave early before they let all of them out, because riots and all that," she said.
She said she and other 49ers fans were heckled in a tunnel as they were leaving, claiming one fan even wished for their plane to crash on the way home.
"Never again," Sydney Warner said.
Sydney Warner also said there was "dark energy" at Lincoln Financial Field.
That's kind of what Birds fans are going for when it comes to the other team.
Eagles players' spouses appeared to come to the fanbase's defense on Twitter Wednesday night, while not addressing Warner or her TikTok directly.
When cornerback Darius Slay was on the Detroit Lions, his wife Jennifer Slay went to a game at the Linc, she said on Twitter.
"Didn't have a single person say a word to me," she said in the tweet. "I had on Slay's blue No. 23 jersey."
Rachol West-Chachere, a former college basketball player who's married to Eagles practice squad safety Andre Chachere, said she didn't like "slander" against the Philly fanbase.
"I swear I'm not mean," she tweeted. "I literally helped two 49er wives I've never met get covered seats at the game because they had babies and transferred my extra tickets to them. I just don't like the Philly fan base slander. We aren't doing that today, or yesterday, or tomorrow."
CBS Philadelphia showed Warner's TikTok to Eagles fans at Tony and Nick's Steaks in South Philly. Fans did not hold back.
"Stay out of Philly, you're right," Paul Landes said. "Stay out."
"She knew what she was walking into and she chose to do it anyway," Jimmy Galloway said. "She should've stayed home."
Warner's experience was backed up by Laura Garcia, who is also a Niners fan and was also at Sunday's game.
"I thought they were gentlemen and ladies, but they all gave me the bird," Garcia said.
"We yell and scream," Landes said, "but we don't bite unless you bite. Then we bite back. It's a Philly thing."
One expert says there is a science behind the rowdiness, and he calls it passion.
"It's a bit of a passion that's based in an identity," Curran McCauley, director of sports information at Haverford College, said, "and that's something I haven't seen in every city."
McCauley says for Philadelphia sports fans, their allegiance is personal.
"If you're saying something bad about the Eagles or Phillies or Flyers," McCauley said, "people are taking that as saying something bad about the city and something bad about them as a person."
Keiana Williams is a sports writer for the sports blog Iggles News. She says that passion comes from oftentimes being overlooked.
"This is the best fanbase bar none," Williams said. "Northern sports city known for passion. We've always had an underdog mentality as far as Philly fans and that drives us even further."
So as Warner refuses to come back to Philly, fans are reminded of Jason Kelce's Super Bowl LII victory speech.
"No one likes us. We don't care," Spencer Widdowson said. "We really don't."
