Do faith and football go together? For players on the Philadelphia Eagles, the answer is a resounding “yes.”
The Eagles won their first Super Bowl 41-33 over the New England Patriots in a hard-fought game Sunday night in Minneapolis.
“All glory to God,” MVP Quarterback Nick Foles said right after the win. “I felt calm. We have such a great group of guys, such a great coaching staff … we’re very blessed,” he said.
Just nine years ago, Eagles head coach Doug Pederson was coaching high school. Now he’s a Super Bowl champion. “I can only give the praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for giving me this opportunity,” Pederson said Sunday night.
And touchdown-scoring Wide Receiver Zach Ertz echoed the same sentiment. “Glory to God first and foremost,” Ertz said.
And despite being sidelined by a season-ending injury, Eagles QB Carson Wentz threw all his support to Foles, and all the glory to God. Carson Wentz tweeted: “God is so good!!!! World Champions!!!! So proud of this team!!!! Told y’all my boy @NFoles_9 was gonna shine tonight! Well deserved my bro! #AO1 #flyeaglesfly”
Foles, who turned in an amazing performance to lead the Eagles to victory, is bold about professing his born-again faith, describing himself on Twitter as a: “Believer in Jesus Christ, husband, father, son, brother.”
A number of his teammates share that faith in Christ, and you can bet many on the team were as “prayed up” for the Super Bowl as they were throughout the season.
At the start of the season, Foles and teammates Zach Ertz, Trey Burton, Carson Wentz, and Chris Maragos released a Bible study on humility and surrender through the YouVersion Bible app.
“On every Monday night, we have a couple’s Bible study. We have a Thursday night team Bible study,” Wentz explained in the video. “And then Saturday nights, we actually get together the night before the game and just kind of pray; talk through the Word; what guys have been reading, what they’re struggling with, and just kind of keep it real with each other.”
“To have that here in an NFL facility like this, it’s really special,” he added.
“As men, you tend to be very sheltered. If I’m going through some things, I may not express that to the next man,” Smith shared. “Only you can kind of expose your weaknesses and things you want to work on, whether it’s in your relationship or your marriage or your family, whatever it may be.”
“When you’re able to talk about it amongst your brothers, amongst your family, it helps you grow,” he continued. “And when you realize that you can apply Biblical principles to it, it helps us all grow.”
“I think the biggest thing that we’re always challenging each other with is just to not lose sight of the bigger picture,” Wentz said. “I think wins, losses, highs, lows, everything that comes with this game, it’s so easy to take your mind and your eyes off of the ultimate prize, and that’s living for the Lord.”
“And we want to be united,” Maragos said. “We want to support each other; we want to support each other in our lives through the difficulties off the field as well as on the field.”
“And so I think it’s really kind of something to where we’re all just kind of binding together to kind of keep each other sharpened and keep pushing forward,” he continued.
That unity helped propel them to the NFC Championship game and now a 41-33 win over the Patriots in the Super Bowl.