Last season, when the Vikings came to town for a regular season game, Eagles linebacker Mychal Kendricks and his brother Eric, a linebacker for Minnesota, enjoyed the experience. They talked all week leading up to the game, they got together on Saturday night before and greeted each other on the field Sunday.
That's not happening this week when their two teams face off in the NFC Championship Game at the Linc.
The stakes are just too high.
"None of that has gone down this week," Mychal Kendricks said Friday afternoon. "I don't see it happening before the game or after the game or Saturday night. This is the biggest game of our lives to this date and nothing else matters."
It's not like 27-year-old Mychal and 25-year-old Eric talk a ton during the regular season anyway. Sure, they're close, but each is pretty busy once the games start coming. But not talking at all? This is new and it's just because of how important Sunday is to both of them.
The last time they spoke was Sunday night after the Vikings pulled off a last-second win to put them in the championship game. The two spoke about their family and arranging tickets for them to get to the Linc. After that ... silence.
Kendricks even said he could foresee a scenario like what happened after Jim and John Harbaugh coached each other in the Super Bowl and didn't speak for a little while after.
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Either way, the bragging rights from this game will be monumental.
"Oh my god," Kendricks said before pausing. "Dude, I don't know if he'll ever hear the end of this. Unless we come back to the same situation, which is obviously possible. It happened once, it can happen again. But, dude, whoever loses, it's going to be messed up."
Just because the brothers haven't spoken this week, it doesn't mean the uniqueness of the situation is lost on them.
It's not incredibly rare for pairs of brothers in the NFL. Heck, Kendricks isn't even the only Eagles' player whose brother is in the league. But two brothers, who play the same position, meeting for the right to go to the Super Bowl?
"I really want to know the odds," Kendricks said. "So anyone out there who's a mathematician and wants to entertain themselves with this, let me know the odds because it's crazy. It's unreal and it's the opportunity of a lifetime. It's something that we will remember forever."
While Mychal Kendricks is obviously the oldest — he called himself "the trailblazer" — he didn't bite when asked if he's the favorite son. He said that while his dad thinks it's funny to instigate that competition, his family is pretty good about not playing favorites. He's not sure what the family will wear Sunday but thought half-and-half jerseys sounded like something his mom and sister might wear.
There's obviously a sibling rivalry between the two. They grew up playing sports against each other and competing.
Being older, Mychal said there was a time when he hit a growth spurt first and began dominating his little brother. But then Eric caught up and things were even until Eric actually grew taller and started winning more often than he lost. That's when Mychal said he had to approach those matchups a little differently.
Mychal went to the University of California and was the Eagles' second-round pick in 2012. Eric went to UCLA and was the Vikings' second-round pick in 2015. Both are listed as 6-foot linebackers.
Their football paths have been so similar until this point. But only one will get to play in Super Bowl LII.
"It's unreal," Kendricks said. "I've tried not to think about it just because I've lived in a room with this kid for 17 years, you know what I mean? And we've pretty much lived the same lives on opposite sides of our state. And now we're on different teams and we're in the same scenario, playing the same position. It's crazy, man."