The NFL didn’t publicly accept any blame for poor field conditions in the Eagles’ loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
The league apparently isn’t accepting blame privately either.
ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio on Monday reported that the NFL has been placing the blame elsewhere behind closed doors since the game ended:
“The NFL has an unofficial excuse for the situation, one that has been communicated when owners ask about it. Per a league source, the league blames the players for not wearing the right shoes. (The Eagles changed their cleats — and it didn’t seem to matter.)”
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That jibes with the NFL’s official stance from after the game. This was their statement about the poor field conditions: “The State Farm Stadium field surface met the required standards for the maintenance of natural surfaces, as per NFL policy.”
Oh yeah?
The Chiefs beat the Eagles 38-35 on Feb. 12 at State Farm Stadium. While both teams had to play on the same field, it was pretty obvious that the field conditions neutralized the Eagles’ vaunted pass rush, especially from their edge rushers. The Eagles led the NFL with 70 sacks last season and weren’t able to get Patrick Mahomes once in the Super Bowl.
NFL
In his joint end-of-the-year press conference, sitting next to head coach Nick Sirianni, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman clearly wanted to avoid any controversy. When asked twice about the field conditions, Roseman repeated the same answer: “Both teams played on the same field.”
While the Eagles have been hesitant to use the field conditions as an excuse, the team was obviously not happy about all the slipping.
After the loss, Eagles edge rusher Haason Reddick, who led the team with 16 sacks in 2022, said he was disappointed about the field conditions in a game of that magnitude.
“It’s very disappointing,” Reddick said. “A couple times, I had a good pass rush, felt like I beat my man, tried to turn the corner, couldn’t turn the corner. Like I said, I’m not making no excuses. But you watch the film, you see it. At the end of the day, they still won so credit to them.”
A few weeks after the Super Bowl, George Toma (nicknamed the Sodfather) explained to ESPN what went wrong with the field. There were plenty of reasons Toma gave for the poor conditions, including overwatering and other mishandling.
There’s obviously nothing the Eagles or the NFL can do about the poor field conditions now. The Chiefs won the game and that’s that. That won’t change. But the NFL’s consistent refusal to accept any blame for poor field conditions in the biggest game of the season is certainly disappointing.
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