Eagles Super Bowl Expectations: Jalen Hurts Set on What 'Truly Matters'
Noted wordsmith Jason Kelce said back in August that no team is good enough to win a Super Bowl “right now.”
Does the same still hold true as Week 3 gets underway with a Monday night game between the Philadelphia Eagles at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7:15 p.m.)?
Certainly, the San Francisco 49ers look good enough. All they’ve done is score 30 points on the nose in each of their three wins, including Thursday night’s victory over the New York Giants.
The Dallas Cowboys are 2-0 but the big numbers are 70-10, as in the points they scored in two blowouts vs. the points they have allowed in those two games.
Then there are the Eagles, who are 2-0 but have yet to make much of a statement.
Luckily, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts doesn’t care about style points.
“The thing that I want to make clear is when did winning not become the main thing?” he said. “I always say keep the main thing the main thing … where winning is the only thing that truly matters.”
Kelce, the veteran center, feels the same, though he clarified further what he meant when he said the team “was a little bit on edge.”
“I think that where we're at right now is very good,” said Kelce who has led the Eagles to two Super Bowls in his first 12 years, going 1-1 in them. “We've been in close games but we haven't played our best football. We know that but we've won those games so in my opinion that's kind of the best place to be in. We don't think we're the best in the world. We don't think we're absolutely terrible.
“I think we're in a good healthy mindset of we're just looking to get better. this is Week 3 of the season. Nobody is where they need to be at the end of the year.”
Head coach Nick Sirianni doesn’t care, either. He parroted a similar message last year when the Eagles started by winning their first eight games to set the record for the best start in team history at 8-0.
“You're never complacent,” said Sirianni. “You always want to be in that stage if you think you're doing things - even if you're playing to our standard of being really good, you always want to get better from that and you never want to be complacent, because this league can humble you very quickly.
“So, I think just more about that in the sense of we know we’ve got work to do. We know we’ve got to get better everywhere, all phases, offense, defense, special teams, coaching. We have to just get better. I think that's just the reality of what the NFL is.”
Expectations, though, have changed for the Eagles, who went to the Super Bowl last year and are expected to get back there again, even though it’s a different team, especially on defense where there are five new starters and a new defensive coordinator.
“I think that that's what I've noticed (between last year and this year) is just - and it's not necessarily the expectations of us, it's expectations of the outside world,” said Sirianni. “
“Our goal right now (on) September 21st is not to win the Super Bowl, is not to win the division, is not to think about whoever we play next … so we put ourselves in position to go 1-0.
“I don't know if it sounds cliche to anybody, but – ‘their goal is not to win the Super Bowl?’ That's not at all what I'm saying. Our goal is to get better, and if we can do that gradually every single day with this team, I'll put my chips where they lie, and we'll see what happens.”
