Do not repeat that the Eagles are trying to repeat.
The first hint of anti-repeat talk came earlier this month, when coach Nick Sirianni said he wants to think less about the Eagles repeating as NFL champions and more about sustained success. It’s become a message into which multiple players have bought.
“We’re the 2024 world champs, that’s it,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said Wednesday, via Tim McManus of ESPN.com. “We’re not defending shit. I don’t like hearing we’re the defending champions. We’re not defending nothing.
“We just won the title, and now we’ve got to go win it again, prove it all over again. That’s the mentality this team is going to have. We’re not here to prove anything to anyone else but ourselves and we know the mission. We’re mission-focused.”
The notion of not saying “repeat” traces to Michael Jordan. As noted by McManus, quarterback Jalen Hurts spent time with Jordan in the offseason. Jordan advised Hurts and the Eagles to not speak in terms of a “repeat.”
“It’s a new journey,” Hurts told reporters. “It’s a new season, and those things are far behind us. The past is behind us, and the future is too far away, so we have to stay present and worry about right now.”
Every Super Bowl winner needs to find a way to forget about the Super Bowl win and do it again. It’s not easy, because 31 other teams want to do the thing the don’t-say-defending camp just did. It’s better for the team that just scaled the mountain and planted a flag to forget about it. Since it won’t make it any easier to win it again.
It will only make it harder.
