The Philadelphia Eagles went from 7-9 in 2016 to Super Bowl champions a year later, and there’s apparently a pretty simple reason for the turnaround.
Connor Barwin, who played for the Eagles from 2013 to 2016, spoke to GQ about what it was like to watch his former team achieve the pinnacle of NFL success without him, noting he spoke with center Jason Kelce and tight end Brent Celek about the difference between the seasons.
Celek told his former teammate the Eagles’ 2017 success was due, more or less, to luck.
“What was most interesting to me about what they said was, there was nothing that happened this year that made them such a better team. There wasn’t this special motivator or something. But Celek said it was so weird this year because all season, any time they needed to make a play or they needed the ball to bounce their way, it just did.” Celek, a tight end, is currently the team’s longest tenured player. “In my previous ten seasons, that never happened,” he told Barwin. “And he’s like this year, ‘The ball just bounced our way.’ And that’s usually part of it if you end up winning a Super Bowl.”
That’s not exactly going to make New England Patriots fans feel better about their Super Bowl LII loss.
Celek was drafted by the Eagles in 2007 out of the University of Cincinnati and has played his entire career in Philadelphia. While Barwin played for the Los Angeles Rams in 2017, and will be a free agent when the new league year begins March 12.
