Eric Rowe was in a daze after being told he was being traded from Philadelphia to New England in September of 2016 Kyle Gibson Minnesota Twins Jersey , wondering why the team that drafted in the second round a year earlier no longer wanted him.

The safety says he was blindsided by the deal to the Patriots, who sent the Eagles a fourth-round draft pick.

One message of support he received stood out. It was a text from Eagles veteran safety Malcolm Jenkins, who had taken a young Rowe under his wing.

”I remember he texted me the day I got traded just telling me that everything happens for a reason,” Rowe recalled. ”`Whatever you do, just keep working, because you’re going to be great one day.”’

Two seasons later, Jenkins and Rowe will be on opposite sidelines with a championship at stake.

Jenkins said it was a no-brainer to try to mentor Rowe when he was the Eagles.

”He played a lot as a rookie, played some significant snaps. But once he got traded I wanted to send him a text encouraging him,” Jenkins said. ”Sometimes this business will move you around and then teams will get rid of you and doubt you. But at the end of the day don’t let it change what you think about yourself. You’re gonna be a great player.”

Rowe said the words from a ”phenomenal leader” like Jenkins helped him focus following the trade.

”I knew it was just the business of the NFL Andrei Svechnikov Jersey ,” Rowe said. ”I’m like, `OK, I need to take advantage of this opportunity, because you don’t get a lot of opportunities to play for the Patriots.”’

In the season-plus that Rowe has been gone from Philadelphia, he’s become yet another young defender who as developed into an asset in the Patriots’ system.

Including the playoffs, he has appeared in 22 games for New England, totaling 49 tackles and two interceptions.

Rowe has primarily been used as an extra defensive back in passing situations and could draw the responsibility as the last line of defense against the Eagles receivers.

With linebacker Jordan Hicks out for the season with an Achilles tendon injury, Rowe may be matched up with receiver Nelson Agholor.

Agholor was Philadelphia’s first-round pick in 2015 and led the Eagles with a career-best 62 receptions for 768 yards and eight touchdowns.

”I talk to guys. We’re still friends. We hang out in the offseason,” Rowe said. ”I texted them `Congrats’ because some of us were in the same draft class or on the same team.”

Friends or not http://www.buccaneersauthorizedshops.com/authentic-vita-vea-jersey , Rowe is ready for whatever comes next as he vies for his second straight Super Bowl ring.

”It’s only my third year, and my second going to a Super Bowl. I don’t know what the odds of that are, so obviously I don’t take it for granted,” Rowe said. ”But there’s a couple of guys in here that have been to four, and they still take it like their first one. So I never take it for granted.”

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AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi contributed to his report.

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An estimated 103.4 million people watched the Super Bowl on NBC, a 7 percent drop from last year that indicates that television’s biggest event may have peaked in popularity.

The Nielsen company said it’s the smallest Super Bowl audience on television since 2009 despite the underdog Philadelphia Eagles beating the New England Patriots in a thrilling game that was close from start to finish.

Last year’s Patriots-Falcons game reached 111.3 million viewers. The all-time Super Bowl record – and record for any television event in the United States – was the 114.4 million who watched the Patriots against the Seahawks in 2015.

The NFL’s viewership has been down this year, with experts citing factors like increased injuries, some confusing rules changes and anger at players protesting police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem. Similarly, fewer people have cable than they did a few years ago http://www.billsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-tremaine-edmunds-jersey , with streaming onto hand-held devices becoming more popular.

The dip was also telegraphed by a poll conducted last week by Seton Hall University, which found that 54 percent of Americans were preparing to watch the game. That’s down from the 68 percent that said the same thing two years ago, according to the poll, which wasn’t done in 2017. The poll has a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.

Despite that prediction, the poll’s director said he thought the game’s quality would lift the numbers beyond what was actually seen.

”If you turned the game on at any time to say, `I wonder what’s going on,’ or a friend texted you to say you should watch this, you’re going to watch and get hooked,” said Rick Gentile http://www.jaguarsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-ronnie-harrison-jersey , director of the poll, also sponsored by the Sharkey Institute.

NBC said that if you add in people who followed the game online, viewership increased to 106 million. And Nielsen said it has not yet counted the number of people who watched the game outside of homes – in a bar, for instance. Some perspective: despite the decrease, Sunday’s game ranked as the 10th most-watched television even in U.S. history.

Soothing any hurt for NBC was Kantar Media’s estimate that $414 million was spent on advertising for the Super Bowl telecast. That’s second only to the $419 million spent last year, a figure that Kantar said exceeded 2018 only because last year’s game went into overtime, meaning there was more time to sell ads.

The network was able to remind millions of people that the Winter Olympics, which will also be televised by NBC, begin on Thursday.

Justin Timberlake’s halftime show Jets Sam Darnold Jersey , despite tepid reviews, drew an audience of 106.6 million people, Nielsen said.

NBC’s post-game telecast of ”This is Us” was a winning choice. Nielsen said 27 million people stayed for the drama, the most-watched post-game entertainment show in six years and sharply above the 17.6 million people who watched the premiere of ”24: Legacy” on Fox last year.

And extra kibble is being handed out over at Animal Planet. The cable network’s annual ”Puppy Bowl” of cute animals, shown opposite NBC’s pregame show, reached 3.05 million people. That was the show’s biggest audience in its 14 years of existence.
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