PHILADELPHIA — In 1917 — roughly 104 years before Nick Sirianni entered the NovaCare Complex, hopped on a Zoom call with a couple of dozen reporters, and flunked Public Speaking 101 — a scholar named Walter Brandenburg published a book called The Philosophy of Christian Being. Despite its thrilling title and themes, Brandenburg’s tome was not the Fifty Shades of Harry Potter: Inside Donald Trump’s Plot to Steal the Singing Crawdads of its day. But it did introduce the term “teachable moment” into the American lexicon (page 84: “to take advantage of this opportune time, this teachable moment …”).
Walter Brandenburg would have loved the 2022-23 Eagles. Their rise into a Super Bowl team has been loaded with teachable moments. They’ve been providing examples that should help fans, media members, and people in and around the NFL reconsider their preconceptions and assumptions — preconceptions and assumptions that might not be true anymore, if they ever were. Here are a few of the lessons that everyone should have learned:
A head coach’s introductory press conference doesn’t necessarily matter.
