10 Eagles Super Bowl connections other than Andy Reid

Andy Reid goes for two Super Bowl championships in a row Sunday, but he's hardly the only person involved in Super Bowl LV with Eagles connections.

There are players, coaches, scouts, trainers and even strength and conditioning coaches with strong ties to the Eagles, some going back more than two decades.

With the Buccaneers and Chiefs set to square off Sunday in Super Bowl LV in Tampa, here's a look at 10 Eagles Super Bowl connections beyond Big Red.

Mike Caldwell

The Bucs' inside linebackers coach, Caldwell spent 1998 through 2001 as a linebacker with the Eagles and it was Reid who gave him his first coaching job, as a defensive quality control coach under Jim Johnson in 2008. Mike — or “Zeke,” as he was nicknamed while he was with the Eagles — moved up to assistant linebackers coach in 2010 and was linebackers coach in 2011 and 2012.

Arians hired him in Arizona in 2013 and then Todd Bowles brought him to the Jets in 2015, and Bruce Arians, Bowles and Caldwell have been together in Tampa the last two years. 

LeSean McCoy

If the Buccaneers win, LeSean McCoy could become the first player in NFL history to win a Super Bowl ring in back-to-back years with different teams without playing in either game. The only players to win Super Bowls in consecutive years for different teams are joining Deion Sanders (49ers, Cowboys), Ken Norton (Cowboys, 49ers), Chris Long and LeGarrette Blount (2016 Patriots, 2017 Eagles), Russ Hochstein (2002 Bucs, 2003 Patriots), Derrick Martin (2010 Packers, 2011 Giants) and Brandon Browner (2013 Seahawks, 2014 Patriots). Sanders, Norton, Long and Blount played in both games. Hochstein, Martin and Browner played in one.

Shady, the leading rusher in Eagles history, had only 10 carries this year, none in the last six games and has played just one snap in the postseason.

Brett Veach & Jason Licht

The two Super Bowl general managers were together with the Eagles from 2004 through 2007, Veach as a coaching intern and Licht as Vice President of player personnel. Licht left the Eagles after 2007 and after stints in the Cardinals' and Patriots' front offices became Tampa’s general manager in 2014. Veach remained with the Eagles through 2012 and then Reid brought him to Kansas City as a scout. In 2017, he replaced Ken Dorsey as general manager. When he was introduced to the media, one of the people he thanked? Jason Licht.

Todd Bowles

Bowles, who spent the 2012 season under Reid with the Eagles, matches wits with Big Red Sunday. It’ll be the Bucs’ No. 8 defense against the Chiefs’ No. 1 offense. Bowles has a lot of connections to this area. He grew up in North Jersey, attended Elizabeth High School, played for Arians at Temple. Bowles coached the Jets from 2015 through 2018 and is the only head coach to lead the Jets to a winning record in the last 10 years.

A.Q. Shipley

Ship is a great story. He was a 7th-round pick of the Steelers in 2009, then spent all of 2010 on the Eagles’ practice squad and was in training camp with the Eagles in 2011 but was released as part of final cuts. He finally got a chance to play in 2012 with the Colts — he didn’t play a snap in his first three NFL seasons — and has piled up 72 starts over the last eight years with the Colts, Ravens, Cards and Buccaneers. Shipley, now 34, suffered what is likely a career-ending neck injury during a game against the Rams in November, but he’s got a coaching career waiting for him if he wants it.

Tom Melvin

Tom is the only coach that’s been with Reid since his first year with the Eagles. Melvin and Reid go back to their days together in the mid-1980s at San Francisco State and they also coached together at Northern Arizona. Melvin was a quality control assistant with the Eagles from 1999 through 2001 and when offensive coordinator Rod Dowhower retired after the 2001 season and QBs coach Brad Childress got that job, tight ends coach Pat Shurmur moved from TEs to QBs and Melvin became tight ends coach. So he’s been with Reid now for the last 22 years and coached everybody from Chad Lewis to Brent Celek to Travis Kelce. In all, Melvin and Reid have coached together 25 years in four different places.

Eric Bieniemy, Greg Lewis, Mike Kafka, Steve Spagnuolo, Dave Toub, Rick Burkholder, Barry Rubin

In all, Reid has eight assistant coaches or trainers who were with him in Philadelphia as either a player or a coach. Bieniemy finished his nine-year playing career here, Lewis played here from 2003 through 2006, Kafka was here as a player in 2010 and 2011, Spags coached here from 1999 through 2006 and Toub was John Harbaugh’s assistant here from 2001 through 2003. Burkholder has been with Reid as head trainer since 1999 and strength and conditioning coach Barry Rubin has been with Reid for much of the last 25 years, first with the Packers, then with the Eagles and now with the Chiefs.

Chris Boniol

This is one of the more unlikely Eagles connections. Boniol, who was a bust as a big-money free agent kicker here in 1997 and 1998, started his coaching career with the Cowboys in 2010, 11 years after he retired as a player. After stints with the Raiders, LSU and Mississippi State, Arians hired him in 2019 as an assistant special teams coach, and now he’s one win away from winning his second Super Bowl ring. Boniol kicked for the Cowboys when they beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XXX after the 1995 season in Tempe, Arizona, after beating the Eagles in the conference semifinal round.

John Spytek

Spytek got his start in the scouting business with the Eagles in 2005 as a scouting intern under Tom Heckert on a staff that also included Howie Roseman, Licht and Veach. He was promoted to a full-time scouting position with the Eagles in 2006 and remained with the Eagles through 2009. After spending time with the Browns and then the Broncos — both with Heckert — he re-joined Licht with the Buccaneers in 2016 as director of player personnel and has held that title for the last five years. Spytek already has one Super Bowl ring with the. Broncos from their win in Super Bowl L over the Panthers after the 2015 season. 

Stefen Wisniewski

After not reaching the playoffs in his first six NFL seasons, Wiz is now one game from winning his third Super Bowl ring in four years. Wisniewski spent four years with the Raiders and one with the Jaguars before signing with the Eagles in 2016. In 2017, he replaced Isaac Seumalo at left guard five games into the season and was a starter in the Eagles’ Super Bowl LII win over the Patriots. He was benched (for Seumalo) early in 2018 and then joined the Chiefs, where he became a starter late in the year on their Super Bowl team last year. He signed with the Steelers this past offseason but when he was released in November the Chiefs snapped him up. In the AFC Championship Game, when left tackle Eric Fisher suffered a season-ending Achilles injury, Mike Remmers moved from right tackle to left tackle, right guard Andrew Wylie moved from right guard to right tackle and Wiz entered the game at right guard, where he’s expected to start Sunday.

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