Super Bowl could be final ride with Eagles for 1 coach

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BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Sunday's Super Bowl might very well be John DeFilippo's last game with the Eagles

He's not worried about that yet though. 

"You know what, my focus right now is I'm just concerned about this game on Sunday," DeFilippo said on Wednesday at the Mall of America. "That's my 100 percent focus."

The Eagles blocked DeFilippo from interviewing for the Jets' offensive coordinator position last offseason, but DeFilippo's contract is up after this season, so the Eagles won't be able to stop him again. If DeFilippo wants to leave for another offensive coordinator position, he can. The Vikings are reportedly interested in interviewing him for their vacant offensive coordinator spot.

For a while, though, it looked like the 39-year-old quarterbacks coach might actually end up with a head coaching job. Teams can't block coaches from interviewing for head coaching jobs even while still under contract, so DeFilippo interviewed with the Bears and Cardinals while they still had openings. 

A few years ago, before he came to the Eagles, DeFilippo interviewed for the then-vacant 49ers job before the team eventually hired Chip Kelly. 

"I felt like I was much better this go-around," DeFilippo said. "I felt very confident going into both interviews, felt confident coming out of it. I think it's like anything. I think the more at-bats you have, the better you get. I was confident coming out of that thing, explaining to the ownership and the management my plan for running a football team."

DeFilippo said that as someone with head coaching aspirations he was very prepared to explain to teams how he would run a franchise. 

It's not hard to figure out why DeFilippo's stock has been rising rapidly. First, he helped Carson Wentz take a jump from rookie to legitimate MVP candidate in his second season. And now he's helped Nick Foles get the team into the Super Bowl. That's really beefing up a résumé.

So teams came calling and DeFilippo went through the interview process a little deeper this time around. He maintains his focus remained on the Eagles the whole time, but it had to be tough.  

"We had the bye week, which helped," he said. "That really helped. If you have the right mindset in terms of focusing on the task at hand, it's really not that hard. The only time I really did not think about the Eagles the whole time during that deal was when I was in the room with those two teams. Other than that, I really didn't think much about it."

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