Eagles are focused on this season, won't even watch Super Bowl banner ceremony

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts (1) hands off to Eagles running back Saquon Barkley (26) during warm ups before an NFL preseason football game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Thursday, Aug. 7, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Jalen Hurts perfectly summed up the mindset of the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles entering their title defense.

“Nothing I’ve accomplished in the past will get me what I desire in the future,” Hurts said in an interview on SiriusXM during training camp.

Before the Eagles kick off against the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night in the NFL opener, their championship banner will be unveiled at Lincoln Financial Field.

Don’t expect the celebration to be a distraction.

Coach Nick Sirianni said Tuesday that his players won’t even be on the field for the ceremony.

“I didn’t know it was banner night. We won’t be out for that,” Sirianni said.

Hurts and his teammates aren’t satisfied with winning one championship. The Eagles are aiming for multiple rings and they’re built to repeat after dominating Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl seven months ago.

Hurts, All-Pro running back Saquon Barkley, star wide receiver A.J. Brown and the entire offense, including a dominant line, return. The defense lost several key players — defensive linemen Josh Sweat, Milton Williams and Brandon Graham, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and cornerback Darius Slay — but has a lot of talent, depth and a savvy, wise coordinator in Vic Fangio.

Cornerbacks Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean, who had a pick-6 against Mahomes in the Super Bowl, finished in the top five in voting for the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year award. Defensive tackle Jalen Carter has established himself as a dominant force and All-Pro linebacker Zack Baun had a breakout season.

“I think we’re ready to go,” Fangio said. “We still have a lot of guys that were here last year and guys that we expect to be improved from last year.”

Sirianni has preached that it’s a new season, Hurts has reiterated it and team leaders have embraced it.

“We’re focused on our process and how we get better every single day. If your process is right, then it gives you the best chance to win,” Sirianni said earlier in the summer. “It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win, but it gives you the best chance to win. Our goal is just to focus and to focus on where we are at this particular moment, to put the work in, to overcome the adversity and the rest will take care of itself.”

Whatever it takes

Seven-time Pro Bowl left guard Joel Bitonio begins his 12th season when the Cleveland Browns host the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday.

In an effort to help prolong his career, Bitonio last year became one of the first patients in the country to have stem cells removed, grown, then returned to his knee to treat early arthritis, which is a normal occurrence in elite athletes.

While many athletes have used stem cell treatments — notably Kobe Bryant and Ray Lewis — to help speed recovery, the difference in this procedure is that University Hospitals in Cleveland is growing the stem cells.

Bitonio said he felt a “huge” difference in his recovery time last season. He didn’t have fluid buildup on his knee after games so he was able to train and practice more often as opposed to previous seasons.

“At the bare minimum, it was a high-quality anti-inflammatory,” Bitonio said. “But as I’ve gone through this offseason, my knee just keeps feeling a little bit better, a little bit better. Going into last year, I was kind of having trouble running full speed. I felt like my knee was just not there. And then going into this year, I’ve been training pretty hard and I think it’s this stem cell treatment, man. They’re doing something, they’re helping out, it’s keeping the knee in its best shape as it can.”

Browns head team physician and chair of orthopedic surgery at University Hospitals Dr. James Voos performed the procedure, extracting stem cells from Bitonio’s hip and injecting them into his right knee several weeks later.

“The desire for our athletes to perform at their best and extend to their careers is higher than ever,” said Voos, who is president of the NFL Physicians Society. “Being a head team physician and the department chair at an academic orthopedic institution gives us a unique opportunity to address athletes’ needs and, in this case, our players are often looking for stem cells and, as we all know, there’s all sorts of places you can go in the United States and out of the country. But there’s no real regulation as to what you’re getting, what’s in it, what is standardized. And so I really felt the obligation as Joel’s physician, as our team physician within our academic role, to be able to deliver a much more science-based stem cell program. So I worked with the FDA for two years, meaning we applied to get approval with the FTA and it took two years. And we developed a process with our lab at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine where we harvest your stem cells, grow them into the millions and then come back and inject them into the body. So the unique part is you have millions more cells, millions more growth factors, and you know exactly what’s going in your body.”

Bitonio was one of 16 patients, which includes other athletes, to receive this treatment, which was approved by the FDA for knees in Phase 1 of the trial. Voos said the goal moving forward to get approval to use the stem cell treatment in other joints.

“You have to start somewhere and knee injuries are the most prevalent in our athletes so we started with the knee,” said Voos, who is also executive director of the University Hospitals Haslam Sports Innovation Center where technologies and therapies are developed to elevate performance and increase longevity in athletes of all ages.

Hollywood time

Marquise “Hollywood” Brown should be ready to go when the Kansas City Chiefs face the Los Angeles Chargers in Brazil on Friday night.

Brown was limited to two regular-season games and the playoffs after sustaining a shoulder injury in the preseason last year. He sat out this preseason with foot and ankle problems.

“It’s easy to build chemistry with a guy like that,” Brown said about playing with Patrick Mahomes. “It’s basically feeling our speed and feeling (out) how I like to do things and from that point on, you know the guys, he gets it there.”

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