Fresh off their first Super Bowl title, the Philadelphia Eagles arrived home to a hero’s welcome Monday afternoon, hours after overjoyed fans mobbed the streets in a sometimes unruly victory celebration nearly 60 years in the making.
Hundreds of fans greeted the team’s plane at Philadelphia International Airport, cheering wildly and singing “Fly Eagles Fly” as Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie emerged with the Lombardi Trophy after beating the New England Patriots 41-33 Sunday in Minneapolis.
After getting off the plane, Lurie, coach Doug Pederson and stars such as tight end Zach Ertz and running back LeGarrette Blount approached the chain-link fence separating the team from the fans, smiling, pumping their arms and shooting video with their phones. Fans stood on cars and news trucks to catch a glimpse.
“It’s been a long journey to redemption,” said John Hall, 49, who works at Philadelphia’s public transit agency. “We don’t have to hear the negative anymore, that we don’t have a ring. It’s official now.”
Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles, the unassuming backup quarterback who took over for injured star Carson Wentz and played brilliantly throughout the playoffs, wasn’t on the team plane. Foles headed — where else? — to Disney World, riding a float at the Orlando resort and fist-bumping Mickey Mouse amid a shower of green confetti.
“It’s all right to yell,” he told the cheering crowd there. “We’re world champs! We did it! We did it!”
The city scheduled a victory parade for Thursday along a 5-mile route that will end at the Philadelphia art museum, whose steps Sylvester Stallone ran up during “Rocky.”
Revelers along the parade route will be able to indulge in free Bud Light at two dozen bars.
On Sunday night, revelers shot off fireworks, drivers beeped their horns and Philadelphians young and old descended on Broad Street.
Fans clambered atop the awning at the swanky Ritz Carlton Hotel near City Hall, jumping off into the crowd in what one Twitter post called “Ritz Carlton Skydiving.” The awning later collapsed with a large group of people on top of it. It wasn’t clear if anyone was injured.
Nearby, windows were smashed at a Macy’s department store and at an Old Navy clothing store.
Meanwhile, the Eagles’ Malcolm Jenkins joined teammate and former Ram Chris Long in saying he would not be visiting the White House if the Eagles are invited to meet with President Donald Trump — who was critical of NFL players and called for owners to fire any “son of a bitch” who protested during the national anthem. Jenkins was one of the protesters.
“I don’t have a message for the president. My message has been clear all year. I’m about creating positive change in the communities that I come from,” he said.
Super Bowl tough on Vegas • Lady Luck was not the side of Las Vegas sports books during the Super Bowl as some reported six- and seven-figure losses in part because of a seemingly deep-pocketed mystery bettor and the many records set during the game, which allowed gamblers to cash in on proposition bets.
Gamblers wagered a record $158.6 million on the big game at Nevada’s 198 sports books, over $20.1 million more than in 2017. But the unaudited tallies released Monday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board showed sports books made a profit of only about $1.2 million on the action, around $9.8 million less than in 2017 and not even close to the $19.7 million they cleared in 2014.
And the house was a big loser in some locations. The Patriots were favored from anywhere from 4 to 6½ points in the two weeks leading to kickoff.
The sports book at the Mirage took a bet for more than $2 million on the Eagles. And the same bettor who took the city’s sports books for millions of dollars on the World Series also placed a $500,000 wager on the Eagles at the South Point casino. He also put two bets of $1 million with William Hill, which runs more than 100 sports books in Nevada. William Hill reported ending the night with a multimillion-dollar loss, with $3.2 million alone to the mystery bettor.
TV rating down • An estimated 103.4 million people watched the Super Bowl telecast on NBC, a 7 percent drop from last year. The Nielsen company said it’s the smallest Super Bowl audience on television since 2009 despite the underdog winning a thrilling game that was close from start to finish. The record for any television event in the United States was the 114.4 million who watched the Patriots against the Seahawks in 2015.
Lions tab Patricia • As expected, the Detroit Lions hired Matt Patricia, who had been the Patriots’ defensive coordinator, as their coach. He replaces Jim Caldwell, who was fired last month. Patricia, 43, was the Patriots’ defensive coordinator for six seasons, ending with his unit giving up 41 points and 538 yards to the Eagles.
Elsewhere • A man being held in a suspected drunken-driving crash that killed Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson and his Uber driver has been deported twice from the U.S. Manuel Orrego-Savala, 37, remained jailed Monday following Sunday’s crash along Interstate 70 in Indianapolis. Police said that he’s a citizen of Guatemala who gave officers a fake name when he was arrested.
Police said Jackson and Uber driver Jeffrey Monroe were standing outside Monroe’s car along I-70 after Jackson became ill while Monroe was transporting him for the ride-hailing company.
Both men were struck and killed by a pickup truck driven by Orrego-Savala, police said. I A breath test administered at the crash scene found that Orrego-Savala’s blood-alcohol content was 0.239 percent, or nearly three times Indiana’s legal limit of 0.08 percent, according to a probable cause affidavit.
• The Raiders released former starting cornerback David Amerson, the first significant move since Jon Gruden took over as coach last month. His $5.5 million salary for 2018 would have been fully guaranteed later this week.
Oakland is counting on 2017 first-round pick Gareon Conley to be the starter next season at one cornerback spot.