Super Bowl LIX Preview
Super Bowl 59 is Chiefs-Eagles II, will this outcome be different than it was two years or will the Chiefs finish their 3-peat the way they started?
I feel like I've written this column before. Looking back in the archives just two years, I find that I have and you know what I said about this matchup between the Chiefs and Eagles in Super Bowl 57? I predicted that it would be a boring game between two good teams. If the Notebook is about anything it’s accountability and do I recall during Chiefs/Eagles, that people were saying it was setting up to be one of the classic Super Bowl games of all time. But a funny thing happened on the way to immortality when (stop me if you’ve heard this one recently) the Chiefs got a controversial call that allowed them to kick a game winning field goal. Now, nobody talks about Super Bowl LVII and if they do they typically say things like “Remember that Super Bowl with the bad turf, when everybody was slip sliding around?” This is the game they’re talking about and on Sunday we get to relive all the fun of two insufferable fan bases. (KC because their “Kingdom” is made up of diehards outnumbered by the Dead Poet’s Society and Philly fans because they’re scumbags.)
Super Bowl Doppelganger: Super Bowl LVII Chiefs 38 Eagles 35 (I know, huge cop out literally picking this game from two years ago, but I thought the refresher was worth it.)
I said that this one was going to be boring and it was anything but, these two teams set Super Bowl scoring records and the game ended with a late field goal. I think this game follows a similar path, but perhaps lives more in the high 20’s-low 30’s for points. The differences between this game and the last one: Saquon Barkley, Jason Kelce will actually be on television more during this game than he was two years ago (and they made a documentary about him that season and that game.) Two years later, people don’t think Jalen Hurts is good. Before SBLVII, Patrick Mahomes only had one Super Bowl win, one loss and had twice lost in the AFC Championship game. There was real pressure for him, for as dominant as the Chiefs had been, if he didn’t win this game, the narrative surrounding him completely changes. Now, he has 3 rings, looking for his 4th and the NFL’s first 3-peat, people are fitting him for GOAT horns and making room on their Mount Rushmore’s for #15.
Some stats and info I find interesting about the Super Bowl, indulge me.
· This is the 4th quarterback rematch in the Super Bowl: Terry Bradshaw vs Roger Staubach (X, XIII), Troy Aikman vs Jim Kelly (XXVII, XXVIII), Tom Brady vs Eli Manning (XLII, XLVI) and now Patrick Mahomes vs Jalen Hurts (LVII, LIX). Fun fact, the quarterback who won the first matchup, they all won the second match up as well.
· The curse of Jim Kelly: Jalen Hurts is the first quarterback since Kelly to have lost in their first Super Bowl appearance and go back. Others who have done it: Craig Morton, Fran Tarkenton, John Elway. (Elway is the only one who went on to win and doesn’t count as “being since Kelly” because he lost his Super Bowls before Kelly made his debut in XXV. Technically Elway’s losses and wins sandwich Kelly’s 4 straight losses.)
· This is the 9th rematch in Super Bowl history, only twice has the team who lost the first match up won the second, but both had significant gaps between the two games. (Washington beat Miami in Super Bowl XVII after dropping Super Bowl VII. The Patriots beat Philadelphia in Super Bowl XXXIX and fell to the Eagles in Super Bowl LII.)
· While this is just the Eagles 5th trip to pro football’s biggest stage, they’re no strangers to the Big Easy of New Orleans, although it has been a while. The Eagles made their Super Bowl debut in the Superdome for Super Bowl XV vs the Oakland Raiders. (They would fall 27-10, despite being 3 point favorites going into the game. But throwing 3 interceptions to Rod Martin, it’ll happen to you. How Rod Martin’s 3-int performance wasn’t enough to win the MVP award is beyond me. Jim Plunkett won the award instead (13-21, 261 yards, 3 touchdowns, one of which was an 80-yarder to Kenny King.)
· If Patrick Mahomes wins, he’d had 4 rings, joining Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks with 4, every quarterback who has 4 or more rings has beaten the same team twice to get there.
o Terry Bradshaw beat Minnesota once, Dallas twice and LA Rams once
o Joe Montana beat Cincinnati twice, Miami once and Denver once
o Tom Brady beat the Rams twice, Panthers once, Eagles once, Seahawks once, Falcons once, Chiefs once
So if Mahomes gets to four, he would have beaten the least amount of teams to do it.
· Mahomes has won the game’s MVP award in each of the Chief’s 3 victories this decade, if he were to win it on Sunday, it would give him the second most all time behind Tom Brady (5).
· If Mahomes wins his 4th ring, Troy Aikman will once again live a life of a solitude as the only quarterback to win 3 Super Bowls.
· Enough about quarterbacks: Joe Thuney has played a charmed career (one that will likely wind up in Canton.) Thuney started his career with the New England Patriots in 2016. Thuney played in the Super Bowl in each of his first 3 seasons in the league (LI, LII, LIII) winning two championships. Signing with Kansas City after the 2020 season, Super Bowl LIX will be his 6th trip to the big game in his 9-year career. In terms of hardware, if the Chiefs win on Sunday, Thuney will earn his 5th ring, tying him with hall of famer Charles Haley for the 2nd most all-time (behind Tom Brady’s 7). Haley’s 5 came from: 2 with San Francisco (XXIII, XXIV) and 3 with Dallas (XXVII, XXVIII, XXX).
· But it’s a team game, with a win, the Kansas City Chiefs would join elite company with the 5th Super Bowl victory in franchise history, joining the San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys to fill up an entire hand with rings. That fistful of diamonds would leave them trailing only Pittsburgh and New England with 6 titles.
When the Eagles have the ball:
Saquon Barkley.
Saquon Barkley.
Saquon Barkley.
Any questions?
No, it’s not that simple, but it can be. The Chiefs are better against the run than they were two years ago, in fact this season, where they faced most of the top rushers in the NFL, do you know who had the highest rushing total against KC? If you guess Chuba Hubbard, you’d be correct! (58 yards.) While I expect that Barkley and this very good Eagles offensive line will have more success than that, it shows that this isn’t the Chiefs run defense that we have seen even the past couple of championships.
George Karlaftis is an emerging star and Chris Jones continues to take his game to new levels, but during the playoffs, he takes it to galaxies only the Ultimate Warrior could fathom. This guy is phenomenal and lines up all over the defensive line. With Steve Spagnolo moving the chess pieces around the board, life will never be easy for the Philly offense.
Making it more challenging for the Eagles is that their greatest strength, the offensive line, might be their greatest weakness. (The old reverse Michael Scott as we call it in the Notebooking world.) Center Cam Jurgens and left guard Landon Dickerson both left the NFC championship game with injuries, though both returned. I can’t see a world where both don’t play in the Super Bowl, but the degree to which they are they compromised, will be worth watching. Look for Spags to test them early and often, likely with Chris Jones hovering over the center, like a dark cloud of impending doom .
When the Chiefs have the ball: This is a game that will be decided in the trenches (where all football games should be!) The tradition of the KC offensive line is to come into a championship game with levels of uncertainty about their ability to protect Patrick Mahomes, is alive and well. The fortunes of the Chiefs line seemed to swing when guard Joe Thuney kicked out to left tackle, but there has been some lingering concern about whether or not their interior protection has suffered. Last year, Thuney was injured and didn’t play in the Super Bowl but back up Nick Allegretti had a career day against San Francisco. They’ll be put to the test when they line up across from holy terror Jalen Carter and deep/disruptive Eagles front 7. I think I've said this in every Chiefs’ Super Bowl preview and the Notebook stands on tradition (and business!) but the Eagles have got to sack Patrick Mahomes. The recipe for success against Kansas City is frustrating the quarterback by constantly putting a rush in his face and closing off his running lanes.
The Chiefs have been outstanding in the red zone this postseason and their ability to finish drives with touchdowns instead of settling for field goals has been the deciding factor all season. The KC passing game obviously starts and ends with Travis Kelce, but for them to have success they’re going to have to find production elsewhere. Hollywood Brown has given them something during his late season return after missing almost the entire season due to injury. Mid-season acquisition DeAndre Hopkins has been fairly quiet recently, but so help me god if Juju Smith-Schuster goes off in this game and gets yet another ring, I’m going to throw up.
Pardon the cheap pun but Xavier Worthy is the x-factor for the Chiefs. You never know how KC OC Matt Nagy is going to use him, could be on a jet sweep or a reverse or a screen or they could just air one out to him and try to take the top off of the Eagles young secondary. I say young like it’s a bad thing, it’s not, rookies Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean have been fantastic for the Birds this season, add them to vets like Darius Slay and CJ Gardner-Johnson and they make up one of the deepest secondardies in the league.
How the Eagles win?
The Eagles protect up the middle and keep Chris Jones in check. Jalen Hurts, maybe the least talked about starting quarterback in the lead up to a Super Bowl ever, reminds people that he can be dangerous as a down field passer by stretching the field early. Hurt connects on deep shots to DeVonta Smith and AJ Brown, not to be outdone, put his book mark back into Inner Excellence and made his mark of excellence in the games’ greatest stage with a couple of first half touchdowns. With the KC defense back on its heels, they ingest a steady diet of gumbo, jambalaya and Saquon Barkley. As Jeff STOUT-this land is your land this land is my-LAND’s offensive line steamrolls over Spagnolo’s defense, making him a such a fixture in the Superdome that the Saints hire him as head coach and releases the rest of the NFL from the clutches of the KC-Scheming-Genius. Mahomes finds nothing simple in the Big Easy, as the Eagles defense doesn’t slip on the turf that was their undoing two years ago in Arizona. The bad news for Chiefs fans is that they lost the Super Bowl, the good news for Chiefs fans is that this heartbreak will fuel at least 3 more Taylor Swift albums. Travis will enter his retirement era after the game, and the two can live happily ever after.
How the Chiefs win?
Patrick Mahomes does Patrick Mahomes things; he completes passes on the run, throws to the confusingly always open Travis Kelce and stops an inch from the sidelines and lets waves upon waves of Philly tacklers wash over him into 15-yard late hits out of bounds. While the defense shuts down Saquon Barkley with Chris Jones, George Karlaftis and newly acquired Myles Garrett. (You didn’t think the league allowed players to be traded to a team in the Super Bowl after the two teams landed in the host city? You better learn the 2024 Chiefs, friend-o!) Somehow Spags had a game plan already drawn up that included Myles Garrett for this game and their new addition (which they snared for the low low price of a 6th round pick, a page of Burger King coupons (not a sponsor) and the rights to the Nebraska QB who dresses like Patrick Mahomes) dominated the unprepared Eagles. Philly offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland foolishly didn’t game plan for Myles Garrett this week.
On offense, the Chiefs are a bit stagnant in the first half, with Kelce being blanket covered and the gadgety plays from Nagy didn’t work. So at halftime, Chiefs GM Brett Veach called up Sean McVay and traded Luka Doncic to the Rams for Cooper Kupp. Kupp, who just happened to be in New Orleans, and just so also happened to already have a Chiefs jersey with his name on it, shockingly was already written into Matt Nagy’s game plan for the second half. The Super Bowl 56 MVP reeled in 12 catches for 156 yards and 3 touchdowns. The record setting performance is good, but not enough to give him the MVP, Patrick Mahomes did throw him all those passes after all.
Prediction
Two years ago, I had the Eagles winning this game 34-31. Then last year I picked Buffalo to beat the Chiefs in the divisional round. Then I picked the Ravens to beat them in the AFC championship game. I finally smartened up and picked the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl a year ago. Now, in any of those 4 games that I mentioned, you could win the argument if you said that the other team was more talented than the Chiefs. On paper, the Chiefs could have easily lost all 4 games, they did not. Instead they ran the table. Sort of like this season where the Chiefs look as pedestrian as they have ever looked and they only had one real loss all season. (The November loss to Buffalo, that week 17 farce wasn’t real ball.) Sure they had some luck go their way but you can influence luck by the way you take advantage of it. Whether it is an opponent’s mistake, a referee’s call or just controlling what you can control and not giving the other team those opportunities and if you do, make sure they don’t cash in on them. And nobody does. With the 2024 Patriots, you knew that if they turned the ball over, the other team was going to immediately turn it into points. It’s how they were wired. The Chiefs are wired the opposite way, the + to the Patriots -, when they make a mistake they fight like hell to make sure it doesn’t matter. (Or they make sure there is a flag thrown. There is something about those damn yellow gloves and cleats, I swear KC is dropping counterfeit flags out there and the referees just go along with it and make up a penalty. How’s that for a conspiracy theory? Mel Gibson would love that copy of The Catcher in the Rye.)
Two stats I heard this week that I almost couldn’t believe:
- Patrick Mahomes is 8-0 vs Vic Fangio defenses. (6-0 vs Vic when he was in Denver, but still!)
- Patrick Mahomes has never lost an NFL game played in a dome. (How is that possible, this is year 7 and he’s never lost in a dome?)
I said a year ago I was out of the picking against the Chiefs business, I even filled up a black board like I was Bart Simpson in detention with “I will not pick against the Kansas City Chiefs.” That punishment has taught me the lesson that was intended.
Chiefs 30 Eagles 28