Dallas Goedert Missed the Eagles' Super Bowl Party in 2017
PHILADELPHIA – Dallas Goedert missed all the fun.
The tight end showed up in Philly’s locker room fresh off the campus of South Dakota State a mere months after the Eagles won their first Super Bowl.
He was the team’s first pick of the 2018 draft after GM Howie Roseman traded out of the last pick of the first round, No. 32, with the Ravens and made Goedert the 49th pick overall on April 27 less than three months after the Eagles defeated the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4.
“Obviously coming here right after the Super Bowl, the whole team right away had high expectations,” Goedert said on Wednesday. “They got there, and the thing was, we wanted to do it again and it took us quite a few years but just coming to a team and seeing how close they were, how much fun they had the year before.
“It was obviously something that a lot of people wanted to do and now that we have that opportunity, we're getting closer and closer.”
One more win on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game is all it will take to make it to Super Bowl LVII.
A win in the big game and he will know exactly what he missed five years ago.
Between the 2017 title team and this year’s hopeful group, Goedert has developed into one of the league’s best players at his position, even though he doesn’t necessarily get the acclaim that San Fran’s George Kittle and Kansas City’s Travis Kelce, who will play in the AFC title game against the Bengals, get.
"I thought I should be mentioned in that breath since I was a rookie but that's the self-confidence that I have in myself,” he said. “It doesn't bother me whether people think it or not, I don't really worry too much about other people's thoughts.
“Obviously, the people in this building think very highly of me and you know, that's ultimately who I'm playing for, the people in this building. So that's all that really matters to me."
Goedert and Kittle have a good relationship, with Kittle entering the league a year before Goedert and doing so as a fifth-round pick out of Iowa.
They talked after last weekend’s divisional playoff round and both had qualified for the title game about how they’re looking forward to seeing each other.
“He's just a tremendous athlete,” said Goedert. “And I think his mentality just as much as anything, you know, he goes out there and he's not going let anybody beat you. He's going to run speed right through your face.
“And Marshawn (Lynch) probably said it best, people can't just take that over and over again. You keep running through somebody's face and eventually, they're going to give up and George does a great job of that, playing super physical. He's fast. He's strong. He's got all the intangibles as well as a great mindset going into it.”
Obviously, the two tight ends won’t be on the same field at the same time, so for that reason, Goedert said he is looking forward to the matchup with a candidate to be The Associated Press Defensive Player of the Year, Nick Bosa.
“I never get to play against George,” he said, “(but) I'm more excited about the match with me and 97 (Bosa). He's an incredible player. I love playing some of the best D-ends. That's a challenge.
“It's fun to compete against the best. So, I look forward to that more so than the tight end on the other side."
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
