Bryce Harper is fast emerging as a Philadelphia sports icon. Harper is the face of the city’s baseball team, under contract with the Phillies for the rest of the 2020s, and he has become a Philly ambassador — always willing to heap praise on its ravenous fans and unique culture.

Harper may have ruffled a feather or two on Sunday night, when he introduced the marquee NFL matchup between the Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys. In a 90-second taped interview, Harper revealed that before he signed with the Phillies in 2019, he was in fact a Cowboys fan — but the All-Star slugger has sure made amends in recent years to the city he’s adopted.

Harper was born and raised in Las Vegas, but seeing as the city did not get its own NFL team until 2020, he decided to cheer for a team that went on to dominate during his childhood in the 1990s.

“When I was a kid, I grew up mesmerized by the blue star on the silver helmet, all the glory and tradition of America’s team,” Harper said of his Cowboys fandom.

Like many kids that grew up during the ’90s, Harper was in thrall to the Cowboys’ success. Dallas won the Super Bowl three times during the decade and boasted future Hall of Fame inductees like Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, and Emmitt Smith. Between 1991 and 1998, the Cowboys recorded seven seasons with double-digit wins and made the playoffs every year but one.

“If you know my city…”

Bryce Harper 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/5ZzJvIqWOh

— Philly Sports – Love & Pain (@PHLSportsPain) December 11, 2023

But the blue star’s allure waned in the 2000s, and it coincided with the Eagles‘ rise as an NFC powerhouse. That ascent culminated in a Super Bowl win after the 2017 season — two years before Harper moved to Philadelphia as “kind of a work thing.”

Harper‘s highly-anticipated free agency ended in a 13-year, $330 million agreement to join the rebuilding Phillies, who Harper led to the NL pennant in 2022 and within a game of returning to the World Series in 2023. And after joining the Phillies, it quickly dawned on Harper that the Eagles have a hold on Philadelphians like no other.

“If you know my city, you know what the Eagles mean to us,” Harper said. “It’s the heart of the Philly fabric, Philly pride and the Philly way.”

The Eagles mean even more to Philadelphians when the team is firmly among the NFL‘s best. After a run to the Super Bowl last season and a 10-2 start to this season, the city wants nothing more than another championship. But first, everyone wearing midnight green wants a win over the Cowboys, the Eagles’ fierce NFC East rivals.

“Even if they weren’t two of the best teams in football, when these two teams get together, it just matters more,” Harper said.