Jalen Hurts credits 'Georgia background' for Philadelphia's championship-level connection
Philadelphia pulled off the mild upset in Super Bowl LIX on Saturday but the way it did it was shocking. The Eagles jumped all over two-time defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City, grabbed a 34-0 lead in the third quarter, and costed to a 40-22 victory. Jalen Hurts took home Super Bowl MVP honors after amassing nearly 300 yards of offense and scoring three touchdowns.
The score shows that Philly put up a lot of points but if you watched the game, you saw that its defense was the story. The Eagles engaged in wire-to-wire harrassment of Patrick Mahomes and the former Georgia trio of Nolan Smith, Jordan Davis, and Jalen Carter played a huge role. Those four combined for five hits on the quarterback and Davis tallied the lone sack.
As a team, the Eagles had six sacks and 11 hits on Mahomes. It was a dominant showing and a connected effort, one that was missing for this Eagles team a year ago as it faltered down the stretch and lost to Tampa in the opening round of the playoffs. Hurts was asked about that connection after the game and he pointed to the Bulldogs on the Eagles roster.
“Well, I’ll say to that, I think a big part of it has to do with the Georgia background on defense, you know,” Hurts said when asked about Philadelphia coming together as a team. “And I think that starts with Nakobe Dean and all those guys that were able to play ball in college together and bring their ways to the league. I think that has a big impact on our culture on defense, how they play, how together they are, and then I think it kind of seeps through the team in many ways.”
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“Connection” was a buzz word for Georgia going into the 2021 season. Coming off a COVID-disrupted season in 2020 where an extremely talented Bulldogs group just never seemed to get it going, Kirby Smart turned to regular “skull sessions” where he had players discuss their “why” in small groups.
That UGA team would go on to break a 41-year drought with a National Championship. It was the first of two in a row. All six of the players on the Eagles roster last night — Dean, Davis, Smith, Carter, Kelee Ringo, and Lewis Cine — were on that 2021 National Championship teamp. Smith and Ringo were starters for both championship squads.
