Five Storylines, with Craziness of Opening Night on Tap from Super Bowl LVII
Super Bowl week is here, with the Eagles-Chiefs landing in Arizona on Sunday.
The craziness will ramp up Monday night when Opening Night is held. It’s where media from around the world can fire questions – most times silly ones – at players.
At Super Bowl XXIX in Jacksonville when the Eagles played the Patriots, I was at this event and stood in front of someone who asked Tom Brady who is favorite Brady Bunch character was.
The questioner turned out to be William “The Refrigerator” Perry. The Fridge had been sent there by TV talk show host Jimmy Kimmel to ask questions like that.
Eagles go first from 6-7 p.m. MST; the Chiefs next from 8 to 9 p.m. MST.
The following Eagles will be available at a riser:
Nick Sirianni
Jalen Hurts
A.J. Brown
Jason Kelce
Lane Johnson
Jordan Mailata
Haason Reddick
Brandon Graham
Fletcher Cox
Darius Slay
Miles Sanders
The following Chiefs will be available at a riser:
Andy Reid
Patrick Mahomes
Travis Kelce
Chris Jones
Frank Clark
Orlando Brown
JuJu Smith-Schuster
Isiah Pacheco
Nick Bolton
L'Jarius Sneed
Jerick McKinnon
Here are five silly questions I’d like to see asked:
FOR TRAVIS AND JASON KELCE: Who would win an arm-wrestling contest?
FOR NICK SIRIANNI: Yo Nick, can you make that we’re-kicking-your-butts face you made for the camera when you went up 21-0 on the Giants in the divisional round game?
FOR ANDY REID: How many cheeseburgers will you consume this week?
FOR DARIUS SLAY: Why don’t you like it when people call you Darius?
FOR ORLANDO BROWN: How many times have you been to Disney World (since his first name is Orlando).
In all seriousness, here are 5 storylines for the week:
ANDY REID
Big Red against the team he began his Hall of Fame coaching career with – the Eagles, for whom he spent 14 years leading getting them to five NFC title games and one Super Bowl. Even more tantalizing is that Eagles coach Nick Sirianni was an assistant in KC when Reid was named the head coach there and chose not to retain Sirianni.
NICK SIRIANNI
Can the coach who seems to be making enemies among the crowd who doesn’t like a head coach to show emotion on the sidelines, win some of them over?
KELCE’S, KELCE’S EVERYWHERE
It’s the first time in NFL history that brothers will be on opposite sides of the sideline in a Super Bowl. What would really be cool is if Travis Kelce played linebacker and Jason, from his center position, would have to try to block him.
It would be like Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola when he faced his brother, Padres catcher Austin Nola, in the regular season then in the National League Championship Series this past fall.
In addition to Jason and Travis, Donna Kelce, the brothers’ mother, will be at several events the NFL has planned this week. She won’t be flipping the coin at midfield on game day, though.
QUARTERBACKS
Jalen Hurts and Patrick Mahomes will get a lot of attention just because of the position they play, but also because they are the two youngest players to ever start at the most important position on the field in a Super Bowl. More importantly, they are the first two Black QBs to do it in the game’s history.
JEFFREY LURIE
How visible the Eagles owner will be remains to be seen, but the job he has done since purchasing the Eagles in 1994 has been undersold. He is the fourth individual owner to have three different head coaches reach the Super Bowl, with Sirianni joining Reid and Doug Pederson the other coaches.
The other owners to go to Super Bowls with at least three different head coaches are the Broncos’ Pat Bowlen (Dan Reeves, Mike Shanahan, John Fox, and Gary Kubiak), the Raiders’ Al Davis (John Madden, Tom Flores, and Bill Callahan), and the Rams’ Georgia Frontiere (Ray Malavasi, Dick Vermeil, and Mike Martz).
Lurie and Davis are the only two who reached three Super Bowls with a different head coach and quarterback in each season.
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.
