Super Bowl 2018: News and updates for Patriots vs. Eagles

Aaron Stoller is the director behind the best Super Bowl 52 commercial, a beautiful recreation of Dirty Dancing involving Eli Manning, Odell Beckham Jr., and the actual New York Giants offensive line. The Biscuit Filmworks director has done Super Bowl commercials before, but may I humbly suggest that this is his magnum opus?

A good Super Bowl commercial immediately captures your expectations and flips them upside down. Everyone knows Manning, but mostly for his two Super Bowl rings and iconic Manning faces. His brother is the film star, with insurance company jingles and infamous Saturday Night Live skits. Eli Manning never had moments like that ... until Sunday.

It was Nick Foles, not head coach Doug Pederson, who first suggested the Eagles run a trick play to score the most memorable touchdown of Super Bowl 52. We know that because Showtime’s microphones caught the deliberations between Foles and his coach before the play:

There’s more here:

The Eagles are Super Bowl 52 champions, and even the teams that have lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl in the past have mixed feelings about it.

We checked in with fans of the last two teams to suffer crushing Super Bowl losses to the Patriots, the Falcons and the Eagles.

The Eagles completed one of the swiftest turnarounds in history when they beat the Patriots in Super Bowl 52 on Sunday. The year before, Philadelphia finished 7-9, dead last in the NFC East. The Eagles had a middling offense and appeared to be worlds behind the Cowboys in their own division. They made up that gap and then some in one year, going to 13-3 in the regular season and then sprinting through the playoffs.

Here’s what changed:

What a night of football! Offense, some defense (let’s be real — barely any defense), missed kicks, a legend in Tom Brady having a legendary night and losing, a backup in Nick Foles winning the MVP, and a big set of cojones on Eagles head coach Doug Pederson.

First and foremost, congrats to the Philadelphia Eagles. They have been a favorite team of mine to cover this season because they play the game the right way. I hate that cliché line, but it’s accurate. They block and tackle extremely well. They don’t beat themselves. They are well coached. They didn’t complain when they lost their future Hall of Fame left tackle, their MVP and franchise QB, their starting MLB, RB, and best special teams player. They just plugged in the next man, coached that player up, and kept chugging along. Howie Roseman, the Eagles’ executive VP of football operations, deserves credit for having the depth on the team to withstand the injuries.

Every time there’s a major sporting event we see the Kübler-Ross model in action. These are the five stages of grieving, which outline how humans handle intense loss and sadness. You’ve seen them before. Bargaining, anger, acceptance — all that jazz.

There was a chance Philadelphia would join the throngs of fans who have taken these steps in coping with a Super Bowl loss, but instead the underdogs prevailed. We don’t have a model for how people deal with success, because frankly there isn’t a need for one — but Philly gave us its own version of the slow descent into jubilant madness as streets burned, grease failed, and fans risked their lives to out-fan everyone else.

The best thing about close Super Bowl games is that you get that one play, that defining play that becomes the image of the game. The play that wraps up all the narratives of the season and can be easily packaged as a cliche for the spirit of the NFL. That picture of the triumphant individual. We’ve had the Malcolm Butler interception, the David Tyree and Santonio Holmes catches, the Marcus Allen reverse run, and the Mike Jones tackle. It’s the moment that keeps us watching the games, the moment that every athlete dreams of growing up.

The play that defined this Super Bowl came right before halftime. The Eagles ran a trick play on fourth-and-1 inside the red zone that saw Nick Foles catch a wide-open touchdown that put his team up 22-12.

The Eagles are bringing a Lombardi Trophy home to Philadelphia for the first time in franchise history. Head coach Doug Pederson addressed the team with an inspirational speech after they held off a late-game rally attempt from the Patriots.

Plenty of people wrote off the Eagles’ season when quarterback Carson Wentz went down with a torn ACL against the Rams in Week 14. But this season didn’t come down to one person for the Eagles.

Nick Foles stepped up when Carson Wentz went down with a torn ACL in Week 14, and he led the Eagles to their first Super Bowl win in franchise history on Sunday. The spotlight is on Foles for now, and rightfully so.

But don’t let Foles’ outstanding turn as the Eagles’ next man up overshadow what Wentz did for the Eagles this season.

FAMOUS PEOPLE, HELLO. My blogs are for the people, but for one time and one time only, this one is for your reading pleasure.

You are probably rich. You are probably attractive. You can definitely go almost anywhere, at any time, for any reason. But you cannot necessarily get onto the Super Bowl 52 championship stage.

After Super Bowl LII was over, cameras and reporters shoved in around Patriots head coach Bill Belichick at his press conference podium despite the fact that they couldn’t hear a word. Either his mic wasn’t working or Belichick didn’t care enough to lean in. Either way, if you were beyond, say, the third or fourth row of people, all you got were the low, grumpy grumblings of a disappointed old man.

Such is the deference that Belichick commands. He is the greatest ever in his profession. When someone’s that good, you shrug your shoulders and squeeze even farther up against the person in front of you on the basis that another inch forward may reveal another inch of this man’s soul.

Twice in Super Bowl 52, a receiving touchdown for the Philadelphia Eagles was reviewed by officials. Twice, NBC color commentator Cris Collinsworth argued the NFL’s catch rules should overturn those calls on the field. And twice, officials disagreed and determined the touchdowns would stand as called.

In a 41-33 shootout that was the most prolific day of offense in Super Bowl history, those pair of touchdowns proved to be the difference.

The Eagles and Patriots played a unique Super Bowl on Sunday, culminating in a 41-33 Philadelphia win and that franchise’s first Lombardi Trophy. You probably watched the game, but whether you did or didn’t, here are the numbers that best tell its story.

Yards of total offense between the two teams: 538 for Philadelphia, 613 for New England. Raw yardage isn’t as instructive as averages per play (7.6 for the Eagles and 8.5 for the Patriots), but the total figure is the best illustration of the kind of track meet this Super Bowl was. It was the highest total yardage in a Super Bowl ever by a margin of more than 200 yards. This looked like a Big 12 game at times.

The Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LII in a thrilling, absurd 41-33 victory over the New England Patriots, and the victory turned into another platform for prominent athletes to support incarcerated rapper Meek Mill.

Meek Mill is a Philadelphia native, and his music turned into a rallying cry for the underdog Eagles, who ran onto the U.S. Bank Stadium field Sunday with the rapper’s “Dreams and Nightmares” blaring. Can you blame them? “Dreams and Nightmares” is an iconic album opener. That beat switch is hot enough that it could heat New York City for an entire winter if you hooked it up to the power grid.

The Eagles’ pre-snap formation on Nick Foles’ surprise touchdown catch in the first half of the Super Bowl looks illegal, if you just stare at a screen cap of their alignment:

Football’s rules say the offense has to have seven men on the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped. The Eagles only appear to have six. At the top of your screen, receiver Alshon Jeffery starts at about the Patriots’ 3-yard line. The ball is snapped from the 1.5-yard line or so, making this look a lot like an illegal alignment.

A VERY drunk Kevin Hart crashed the NFL Network’s postgame interview set, which is proof that persistence always pays off. That’s a good lil lesson for the kids out there! Kevin is just a fantastic influence.

After Hart dropped that expletive, he was quickly escorted off the set — understandably so, you know. But again, this is a lesson of persistence. Why? Because this was Kevin Hart earlier.

Despite not scheduling an official television interview before Super Bowl 52, President Donald Trump still had some thoughts about the outcome of the game between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles.

Trump stayed mostly quiet on Super Bowl Sunday. He declined to make any public prediction and refused a pregame interview with NBC. But he did congratulate the Eagles on their 41-33 win.

Tom Brady is 40. Bill Belichick is 65. Retirement isn’t far on the horizon for the two pillars of the New England Patriots dynasty, but it would be surprising if Super Bowl 52 were the last game for either. Still, that rumor is making the rounds this week.

On Sunday morning, ESPN’s Dianna Russini tweeted that “both could be hanging it up” after a game against the Philadelphia Eagles:

Minnesota Timberwolves superstar Karl-Anthony Towns grew up in New Jersey down the road from Philadelphia, and he has been rooting for the Eagles his whole life. Look at him now! He posted this on his Instagram story, and LOOK HOW HAPPY HE IS.

“I AIN’T NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY” needs to go on Eagles championship T-shirts right now, please. And man, he lived through an incredible game that must have had his emotions riding so high and low from start to finish. Here’s the one tweet that Towns sent during the game itself.

In one of the most unlikely performances we’ll ever see, backup quarterback Nick Foles wins Super Bowl MVP after leading the Philadelphia Eagles to their first title in franchise history.

Foles went toe-for-toe with Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 52, capping off a remarkable run after replacing Carson Wentz late in the regular season. Wentz tore his ACL in Week 14, but the Eagles never flinched when Foles went under center, still getting the No. 1 seed and dispatching the Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings, and now the Patriots to win the Lombardi Trophy.

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Doug Pederson coached the game of his life, and of course he couldn’t stop smiling while his players dumped an entire bucket of yellow-green Gatorade right on his damn head.

It’s tradition, after all. And it was even green!

Nick Foles and the underdog Eagles did what so many other teams have failed to do. They killed a classic Patriots comeback to get a 41-33 Super Bowl win — the first in franchise history.

The Eagles went into the half with a 22-12 lead, thanks to Nick Foles outplaying Brady in every possible way, including as a receiver. The Eagles extended their lead to 10 points with a trick-play pass from Trey Burton. But never forget Super Bowl 51 and that 28-3 lead the Falcons carried into the half. No lead is safe against Tom Brady and the Patriots.

It was huge day of offense in Minnesota with the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles combining for a few Super Bowl records. The 74 total points scored in Philadelphia’s 41-33 win was one point away from tying the record for most points scored.

The record for points in a Super Bowl was set 23 years ago by the San Francisco 49ers and San Diego Chargers. The Steve Young-led 49ers came out on top with a 49-26 win and the combined 75 points was the only time two teams combined for more than 70 points for more than two decades.

Nick Foles began the 2017 NFL season as a backup quarterback, but he finished the year on top of the sports world with a win in the Super Bowl.

By leading the Philadelphia Eagles to a win over the New England Patriots, Foles is only the second quarterback to beat Tom Brady with a Lombardi Trophy on the line. The only other quarterback is Eli Manning who twice led the New York Giants to a win over the Patriots.

The Patriots lost yet another Super Bowl on Sunday night, their third loss of the last decade. Without context, that sentence could be taken as a tale of tragedy, but let’s be real here — the Patriots story over the last 17 years is not a sad one. They’ve built a dynasty the likes of which we’ve never seen in the modern NFL. And odds are decent that we’ll see them right back here next year.

The Eagles were too much in Super Bowl 52, and were deserving champions, winning the game 41-33. For Eagles head coach Doug Pederson, it’s a triumph and a testimony to a team that could have folded like 19 times this year and never did so.