FOXBORO — The Patriots are going for a third title in four years? And they're playing the Eagles?
It sounds familiar, but it really isn't.
Super Bowls typically match teams with little familiarity between them. AFC teams play NFC teams only once every four years, and it's actually unusual that three of New England's last eight trips to the big game have been rematches of regular-season matchups (2001 vs. St. Louis, 2007 and 2011 vs. New York).
But even [...]
FOXBORO — The Patriots are going for a third title in four years? And they're playing the Eagles?
It sounds familiar, but it really isn't.
Super Bowls typically match teams with little familiarity between them. AFC teams play NFC teams only once every four years, and it's actually unusual that three of New England's last eight trips to the big game have been rematches of regular-season matchups (2001 vs. St. Louis, 2007 and 2011 vs. New York).
But even within that context, Philadelphia presents itself as an especially unfamiliar foe. When the Patriots last saw the Eagles — in a memorably poor 35-28 home loss — late in the 2015 season, Philly had a different coach, different coordinators, a different quarterback, different skill-position players, etc. The Eagles have almost entirely remade themselves in the last two years under coach Doug Pederson.
Beyond that, Philadelphia is a different team heading into Super Bowl LII than it was for the first 14 weeks of the season with Carson Wentz under center. So the Pats have less game tape on this specific version of the Eagles than they did on Russell Wilson's Seahawks or Matt Ryan's Falcons.
Sure, it's preferable to face the backup compared to an MVP candidate at quarterback. Nevertheless, the lack of info on Nick Foles is unusual heading into this magnitude a game.
"You’ve always got to study, you’ve always got to prepare well to be on top of a team," defensive lineman Trey Flowers said. "You want to know them as best as you can. For us not being familiar with them, you definitely want to get on top of it, watch film as much as possible and do a good job preparing."
And so we looked for possible avenues for the Patriots to gain insight into the Eagles. What did they already know that could help them?
Well, Foles isn't necessarily an unknown quantity in the league. Unlike another late-season replacement who started — and starred — in the Super Bowl like Jeff Hostetler, Foles has Pro Bowl pedigree dating back to 2013. Does the tape from that season help, even if it came in a different system led by Chip Kelly and Pat Shurmur?
"It's a different team with a different style and different system," Flowers said. "You can go back and look at it as far as his playing style and try to get as familiar as possible with him prior to the game. That may be helpful. It's not anything that’s significant. You want to watch him as much recently as possible to see him in the system and just how the whole scheme, the whole offense is trying to attack."
One member of the Patriots defense who has seen the Eagles since Pederson took over in 2016 is linebacker Kyle Van Noy, who played against them early last season as a member of the Lions. Van Noy had three tackles in Detroit's 24-23 win in Week 5.
Does that experience help?
"It was so long ago, so not really," said Van Noy. "I just do what I've been doing, which is watch the tape, diagnose and play football."
Is it tougher with only a few tapes of Foles in this offense? He's started only five games for Philly this season.
"There's plenty of tape," Van Noy said. "However many games he's been in is a lot of tape. Some people have zero. You’ve got to be grateful he has more tape than not."
While the coordinators are different from the last time these teams met, New England does have some familiarity with them. Frank Reich was the offensive coordinator in San Diego when the Pats beat the Chargers in 2014, and Jim Schwartz was the defensive coordinator for Buffalo in 2014. Chris Hogan was on that Bills team, playing against Schwartz's defense every day in practice. That help at all?
"Not really. The personnel is completely different," he said. "Obviously his system is the same, but at the end of the day, you’ve really got to study the guys that you're going to be going against and how they play the defense. I wouldn't put too much merit into going against his defense three years ago. I'll be focused on studying this Eagles team and how they're playing his defense."
In that sense, the Patriots are fortunate they have an extra week to prep for Philadelphia. And it's not like a lack of familiarity has proven punitive in the past: Under Belichick, the Pats are 15-0 in the postseason against teams they did not play in the regular season.
"Everything doesn’t fall into place until a little bit later after you are able to grind through the whole thing," Belichick said of studying the tape. "Certainly it makes a little more sense each day, each time you cross a bridge, but there are a lot to cross and sometimes it takes a while to figure it all out."