HARTFORD, Conn. — The game-time temperature was 17 degrees and the 26-mph wind whipping through Philadelphia brought the wind-chill factor down to zero.
Jim Mora, coaching the Atlanta Falcons, knew he would have to brave the elements with as much exposed skin as his opponent, Andy Reid, in this 2004 NFC Championship Game against the Eagles.
“It was an incredibly cold game,” Mora. “And Andy, for years and years and years, wore the same outfit for Game Day, that windbreaker jacket. He doesn’t wear gloves. I’m like, ‘if Andy’s not going to wear a hat and gloves today, I’m not going to wear a hat and gloves today,’ so I went out essentially in the same type of clothing that he wore. And all I wanted the whole game was for him to put a dang pair of gloves on so I could put a dang pair of gloves on, because my hands were so cold. But I thought, ‘I can’t go out there all bundled up if Andy’s not going to be all bundled up, that shows weakness to my team and I’m not going to do that.’ ”
That proved to be only one of Mora’s worries that day, Jan. 23, 2005. Reid and the Eagles beat Atlanta, 27-10, to reach the Super Bowl XXXIX, where they lost to the Patriots. Now Reid, 64, a likely Hall of Famer, is coaching the Chiefs, with whom he has reached three more Super Bowls, winning in 2020, and will play his former employers for the championship this time.
Now the coach at UConn, Mora, 61, knows well the caliber of the combatants in Sunday’s Super Bowl LVII.
In his first season as a head coach, Mora had turned the Falcons around, from 5-11 the previous season to 11-5, and beat the then-St. Louis Rams in the Divisional round. Then he matched his defensive expertise against Reid’s offensive wizardry.
“Andy is an outstanding play caller,” Mora said. “He never lets you settle into a rhythm on defense. He is very unique in the way he uses his personnel. He’s unorthodox to a certain extent. He has a tremendous understanding of how to put his players in positions to utilize what they do best, and minimize what they struggle at, and I know that trying to call defenses against Andy, I always felt like I was playing catch-up, like he was a little bit ahead.”
The Eagles opened up a 14-3 lead, but the Falcons scored before the half to stay within striking distance (14-10). Mora remembered being surprised, and a little frustrated, that his team was called back onto the field for the second half before he could say something to the group. Then Donovan McNabb threw his second TD pass and Philadelphia pulled away.
“When you play an Andy Reid team, you know they’re going to be disciplined,” Mora said. “They’re going to play with a certain level of maturity, with a certain level of confidence because they’re prepared. They’re typically not going to beat themselves.”
Mora has never watched film of the game. He just flushed it, as some coaches do with a painful, season-ending loss, and has seen only random snippets since. “When you lose the NFC Championship game, it’s just debilitating,” he said. “You’re so close to that goal of reaching the Super Bowl, your mind almost goes numb after the game.”
At Kansas City, Reid has the perfect quarterback to execute just about anything he can dream up, orthodox or not, in Patrick Mahomes.
“He’s such a tremendous threat with the ball in his hands in every aspect of the game,” Mora said. “Whether he’s extending a play to throw the ball down the field, or threatening you as a runner, forcing you to stay back. With Andy’s creative play calling and his use of personnel on the field, it’s really, really difficult.”
Mora and Reid came out of the same general coaching tree, planted by Bill Walsh on the West Coast, so they have many mutual friends in the game and have always been on friendly terms.
“With Andy, what you see is what you get,” Mora said. “He is a good man.”
After Mora left the NFL, he coached at UCLA, and then did TV work before coming to UConn last season. He got to know Jalen Hurts, then at Alabama, now the MVP-level quarterback of the Eagles, who dominated the NFC East and have crushed the Giants and 49ers in the playoffs.
“I’m a huge Jalen Hurts fan,” Mora said. “And I have been since he got benched in the [2017] national championship game. I saw how he handled that. I actually brought my kids into the room and made them watch how he handled it, because I thought he handled it like a man. Two years later, I was working at the Elite 11 camp, a quarterback competition, and Jalen was a camp counselor and I got to spend a couple of days around him, and everything I thought he would be from watching him react to being benched was what he was. A winner. Strong. Tough. Integrity. There was just something about him, this guy’s different.”
Immersed in his job at UConn, where he took over a 1-11 program and got the Huskies to .500 and a bid in the Myrtle Beach Bowl, Mora’s chances to follow the NFL are limited. He’s not offering any predictions, but he is expecting a classic matchup on Sunday, and looks for a fight to an exciting finish.
“I have watched the Eagles and I love the way they reflect the personality of their coach [Nick Sirianni] and their quarterback,” Mora said. “There is a toughness to those men that is unique. Every NFL player is tough, but there is a team toughness to them. The way they use Jalen and his willingness to take hits even though he’s been hit, it shows a tremendous amount of grit. You look at this game, both these quarterbacks are men of grit. You watch Patrick Mahomes take off on that play where he was hit out of bounds [vs. Cincinnati] and you realize the will to win is very unique. Both of those guys have that. You’ve got great coaches on both sides, great quarterbacks on both sides, complete teams, you’ve got it all.”
