Some Eagles aren’t thrilled about starting the 2024 regular season in Brazil. Quarterback Tanner McKee is trying to get them to understand it won’t be as bad as they think.
“I think a lot of guys have questions about the safety and the culture,” McKee said Sunday, via Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “It’s easy for people to be scared about things they don’t know. It’s a completely different country that a lot of people haven’t visited and they’re going to speak a different language and the culture is going to be different. It makes sense to take precautions and things like that. We do that no matter what game we’re going to. I’m just telling the guys, I think everyone is going to be pleasantly surprised how nice everybody is down there and the culture and things like that.
“I would say no matter where you go, if you’re a football team you probably shouldn’t walk around a big city with cash in your hand or things like that.”
Players like safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and cornerback Darius Slay have questioned the NFL’s decision to send the Eagles to Brazil.
“Man, I do not want to go to Brazil,” Slay said on his podcast, via Lane. “They already told us not to leave the hotel. . . . NFL, why do y’all want to send us somewhere where the crime rate is this high?”
Given what happened to 49ers receiver Ricky Pearsall on Saturday, plenty of cities in the United States aren’t exactly Xanadu. Players who go anywhere except (as NBA star LeBron James advised after the Pearsall news) “home, work, and back home” are assuming a certain amount of risk
In Brazil, the NFL has assumed it for them. But if they stay in the hotel and with the team, they’ll be fine.
Take it from tackle Lane Johnson. “I’m just along for the ride,” he said, via McLane. “It’s just part of the job. It is what it is.”
And that it is. Philadelphia. San Francisco. Any other American city. Any country where the league has decided to stage games.
For football players who hope to play professional football at the highest level, it’s not as if there’s an option.
For Week 1, the only option for the Packers and Eagles is to play in Brazil.