By Jimmy Kempski

Copyright phillyvoice

Throughout the season, we’ll be posting press box food spread rankings for each of the Philadelphia Eagles’ road games. This is probably of no interest to you if you’re a sane human being, and, well, I don’t care. I’m doing this anyway.

If you’re fake-appalled by a sportswriter playfully complaining about free food, shut up, weenie. Please note that we’ll have the most recent press box reviews at the top.

Eagles at Chiefs, Week 2

Coming soon…

Eagles at Jets, Preseason Week 3

During the first quarter of the Eagles’ second preseason game against the Cleveland Browns, I started to feel some stomach pains. I planned to tough it out, and hoped they would pass. Unfortunately, they got worse, and it became clear to me that I was going to vomit.

In the interest of saving the two Eagles beats who sit to my left (Dave Zangaro) and right (Tim McManus) from being vomited upon — and, well, also because it was a preseason game — I just got the hell out of there. I raced home, thankfully in time to have a proper regurgitation session in the comfort of my own bathroom.

I continued to feel awful the rest of that day and night, but kinda felt fine the next day. I have no idea if it was some sort of viral bug or something ate, but it was not fun, even if it was short-lived.

Anyway, I only tell the above story because it was on my mind heading into the Eagles’ next preseason game, against the Jets. Would they serve something that would cause another knockout punch?

I got in line, and… oh God…

But you what? I come to play, friends. I ate (some of) that terrible cheesesteak.

Was my ingestion of the above cheesesteak heroic? Comparable to the Michael Jordan flu game, or Kirk Gibson’s Game 1 World Series home run when he could barely walk? That’s for the sports historians to decide. 🤷‍♂️

My eating feats aside, a note to all other catering companies around the NFL — please, for the love of God, stop serving cheesesteaks because a Philly team is in town. Your likelihood of failure is like 99.5%. Just do whatever it is that you do. If we’re in Seattle, serve up some lattes. If we’re in New Orleans, let’s try some gumbo. If we’re in Kansas City, how about some burnt ends? Don’t give me some bobo cheesesteak that is certain to make me hate myself.

The cheesesteak aside, the Jets served some burgers.

They also had some chicken sandwiches, and other cold cuts.

Those were actually pretty good!

At halftime, the Jets went right back to testing my intestinal fortitude with a trio of mini hot dogs, chicken fingers, and soft pretzels. (And again, like with the cheesesteaks above, stop with the soft pretzels.)

All of that 👆 was as awful as it looks.

The only saving grace of the Jets’ spread — well, aside from the chicken sandwiches above — was that they had a small freezer with assorted ice cream bars.

Every press box should have an ice cream option, and a freezer with some Choco Tacos is as easy as it gets. Plug it in, and fill it up.

Grade: I’ll be extra generous because it was only a preseason game. C-.