NEW ORLEANS — Nick Sirianni entered the Super Bowl postgame locker room in a different state of mind than the one he possessed two weeks ago following the NFC championship game victory.

As he took in the scene in the Lincoln Financial Field locker room, Sirianni said after that game that he was thinking about the next game, the Super Bowl. He said he felt hungry for more. Upon entering the Eagles’ temporary locker room at the Superdome following their 40-22 defeat of the Kansas City Chiefs, Sirianni’s mind was in a different place.

“I wasn’t thinking about the next one,” Sirianni said Monday with a smile.

All Sirianni said he felt in that moment was gratitude. The 43-year-old head coach became the fifth-youngest in NFL history to coach in a pair of Super Bowls, earning his first Lombardi Trophy on that second try.

Sirianni said he will remember the game. He will remember the green, white, and black confetti showering the field after the clock hit zero. He will remember the hard practices that prepared the team all year long. He will remember the ups and downs throughout the season.

Above all else, though, Sirianni said he will remember the celebration with the entire team that followed the Eagles’ second Super Bowl win in the last eight seasons. After all, celebration is just another version of connection, one of Sirianni’s core values.

“We’ve embraced that celebration so much,” Sirianni said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shown the guys celebrating together and how much that means to us, because, again, that just emphasizes team.

“And then to be able to do that last night, it was kind of everything kind of coming together as one. The final celebration.”

The celebration began on the field in the waning moments of the game, when Sirianni, bathed in lemon-lime Gatorade, was hoisted by Saquon Barkley as if he were a teddy bear. It trickled into the New Orleans Saints locker room, the Eagles’ home away from home on Sunday night, and continued at their victory party at the team hotel into the early hours of the morning. Sirianni danced onstage to a remix of T-Pain’s “Buy U a Drank” with a cigar dangling from his lips.

Those moments with the team were all the sweeter because of the adversity the Eagles had endured since their Super Bowl LVII loss to the Chiefs two years ago. Last season, the team lost five of its last six games of the regular season, squeaking into the playoffs as the fifth seed. The Eagles were trounced in the wild-card round by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, casting doubt on Sirianni’s future at the helm.

But Jeffrey Lurie stuck by his head coach. Sirianni proved him right, leading the Eagles to a 14-3 record in the regular season and a Super Bowl title, the second in franchise history. The morning after the win, Sirianni argued that the struggles the Eagles persevered through last season made the group even closer.

“I look back on last year and how last year ended and how grateful, as crazy as this sounds, I’m grateful how last year ended, ‘cause it shaped us to who we are today and where we’re standing today,” Sirianni said. “And the adversity at the beginning of the year and, shoot, the adversity through the season, through injuries, through ups and downs, through everything.

“I think that when you embrace adversity, it does something to you. It does something to you personally, right? Each and every individual on that football team, the adversity does something to you and it does something to you as a football team as well.”

Sirianni lauded his players for their willingness to connect with one another throughout the year, whether they were meeting up for group dinners or spending time together in the players’ lounge in the NovaCare Complex locker room between team meetings. Sunday night’s celebration provided yet another moment of connection, one that was for the team and the team alone.

“We’ll have the parade,” Sirianni said. “We’ll have the ring ceremony and everything like that. But that was pretty special last night.”

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