The Eagles’ 10-1 start has everyone in the city hoping for a trip to Minnesota for Super Bowl LII.
With the team rolling right now, the only thing that could stop the Birds is ... a hex? Well, not if some local workers have anything to do with it.
According to Philly.com’s Bob Fernandez, ironworkers at the latest Comcast tower — which will be the new tallest building in the city — placed a small William Penn statue on the highest steal beam.
“They did not want to take the chance and wait for the jinx,” Mike Delaney, executive vice president at LF Driscoll, the construction manager for the new Comcast tower, said of the crews' insistence to move up construction to put Penn in place.
The jinx Delaney was referring to is the "Curse of Billy Penn." After sitting as the overseer of Philly atop City Hall for decades, Penn's statue was replaced as the skyline's highest mark by skyscraper One Liberty Place in 1987. The building was nearly 400 feet higher than the peak of Penn's statue, which apparently broke a silent agreement of how no building should be above the city's founder.
Those were bleak times for Philadelphia sports, with no championships in sight between the four major sports teams. Fans connected the fact that the statue no longer reigned over the city and the curse was born.
Jump ahead two championship-free decades to when the Comcast Center was finished in 2007, and a couple of workers on the building decided to place a small Penn figurine on the top. The following year, the Phillies took down the Rays in the World Series and finally brought a title back to town.
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Now with the Eagles possibly in position to capture that ever-elusive first Super Bowl, the crews at the new Comcast building didn't want to leave anything to chance.