Perhaps you’ve heard this before: The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl this year. The team that forever seemed doomed to represent the City of Philadelphia perfectly—generally pretty successful, but never the best—actually won the Super Bowl for the first time.
The annual NFL meetings took place earlier this week in Orlando, and the Eagles were greeted as defending champions for the first time since they won the NFL championship in 1960. Per an article by Thomas George in SB Nation, they enjoyed it very much. “You’re treated differently, you’re viewed differently as a Super Bowl champion,” Doug Pederson said. “Even now, it’s still hard to fathom.” And Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie says he wants more: “I’m fired up. I want even more for our fans.”
Other NFL owners want a Super Bowl title, too. But there’s a shockingly morbid reason they want to win the Big Game. George writes:
Several owners have told me that being in their 70s and 80s, they know that time is not on their side. They want Super Bowls before they die. They have seen in recent years their peers die, the latest Tom Benson from New Orleans, and last year Dan Rooney from Pittsburgh, and mortality is driving a hunger and sprint for rapid turnarounds and more valiant championship-thinking and movement.
Unfortunately for the NFL’s septuagenarian and octogenarian owners, 66-year-old Jeffrey Lurie also plans to take home the next five or six Super Bowl trophies.