Super Bowl Sunday: 'Tough, Detailed, Together' Eagles Prepare To Hunt

NEW ORLEANS – It's Gameday for Super Bowl LIX between the 17-3 NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles and the 17-2 reigning two-time kingpin Kansas City Chiefs.

All week Nick Sirianni has played his hits. “Tough, Detailed, Together.”

“Focus and refocus.”

The Eagles head coach had tried his hardest to normalize the most abnormal week on the NFL calendar.

“Week is about everyone else,” second-team All-Pro receiver A.J. Brown said when describing the Super Bowl week circus. Add New Orleans and the party-like atmosphere of Bourbon Street and the French Quarter to that formula and you have a Super Bowl week on steroids.

For the Eagles, you had the added layer of Saints media shadowing Kellen Moore, who will be the next head coach in New Orleans, and the semi-conspiracy theory of Jalen Carter being kept from the media for a few days due to an "illness."

Several team sources have told Philadelphia Eagles On SI that Carter is fine and he was a full go on the team's final injury report Friday.

The Eagles’ practice week was structured like a typical one in Philadelphia, only transported to the New Orleans Saints facility in nearby Metairie where the Eagles were bused with a police escort.

“Our goal for right now is how do we eliminate distractions and continue to get better?” Sirianni said after Wednesday’s practice. “... It’s not a normal week. You want to keep it as normal as possible, but the times are different, the obligations are different. The game’s not normal either. … So, just focus and refocus.”

Earlier this month Sirianni mentioned a piece of wisdom he got from Connor Barwin, the former Eagles’ edge rusher who now bridges the football operations department and the coaching staff as the team’s Head of Football Development and Strategy.

“The burden of leadership is repetition,” Barwin verbalized to Sirianni, who liked the descriptive nature of the phrase.

On Thursday, PFWA pool reporter Nicki Jhabvala of the Washington Post noted the team’s tackling circuits and ball-security drills, again a staple of what the 17-3 Eagles have done all season.

“That’s been all year,” the coach said. “It always comes down to fundamentals, so we’ve always done that. …Business as usual.”

Sensing a trend?

If not, fast forward to Friday.

“Normal Friday,” Sirianni noted. “Really good all week, really good today. There’s some stuff we need to clean up, like any practice, but I thought the focus was there and the energy was there and the effort was there.”

The only deviations on Saturday were a team picture at the Superdome and Brandon Graham trying to hammer things down when addressing the team after making it back from a torn triceps on Nov. 24 to be activated for what will likely be the final game of his brilliant 15-year career.

“Everyone will go through the routine that they’ve been going through the entire 20-whatever weeks we’ve been doing this now,” said Sirianni. “… You don’t get to this point and change up what is important to your team and your core values.”

The only thing left is to embrace the team’s playoff motto.

“Let’s Hunt.”

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