Super Bowl champion Eagles ‘look forward’ to White House visit, owner Jeffrey Lurie says

PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Eagles are slated to visit the White House on April 28 to celebrate their Super Bowl victory over the Kansas City Chiefs with support from owner Jeffrey Lurie and coach Nick Sirianni.

Speaking publicly about the official invitation from the Trump administration for the first time on Tuesday at the league meetings, Lurie said the team had “no reticence whatsoever” about accepting the offer. He called the White House visits by championship teams “time-honored” traditions.

“To be celebrated at the White House is a good thing,” Lurie said.

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That celebration didn’t happen in 2018 after the Eagles’ Super Bowl win over the New England Patriots, which occurred during President Donald Trump’s first term. Fewer than 24 hours before the team was scheduled to arrive at the White House, Trump rescinded the invitation, objecting to the Eagles’ plan to send a “a smaller delegation” in a statement.

Trump was particularly outspoken at the time about his opposition to players who protested systemic racism by kneeling, sitting, or remaining in the locker room during the national anthem.

In the same statement in which he revoked the Eagles’ 2018 White House invitation, he wrote, “They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem …in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country.”

His decision in 2018 evidently didn’t affect the prospect of a White House invitation for the Super Bowl LIX champion Eagles. On Feb. 25, Trump said he would extend an invitation to the Eagles, lauding their “great performance” to reporters in the Oval Office.

“There were special circumstances back then that were very different,” Lurie said Tuesday of the Eagles’ lack of a White House visit in 2018. “So this was kind of an obvious choice [to accept the invitation] and [we] look forward to it.

“You know when you grow up and you hear about, ‘Oh, the championship team got to go to the White House,’ that’s what this is. So we didn’t have that opportunity, and now we do. I think we’re all looking forward to it.”

On Tuesday morning, Sirianni echoed a similar sentiment, saying that he was “really excited” to go to the White House.

“What an honor,” Sirianni said. “What an honor to be able to go to the White House. Teams that have been winning the championship have been doing that for a long time. I’m really honored to go and really excited to go.”

Lurie emphasized, though, that the White House visit is not mandatory if players have reservations about attending.

“Our culture, these are optional things,” Lurie said. “If you want to enjoy this, come along and we’ll have a great time. And if you don’t, it’s totally an optional thing.”

When asked for his message to fans who take offense to the team’s White House visit, Lurie pushed back against the political nature of the impending trip.

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“This is really just an invitation from the White House,” Lurie said. “That’s all this is and we’re not politicizing it in any way, ‘cause it’s not for us.”

Trump was the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl, traveling to New Orleans to watch the Eagles’ 40-22 drubbing of the Chiefs. While he did not acknowledge the Eagles following their NFC championship win against the Washington Commanders (and praised the Chiefs), Trump raved about the Eagles two days after they hoisted the Lombardi Trophy.

“The Eagles were really, it was like flawless football, amazing,” Trump told Mark Levin on his radio show last month. “Even the first play, they called it back. It was a long pass, it was, you know, either a touchdown or going to be a touchdown. They called it back, completed long pass, and they went on to get touchdown after touchdown. They really played great.”