Welcome to our fair and balanced, apolitical, unbiased running thread. The Eagles are visiting The White House in recognition of their Super Bowl 59 triumph over the Kansas City Chiefs, and by “triumph” I mean they totally kicked the Chiefs’ asses! It wasn’t even close. 40-6 at one point before the Birds conceded a couple of meaningless, garbage time touchdowns. They totally dismantled the Kansas City dynasty, providing salvation not only for the Delaware Valley, but the United States and global football community.

This is not a political thread because we are not a political site. We’ll just keep a log here of what was said, what was done, and anything else you may find interesting.

Takeaways, notes, and observations:

1) Jalen Hurts was not present due to a “scheduling conflict,” the conflict presumably being that he does not support President Trump, but you never know! Maybe he had a dentist appointment.

2) Saquon Barkley played golf with Trump over the weekend and was pictured with him in a photo that went viral. If you missed it earlier on Monday, Saquon told everyone to get out of his mentions with politics.


3) Before the ceremony, a bunch of the Eagles visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington. A nice gesture by the Birds.

4) The pre-ceremony playlist included a live band rendition of the Rocky song and Elton John’s Philadelphia Freedom, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in the same month the Birds won Super Bowl LIX. Little bit of trivia for you there. Other songs I heard were Walking on Sunshine, by Katrina and the Waves and Sweet Caroline, by Neil Diamond. We only heard about 30 seconds of Sweet Caroline, mercifully, as the ceremony began around 4:16 p.m.

5) Dunno how much you want to read into any of it, but Saquon was front and center, along with Vic Fangio, Howie Roseman, Kevin Patullo, and Jemal Singleton. Most of the offensive line was in the 2nd and 3rd row right behind the podium, with Dallas Goedert next to them. Trump walked out with Nick Sirianni and Lane Johnson.

6) Trump’s first greeting? Big Dom. “You must be Big Dom.” What gave it away? Just look for the largest Paisan out there. He made a few remarks and then went over to Jeffrey Lurie to shake his hand. Howie Roseman got a large pop from the crowd as well.

7) Trump called Big Dom up to the podium and asked him to say a few words: “I just want to say thank you, we’re honored to be here, thank you President Trump, and that’s it, go Birds.”

8) Lane Johnson’s height and weight were impressive to the President.

9) “He’s a handsome guy, but I wouldn’t want to tackle him.” – Trump on Saquon. “I offered him a ride on Air Force 1 because I was coming down. Normally they say no, no, he said ‘I’ll take it sir,’ and he loved it. We loved being together. He’s a great young guy and an incredible football player.”

10) Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, and Johnson got individual shout outs. Saquon got another shout and there were some “MVP” chants coming from the crowd.

11) Trump talked about Jalen Hurts and read out some of his stats, calling him a “terrific guy and terrific player.” He didn’t make any comments about Hurts not showing up.

12) Reed Blankenship got the first nod among defensive players. They asked him to come to the podium and he said “Go Birds.”

13) By my estimation, there were maybe 50 people on the stage, which included Senator Dave McCormick and the coaches and front office people.

14) Trump hopes the NFL keeps the Tush Push because it’s exciting and sort of different. He wants the old kickoff rules to come back as well.

15) Lane got up and said a few words, thanked the President for the opportunity, thanked Lurie for the the culture within the organization, and shouted out Roseman as well.

16) Nick Sirianni: “Thanks for having us here, we appreciate the endorsement for the tush push, go Birds.”

17) Lurie, paraphrased: Truly an honor to be here, never dreamed we’d be as good as this, this was an incredible team, great culture, humility, selflessness, discipline, thank you for the hospitality today and go Birds.

18) Johnson then came back up and they presented Trump with an Eagles jersey and did the photo op while the band played “We are the Champions” in the background.

That was about it, the entire ceremony was about 23 minutes long and very straightforward, very down the middle, no political awkwardness or anything like that. The guys who got up to speak for the Eagles kept their comments short and sweet. I’m sure people will read into who got shout outs and who did not. Mekhi Becton was standing right there with everyone and was the only O lineman not to be named, which was noticeable. But overall it was clean and a nice ceremony. Go Birds.

Here’s the entire thing if you wanna watch it: