PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Red and yellow confetti fell at State Farm Stadium, and the celebrating team has experienced it before. Well, at least the main core.
Kansas City boss Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, head coach Andy Reid and others take on their second Super Bowl, their third big game in four years.
If they miss that march to opposing team's locker room confetti, the Eagles are a team that some think could challenge for a few championships with their core.
Of course, the team is built around the quarterback. Jalen Hurts has proven time and time again this past season, including in the Super Bowl, that he can truly run a franchise.
smugglers? They are also installed. AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Godert are still under contract through at least 2024.
The defense will look a lot different next season, but they still have a talented unit, especially when two potential first-round picks come into play.
However, if you look at the history of sports in Philadelphia, you'll see that championships don't happen very often. Races like Chiefs and New England Patriots are uncommon.
The Eagles' last Super Bowl against the Chiefs came five years after they won their first Lombardi Trophy. But it is rare.
The Chiefs-Birds Super Bowl was also the Eagles' fourth trip to a big game.
Before Super Bowl LII, his last outing was in the 2004 season against the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX. It took another 37 years of backsliding to return to their first Super Bowl appearance in 1981.
During Reid's years in Philadelphia, his team lost three straight NFC championships before finally winning the Super Bowl. After that, in 2008, he only made it to the title fight once and lost again.
If you look at any other sports club in the city, you will see that they have also experienced a championship drought.
Heck, before the Phillies ceded home wild cards and qualified for the 2022 World Series, they hadn't won a pennant in 13 years and were enduring MLB's longest playoff drought in record time.
While the Phillies' best record in franchise history began with the playoffs in 2007, they won the World Series in 2008 and returned the following year, but lost to the New York Yankees.
As special as this race was, they never returned to 2009. The 2010 and 2011 teams were more talented than the previous two to make it to the World Series, but they fell short of expectations.
The 2010 team lost in the NLCS and the 2011 team was eliminated from the NLDS.
As for the Sixers, there is a generation of fans who have never seen them play in the NBA Finals.
Allen Iverson led the Sixers to the Finals in 2001, where they lost in five games to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Until this year, the Sixers had not returned to the NBA Finals or the Eastern Conference Finals.
As successful as Joel Embiid's Sixers basketball was, his team was unable to overcome adversity and advance to the second round.
Even Embiid's talented team of Jimmy Butler, Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris couldn't get past the second half after Kawhi Leonard, then playing for the Toronto Raptors, got what was called a "doink quadruple." Always heartbreaking for Philadelphia fans to discuss.
Maybe the 66ers will change that this season. They are currently third in the Eastern Conference, but that remains to be seen as they sit ahead of two giants in the standings – the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks.
The Flyers haven't competed in the Stanley Cup since 2010, and sorry Philadelphia fans, that's not going to change anytime soon, or at least not this season.
While the Flyers have won the Stanley Cup eight times, seven of them before 2000, the Orange and Black have not won a championship since 1975.
So yeah, that makes the Eagles' most recent Super Bowl a major disappointment.
It was a missed opportunity.
