Whoops, I Did It Again! A Rewatch of Super Bowl LII

Jul 7, 2020

This past weekend in the Philadelphia area was hot, humid, wet and generally discouraging on all fronts.

I’ve never wanted sports more than I did this weekend when I didn’t even feel like going outside.

So, what do you do when there are no games, camps, or relevant updates about our favorite football team? For me, the answer was simple, grab the kids, fire up the home theater and watch Super Bowl LII, again.

During the 2017 season, my kids were 5 and 8 and we hit a turning point in the growth of their fandom. At the beginning of the 2017 season, my daughter confiscated my Brian Westbrook jersey and made it her own. Before we sat down each week to watch the game there was a very specific routine. She would run to my closet and pull down the jersey and then she’d get two sheets of paper and two pencils, one for her and one for her brother.

Every week on each sheet they would both track score changes in the game. I never stopped them, but always thought it was funny since the score is on the screen 90% of the time anyway. They tracked the score even if the Eagles lost (which wasn’t often in 2017).

By that point my daughter had been watching games with me for a couple of seasons, but my son was never able to make it through a full game (whether he wandered off or just passed out on my lap). In 2017, things changed. Both of my kids were locked in for every game we watched together. Being a young Eagles fan certainly affords some advantages, the biggest being the lack of disappointment that comes with watching every season end without a trophy.

This was never more evident then at the conclusion of the week 3 game against the New York Giants. After a tough (albeit expected) loss to the Chiefs the week before it looked like the Birds might fall to the Giants as well. It would all come down to the foot of a rookie kicker in just his 2nd game with a brand new team and a near impossible 61 yard field goal attempt.

I was pacing, my daughter was standing in front of the TV and my son was standing on the couch. As Jake Elliot lined up to make that kick, my daughter turned around to me and said:

“Relax, dad. He’s going to do it.”

She had the confidence of a fan that didn’t have to witness the botched hold by Tommy Hutton that prevented a last minute win against the Cowboys in 1997. I was not as confident, and I told her to be prepared for a miss and overtime. Seconds later, the kick was up and through for a walk off win that would change the course of the entire season. As soon as it went through, she turned to me with a grin on her face and said something that I repeated in my head the rest of the season, “Dad, they are going to the Super Bowl this year.”

We all know what happened next (or at least a few months later). When my heart broke as Carson Wentz hobbled off the field, both of my kids assured me it could still happen. And it did.

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Throughout the playoffs my daughter refused to give back my Westbrook jersey sleeping with it under her pillow for almost a month!

The point of all this wasn’t just to remind us all how great that season was, it was to talk about the game again and how different it was to watch it with my kids both 3 years older. Thanks to the NFL Game Pass we were able to get the full game version minus commercials in full HD.

The first time around, every commercial break felt like an eternity. Any other year, with 2 different teams playing, I’ll laugh or heckle the commercials, but not this time. The breaks were excruciating. I kept yelling, “I just want to watch the game!” and my kids would laugh. The half-time show was especially difficult because with seconds left in the half on 4th down the Eagles pulled off what could be the greatest Super Bowl touchdown I have ever seen.

A minute later both teams left the field and all I could think about was how the momentum the Eagle just got would all be washed away in a 30 minute Justin Timberlake show.

During the re-watch in 2020, without commercials or the half-time show we could watch Doug Pederson keep his foot on the gas almost immediately. The Eagles held the Patriots to a field goal and scored their own touchdown on the ensuing drive. Even Cris Collinsworth praised Doug Pederson’s effort in the game to that point.

The fun part about watching it with the kids again was that this time I could break down some of the key plays better than when I was red lining on anxiety in 2017. We frequently paused the game and ran back plays so I could explain what and why things were happening on the field. There was so much offense in this game it wasn’t hard to find plays to rewind.

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Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

The funniest moment in the rewatch party came when Zach Ertz caught the touchdown that gave the Eagles a 5 point lead just before the two minute warning. For some reason I forgot for a moment the game wasn’t live and I got just as annoyed at Collinsworth as I did the first time. He repeated he didn’t think it was a catch multiple times on the replay because Ertz didn’t maintain possession when he went to the ground.

It was clear on the replay that Ertz takes at least 3 steps before actively diving (not tripping) into the endzone.

All that frustration came crashing back like it was February 2018 again, but then I looked at my kids and saw them laughing and looking back at me. It was all I needed and I started to laugh too.

Watching that game will never get old and my 3 greatest takeaways from the rewatch experience are:

Watch games with your kids. It gives you a new perspective to enjoy it. I can keep all those negatively charged feelings locked up if I’ve got a kid on both sides of me just enjoying the game through their young eyes.
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You only need to watch this 1 game to realize that Doug Pederson should be at least in the top 5 of current coaches. He played a game that Belechick could not adjust to. This is no small task. Belichick figured out the Dan Quinn in Super Bowl 51 and he did it again to Sean McVay in Super Bowl 53, but he could not figure out Pederson.
No matter where Nick Foles ends up, I will always root for him (although I’m thankful he’s not in the NFC East). Very few quarterbacks have played a game like that on a stage that big. He may not be suited to start every game of his career, but you know he can take the pressure and I respect that.