Eagles coach has a special guest lined up to speak to the team the night before the Super Bowl
Eagles coach Doug Pederson is trying to infuse some championship mettle into his team before it takes on the favored New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII on Sunday.
Pederson has invited his former teammate and old friend Brett Favre to address the players.
Favre will give the team a pep talk Saturday morning at the team hotel.
Head coach Doug Pederson confirms that former NFL star QB Brett Favre will speak to team on Saturday morning at team hotel
— Dave Spadaro (@EaglesInsider) January 31, 2018
Favre, a three-time NFL MVP, led the Packers to a 35-21 win over the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI. Pederson was also on that team, serving as Favre’s backup.
Favre and Pederson spoke before Philadelphia’s 38-7 rout of the Vikings in the NFC championship game, and the Hall of Famer told Pederson he’d come back and talk to the team if they won.
Philadelphia HC Doug Pederson, who backed up Brett Favre for a decade, has arranged for Favre to address the Eagles on Saturday morning.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 31, 2018
Favre will no doubt deliver some championship inspiration to the Eagles.
He might even tell some funny stories from Pederson’s playing days, reported Ed Werder.
Favre and Pederson talked on phone before Minny game. Favre said if #Eagles won, he would have to come tell them about Pederson wearing a singing bass shirt before GB playoff game. They shared laugh at the memory and Pederson then requested Favre talk to his team night before SB.
— Ed Werder (@WerderEdESPN) January 31, 2018
The last time Pederson asked a famous athlete to address the team before a game, it was week 14 against the Rams — the game in which Carson Wentz got injured. That famous athlete was Kobe Bryant, who grew up in Philadelphia. The Eagles held on to win that game behind backup quarterback Nick Foles.
In a Sports Illustrated story this week, Favre talked about his relationship with Pederson.
“When Doug was with me, I hate to say he was a lot like a coach, but he was. Very instinctive. He thought the way I thought. He knew me. He knew what I was thinking, and he was able to relay that to the coach, or the play-caller. Not a lot of the backup QBs have the headset on, but I wanted him talking to the coach,” Favre told SI’s Peter King.
“He’d tell the play-caller, Mike [Holmgren] or Sherm [Lewis, offensive coordinator] or Mike [Sherman, a Holmgren successor], ‘Think checkdown.’ Or, ‘Third-and-three, expect this.’ He was right so often. Some quarterbacks don’t want anything in their ear but the play. I did. I would say, ‘Make sure to give me reminders.’ So he’d say, ‘Hey, Merton Hanks likes to come from the weak side here,’ or ‘Brad Culpepper is tilted on the nose here—be careful for the weakside blitz.’ He just knew how I thought,” said Favre.
Pederson was drafted out of the University of Louisiana-Monroe in 1993 by the Dolphins. He moved to Green Bay in 1996 and served as Favre’s backup through 1998.
He spent a year in Philadelphia and a year in Cleveland before rejoining the Packers, where he stayed until he retired in 2004.
In 1999, Pederson started nine games for the Eagles, going 2-7. The next year he started eight games for the Browns, going 1-7.
While Favre did beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, that New England team was quarterbacked by Drew Bledsoe, not Tom Brady, and coached by Bill Parcells, not Bill Belichick.
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