‘Woke’ Philadelphia Eagles take on New England Patriots, cast as the team of the president

The most consequential moment of the NFL season, which concludes on Sunday night in Minneapolis with Super Bowl LII, took place not on the field of play, but inside an Alabama arena in September.

Addressing a rally for a Republican senator, Donald Trump berated American football players for engaging in silent acts of civil disobedience, almost derailing the season.

NFL players were “sons of bitches” for participating in a protest started by the quarterback Colin Kaepernick against police killings of black people, the US president said.

He went on to take credit for a fall in the league’s television ratings and thumbed his nose at hard-won strides towards player safety, by claiming referees were doing too much to protect them at a time of controversy over the long-term effects of concussion.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest From left: Eli Harold, Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid kneel on the sideline during the national anthem. Photograph: Thearon W Henderson/Getty Images

The vehement criticism of Kaepernick was part of a wider backlash since he sat alone on the bench during the national anthem before the San Francisco 49ers’ friendly against the Green Bay Packers in the summer of 2016. Other players have since opted to “take a knee” during the Star-Spangled Banner, with the protests spreading to other US sports. Kaepernick remains without a team since leaving the 49ers.

By training his rhetorical crosshairs on America’s national pastime, Trump shrewdly co-opted the NFL as not merely a proxy battle in the US culture wars, but the primary theatre. One of the most well-received lines from his first State of the Union address on Tuesday came when he stressed the importance of standing for the anthem, a callback to the September speech and a not-so-thinly veiled jab at Kaepernick’s movement.

Q&A Who’s playing in Super Bowl LII? Show Hide Who’s playing? The New England Patriots, the most reliable winning machine in American sport over the past two decades, with five Super Bowl titles since 2001, are the favourites to beat the Philadelphia Eagles, the hard-luck club that have not won an NFL championship in 58 years.

Who are the players to watch? Tom Brady, New England’s quadragenarian quarterback, will become the oldest signal caller to start a Super Bowl. Brady, the odds-on favourite to win a third NFL most valuable player award on Saturday night, is the best player on either roster. His Philadelphia counterpart Nick Foles, a backup who assumed the starting role when Carson Wentz was injured in December, has played himself into form and will be of crucial importance if the Eagles are to spring an upset. Who should win? The Patriots were installed as healthy favourites when the matchup was confirmed, but the odds have shortened during the run-up, suggesting heavy action on the underdogs. However, while the Eagles have shown the sort of logic-defying resilience typical of a championship team, in overcoming a deluge of injuries to key players, it is awfully hard to go against the greatest quarterback in history – even if he is 40.

For America’s stick-to-sport crowd, the clash between the dynastic New England Patriots and perennially underachieving Philadelphia Eagles augurs well for enough on-field intrigue for the football to hold centre stage, at least for a few hours.



Antipathy towards the Patriots' Super Bowl juggernaut is a form of self-hate Read more

New England, the defending champions, have transformed themselves in a generation from moribund also-rans into the most reliable winning machine in American sport. Their five Super Bowl titles in 16 years were underwritten by a trinity of constants: the quarterback Tom Brady, the head coach, Bill Belichick, and the owner, Robert Kraft.



Philadelphia have won three NFL titles in their 85-year history, but none since 1960, six seasons before the NFL’s championship game became known as the Super Bowl. This year’s team started with the league’s best record before losing the quarterback Carson Wentz to a season-ending knee injury in December, a most Philadelphia-like plot twist. But they embraced their underdog role under Wentz’s backup Nick Foles, whose form has taken them all the way to Minneapolis..

Play Video 1:34 Super Bowl LII: Patriots and Eagles set for showdown – video

If the on-field narratives are juicy, the wider political context is perhaps even more gripping. The Patriots have been cast, fairly or otherwise, as the team of Trump, due to Brady, Belichick and Kraft, all of whom have shown a quiet allegiance to the commander-in-chief while stopping short of wholesale endorsement.

Kraft held a meeting with Trump in New York shortly after his 2016 election triumph, while Trump made no secret of the “most beautiful letter” he received from Belichick.

While it would appear a perfect canvas for a political statement, the majesty of the occasion keeps players on task

Brady, spotted with a Make America Great Again hat in his locker at the Patriots’ stadium shortly after Trump announced his candidacy, said during the Republican primaries that “it would be great” if his friend and golfing buddy won the White House.

In contrast, the Eagles have a reputation as the NFL’s most socially conscious team, making a point to embrace rather than avoid controversial causes. Malcolm Jenkins, the Eagles’ veteran defensive player and leader of the coalition of NFL players tasked with working towards a resolution with the league over the anthem protests, hasobserved the Philadelphia police department at work and twice met politicians to discuss prison reform alongside his team-mate Torrey Smith.

Chris Long, another defensive player, gave away his season’s wages. Proceeds from the first six games went to his hometown of Charlottesville after violent protests in September, the rest to education initiatives.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chris Long of the Philadelphia Eagles donated his wages for the season to good causes. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP

The club’s reputation for being “woke” – a term first used in the African American community to describe a newfound social conscience – reflects developments in the city. The mayor of Philadelphia, James Kenney, is a progressive who has pushed for policing reforms. The district attorney was elected despite having sued the police department 75 times. Also, Philadelphia is a sanctuary city where people will not be asked about their immigration status.

Simplistic as these characterisations may be of teams composed of 53 players from disparate backgrounds, they will no doubt inform public consumption of the Super Bowl.

Nevertheless, the likelihood of protest feels remote: the Patriots and Eagles players who either knelt or raised their fists during the anthem had ended their protests by the end of the regular season.

Quick guide Super Bowl in numbers Show Hide 111,317,000 - The average number of US viewers for last year’s Super Bowl, more than double the second most-watched TV programme of 2017. The Academy Awards was the only non-NFL broadcast in the top 10. More than $5m - The average cost of a 30-second advert during Super Bowl LII, according to the rights holder NBC. The price of a similar spot during last year’s Oscars ranged from $1.8m to $2.2m. $6,922 - The average resale price of a Super Bowl LII ticket five days before Sunday’s game, according to the online reseller TicketIQ, which tracks the secondary ticket market. $138.5m - The total amount bet on last year’s Super Bowl, according to the Nevada Gaming Commission, topping the $132.5m in receipts from the previous year. And that’s just the legal betting. 1.35bn - The estimated number of chicken wings that will be eaten by Americans during Super Bowl weekend, according to a National Chicken Council report – enough to circle the Earth three times.​

Moreover, while the game would appear to be a perfect canvas for a political statement, the majesty of the occasion has a way of keeping players on task. No one was compelled to take a knee last year, which coincided with a dizzying torrent of headlines from Trump’s first two weeks in office.



What is left is a football game, a half-time show featuring Justin Timberlake, and the eyes of the nation.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Justin Timberlake is performing in the Super Bowl half-time show for the first time since 2004. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP/Getty Images

The seeds of the NFL’s decline may have been sown with the concussion debate, but reports of the league’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. It remains a national obsession: the previous eight Super Bowls represent the eight most-watched programmes in US TV history.

Last season’s game drew an average of 111.3 million viewers, the largest American audience of any TV show all year and more than double that of the next closest competitor. In a country riven by ideological faultlines and dysfunctional politics, the Super Bowl remains one of the last, reassuring remnants of a disappearing American monoculture.