Eagles news: Parade route and time announced; Saints hire one Birds coach, another makes history; Brandon Graham discusses his future

Eagles fans set a record for Super Bowl championship apparel sales in the 24 hours after their dominant victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.

Fanatics, which manufactures all officially licensed NFL gear, made the announcement Tuesday afternoon. The company declined to say just how much was spent on Super Bowl LIX Champions T-shirts, hats, and hoodies.

Like at other local sports stores, the Philly faithful went online to place Fanatics orders as soon as the game ended, the company said, and set new records for orders per minute six different times in the hour after the game. On Monday morning at Lincoln Financial Field, the line at the the Philadelphia Eagles Pro Shop, which sells Fanatics merchandise, stretched to the parking lot before the store opened.

The Eagles’ Super Bowl win against the Chiefs might have been a blowout, but a massive audience of people stuck around to watch.

Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans drew 127.7 million viewers across Fox and all its platforms, the network said Tuesday. That includes Tubi, the free ad-supported streaming service, which averaged 13.6 million viewers.

Fox said Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show garnered 133.5 million viewers, a slight increase over Usher’s Super Bowl performance last year.

More than a million people could come to Philadelphia to celebrate the Eagles' Super Bowl win with Friday's parade — more than some experts' count of 2018's parade.

Parade producer The Creative Group Inc's Fred Stein said Tuesday that the parade's "million-plus guests" would begin departing the city around 3:15 p.m., following the conclusion of ceremonies. For Philly's last Super Bowl parade, many attendee estimates hovered around 800,000 to 900,000 people, he added.

Stein said that Creative Group, meanwhile, documented about 1.4 million attendees for 2018's parade.

Eagles fans woke up tired Monday. By the time the players hoisted the trophy, and the party on Broad Street thinned out, it was well past midnight.

Some didn't make it to work Monday.

Kastle Systems, a security company, tracks office occupancy compared to pre-pandemic levels. Those levels are always much lower on Mondays than mid-week — roughly 50% nationally and just under 40% locally. On Monday, after the Super Bowl, it dipped by several percentage points in the Philadelphia metro area.

With offensive coordinator Kellen Moore headed to the Saints to become their next head coach, the Eagles will begin the search for his replacement in earnest.

There is internal support for Kevin Patullo, Eagles pass game coordinator and associate head coach. He has been Nick Sirianni’s right hand man for some time.

But of question would be what scheme Patullo would run? The Eagles made a point of switching last year from the one he and Sirianni had employed with the Colts. Of course, certain parts of that offense remained and returned after the bye this season.

On Sunday, Eagles associate performance coach Autumn Lockwood became the first black woman to ever win a Super Bowl as a coach.

Lockwood was hired prior to the 2022 football season, and just finished her third season with the Birds. She started her coaching career in 2019 as a strength and conditioning coaching intern with the Atlanta Falcons. She then served as an assistant director of basketball sports performance at East Tennessee State until February 2021, when Lockwood started as a coordinator of sports performance for the women’s soccer, women’s basketball, and softball teams.

“I always say [defensive end] Brandon Graham leads the league in smiles,” former Eagles vice president of player performance Ted Rath told The Inquirer in 2023. “I think it’s been dethroned by Autumn. Her positive attitude is infectious. She comes to work with literally the best attitude I’ve ever been around.”

Thinking about biking to Center City for the Eagles Super Bowl parade?

The city’s bike-share program, Indego, will be up and running — and offering a one-day discount. .

“Indego will be operating at full capacity on Friday,” said Nate Bowman-Johnston, Indego’s general manager. “We’re hoping that a lot of folks will use bike share to get to and from the parade.”

SEPTA's plan for Friday includes express-style service, consolidated stops, and free travel on the Market-Frankford and Broad Street lines, interim general manager Scott Sauer said.

"We're ready," Sauer said. "We've done this."

While the agency's full transit plan is set to be released Wednesday, Sauer offered a few details.

For the third consecutive season, the Eagles are looking for a new offensive coordinator.

Kellen Moore, as expected, is off to New Orleans. NFL Network reported that Moore’s deal to become the next head coach of the Saints is done.

[UPDATE, 3:30 p.m.: The Saints have made Moore's hiring official.]

Make those parade plans, Philadelphia School District families and staff.

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. on Tuesday confirmed that the district will mark the Eagles’ Super Bowl triumph and parade by closing all schools and offices on Friday.

The parade is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at Broad and Pattison. It will move up toward the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the toward City Hall and up the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.A number of other districts have already given students Friday off for non-Super Bowl related reasons: some schools build professional development days around existing holidays — in this case, Monday is Presidents’ Day — to allow families the ability to have a longer break.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker had a new spelling of Eagles at a Tuesday news conference.

"How do you spell Eagles?" Parker said. "To me, I spell it N-F-L C-H-A-M-P-I-O-N-S."

Parker last month committed what she called a "cardinal sin" in misspelling the team's name ahead of the NFC championship. She later poked fun at her error, and ultimately corrected her gaffe in a news conference days before the Super Bowl.

President Donald Trump praised the Eagles’ dominant performance over the Kansas City Chiefs during an appearance on a conservative radio show Monday night.

“The Eagles were really, it was like flawless football, amazing,” said Trump, who attended the game in person. “Even the first play they called it back. It was a long pass, it was, you know, either a touchdown or going to be a touchdown. They called it back, completed long pass, and they went on to get touchdown after touchdown. They really played great.”

As for the Chiefs, who lost by 18 points, Trump said: “It was not a well played game by the one team.”

Eagles veteran Brandon Graham overcame what was expected to be a season-ending injury to play in the Super Bowl, part of an Eagles defense that dominated Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

In an interview on 94.1 WIP Tuesday morning, Graham described it as “a fairy tale story,” though after 15 seasons in the NFL he’s still trying to decide whether it’s time to close the book on his playing career.

“I still feel like I’ve got a lot in the tank still,” Graham said. “But, you know, I want to make sure that I go about this the right way.”

Jason Kelce spent Super Bowl Sunday in a glass case of emotion.

The longtime Eagles center, who retired in 2023 after the team’s loss to his brother Travis and the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII, watched the Birds' victory alongside his family — and Taylor Swift — and said it was "odd" for him, as his rooting interest was torn between his former teammates and coaches, and his brother.

“Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles, my former teammates, and friends on being SB LIX Champions!!,” Kelce posted on X early Tuesday morning. “There were a lot of emotions last night, and now that I’ve collected my thoughts, I’ll attempt to share them in the longest tweet ever.

Saquon Barkley’s historic 2024 season was built on big runs. Barkley led the NFL in rushes of 10-plus yards during the regular season with 46. He added a few more to his tally in the three playoff games leading up to Sunday, but Kansas City had big plans to stop Barkley and largely succeeded. Barkley had just one run for 10-plus yards, which translated to a season-low 4% explosive run rate.

Barkley entered Sunday needing just 30 yards to break the single-season (playoffs included) rushing record of Terrell Davis from 1998. He did that, but nothing came easy for Barkley, who rushed for 57 yards on 25 carries and a career-low minus-48 rushing yards over expected.

The Chiefs stacked the box and made the Eagles beat them in other ways, testing Nick Sirianni’s theory that the Eagles weren’t married to being a run-first offense, that they would win in whatever way they needed to.

The Eagles Super Bowl parade will take place on Friday, according to the City of Philadelphia and the team. Other details, including the time and the route, haven’t been announced yet.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and other officials will hold a news conference Tuesday at 11 a.m., where more information about the parade — including the start time and its route — should be released.

Workers have already begun to build a stage in front of the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the same spot where Jason Kelce delivered his epically profane speech seven years ago.

The core of the Eagles’ Super Bowl winning roster will be back next year and beyond.

Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts is under contract through 2028, as are DeVonta Smith, Jordan Mailata, and Quinyon Mitchell, according to Spotrac. Defensive stars Jalen Carter and Cooper DeJean are locked up through the 2027 season. A.J. Brown's contract runs through 2029.

But there are a few key players general manager Howie Roseman will have to make a decision on this offseason.

The cigars have been smoked, the champagne has been splattered, and the parade is on. For the second time in eight years, the Eagles are Super Bowl champions.

The team’s 40-22 win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX will cement the 2024 season as one of the greatest in franchise history, minted with a locker room celebration that went strong a couple hours after the final whistle at the Superdome.

Howie Roseman pinged around the Eagles locker room, starting in the middle of a dance circle and eventually dashing through the space with the Lombardi Trophy in one hand and a cigar in the other.