Eagles coach Doug Pederson is ready to mark some new territory.
The team will celebrate its unlikely Super Bowl title Thursday with their ring ceremony, and after that, Pederson is ready to put all the trappings of last season behind — including the dog masks.
“It’s a great opportunity for us, great motivating factor for us, to sort of rip off the dog masks and no longer be the underdog, but now be the hunted,” Pederson said, via Dave Zangaro of NBC Sports Philadelphia. “Have the target on our back.”
A number of players took to wearing the dog masks last year to underscore the underdog nature of making the Super Bowl and winning it with a backup quarterback.
But with four months of celebrating nearly in the rear-view mirror (and what a celebration it has been), Pederson said that after the ring ceremony he hopes to set new goals. That doesn’t mean there won’t be reminders everywhere, as they’ll all have new jewelry and there will be reminders all over their complex.
“I still remember the one I won in Green Bay,” Pederson said. “I still have shirts and hats and stuff at the house. I remember my teammates. I think as each day passes, it gets more into the past. It’s going to be a part of our fabric, part of our history here in Philadelphia, part of the Eagles’ organization, obviously. I want guys to remember. I think it’s the journey we took to see a Super Bowl LII logo on the wall. It means something different to Jason Peters than it does to Big V, right? I want those guys to remember it, I want them to embrace it.”
But after this week, he’s ready for them to embrace 2018.