Super Bowl offers hope and healing to Philadelphia after plane crash

• When the Eagles take on the Chiefs in New Orleans, they'll carry more than championship aspirations onto the field.
• They'll represent a city processing how it'll recover from an aviation accident — the nation's second in a week — that destroyed homes, littered streets with debris and upended lives.

The big picture: For over a century, grief-stricken Americans have turned to sports to help them cope with national tragedies, mental health experts tell Axios.

• There are countless examples. The NFL didn't postpone games following President Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Then-NFL Commissioner Howard Rozelle remarked at the time: "Football was Mr. Kennedy's game."
• When former Mets star Mike Piazza slugged a game-winning two-run homer against the Braves 10 days after 9/11, the surviving wife of a first responder said she saw her teenage sons "smile for the very first time since they lost their dad."

What they're saying: Sports play a vitally "important role in community recovery efforts," Memphis University researchers found.

• That kind of social support can positively alter "someone's trajectory in terms of their recovery," says Alissa Jerud, a UPenn psychiatry professor and author of a forthcoming book on navigating emotional storms.

Between the lines: Experts tell Axios sports give people safe outlets to express emotions.

• Because the games are "ritualistic," they help people whose worlds were turned upside down feel normal again and give them space to engage in playful activities, psychologist Ben Bernstein tells Axios.

That could mean something as simple as belting out the famous "Fly, Eagles, Fly" chant when the Birds score their first touchdown Sunday, James Lavino, a licensed counselor who specializes in music therapy, tells Axios.

• "It's why there's bands at games and baseball players have their walkout music," he says. "Music is frequently associated with the sacred. It has this unique power."

State of play: Philadelphians have been rallying around each other all week. The city established a fund to donate to plane crash victims, and officials are offering resources for people rebuilding their homes and businesses.

• An artist set up a memorial near the site of the crash, and residents held a candlelight vigil to remember the victims, including an 11-year-old girl and her mother who spent months being treated at Shriners Children's Hospital.

Zoom in: A fourth-grader, who suffered a brain injury while shielding his sister from flying debris, is recovering after doctors initially gave him little hope of survival, the child's father, Andre Howard, told 6ABC.

• Howard says his son Trey's first waking words were about the Eagles.
• "He asked me, 'Daddy, what's today?' I was like, 'Monday.' 'OK, wait. We didn't play yesterday, did we?' 'No, you didn't miss the Super Bowl.'"

Now Eagles star wide receiver A.J. Brown says he's playing for Trey come Sunday.

• "Something of that magnitude takes place and he's worried about a football game. Of course, we want to do it for him."

The intrigue: Athletes often perform their best under such pressure because they're freed by the notion of "playing for something bigger than yourself," says Colleen Hacker, a Pacific Lutheran University kinesiology professor who has coached on six Olympic teams.

The bottom line: For generations of Eagles fans, the team has been a beacon of hope — a reminder of "what kept [them] going," Lisa Corbin, director of the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine's counseling program, tells Axios.

• And Sunday, we'll be rooting for something bigger than ourselves.