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Super Bowl Opening Night 2018: Top highlights from Media Day and more

The annual media scrum is now a massive primetime TV event.

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Super Bowl LII Opening Night at Xcel Energy Center Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

Super Bowl Media Day isn’t the most serious event and the questions for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles didn’t buck the trend. From Ninja Turtles to tacos, we have all the highlights from Monday night right here as they happened.

10:46 p.m. ET:

The Eagles have turned to dog masks as inspiration to go with their underdog story and Brandon Graham kept that going Monday.

10:31 p.m. ET:

Watch your back, Tedy Bruschi.

10:28 p.m. ET:

Julie Ertz, a midfielder for the United States Women’s National Team, is on the scene and took the chance to ask her husband the tough questions. Like what he thinks of her cooking.

You can’t go wrong with tacos.

9:52 p.m. ET:

The birds are here!

9:24 p.m. ET:

You feel old yet?

9:06 p.m. ET:

Our own Jessica Smetana has perhaps the most important quote of media day right here.

9:00 p.m. ET:

Someone actually made Bill Belichick laugh!

8:55 p.m. ET:

8:43 p.m. ET:

Brandon Cooks’ knowledge of the Ninja Turtles leaves a bit to be desired.

8:37 p.m. ET:

Apparently Brady doesn’t have much time to watch TV. When it came to pop culture questions he didn’t have much of a clue:

8:32 p.m. ET:

Good luck with this one:

8:30 p.m. ET:

Just a reminder that Super Bowl Media Day is pretty odd:

8:28 p.m. ET:

Brady had a lengthy chat with his former teammate and current NFL Network personality Willie McGinest:

8:10 p.m. ET:

The Patriots made their arrival with Tom Brady leading the way. The Patriots quarterback is still keeping his hand hidden and came with a pair of gloves.

Before Opening Night

The NFL has turned Super Bowl Media Day into a massive primetime TV spectacle, now christened Opening Night. This is the biggest press conference in football, featuring players and coaches from the Super Bowl teams and plenty of wacky outfits. TV viewers can catch the circus starting at 8 p.m. ET on NFL Network and ESPN2 (live stream at FuboTV and WatchESPN).

The New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles will have pretty much all their personnel available to the media, with thousands of reporters flying in from all over the world. Yes, that means some of them will be in silly costumes and doing an obvious gimmick, but occasionally you get an honest moment during these nonstop scrums.

Perhaps the best Media Day moment in recent memory happened in 2014, when Marshawn Lynch (known for skipping press conferences) stayed out of the spotlight. NFL Network’s Deion Sanders eventually caught up with him, and the ensuing interview gave birth to the catchphrase “just ‘bout that action, boss.”

This is the eighth time Bill Belichick and Tom Brady will be at Media Day, so we can probably expect them to be straight-laced as usual (aside from maybe some TB12 questions). The Patriots’ interview session will last from 8:10 to 9:10 p.m. ET, while the Eagles are up from 10 to 11 p.m. ET.

Most of the Eagles players are here for the first time, so they’ll be the go-to target for anything exciting. We can probably expect questions about dog masks, Santa Claus, and greased-up poles over the course of the evening.

Time, TV, and streaming info

  • Time: 8 p.m. ET
  • Location: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul, Minn.
  • TV: NFL Network, ESPN2
  • Streaming: FuboTV, WatchESPN