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Eagles Held Fake Super Bowl Walk-Through Just In Case Patriots Were Watching

BOSTON (CBS) -- While there has never been any evidence of the Patriots recording an opponent's walk-through ahead of the Super Bowl, the Philadelphia Eagles weren't taking any chances last week in Minnesota.

Following Philadelphia's Super Bowl LII victory over the Patriots, Eagles long snapper Rick Lovato said the team purposely didn't practice any of their special plays during their pre-Super Bowl walk-through -- just in case the Patriots were up to any shenanigans.

"I believe our whole walk-through was just a complete fake walk-through," Lovato told 620 WDAE in Tampa, via ProFootballTalk.com. "We did it at the stadium. There were certain people walking around. . . . I believe I overheard someone say a lot of the plays we were running weren't even in the playbook for the Super Bowl."

Lovato said the Eagles had their game plan in place before they even left for Minnesota.

"We had two weeks to prepare for that game. A measly walk-through the day before the game, we weren't going to show anything to anyone, especially being at the stadium," he said.

Lovato said that included their trick play just before halftime, dubbed the "Philly Special," where quarterback Nick Foles hauled in a one-yard touchdown on fourth-and-goal.

The narrative of the Patriots filming pre-Super Bowl walk-throughs stems from a story the Boston Herald ran back in 2008, claiming the team had recorded the St. Louis Rams walk-through ahead of Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002. That story was proven false (which is kind of a trend with the Herald and their Patriots stories) a few weeks later and the paper apologized for the report, though that seems to be forgotten nationally whenever cheating accusations are brought up against the Patriots.

Normally in this case, we'd point to the Patriots being in their opponent's head, which doesn't usually work out for said opponent. That clearly wasn't the case last Sunday, as the Eagles came out a focused and determined bunch en route to a 41-33 victory.

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