Legendary quarterback Peyton Manning continues his journey around the country checking out some of the most historic locations in football for his ESPN+ series Peyton’s Places. To celebrate the holidays, Peyton visited Philadelphia and the site of the infamous santa snowball game to get a little revenge on behalf of the big guy in the red suit.
The episode, titled “The Santa Game,” opens with Peyton, former NFL running back Ricky Watters and former NFL linebacker Matt Millen at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. Peyton talks his guests through some of the history of the field, including the fact that it was the birthplace of astroturf.
Eventually though, the group gets to the Santa game, during which angry Eagles fans threw snowballs at Santa Claus on the field. Peyton takes a moment that Christmas can be a tough time for football fans whose favorite team is no longer contending for a playoff spot that late in the season. He also explains that Philly is the worst place to play for an opposing player, highlighting fans screaming at his brother Eli, the longtime quarterback for the rival New York Giants.
Watters and Millen, both Pennsylvania natives, talk about their experience with Philadelphia fans. Millen explains that the Eagles were one of the worst teams in the league for a long time, which of course made their fans very angry. Watters even played for the Eagles after being one of the best running backs in the league for several years with the San Francisco 49ers. However, as the episode details, Watters had a play in his Eagles debut where he let up on a potential catch because he didn’t want to risk taking a big hit from the opposing safety. That, combined with his post game press conference defending his decision, did not endear himself to the Eagles fans, who quickly turned on him.
That takes us to the game on December 15, 1968. Peyton explains that the Eagles were once again out of postseason contention by this point in the season and the fans were not happy with the state of the team. In the most fascinating portion of the episode, we get to hear from Frank Olivo, the man who was in the Santa suit on that fateful day. In the clip from a 2011 interview, Olivo explains that he just happened to wear a Santa suit to the game that day and the Santa that was hired by the team couldn’t get there. Olivo was asked to fill in and the rest is history. The group goes on to explain that Santa wasn’t the only target that day. Eagles head coach Joe Kuharich also got pelted with a few snowballs.
With no footage of Santa getting hit with the snowballs available, Peyton and his guests reenact the events. Peyton puts on a Santa suit and comes out on a fire truck while Watters and Millen throw snowballs at him. Then, they take the show on the road and Watters puts on a suit of his own as they get on the fire truck and head out onto the streets of Philadelphia armed with snowballs of their own. They make several stops to pelt Eagles fans with snowballs in an enjoyable segment filled with the expected level of cheesiness.
They also take a moment to pay homage to Rocky, running up those iconic steps in their Santa suits. They get followed by angry citizens of Philadelphia but get out of their sticky situation by pointing out a few Cowboys fans who become the latest victims of Philadelphia snowballs.
This was another fun and ridiculous episode of Peyton’s Places and a great way to wrap up the fourth season. With so many historic places and moments to explore, it’s fun to see Peyton get to one of the more comical ones.
You can watch the full fourth season of Peyton’s Places on ESPN+ now.