As the Eagles neared the end of a team meeting around 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 8, 2017 at the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel in Costa Mesa, Calif., head coach Doug Pederson introduced a guest speaker.

“Kobe Bryant!” Pederson said.

Bryant walked to the front of the room in gray sweatpants, a black T-shirt and sunglasses. The Eagles players on the trip — the full roster, including practice squad players, stayed in Orange County between games against Seattle and the Los Angeles Rams — offered rabid applause. Bryant hugged Pederson, took off his sunglasses and spoke for about 30 minutes.

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“You could have heard a pin drop,” Zach Ertz said by phone on Sunday night after an emotional day. “Everyone was trying to soak up everything.”

Bryant took questions from players. He posed for photos. The Philadelphia native who attended Lower Merion High School left wearing a No. 8 Eagles jersey and reciting the team’s fight song. A loyal Eagles fan, Bryant was superstitious while watching games and celebrated two months later like most who came of age in the Philadelphia area.

Bryant was one of nine people who died Sunday in a helicopter crash in Southern California, a tragedy that’s spawned countless tributes to Bryant and the other victims in the hours since. So many people he touched collected Bryant stories. The 2017 Eagles were among them.

“That’s probably the coolest speech I’ve ever heard,” Ertz said.

#MambaMentality meets the #Oscars. Congrats on last night's win, @kobebryant!#FlyEaglesFly

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) March 5, 2018

It’s hard to leave a group of professional athletes awestruck. They’re used to being gawked at, not the gawkers. That day was different.

“He was an idol and icon and hero to a lot of us,” said Ertz, who grew up an ardent Bryant fan in Northern California. Ertz received the best birthday present he can remember last year when his wife Julie gifted him a Lakers jersey with a personalized message from Bryant.

“Us being pro players, probably very few guys you get hyped for,” Brandon Brooks said that day in 2017, calling Bryant an example of “celebrities among celebrities.”

“A dream come true, really,” Rodney McLeod said hours after Bryant’s speech.

McLeod sat near the front of the meeting room with his phone ready and a pen and paper prepared to take notes. He didn’t need to review the notes to remember Bryant’s message, though. What resonated with McLeod was the “Mamba mentality.”

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“He wanted to kill the guy lining up across the court from him, and make him feel he didn’t deserve to be on the court,” McLeod said. “He wanted to make them feel they shouldn’t be on the basketball court. They should be an accountant.”

From Brooks to Jalen Mills to Alshon Jeffery, the buzzword in the Eagles locker room after Bryant’s visit was “Mamba mentality.”

Two years later, it’s one of two messages that most resonated with Ertz about the speech. The other came when Bryant was asked how he moved past a bad play in a game.

“I will never forget this line,” Ertz said. “He said, ‘What do you do when you take a shit? Do you stare at it? Or do you flush it? You flush it and move on.’”

On the sideline during games, Ertz tells himself to “flush it” after a forgettable play. He gives young players the same advice.

“It’s been two years now and I still remember these two points as clear as day,” Ertz said.

In an interview with theMMQB.com that day about his message to the team, Bryant said his speech focused on “detail.” The Eagles were 10-2 at the time, two days from clinching the NFC East (and losing Carson Wentz for the season), one month from an improbable playoff run and 58 days from winning the Super Bowl. Bryant talked about the hype the Eagles were about to receive and how they couldn’t allow it to disrupt them.

“Focus on the detail and the small little things, how to execute, execute, execute,” Bryant said in the interview. “Go over those things so much, and download them so much in your mind, that when you step out on the field to perform you can forget about them, because they’re just naturally there. That was the big message.”

Pederson said during a press conference that month that the speech came about when someone in the organization called Bryant, who lived nearby in Orange County. There were no special favors needed. Bryant said in theMMQB.com interview that he was on “cloud nine” talking to the Eagles and seeing “good green, not that Celtic green.” Pederson couldn’t keep it a secret, though. Rumors started to spread that morning about a special guest.

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“I had an idea, but once he walked in,” Agholor said in 2017, “I was like, ‘Wow, he is here.’ … That’s Kobe Bryant!”

McLeod described Bryant as “calm” and “relaxed” during the speech — “like he was one of us.” There was “constant intensity” in Bryant’s delivery, Ertz said. During the question and answer session, Ertz asked Bryant for his favorite book. Bryant answered “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach.

“Of course, I got it the next day,” Ertz said. “It’s a pretty remarkable book. It’s a short read. I’ve read it multiple times. It’s about trying to push your limits. Don’t be afraid to be lonely in your pursuit of greatness.”

One player asked Bryant about comparisons to Michael Jordan. There was a popular debate among the Eagles that day about Bryant versus LeBron James, or either one of them against Jordan. Bryant told the players that Jordan helped to shape him as a player.

McLeod asked Bryant for his best memory as a player. Bryant didn’t mention one of the five championships or the 81-point game or the 18 All-Star games. Bryant said his final game, and offered an explanation that stings in the context of Sunday’s news.

“He said having his kids there was his motivation, too,” McLeod said. “They didn’t really get to see him when he was at his peak. So just seeing how intense he was, he said his kids were like, ‘Dad, I didn’t know you were like that!’ And he said, ‘You’ve got to go check the tape!’”

Ertz is back in California this week. He returned from church on Sunday and received a text message from a brother asking if the news was true. When Julie texted him shortly thereafter, Ertz spent the rest of the day on social media, watching the news and reliving Bryant videos.

“It was heartbreaking,” Ertz said. “I was in tears.”

Ertz was among a number of players on the Eagles who posted tributes. He revealed the signed jersey that read:

To Zach

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Keep doing epic sh*t!

Kobe

Ertz had only two encounters with his favorite player. They were planning to meet again to discuss philanthropy. But Ertz rattled off different memories from watching Bryant and what he’d learned by listening to him and reading about him.

“He’s had so much impact on me, and I barely knew the guy,” Ertz said.

McLeod, Sidney Jones, Rick Lovato and LeGarrette Blount were among the 2017 Eagles who posted photos from the speech. Jason Kelce, who’s seldom active on social media, shared a photo with Bryant and a message about that day.

“He not only lived up to my expectations but exceeded them,” Kelce wrote. “The passion he had for the game and his teammates, the intelligence, and the undying will to win that emanated from him in those 20-30 minutes will forever be (embedded) in my soul. You could tell he was different, different from just about anyone I have ever heard speak before or since.”

Bryant was once in a social media post about the Eagles players, too.

His wife, Vanessa, captured video of Bryant watching the Hail Mary at the end of Super Bowl LII. For the nine seconds of the final play, the roles were reversed. At that moment, Bryant couldn’t take his eyes off the players who revered him. He held one of his daughters in his left arm and screamed at the television while the ball was in the air: “No! No! No!”

When the pass landed incomplete, Bryant rose to his feet.

“Oh my God, yes! We won! We won the fucking Super Bowl!” Bryant screamed.

“It’s the best part about sports — the joy it can bring people,” Ertz said. “That video was awesome.”

Ertz caught the go-ahead touchdown that night, the pinnacle of an athletic career that started when he used to mimic Bryant as a teen while playing basketball with his brothers outside their home in Alamo, Calif. He idolized Bryant, met Bryant, listened to Bryant and ultimately impressed Bryant.

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He never thought he would mourn Bryant.

“He was the first one to show me it’s OK to be all in,” Ertz said. “If you love it so much, why not give it your all? That still resonates with me today.”

The Athletic’s coverage: Remembering Kobe Bryant

(Top screenshot from Bryant video: Courtesy of the Philadelphia Eagles)