'More Motivated!' Eagles Prepped for Repeat Run to Super Bowl; Here's Why

The straw poll is in when it comes to Super Bowl hangovers, and the biggest hurdle from a Philadelphia Eagles' player perspective isn’t motivation, disappointment, or any other aspect of human nature ... it’s good old-fashioned rest.

The participants in Super Bowl LVII – the Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs – were still playing football on Feb. 12, over a month after the non-playoff teams were finished. Both Super Bowl teams did earn byes at least, limiting the extra run to three games instead of four.

“It’s been short,” defensive tackle Milton Williams laughed when asked how his summer was going by SI.com’s Eagles Today. “We played a long time and things are starting again pretty quickly.”

Williams, along with teammate Zech McPhearson, was back in the Philly area on July 1 hosting a 7-on-7 youth football tournament. Both are just 24 and in immaculate shape for their respective positions but each mentioned just how difficult it can be to recharge and get back to the grind.

“I feel pretty good,” McPhearson said. “But it moves fast. You have to adjust certain things.”

Williams is already back in his native Texas working on the final leg of his offseason conditioning before Eagles players report for training camp on July 25 while McPhearson is going to Los Angeles to work with former teammate and now Las Vegas Raiders safety Marcus Epps, who opened a gym out there.

Only eight teams in NFL history -- the 1971 Dallas Cowboys, the '72 Miami Dolphins, the '73 Minnesota Vikings, the '87 Denver Broncos, the 1991-93 Buffalo Bills, and the 2018 New England Patriots -- have returned to the Super Bowl the year after losing the Big Game. And out of those teams, only the '71 Cowboys, '72 Dolphins, and '18 Patriots were able to capture the Lombardi Trophy a year after being on the short end of the stick.

The latter is the hill that coach Nick Sirianni’s Eagles will try to climb.

“I think it was unique,” Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said recently of his team’s 2022-23 season. “We don't take it for granted the health of our team last year. That was a unique situation. I think for us to expect the same results as last year would be naïve at a minimum. So, we've got to prepare to understand that for the amount of games that we want to play. ... It is a long season.”

On paper at least, the Eagles seemed prepared to handle the task. The organization has been consistently ahead of the curve when it comes to player maintenance as a whole and the conference pales in comparison to the Chiefs' road back to the big game in the AFC.

When it comes to the more publicized nature of Super Bowl hangovers, none of that seems to be a blip on the radar for most Eagles players.

“It depends on what type of competitor you are. It doesn’t take much to fuel me and motivate me,” Pro Bowl quarterback Jalen Hurts said of the Super Bowl loss and how it can affect players. “I think it’s about the type of competitor that you are. Obviously, everyone wants to go out there and be the best. That’s what we work for. That’s what we try to be intentional towards in doing that.”

The price to pay for that result is the difficult part.

“It’s a steep price that you have to pay to do that,” Hurts said. “As a team, as an organization, everybody in this building, it’s about learning from every experience that we’ve experienced every day in practice, every team that we’ve played, things of the past, whatever it is. If you can apply it to where you are in the moment and kind of change your future and determine what you want to do, you do that. ... That comes from hard work and preparation.”

Hurts’ vaunted leadership skills have had a noticeable trickle-down effect, one that might make it more realistic for the Eagles to make it back to the Super Bowl.

“I feel like guys are more motivated because we were this close to getting it done,” Williams said. “It’s like OK, everybody got something to say now, we hear the whispers and it’s like OK, we're gonna put in the work and be ready to win next time.”