Monday night’s game between the Eagles and Chiefs will be the ninth time that the previous year’s Super Bowl opponents have met in the regular season and it’s natural to think that the Eagles might feel a little extra juice to win because the Chiefs beat them in February.
Eagles center Jason Kelce said that isn’t the case for him, however. Kelce said he’s drawing no extra motivation to win because of what happened in Arizona, although he did admit that there might be a little added stimulus due to the presence of his brother Travis and his former coach Andy Reid.
“I’m motivated to win the game,” Kelce said, via Tim McManus of ESPN.com. “I don’t need the Super Bowl to motivate me to beat my brother or Andy Reid. I’ve never beaten them in my career. I’m more motivated maybe by that. I don’t buy into Super Bowl revenge games. Each season is different. This team is not the same, that team is not the same. Nothing that happens on Monday night is going to at all change or make anything different about what happened last year.”
While Kelce acknowledges the added personal angles to the game, he said “you’re really doing yourself and your teammates a disservice” if your attention is on anything other than what’s needed to win the game. We’ll see how well that approach works out for the Eagles on Monday.