Eagles left to pick up the pieces after a crushing Super Bowl loss: ‘We’ll use this failure to motivate us’
The Eagles locker room at State Farm Stadium was quiet after the Super Bowl LVII loss. The team was resilient, but how much of the squad will be back next season?
GLENDALE, Ariz. — The sound of shoulder pads unbuckling and hitting the ground of the Eagles’ locker room was the only thing to break the silence.
In the wake of the Eagles’ 38-35 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII, Eagles players processed the anguish of a championship that eluded them with a hush over the locker room.
Nick Sirianni walked through the space, consoling players and stepping over a few scattered pieces of red and yellow confetti that made it back to the Eagles’ locker room, serving as a subtle reminder of the painful loss to end a season that will go down in franchise history.
“I’m definitely going to cry in the car on this one,” defensive tackle Brandon Graham said. “Because this one stung, because we can taste it, we felt it. We know all we needed was one and we just couldn’t make that play.”
The Eagles went into halftime with a 10-point lead. But after trailing 35-27 late in the fourth quarter, they tied things up with a touchdown and a gritty, improbable two-point conversion from Jalen Hurts. And then they watched as Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes orchestrated a final drive against a foundering Eagles defense to set up a go-ahead field goal with mere seconds remaining.
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Graham said he, Sirianni, and Hurts each addressed the team in the locker room shortly after Kansas City kicker Harrison Butker’s 27-yard field goal split the uprights and Hurts’ final Hail Mary fell well short of any intended receivers as time expired.
Sirianni said he urged the players to channel the loss toward next year.
“I just reminded them of all the things that we’ve went through in our lives that was something that was adversity,” Sirianni said. “We’ll overcome this, too, because of the type of guys that we have. We’ll use this to motivate us. We’ll use this pain; we’ll use this failure to motivate us so that we can make it a strength.”
Hurts added, “It’s tough. We work really hard to have this opportunity and to come up short is tough. There’s always a lot to learn from, the opportunity to reflect on things we didn’t do or could have done, but I think there’s a lot to learn from it.”
Graham knew the joy of the Eagles’ Super Bowl LII win five years ago against the New England Patriots. On Sunday, he learned the pain of defeat on the biggest stage.
“I was just telling them boys to stay together,” Graham said of his postgame speech. “We put this together well and had a togetherness like no other this year. ... Don’t forget what you did this year. It’s going to only serve us well for next year.”
Next year is a daunting proposition, though. Even if the uncontrollable factors — injury luck and a favorable schedule, to name a few — align once again for the Eagles to make a deep postseason run, Eagles players know this group won’t be the same by next summer.
The team has 10 starters set to hit free agency and even more key rotational pieces with uncertainty looming into the offseason. A Hurts extension figures to alter the team’s cap situation just as value-finds in free agency like James Bradberry and Javon Hargrave figure to cash in on career years.
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As such, Sunday night may be one of the final times a memorable group shares a locker room.
“That’s the terrible part about it,” Eagles linebacker Kyzir White said. “This team will look completely different. We’ve got a lot of pending free agents. You gotta really enjoy every moment, you might not suit up with them again.”
White and his fellow linebacker, T.J. Edwards, are two of the 10 starters set to hit free agency. Edwards echoed the sentiment that the 2022-23 Eagles stand above the other teams he’s played for in his four years with the Eagles.
“You just have a bunch of guys that just care about each other,” Edwards said. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve never been a part of a core like this with guys that are unselfish and care about one another and want good things for other people. It’s really rare, so I think I’ll remember the ping-pong games and stuff like that. There’s not a guy on this team that I don’t like or care about. It’s a big roster, so to say that means a lot. It’s a special group, for sure.”