By Amy Tennery
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni had no problem taking on the underdog role against his Kansas City counterpart Andy Reid on Monday, heaping praise on the Chiefs play caller ahead of their Super Bowl rematch.
The 66-year-old Reid beat Sirianni’s Eagles two years ago in the NFL title game, outfoxing the 43-year-old to overcome a 10-point halftime deficit in what pundits declared a triumph of experience over youth.
Their rematch this year at the New Orleans Superdome invites an obvious revival of that youth-versus-experience narrative and but Sirianni said he would take it in his stride.
“He’s got a lot of experience, that’s for sure, won a lot of football games. I can’t tell you how much respect I have for him and the job that he’s done,” Sirianni told reporters on Monday.
“The tape just oozes off of how good a coach he is. You can watch a tape and really see a team and be like, man, this staff is a special staff and that’s how I feel when I watch him.”
Coaching in his sixth Super Bowl, Reid and his Chiefs will hunt for an unprecedented “three-peat” on Sunday that would put the ebullient, mustachioed fan favorite two wins shy of Bill Belichick’s all-time postseason winning record (31).
Sirianni’s resume is thin by comparison, coaching only his second Super Bowl, but he told reporters his team were ready to meet the occasion.
“In my shoes, you just try to get better and you can’t tell me that a game in November or October where we’ve put everything on the line for the entire week to go out and play is just not as big, because we treat every game that way,” he said.
“So there’s big game experience – we treat every game that way. We empty the tank every week.”
Reid, who managed the throngs of reporters at the famously rowdy Super Bowl Opening Night media event on Monday with veteran ease, said he was not changing his winning approach this time around.
“We keep it very similar to what we’ve done in the past,” said Reid, who previously spent 14 years as the head coach in Philadelphia. “We try to keep it as consistent as we can for the players, just in general, so they kind of know where they’re going, what they have to get done.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New Orleans; Editing by Michael Perry)
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