‘Right now, not a Super Bowl team’: Ex-Eagles coach Dick Vermeil says NFL champs could still repeat, but must ‘keep the faith’

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When former Eagles coach Dick Vermeil watches the defending Super Bowl champs on TV from his Chester County home this season, he doesn’t see a title team.

At least not yet, with the Birds at 4-2, and losers of their last two games, including a 34-17 thumping by the struggling New York Giants on Thursday night.

“Whenever you win the world championship normally, you go beyond your expectations,” Vermeil told WHYY News on Monday while attending a Columbus Day breakfast in Wilmington’s Hotel du Pont. “And then they come out of it and it’s so hard to repeat because everybody evaluates you as what you were and not what you are. Right now, they are not a Super Bowl team, but that doesn’t mean they won’t become one.”

Vermeil, a Hall of Fame coach who led the 1980 Eagles to their first Super Bowl appearance, knows what it takes to win it all and to defend the title. While the Eagles lost that NFL title game to the Oakland Raiders and fell in the first round of the playoffs the next season, he guided the 1999 St. Louis Rams, an offensive juggernaut known as “The Greatest Show on Turf,” to a Super Bowl victory.

While this year’s edition of the Eagles isn’t clicking offensively, and the defense is still trying to gel after several starters signed with other teams after the Super Bowl victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, Vermeil thinks his old team still has a chance to hoist the Lombardi Trophy this season.

“But they’ve got to stay healthy, continue to do a great job of coaching like last year. They’ve still got a shot, but they’ve got a long ways to go.”

Ex-President Biden also attended Columbus Day event

Vermeil, who turns 89 later this month and whose father was Italian and French, was clearly the draw at an event that hasn’t been held for the last few years. The breakfast at the hotel’s Gold Ballroom was attended by some 200 members of Delaware’s Italian community and their guests, plus the state’s political elite, including former President Joe Biden.

While Columbus Day remains a federal holiday, many states now recognize Oct. 13 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day or both as holidays. Neither is a state holiday in Delaware.

But pride for the Italian explorer and the contributions of Delaware’s Italian community were on display at the hotel which is now owned by the Buccini Pollin Group. Two of the real estate development company’s principals — brothers Chris and Rob Buccini — are Italian Americans who grew up in the Wilmington area.

Many attendees flocked around Vermeil, who says DNA tests show he’s “27% Italian,” but the appearance of Irish American Biden, who sat next to the former coach, drew even more attention.

The former president, who is now undergoing radiation treatment for prostate cancer, quipped to WHYY News that he was only the second-most popular person in the ballroom. Biden, who briefly played football for the University of Delaware, praised Vermeil as a coach and human being.

“He was not only a hell of a coach, he was a man with a lot of integrity,” Biden told a reporter.

Biden also addressed the audience, noting Vermeil’s work with charitable causes like the Mary Campbell Center in Delaware, which provides services for children and adults with disabilities, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“You care a lot about people,” Biden said to Vermeil during a five-minute speech. “Look at what you’ve done for Children’s Hospital, what you’ve done for people in need, what you’ve done for people who didn’t know that they were as good as they are. You convinced them they had the talent to be whatever they wanted to be. So coach, it’s a great honor to have you here. It means a lot to all of us.”

Rob Buccini agreed.

“It’s unbelievable to have him here,” Buccini, a former local high school football standout, said of Vermeil. “It shows how nice of an event this is today to have someone of his stature speaking here. And then anytime you can have the president of the United States in attendance, we take that to the heart.”

Wilmington Mayor John Carney, a former high school and college standout on the gridiron, said he’s been a fan of Vermeil for decades.

“I have never met him but always, like most Eagles fans, just adored him and what he did,” the mayor and former two-term governor said. “Most people don’t remember that before Vermeil came, the Eagles weren’t very good. And he turned them around and made them the winner they’ve become.”

This year’s Eagles should ‘keep the confidence’

Vermeil told the audience he always treated his players with respect, from All-Pros to third-stringers, saying that was how you build a winning team.

“Players don’t care how much you know until they don’t know you care. And it was my job to help each player and each coach I work with to become the best they could be,” Vermeil said.

Vermeil didn’t talk about the current Eagles team during his speech, but did share more thoughts with WHYY News.

Asked what he’d tell stars like quarterback Jalen Hurts, running back Saquon Barkley and receiver A.J. Brown, Vermeil said they should just stay the course.

“Don’t lose faith,” Vermeil said. “Keep the confidence and don’t start second-guessing what you’re doing and how you’re doing it and who you’re doing it with. Just keep working hard.”

And his advice for head coach Nick Sirianni, who has already led the team to two Super Bowls in four seasons?

“He knows what he’s doing. He’s won more games in four years than anybody else has ever won here in four years,” Vermeil said. “So just keep doing what you’re doing. Keep the faith and work them hard.”