The Eagles invested in the locker room, and it paid off with long-awaited Super Bowl

MINNEAPOLIS — The top dog late on Sunday night was drifting into every nook of his locker room embracing his Eagles. Owner Jeffrey Lurie and his pack of underdogs indeed had their day — they were Super Bowl champions now.

They had just conquered the grand Patriots — owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick, and quarterback Tom Brady — a trio used to this tender feeling. But it took 52 of these spectacles before the Eagles finally claimed one. It took 24 seasons of ownership before Lurie finally satisfied his Super Bowl hunger.

In the middle of the Eagles’ locker room bedlam, we talked about his circuitous franchise quarterback search and how a combination of Carson Wentz and Nick Foles proved the answer to a riddle that for so long he could not solve.

Think about that.

Lurie did.

“It’s really quite amazing when you think about where we’ve been and why this quarterback combination clicked,’’ Lurie said.

These are his starting quarterbacks since his first season of ownership in 1994: Randall Cunningham, Bubby Brister, Rodney Peete, Ty Detmer, Bobby Hoying, Doug Pederson, Donovan McNabb, Koy Detmer, A.J. Feeley, Mike McMahon, Jeff Garcia, Kevin Kolb, Michael Vick, Foles, Mark Sanchez, Sam Bradford, Wentz.

And Foles again.

Think about that.

Pederson, who couldn’t do it as his quarterback, aced it as his coach. Foles, who could not do it the first time around, nailed it in an encore.

“It’s a journey that’s just impossible to believe,’’ Lurie said.

Unless you’ve lived it.

Every suffocating, exhilarating moment.

Lurie invested Eagles’ capital and his heart into solving the franchise quarterback riddle before the 2016 season. His exhaustive planning and research led him to Wentz. After an initial season of promise and growing pains, Wentz this season led the Eagles to an 11-2 record before suffering a season-ending, early-December injury at the Rams in a game the Eagles won, 43-35.

Foles responded with a playoff run that saw the Eagles score 38 points in the NFC Championship and 41 points in the Super Bowl, with Foles named the Super Bowl MVP.

He did it exactly the way Lurie hoped he would, with focus, humility, and a genuine spirit. When Foles accepted his MVP trophy Monday morning, he talked about his perseverance.

“Don’t be afraid to fail,” he said. “Life is not a highlight reel. Without failures, who would you be?”

Lurie loved that this was the fabric and persona throughout the Eagles’ locker room. A strong core that included Foles and activist for social change in Malcolm Jenkins and Chris Long gave the Eagles a mettle of exemplary character and strength that served them well. It helped to create tangible resiliency.

Pederson said Foles “just needed time” to learn on the run while replacing Wentz. Pederson and his staff needed time, too, to properly tinker the offense toward Foles.

Long credited Pederson for the Eagles’ mindset during the transition.

“We’re human,” Long said. “When something goes wrong, sometimes you have doubt. You come to that team meeting room the next day and I remember after that L.A. game we had such an awesome win, it’s the biggest win of the year, we lost Carson. We came into the team meeting room and Doug just erased any doubt that anything was going to change. That’s a leader.”

Jenkins said the Eagles “spread the load” of leadership. From Lurie to Pederson to Wentz to Foles and onward, every Eagle found a leadership moment this season, a leadership niche. That creates team-wide ownership.

The Patriots are still marveling over Foles’ patience, his relaxed play, his execution of the Eagles’ offense and his point production in Super Bowl 52. Simply put, Foles outscored Brady and the Patriots. And it was Foles, not Brady, who produced the late, fourth-quarter, game-winning drive.

Someone asked Eagles linebacker Kyle Van Noy if he ever thought the Patriots’ defense would be torched for 41 points. His answer: “Did you?”

Pederson and Foles set out to light up the Patriots’ defense and the scoreboard. It was all about the points for them, not the yards. The Patriots gained more yards and did not punt in the game. But it was the Eagles who compiled the points.

“It stinks,” Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski said.

“It sucks,” Brady said.

The Eagles know. Lurie knows. He lost the 2005 Super Bowl to the Patriots.

That was Lurie’s only other Super Bowl trip.

The combination of Wentz and Foles at quarterback helped to give him another shot. A winning shot.

“We’ve waited a long time to be in this position,” Foles said. “The people who bleed green, the people of Philadelphia, the people across the nation that support the Eagles, they’ve waited a long time. Mr. Lurie has waited a long time.”

Foles called himself a piece of the puzzle.

Eagles center Jason Kelce is a prime example of that.

“Last two weeks,’’ said Kelce, “after we beat Atlanta, after we beat Minnesota, I found myself in the shower crying, dreaming of this moment. I’ve worked so hard in my life to get here and everything culminates. I’ve dreamed about it for a really long time.”

You have to be good and you have to be lucky to win a Super Bowl.

Look at the Eagles’ last draft.

Their first-round draft pick last April, defensive end Derek Barnett from Tennessee, was in the unusual position of being drafted in the city where his NFL career would unfold. Usually first-round picks are drafted and hop on a plane to meet their new team and become familiar with their new digs. But the draft last year was held in Philadelphia.

Barnett quickly learned he was already home.

We talked in Philadelphia a couple of days before the draft about his NFL dreams. He said he longed to land in a place that really wanted him. He believed he could contribute immediately but was willing to be patient. He was struck by the zeal of Philadelphia fans he experienced at every draft event.

“This could be a nice fit,” he told me. “I could see myself here.”

And there he was in Super Bowl 52 recovering the Brandon Graham strip-sack fumble of Brady in the closing seconds. The youngest bird helping to rule the nest.

“It was a good bounce right into my hands,” Barnett said.

That is exactly how Lurie feels about Pederson, about Wentz and Foles, about his Eagles cast of underdogs whose bite was sharp. Twenty-four NFL seasons of Lurie mix-and-match finally produced a championship quarterback tandem and a championship team.

A top dog engulfed by a bunch of underdogs.

They left enduring Super Bowl 52 “paw prints” everywhere.