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Learn more at vertexinck.com. This is the athletic football show.

Welcome to the athletic football show.

I'm Robert Mays, and we are coming to you guys from, I guess it's the media center now at the Super Bowl.

It's no longer Radio Row.

It's 2023.

We're calling things different things. But we are at the Super Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona. Very, very excited to be here. And very excited to do the show. One of my favorite shows that we do every single year. We're going to talk to our Chiefs writer at the Athletic a little bit later, Nate Taylor, about how the Chiefs got here.

Just talking about their path to this point, some of the guys that maybe we don't think enough about as people not around these teams every day, really tap into the wonderful resource of the guys that cover the teams for the athletic that we have. And speaking of that, joining us first, our two Eagles

writers from the athletic, first of all, good friend, Bull Wolf. Bull, how you doing, man? I'm doing good. Thanks for having us. Very excited. And also joining us is Zach Berman. Zach, thank you for doing this. Great to be here. I never am good at introducing two people. I never know how to do it, because I I've always joke that the podcast intro, it's like the zooender thing where you can't turn left.

I have to do it because I've always joke that the podcast intro, it's like the zoo under thing where you can't turn left. I have to do the same intro every single time or I just wouldn't be able to do it. So whenever there's two people, I just start to get out of my depth. It's hard to introduce Zach. There are so many superlatives that you could start with. You get sort of paralyzed by choice. Zach, let's start with you. My first thought about this team is that it doesn't feel like it's been this long. It doesn't feel like it's been that long since we did this. 2017, and maybe it's longer ago than I'm probably giving it credit for, but it's only been five years. And I wanted to ask you, what do you think is the biggest difference with the way this week feels,

with the way this team feels, all of those aspects with this team compared to the 2017 team?

Sure. Well, in 2017, it was very much playing with house money. And it seemed that way from the time

Carson Wentz was injured in Los Angeles that year, through the playoff run.

And the underdog mantra, you know, with the dog masks that they were wearing, the fact that they were underdogs in every postseason game, that really caught on.

And the fact they were playing against the ultimate Goliath at the time, right?

Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the Patriots.

The Eagles, conversely, they,

they expect, and when I say the Eagles, this year's Eagles team, they expected to be here. And it

became pretty clear relatively early on in the season, especially, you know, week two, they beat

...