If the Patriots were playing anyone else in the Super Bowl this week, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie would probably be rooting for New England to win, and that's because he's a Boston guy at heart. 

Although Lurie owns the NFL team in Philadelphia, he has deep ties with the one from New England. As a matter of fact, the ties go so deep that the 66-year-old Boston native actually attended the Patriots' first home game ever back in 1960, according to the Washington Post. 

When the Patriots came up for sale in 1994, Lurie knew there was a chance that the team might leave Massachusetts if they were sold to the wrong bidder, so he decided he was going to try and buy the team. However, Lurie didn't get very far in the bid because someone else stepped in, and that someone else was current Patriots owner Robert Kraft. 

Kraft ended up purchasing the team in January 1994 for an estimated $175 million, which actually ended up working out well for all involved. For the Patriots, it worked out well because it kept them in New England. Another bidder had been hoping to buy the Patriots and move them to St. Louis. 

That bidder's name? Stan Kroenke -- Yes, that Stan Kroenke. 

As for Lurie, things worked out well for him, because, three months later after he missed out on buying the Patriots, he ended up buying the Eagles for an estimated $185 million.  

Lurie doesn't talk about the situation that often, but he was actually asked about it back in 2014 when the Patriots and Eagles held a joint practice together during the preseason. 

"I've never actually looked back on it," Lurie said at the time, via the Morning Call. "It's always been forward. I sort of love the fact that I was able to buy a team where it was more urban, because the Patriots were in Foxboro when I was bidding on them, and a fan base like the Eagles, one of the old line franchises, I've just never looked back, never for one second."

Lurie said he wanted to buy a team that had a passionate fan base and he hit a home run by purchasing the Eagles. 

"I was so excited to try to get an NFL franchise on the east coast or the west coast in a great sports environment," Lurie said. "I was very self-limiting, because in terms of the NFL I only wanted [a team] where there was a really football-passionate, hungry fan base in a place I wanted to live, because I wanted to commit myself 100 percent."

As for Kraft, he was actually asked about Lurie's bid back in February 2005. The question came just days before the Patriots played the Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX, 

"We had a friendly rivalry," Kraft said at the time, via the Washington Post. "But in the end, we're good friends, and we talked about it being pretty cool if the two of us could be in this game together, both being Patriot fans and growing up within five miles of one another.... We forged a good friendship and he's a terrific guy, and I thank him for having the second-best team in the NFL."

The Patriots actually have pretty interesting history when it comes to relocations that never happened. Beside Kroenke bidding on the team with plans to take them to St. Louis, Kraft almost moved the team to Connecticut in 1999.