If an Irate Eagles Fan Showed Up at Michael Vick’s House…

The media would never let Philly live it down. But in Texas, where a fan harassed West Chester native Matt Schaub at his home, it's just a "few bad apples."

Michael Vick

The story that an irate fan showed up at the home of an Houston Texan quarterback Matt Schaub proves one thing, Houston fans must be the most ignorant football fans in the world.

Of course, that’s not true. Welcome to our world, Texan fans. In Philadelphia, we are still trying to shake an image painted by some drunk yahoos who threw snowballs at a bad Santa 45 years ago.

Matt Schaub, who played at West Chester East High School, is the quarterback of the Houston Texans. He is having a rough year. After being an early pick to be a Super Bowl contender, his Texans have a losing record and Schaub has thrown interceptions that have been run back for touchdowns in three consecutive games.

Schaub has been booed in the stadium, his jersey has been torched outside of it, and he has been crucified in the media, but one Houstonian took things too far when he showed up at Schaub’s home last night and berated him for his poor play. The fan then took pictures of his family and left on his own accord when police arrived on the scene. Schaub didn’t press charges.

Now imagine if that happened in Philadelphia.

The litany of every incident involving a drunken Philadelphian in the past century would make it into national news stories—snowballed Santa, boo birds and Eagles court. The Santa incident happened at Franklin Field, and the Eagles stopped playing there in 1970. Eagles court was at the Vet, which was demolished in 2004. And the Eagles fans welcomed Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb home with resounding cheers, disappointing a stunned national media.

We never get to move on. We never get the benefit of the doubt.

Compare our treatment to how Will Brinson of CBS Sports describes the Schaub incident:

“Texans fans are generally perceived as smart, caring football fans. It’s probably a case of a few bad apples here.”

So in Houston it’s just a few bad apples and in Philly we are all bad apples.

The double standard has not been lost on Twitter: