49ers’ Javon Hargrave hopes to finish what he couldn’t with the Eagles: Beat the Chiefs in the Super Bowl
It isn’t lost on Hargrave that he’s the only Eagles player from last season who can avenge their loss in the title game. “That’s the plan.”
LAS VEGAS — Javon Hargrave didn’t feel officially like an ex-Eagles player until he was booed at Lincoln Financial Field. Just 11 months earlier he had beaten his new team, the 49ers, the squad that had squawked for months about how it lost the NFC championship in Philadelphia.
“It was definitely weird at first when I came to the team,” Hargrave said. “But once I got booed in Philly, I was good. I was all bought in.”
The boos came in the first quarter Dec. 3 after he made his first tackle, the San Francisco defensive tackle said. The Eagles actually led, 6-0, at that point, but the 49ers scored 35 of the game’s next 42 points and routed their conference rivals.
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It sent the Eagles into a tailspin in which they lost six of their final seven games and nearly every decision — including letting Hargrave leave in free agency last offseason — was questioned. San Francisco, meanwhile, went on to claim the No. 1 seed in the playoffs and reach Super Bowl LVIII to face the Chiefs on Sunday.
It wasn’t lost on Hargrave that he’s the only Eagles player from last season who can avenge the 38-35 defeat to Kansas City in last year’s title game.
“That’s the plan. It’s crazy that it’s [the Chiefs] again,” Hargrave said on Monday during media night at Allegiant Stadium. “Trying to get some revenge.”
The acquisition of Hargrave factored significantly into the 49ers advancing one round further than they did a year ago when the Eagles knocked quarterback Brock Purdy and his backup out of the NFC championship game.
He might not have matched last year’s production this season, but the 30-year-old Hargrave improved San Francisco’s interior pass rush at the expense of the Eagles.
“He’s just a presence inside, a guy that can win one-on-ones by himself,” said assistant defensive line coach Darryl Tapp. “He’s a veteran, so he sees the game different ways and that pairs well with [defensive ends] Arik Armstead and Nick Bosa.”
Howie Roseman’s decision to not re-sign Hargrave wasn’t initially met with much criticism because he received top dollar on the market. The Eagles general manager didn’t even engage in negotiations before Hargrave inked a four-year, $84 million contract with $40 million guaranteed.
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Some of Roseman’s subsequent roster moves have, in hindsight, been questioned, but even Hargrave said he understood why the Eagles didn’t bring him back.
“I knew there was a chance I was probably going to leave,” Hargrave said. “Going into that season, I knew it was probably going to be my last year. They had a lot of [young] guys coming up and Jalen [Hurts], of course, had to be paid.”
Hurts signed a five-year extension worth $255 million a month after Hargrave departed, but the die had been cast when the Eagles drafted defensive tackle Jordan Davis the year before. Roseman, though, knew that Hargrave’s pass-rushing vacancy had to be filled, and he selected defensive tackle Jalen Carter last April.
Carter made an immediate impact, and Davis showed early improvement on passing downs, but the former first-rounders’ late-season regression matched the team’s.
Hargrave, meanwhile, needed time to adjust to a new scheme — “new” being a relative word because he played in a similar system in 2020 after the Eagles signed him as a free agent from the Steelers.
49ers defensive line coach Kris Kocurek played under Jim Schwartz and Jim Washburn with the Titans and runs essentially the wide-nine front that the former Eagles defensive coordinator and D-line coach had brought to Philadelphia at various junctures.
Hargave struggled in that defense under Schwartz, but blossomed in successor Jonathan Gannon’s system and recorded 18½ sacks, 19 tackles for losses, and 34 quarterback hits over two seasons.
In San Francisco, it was back to being a one-gap penetrator.
“It’s a little bit different scheme than Philly’s,” Kocurek said. “But he’s taken to it.”
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Hargrave had seven sacks, nine tackles for losses, and 14 hits and was voted to the Pro Bowl for a second time. Carter, in comparison, finished with six sacks, eight TFLs and nine hits. Fletcher Cox had maybe his best season in years and totaled five sacks, three TFLs and 17 hits.
While Hargrave has never been known first as a run defender, the 49ers’ second-level linebackers Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw are capable enough to fight off blockers and help the front on the ground.
The vast difference between the two defenses was on display in the 49ers’ 42-19 drubbing of the Eagles on Dec. 3.
“We knew it was going to happen that game, but that’s what we felt the previous year,” said Tapp, who played for the Eagles from 2010-12. “This is a really veteran team, probably the most veteran team I’ve ever been affiliated with as a player or coach.”
The 49ers are a team that doesn’t mind padded practices three days a week late into the season. Hargrave drew a little scorn from Philly when he went on Armstead’s Third and Long podcast and said that San Francisco’s practices were “more demanding” than the Eagles.
But his comments were taken out of context. He compared both teams to NBA programs — the 49ers to the Heat and the Eagles to the Warriors — and said you can skin a cat both ways.
“He was just saying it was different,” Armstead said. “I don’t think you can be that mad at him comparing them to the Golden State Warriors. He was just saying it was … a little more intense.”
Cox appeared to take exception.
“We’re practicing today, Hargrave, by the way,” Cox said to a group of reporters at the NovaCare Complex after the podcast was aired. “He said we don’t practice. We always practice around here and we practice hard.”
Hargrave said Cox was only joking.
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“Fletch was playing,” Hargrave said. “I texted him to make sure. He told me he loved me and that he was just playing around.”
The Eagles have essentially run the same practice schedule — which often involved Wednesday walk-throughs — since 2021. Some have suggested it led to their late collapse this season, though.
“You can’t say that,” Hargrave said. “We just went to the Super Bowl last year doing it that way. That’s what I was trying to say — that both ways can work.”
He’s about to find out if the 49ers’ way can lead to the Lombardi Trophy.