INDIANPOLIS — New England Patriots fans likely have a different reaction than Doug Pederson to randomly stumbling upon Super Bowl LII when it’s on TV.
Most Patriots fans can’t turn the TV off quickly enough before seeing their team fall to Philadelphia 41-33, while the Eagles head coach is content to keep watching to make sure it wasn’t all just a dream.
“I get home at night or whatever, I’m sitting there, we’re watching TV, my wife and I, and we flip through,” Pederson said Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “We flip to the NFL Network or HBO or something, and you catch the game. And I’ve done that about four times now. Not that I’m searching for it, but it’s just on.
“So, I go back through the game, and it’s just like, ‘Did we win?’ You know? It’s one of those things. It’s, for me, it was a great way to just kind of analyze the game from afar and just make sure I was doing everything possible to help our team win. We did win. We had a chance to get through that week after, and I gave the coaches a week off. It’s been 20-plus weeks since we’ve had a week off. So we took a week and just kind of got away from it, got back a couple weeks ago, and we’re ready to go. We’re energized. We’re jazzed up, and we’re ready for this season.”
The Eagles have plenty of important decisions to make this offseason, and to complicate matters, they’re currently in the red when it comes to salary cap space. Eagles general manager Howie Roseman stressed he wants to keep all of the Eagles’ good players when asked about the team’s plans for backup quarterback Nick Foles, who could be traded, and left tackle Jason Peters, who could be released.
