And my Super Bowl 57 pick is ...
Both the Chiefs and Eagles have reasons to be optimistic about their chances of winning another Lombardi Trophy.
Super Bowl LVII. Super Bowl 57. The Andy Reid Bowl. The Kelce Brothers Bowl. The Last of Us vs. Abbott Elementary Bowl. The Ant-Man vs. Rocket Raccoon Bowl.
Whatever you want to call it, the big day is almost here. The Chiefs and Eagles have quite a bit in common, beyond having Reid as a longtime head coach:
Not only that, but the quarterback duel is noteworthy in a couple ways: Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts are the first two Black starting QBs to face off in the same Super Bowl, and they are the youngest starting QB matchup in Super Bowl history.
Despite neither team trailing in their two previous playoff games, the Chiefs and Eagles took two different paths to get to Glendale, Arizona.
Kansas City had to fend off the pesky Jaguars and the peskier Bengals, winning each round by a one-score margin. Philly blew out both the Giants and the short-handed 49ers.
Will the Chiefs being slightly more battle-tested matter come game time? Well, Vegas doesn’t think so; the Eagles are a 1.5-point favorite as of Friday afternoon, per DraftKings. However, Christian is rolling with the Chiefs.
Before I act as a tiebreaker of sorts and offer my own Super Bowl prediction, I’m going to lay out three reasons why each team could win its second championship in the past five years.
Why the Chiefs will win
1. They have more experience
The Eagles have a few holdovers from the squad that Philly Special-ed the Patriots in February 2018, but overall, this is a much different roster. The head coach and the rest of the staff, starting quarterback, offensive playmakers, No. 1 sacker, leading tackler, and entire secondary are all new faces.
On the other hand, the Chiefs return many of the biggest names from the team that made it to two of the previous three Super Bowls: players like Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, and Frank Clark, as well as head coach Andy Reid, OC Eric Bieniemy, and DC Steve Spagnuolo.
They’ve been in this situation before, and they know both what it takes to win and what happens when you lose.
Most of the current members of the Eagles hadn’t even notched a playoff win before this season. Head coach Nick Sirianni, whose previous stops included the pre-Reid Chiefs, Chargers, and Colts, had minimal experience in that regard. Though Sirianni might have a chip on his shoulder from when Reid didn’t keep him on staff in KC, he’ll need more than spite to get the best of a future Hall of Fame coach like Reid.
And the Chiefs will pose much more of a challenge than any other team the Eagles have met this season, particularly in the playoffs.
2. They have the better quarterback
Look, I like Jalen Hurts. He’s taken a sizable step forward in his third year in the NFL and has had an excellent season, with the only real blemish being the shoulder injury that cost him two games. Hurts earned MVP consideration, but Mahomes was, correctly, the runaway winner of this year’s award, the second of career.
Mahomes led the league in passing yards, TD passes, EPA per dropback, offensive EPA per play, and QBR, and was second in passer rating and yards per throw.
He’s the top quarterback of the last few seasons:
And it’s not particularly close:
Some of us (*raises hand*) were concerned that Mahomes’ high ankle sprain would limit him against the Bengals, but instead he played a nearly flawless game against a good defense: 29 of 43 for 326 yards, two touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a scramble that set up the winning field goal (with a little help from a late hit penalty).
Almost two weeks later, Mahomes says that his mobility is much better than it was while his ankle continues to heal.
Hurts is also not 100 percent, though his play has dipped recently. His injury was more noticeable than Mahomes’ in the playoffs as Hurts didn’t attempt many deep passes (he averaged 5.6 yards per throw) and wasn’t as productive on the ground as earlier in the season (3.7 yards per run). Kansas City’s defense ranked second in sacks this season, behind only the Eagles, and has found success without blitzing at a high rate. That could change in the Super Bowl, because Hurts’ efficiency drops significantly when he’s blitzed.
I hesitate to bring this up because it might not be fair, but I’ll throw it out there anyway: Hurts doesn’t always perform his best when the pressure is highest. As a freshman at Alabama, he was not particularly good against Clemson in the national championship. A year later, he was benched for Tua Tagovailoa against Georgia in the national championship (the Tide came back to win). When he transferred to Oklahoma, he struggled in a semifinal game against LSU. Last season in his first NFL playoff appearance, he was not effective in a double-digit loss in the Wild Card Round.
That’s not to suggest that Hurts hasn’t grown or hasn’t ever been clutch — he has, multiple times in college (e.g. against Clemson his sophomore season, against the Cowboys earlier this season). But the Super Bowl is the biggest stage of them all, and if his shoulder continues to hamper him, Hurts might not be able to go toe-to-toe with Mahomes.
3. They have a Hydra-like offense
The Eagles have the advantage at wide receiver, with A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith as their 1-2 tandem. They also have the more proficient running game, thanks mostly to Miles Sanders (1,269 rushing yards, 11 TDs) and Hurts (760 rushing yards, 13 TDs).
What the Chiefs have — besides Mahomes and Travis Kelce, the two most accomplished offensive players on the field — are several weapons ready to step up as needed. And you never know who it might be.
So one game, Kelce is the star, like his 14-catch, 98-yard, two-touchdown effort against the Jaguars. The next week, it’s Marquez Valdes-Scantling having a career day, with rookie Skyy Moore pitching in on offense and special teams.
Leading up to the playoffs, Jerick McKinnon had a major role in the offense, hauling in eight touchdown passes and rushing for another in the final six-week stretch of the regular season.
In the postseason, rookie running back Isiah Pacheco has earned more of a workload, taking a season-most 57 percent of the offensive snaps against the Bengals.
Despite trading away Tyreek Hill in the offseason, and despite playmakers coming in and out of the lineup due to injuries all season, Kansas City’s offense has never really missed a beat. It’s ranked No. 1 in scoring, total yards, EPA (by a lot!), and offensive DVOA this year.
And it’s welcoming a few more players back for the Super Bowl who had been out with injuries: JuJu Smith-Schuster, Kadarius Toney, Justin Watson, and Clyde Edwards-Helaire. Although none of those names are obvious difference-makers, each one has the potential to be an unsung hero. If Philadelphia’s loaded secondary contains Kelce, then maybe MVS or Smith-Schuster or Toney will take over.
Or perhaps it’s more likely that one of the running backs can ball out, as a rusher or receiver:
As the Hydra saying goes, “Cut off one head two more shall take its place.” KC’s offense is built similarly.
Why the Eagles will win
1. They have the better defense
While the Chiefs have a slight advantage over the Eagles offensively, Philadelphia’s defense is much more highly rated than Kansas City’s: No. 6 vs. No. 17 per DVOA. The Eagles also share commonalities with the Tampa defense that kept Mahomes in check two years ago in the Super Bowl. Specifically, a shutdown secondary and a nasty pass rush.
That pass rush put up a whopping 70 sacks this season — 15 more than the second-place Chiefs — and did so with a middle-of-the-pack blitz rate.
KC’s offensive line has upgraded in those two years since the Super Bowl loss, but there are still concerns at the tackle spots, especially while facing down Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat, and Brandon Graham, all of whom racked up double-digit sacks this season.
Mahomes, when healthy, isn’t an easy quarterback to take down. He had the third-lowest sack percentage this season. However, we don’t know how stable that ankle really is. In the AFC title game, the Bengals, who totaled the fourth-fewest sacks (30) in the NFL this year, got to him three times.
On one of those sacks, Mahomes also made a huge mistake that led to Cincinnati tying the score: He fumbled, only his second turnover in the last six games. The Eagles are adept at forcing turnovers, ranking fifth in takeaways and third in turnover differential in the regular season. Meanwhile, the Chiefs fell in the top 10 in giveaways.
Mahomes threw 12 interceptions in 2022; seven of those came against defenses that ranked in the top nine in pass DVOA: the 49ers, Broncos, and Bills. The Eagles are No. 1 in pass DVOA and snagged 17 interceptions (tied for fourth in the NFL) on the season.
Put it all together, and this is the kind of defense that can disrupt Mahomes’ rhythm. That’s the key to beating the Chiefs.
2. They have a mobile quarterback
KC’s Achilles heel in the Mahomes era has been its defense, which has never ranked higher than No. 14 in DVOA in that time (they won the Super Bowl that year). This year, the defense got off to a bit of a slow start but has been on the rise in the second half of the season.
There’s one major caveat, though: The Chiefs haven’t faced any true dual-threat quarterbacks like Hurts in that span. Since Week 9, this is how they’ve fared against mobile QBs (or QBs who can run better than you might expect):
Malik Willis: 8 carries, 40 yards
Trevor Lawrence: 4 carries, 26 yards
Joe Burrow: 11 carries, 46 yards, 1 TD
Russell Wilson (2022 Russell Wilson!): 4 carries, 57 yards
Wilson again: 4 carries, 27 yards, 2 TDs
Lawrence again: 3 carries, 26 yards
Burrow again: 4 carries, 30 yards
Even when the Chiefs know a QB can be dangerous with his legs, they’ve still given up a decent amount of yardage: Lawrence and Burrow combined to average 8 yards per carry in the postseason against KC’s defense.
None of those guys can run like (a healthy) Hurts, who is a master at the QB draw:
The Eagles also were at the top of the league in passing yards on run-pass option plays. Often, defenses have to pick their poison: They can try to keep Hurts from gashing them, but that gives A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith more of an opportunity to break free. This will be a big test for Kansas City’s young defenders.
3. They can control the clock
The Eagles lost their first game of the season in Week 10, Hurts’ only loss as a starter this year. They might want to borrow the Commanders’ game plan from that week: dominate the time-of-possession battle, be smart about when to go for it on fourth down, and capitalize off the opponent’s mistakes.
Other than in that loss, Philly has done a great job of controlling the clock this season, thanks to their strong running game. In the postseason alone, they’ve held the ball for, on average, 13 minutes longer than the other team.
Of course, they jumped out to an early lead in both of those games and neither opposing offense was the behemoth that the Chiefs’ is. But realistically, the goal shouldn’t be stopping Kansas City’s offense; it should be slowing it down. And one way to do that is to keep the ball out of Mahomes’ hands.
That also means the Eagles should continue to be aggressive on fourth downs and in the red zone. Philly’s offense converted 68.8 percent of their 32 fourth-down attempts this season, both of which were fourth-highest in the NFL. When you include the playoffs, the Eagles converted the highest number of fourth-down tries.
The Chiefs allowed offenses to pick up a first on 57.1 percent of fourth-down attempts, 11th-most in the league. Where the defense really struggled, however, was in the red zone: Only the Colts surrendered a higher percentage of red zone touchdowns. The Eagles excel in the red zone, where they were successful 67.8 percent of the time, third-most in the league, during the regular season.
Five years ago, the Eagles won their first Super Bowl by outrushing the Patriots, holding the ball longer, and going for it on fourth down. Despite the roster and coaching staff turnover, the Eagles can win their second title by following a similar script.
My pick: Chiefs 27, Eagles 23
No outcome would really surprise me, except maybe a low-scoring game. When in doubt, though, I’ve gotta side with Mahomes.
Great observations!
Really well written article.