By Nicki Jhabvala, The Washington Post
Pro Football Writers of America
TEMPE — The Eagles’ motorcade and six buses pulled up to the Arizona Cardinals’ practice bubble promptly at 10:30 a.m. for the team’s final walkthrough ahead of Super Bowl LVII.
For 45 minutes, Coach Nick Sirianni — with help from administrative assistant Scott Kaniecki on a megaphone — led the Eagles through a set of situational plays, covering all three phases.
“We have a situational list that we keep adding to and we keep saying, ‘We need to walk through that, we need to walk through this,’” Sirianni said. “… Anything that can pop up—we’ve been doing these for 20 weeks and some of them haven’t popped up at all. Some of them have. It’s just studying the film, adding to your situations, trying to get better at it, trying to get better at the process and that’s why we have the plays in that we had today.”
Much of the work was focused on game-opening plays, and various situations, including two-minute,punts, fourth downs and so on.
Although it was only a walkthrough, backup quarterback Ian Book played the part of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
“He was good. I think on every play he just throws an interception to the other team,” Sirianni said jokingly.
After the session, Sirianni gathered his players at midfield to relay some of the messages he’s issued throughout the week.
“Sometimes good coaching is just reminding them of things they already know,’ he said. “So just reminding, ‘Stay in routine. Stay in the moment. Don’t let distractions happen,’ and we’ve really been talking about that all year. But what really makes that possible is we have good leaders, we have guys that care about the team and stay in moment.”
The team’s leadership council, composed of nearly a dozen players, stayed behind at midfield to talk with Sirianni for a few minutes before joining their teammates on the buses waiting in front of the practice bubble.
Sirianni came away pleased by his players’ attention to detail and focus throughout the week. It felt normal, he said.
“Just like always — normal stuff, normal business,” he said. “Same thing we’ve been doing for 20 weeks.”
There are no changes to the team’s final injury report. Receiver Britain Covey (hamstring) is the only player listed as questionable for Sunday and the others who appeared on the injury report throughout the week — G Landon Dickerson (elbow) — RT Lane Johnson (groin), C Cam Jurgens (hip), CB Avonte Maddox (toe) and DE Robert Quinn (foot) — are all good to go.
The Eagles were scheduled to have some free time with family for much of Saturday afternoon before regrouping for a final team meeting in the evening. Sirianni’s hope is his players use the time to take it easy. To, as he’s reminded them so often, keep it normal.
“We know tomorrow is going to be a long day,” he said. “So, relax, stay off your feet. Do what you normally do.”
Next up: Super Bowl LVII.
