It’s always sunny in Philadelphia when the Eagles sprint the 72 stone steps leading up to the entrance of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and find themselves looking down at the rest of the NFL.
“It’s very cliché that Philadelphia is called the City of Brotherly Love,” left tackle Jordan Mailata told Serby Says in the Eagles’ locker room. “And I feel like that is what is definitely going on in this locker room. The relationships that we’ve built in this locker room, they carry over onto the field. You play for one another, even that 10, 20 percent extra more than the other team.”
The Nick Sirianni-Jalen Hurts Eagles, 4-0 as they play at Arizona on Sunday, are the league’s lone undefeated team. With the likes of the 6-foot-8, 366-pound Mailata and the 6-6, 336-pound rookie defensive tackle Jordan Davis standing defiant in the trenches, it isn’t farfetched, with apologies to the Flyers, to suggest that we could be witnessing the Broad Street Bullies redux.
“I don’t want to say bully …” Eagles Super Bowl LII champion Brandon Graham started to say. Still early, of course. A few minutes later: “I love our preparation, I love how we work. And I think we are building up to be that bully.”
Phil Simms was asked about a hypothetical matchup between his Giants and the 2022 Eagles strictly from a physicality point of view.
“It would be a lot like back in the ’80s when we had to play Buddy Ryan and Reggie White and all that group, that’s what it would be like. And it just wouldn’t be that fun for a quarterback,” Simms told Serby Says.
The Eagles storming back against the Jaguars last week tells you all you need to know about their on-field personality.
“I would say persistent,” Eagles Super Bowl champion center Jason Kelce told Serby Says. “Our biggest message is just to keep on … every time you step on the field every play, every moment you get is an opportunity. You just want to keep going: Dog Mentality, Coach Siriani preaches it all the time. You don’t get caught up in the ups and downs, whatever’s happening all you can do is try and do your job every single snap.
“The horror characters that I hate, the worst are the ones that keep coming. There’s no horror movie made about a guy killing somebody and then going off into the sunset. It’s that guy that continues to come after ya, despite all odds, he’s gonna come get ya. That’s, I think, what we want to be as a team.”
Nightmare on Broad Street.
“We’re a tough, physical, hard-working group which also has talent,” Kelce said. “Which is usually a good combo.”
General manager Howie Roseman upgraded the talent when he acquired receiver A.J. Brown from the Titans to pair with 2021 first-round draft pick DeVonta Smith for the 18th and 101st selections, a necessary rebound from drafting Jalen Reagor over Justin Jefferson in 2020.
Asked what his reaction was at the time, Graham said: “Man, just like Kelce was: ‘What? We got what? They let him go for what?’ Now it’s like you gotta kind of pick your poison.”
And it is a more poised, more confident Hurts picking the poison with better decisions.
“He’s a manchild running the football,” Simms said. “He can take punishment. He’s so big and strong that not many quarterbacks in the NFL — he’ll put his head down and run over a few people to score and to get big first downs. He might be the only quarterback in the league that I’ve seen that can really do that.”
Simms, on whether Hurts (four passing touchdowns, two interceptions, 1,120 yards, 66.7 completion percentage, 205 rushing yards with four TDs) is the Eagles’ franchise quarterback: “I don’t even know if that’s up for question anymore. I know it must be going well ’cause I don’t hear that conversation every day on TV or hear it talked about on the radio. Unless he falls apart big-time here in the rest of the year, which he’s not going to, he’s gonna be the franchise quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.”
Sirianni, 9-8 and a wild-card playoff loser to Tom Brady’s Buccaneers as a rookie head coach last season, has worked wonders developing Hurts.
“He’s handled Jalen Hurts perfectly,” Simms said. “And their communication and the way they’re just kind of in this together and everything is pretty cool to see.”
It was surmised the surprise hiring of Sirianni in early 2021 to replace Doug Pederson was designed in part to rehabilitate Carson Wentz, but weeks later Wentz was traded to the Colts.
“I think the biggest way he motivates, and these are the guys that I found have been the most motivating for me personally,” Kelce said, “is by embracing guys as individuals and letting them show their personalities. Let them be themselves within the culture of the team, and he’s very adamant about that, he’s pushed that from the moment he’s been here. I think that just makes guys want to play for each other. You’re not trying to fit people into certain things and force people to be a certain way. This guy’s who he is, and that’s f–king awesome, and he’s gonna be a killer linebacker, cornerback, whatever it is yeah.”
Outside linebacker Haason Reddick (3.5 sacks) has helped Graham (3.0) and Fletcher Cox (3.0) juice the pass rush. James Bradberry is the perfect cornerback bookend to Darius Slay, and running back Miles Sanders, third in rushing, has never felt or looked better.
“When you look at ’em, they have all the qualities — they have speed, they have great size,” Simms said. “When you talk about their offensive and defensive lines, you’re talking about two really good units. I think I’ve been taught and learned if your offensive line is average, then it’s gonna be really hard to be a good football team. And the Eagles have one of the best offensive lines right now in the NFL.”
Jack Driscoll — 6-5, 313 pounds — could replace Mailata (shoulder) against the Cardinals. Roseman has continuously fortified the trenches across the years, and he shrewdly has Davis waiting in the wings once Cox is gone and rookie second-round center Cam Jurgens once Kelce is gone.
Bill Parcells used to say “bigger is better.” Tom Coughlin used to say “big men allow you to compete.” No wonder Simms says: “Fast people get slower as the year goes along. Big people never get smaller.”
Graham is excited about Davis’ future: I see him just getting better every day. I think now he really understands how big he is out there, and his dominant he could really be. I think it’s just only gonna blossom over time, and he’s gonna be here a long time.”
Graham sees an important similarity to the Eagles’ 2017 champions.
“I’m loving how being one of the captains of this team, they make it so easy for me, and that’s what I felt for 2017,” he said, “I didn’t really have to police like too much because people already understood, and if we had a bad one they’d we talk about it. We can talk about things without people taking it to the next level.”
Graham, 13 years a forever Eagle, is 34. Kelce, 11 years a forever Eagle, will turn 36 next month. Two proud Eagles hungry for one last elusive championship.
“There’s nothing else like it,” Kelce said, before adding, “It’s far away at this point. We’re just focused on Arizona right now.”
Still Sunny in Philadelphia.
