Another SB run for Eagles? Philly sports history says not so fast
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As the red and yellow confetti fell at State Farm Stadium, the team celebrating had already experienced this before. Well, the main core, at least.
Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, head coach Andy Reid and others on the Kansas City Chiefs recorded their second Super Bowl, marking their third trip to the big game in the past four years.
The Eagles, the team on the losing end of that walk through the opposing team's confetti back to the locker room, is a squad some say has the chance to make multiple championship runs with their core.
Sure, the team is set up at quarterback. Jalen Hurts proved several times this past season, including the Super Bowl, that he's the real deal with the ability to lead the franchise.
The pass catchers? They're set up too. All three of A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert are under contract through at least 2024.
The defense will look much different next season, but they'll still have a talented unit, especially with two potential first-round picks coming into the fold.
Even with that said, if you look back at Philadelphia sports history, championship appearances don't come around very often. The Chiefs and New England Patriots-like runs aren't common.
The Eagles' latest Super Bowl vs. the Chiefs happened five years after bringing home their first Lombardi Trophy. But that's a rarity.
The Chiefs-Birds Super Bowl was also the Eagles' fourth-ever trip to the big game.
Before Super Bowl LII, their last trip happened in the 2004 season against the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX. You'd have to rewind another 42 years to go back to their first Super Bowl appearance in 1981.
During Reid's years in Philadelphia, his teams lost three straight NFC championships before he finally got the Super Bowl. After that run, he only got to the title game one more time in 2008 and lost again.
When you look at other sports franchises in the city, they've also experienced championship droughts.
Heck, before the Phillies played with house money in the wild card and made a run to the World Series in 2022, they didn't win a pennant for 13 years and had, for a short time, the longest playoff drought in MLB.
When the Phillies' best run in franchise history started by making the playoffs in 2007, they won the World Series in 2008 and went back the following year but lost to the New York Yankees.
As special as that run was, they never got back after 2009. The 2010 and 2011 teams were more talented than the previous two squads that made it to the World Series, but they didn't meet expectations.
The 2010 team lost in the NLCS, while the 2011 team was knocked out in the NLDS.
As for the Sixers, there's a whole generation of fans that haven't witnessed them play in the NBA Finals.
Allen Iverson carried the Sixers to The Finals in 2001, where they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in five games.
Ever since that year, the Sixers haven't been back to NBA Finals or Eastern Conference Finals.
For as successful as the Joel Embiid-era of Sixers basketball has been, his teams haven't been able to get over the hump and get past the second round.
Even the team loaded with talent in Embiid, Jimmy Butler, Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris couldn't get past the second round after Kawhi Leonard, who was with the Toronto Raptors at the time, hit a shot known as the quadruple doink that is still a heartbreaker for Philly sports fans to discuss.
Maybe the Sixers change that this season. They currently sit as the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference, but that remains to be seen with two juggernauts – the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks – ahead of them in the standings.
The Flyers haven't made a trip to the Stanley Cup since 2010, and sorry Philly fans, that's not changing any time soon, or at least this season.
While the Flyers have made eight trips to the Stanley Cup, seven of those came before the year 2000, and the Orange and Black haven't won the championship since 1975.
So yeah, that's what makes the Eagles' most recent run to the Super Bowl incredibly disappointing.
It was a wasted opportunity.
