NEW ORLEANS — The Philadelphia Eagles joked around some Monday. It was Super Bowl Opening Night, after all.

A.J. Brown grabbed a cookie in the shape of a W from Jameis Winston — eat a W, get it? — and had a laugh. Darius Slay Jr. had a moment with Vinny Curry, his former Eagles teammate, reminiscing about banana pudding. Jordan Mailata jumped off the podium to greet a media member he recognized from Australia. Lane Johnson joked about how he was glad Jason Kelce and the clutter around his locker was gone.

It seemed like a lot of fun.

"Well, honestly, I'm not having fun," Slay said. "I'm not trying to have fun. I'm mostly on a business trip."

This isn't the first Super Bowl for Slay or many of his teammates. Two years ago they came to the Super Bowl and lost to the Kansas City Chiefs. That has clearly stuck with them. A theme from the Eagles on Monday night was focus, not on just being in a Super Bowl but winning it this time.

"My first Super Bowl experience, I kind of had fun," Slay said. "Not saying kind of had fun, but more enjoying what was going on. Now that I've been here twice, I'm dialed in. I was dialed in during the game [two years ago], but I'm more like, I told my family, 'I'll see you all when I see you all.' Ain't nobody coming to the hotel, hanging out. I ain't got time for all that this time."

The Eagles just happen to again be playing the Chiefs, a team that is well beyond the novelty of being in the Super Bowl. The Chiefs aren't here to enjoy the experience of a Super Bowl week, and perhaps that's why they've won so much and become a dynasty.

The Eagles are treating the Super Bowl differently this time around. And hoping for a different result.

Eagles have unfinished business

Eagles players didn't necessarily say that a lack of focus was a problem during Super Bowl week two years ago. But there's a lot going on during the two weeks leading up to the game.

While they were in the moment on Opening Night, with goofy questions from all angles as usual, it's a different feeling around the Eagles at this Super Bowl.

"All of this media stuff is cool, but none of this matters," Brown said. "It's all about the game."

It's easy to get distracted, between family coming in for the game, ticket requests and media availability. It wasn't that the Eagles weren't serious the last time, they just seem to have a different maturity about the situation this time around.

"Focusing on us and kind of blocking you guys [the media] out, that's kind of been the focus all year," Mailata said. "Making sure, as repetitive as it sounds, keeping the main thing the main thing."

The last time the Eagles played the Chiefs, they lost 38-35 on a field goal with eight seconds left. A loss that close stings for a while, and you wonder if small things like experience in handling Super Bowl week might have made any difference.

Eagles remember tough Super Bowl loss

The Eagles played the Chiefs tough in Super Bowl LVII. Jalen Hurts had what was likely the best game of his career, rallying Philadelphia to a tie with a little more than five minutes left. But Patrick Mahomes, as he has done often in his career, came up big in the most critical moments. The Chiefs had a long drive in the final minutes for the game-winning score.

"You can't really spend your time looking on the past. If you look behind you, you'll never go forward," defensive tackle Jordan Davis said. "But obviously you want to learn from your mistakes.

"We have another opportunity in front of our faces to rewrite a story that we have."

That's why there are changes in Philadelphia's approach to Super Bowl week this time around. The slightest improvement could make the difference in a three-point game.

"As you go through any game in the NFL that you play, any game really that I've been coaching as you play, you think about the things that you did well, then you think about the things that you didn't do well and how you can improve on those things," Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said. "That was something that we went through when we got back from [the Super Bowl]. Hey, here's what we did well, here's what we didn't do well, and you try to get better from those things. I won't get into the things that were changed through the daily organization of a Super Bowl week, but there's some things that we're doing a little bit different to try to get better from our last experience."

The Eagles took in Opening Night, like every Super Bowl team before them. It's always a spectacle and they laughed at every oddball question about Kendrick Lamar or their teammates' bad locker room habits. But they made sure to keep reminding the media — perhaps reminding themselves as well — that there is a different focus this time around.

"It's being in the moment, being where your feet are at," Mailata said. "Making sure we're not making the moment bigger than it is."