A tall task awaits the Philadelphia Eagles in Minneapolis.
The Eagles punched their ticket to Super Bowl LII with a 38-7 rout of the Minnesota Vikings in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game, but Philadelphia’s next opponent undoubtedly will be its toughest yet.
The New England Patriots will represent the AFC on Feb. 4 in a rematch of Super Bowl XXXIX. It took a rigorous effort for the Patriots to top the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, but New England now is just one win away from repeating as Super Bowl champions.
The Patriots certainly are not strangers to football’s biggest stage, as the upcoming contest at U.S. Bank Stadium will mark New England’s eighth Super Bowl appearance in the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era. While the Pats are the odds-on favorite to take home this season’s Lombardi Trophy, one of the Eagles’ leaders believes the daunting task New England presents only will make Philly’s story that much sweeter.
“The Patriots have been in this game so many times that I think we all look at them as kind of the gold standard of this league,” safety Malcolm Jenkins told ESPN’s Tim McManus “And so, in a season where we’ve been doubted all year, for me it’s just right on par to be able to go against a team that has such a legacy as the Patriots. But that’s just part of the story. When we finish this out, and we come back Super Bowl champions, that will just be the exclamation point on this whole story.”
The Eagles have wasted no time initiating the verbal warfare with the Patriots, kicked off by Lane Johnson expressing how much he’d like to see his team stump “pretty boy” Brady. While Jenkins understands the great challenge New England’s quarterback presents, he doesn’t appear intimidated by TB12.
“Greatest quarterback of all time, but that doesn’t mean that he’s unbeatable,” Jenkins said. “We’ve got a destination that we’re geared to. No matter who’s in front of us, we’ve got somewhere to go. We’re not worried about what’s in front. We’re going to run through what’s there.”
