Super Bowl runner-up rings: What NFL players really think - ESPN

FOUR MONTHS AFTER the Philadelphia Eagles lost Super Bowl LVII, Cam Jurgens glanced at the team schedule and came upon something that stopped him.

«Ring Ceremony.»

It was June 2023, and Philadelphia still wasn't over its 38-35 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. «What the hell is the ring ceremony for?» muttered Jurgens, then a second-year offensive lineman. «We lost.»

But it was supposed to be a nice thing. The team gathered in a meeting room and watched a highlight video of the 2022 season, and boy, were there some lovely highs — the 13-1 start, the 70 sacks. The reel ended, and the Eagles were directed to a table in the cafeteria, which held a heap of boxes of personalized conference championship rings. The reward for finishing second.

Jurgens grabbed a box with his name on it and stuffed it on a shelf in his closet.

«Honestly, I wasn't so thrilled about getting a ring that felt like a participation trophy that I had to pay taxes on,» Jurgens said.

«Like, it's second place. You know, you made it to the Super Bowl; you participated. So here's a beautiful, nice-sized ring as a token, or a reminder of you losing the Super Bowl.… It's not necessarily just a participation trophy, but it's a reminder that, hey, you made it all the way to the mountaintop and failed.»

The NFL game operations manual says that the team that loses the Super Bowl «will receive awards» for winning its conference championship. That prize traditionally has been a ring.

But word of the «other» piece of jewelry doesn't seem to make the rounds. In more than a dozen ESPN interviews last week with players and coaches in Sunday's Super Bowl, only two knew they'd eventually be walking away with something, win or lose. It's not as if second place isn't rewarded