Philadelphia didn't take 'Fly, Eagles, Fly' too literally en route to a Super Bowl championship
Despite an international trip to Brazil, and their infamous anthem, the Eagles had one of the friendliest travel schedules in the NFL this season
A lot has been written about the Eagles’ dominant performance against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in this past weekend’s Super Bowl LIX. For example, many have noted how Philly’s four-man defensive front got enough pressure on Kansas City’s all-world quarterback despite not blitzing once.
Or how Jalen Hurts overcame the narrative that he couldn’t beat elite teams with his arm. Or how Mahomes had likely the worst game of his professional career. Or even what Kevin Cole has called “financial alchemy” by Philadelphia’s shrewd front office to put the team in a position to win a championship a few years removed from their last.
And countless other storylines depicting Philadelphia’s championship mettle. But was the real secret to the Eagles’ success perhaps…their travel schedule?
I’m mostly kidding, but it makes you think. The Eagles traveled less miles than 11 other teams in the league this season despite embarking on the longest trip of the season — a Week 1 international game in São Paulo, Brazil that had them travel 4,700 miles from home (one way). The only longer individual flight was the Packers’ 5,300 mile trip from Green Bay, Wis. to Brazil for the same game.
In fact, Philadelphia didn’t have to get on a plane after its Week 12 trip to Los Angeles in mid-November until traveling to New Orleans for the Super Bowl last week1. That means players were able to spend ample time with their families and slept in their own beds as they were making a push for the NFC’s top seeds during the toughest part of the schedule in December and January.
They played a stretch of nine games without getting on a plane to travel to their destination. After facing the Rams in that Nov. 24 matchup in LA, the Eagles (likely) traveled by bus to face the Ravens in Baltimore in Week 13. From there they played four of their next five regular season games at home at Lincoln Financial Field, with their one away game just a bus ride away to face the Commanders at Northwest Field2 in Maryland.
Then they played all three of their playoff games leading up to the Super Bowl at home, certainly helped by Washington’s Divisional Round upset of the top-seeded Detroit Lions.
The last time I ran this analysis after Week 13 the Eagles had traveled the most amount of miles in the league. But since then they dropped to the middle of the pack flying a total of 22,000 miles throughout the season. While the above chart only contemplates regular season travel their air miles didn’t change until going wheels up for the Super Bowl.
And thanks to their schedule the Eagles also had the fourth best rest differential (+12 days) of any team in the league this season.
It’s hard to believe that rest combined with a lax travel schedule during the worst parts of winter didn’t play into Philadelphia’s success this season, which we know culminated in the franchise’s second ever Super Bowl title.
Cover photo courtesy of Jessica Harrisson.
I’m assuming they traveled by bus to a few away games if I couldn’t find their flight details on the Jet Tip blog which does a fantastic job of tracking each NFL team’s travels throughout the season.
This is the new official name; most of you will know it as FedEx Field.