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Kansas City Chiefs (15 - 2, 2-0 postseason)
vs.
Philadelphia Eagles (14-3, 3-0 postseason)
Kansas City Chiefs vs. Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, February 9, 2025, 6:30 PM EST
New Orleans Superdome
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Philadelphia Eagles 40, Kansas City Chiefs 22
The Eagles winning this Super Bowl was not really that much of a surprise.
That the Eagles absolutely dominated from beginning to almost the end, with the Chiefs offense only finally being able to really get some yards and highlight reel material - as well as most of their points - in the final minutes, when the game had long before been decided - was the real shock here.
Now admittedly, I woke up after working a double the night before into early afternoon. So when I got up, the score was Philadelphia leading, 7-0. They were setting up for a field goal, which would be successfully converted. A few moments later, the Philly defense kept pressuring Mahomes, sacking him. Then, he threw a pick six to Cooper DeJean, and the Eagles had a 17-0 lead.
Philly's defense kept the pressure on, too. Just minutes later, Mahomes threw yet another pick, deep in KC territory. Moments after that, the Eagles scored another touchdown to go up, 24-0. They held onto that lead for halftime.
By halftime, the Eagles had held on to the ball for almost twice as long as the Chiefs had, with KC having had it for only about ten minutes, and Philly having possessed the ball for twenty minutes. Also, the Chiefs faced the second largely deficit of any team in Super Bowl history, down 24-0. Only Denver had faced a larger deficit in Super Bowl XXII, down by 25 points, and they were unable to make a game of it.
An even more daunting statistic for Kansas City was this: no team which had been held scoreless in the first half of a Super Bowl had ever managed to come back to win the game. The Chiefs would have work cut out for them. It seemed that everyone commenting on the game during halftime felt the same thing: that the Chiefs needed to score right away on their first possession, and keep the Eagles from scoring.
If there was a little intrigue left, it ended pretty quickly in the third quarter. KC's first drive stalled and went nowhere. When the Eagles got the ball, they ate a good chunk of the clock and got a field goal to expand their lead to 27-0.
That was pretty much the ball game.
Philly would score yet another touchdown to make the score 34-0 before the Chiefs finally managed to get on the scoreboard with less than a minute remaining in the third quarter, to close to within 34-6. The Eagles added two field goals so that they owned a 40-6 lead midway through the fourth quarter.
Then, finally, the Chiefs offense showed some real signs of life. Too late, they began to move the ball and even produced largely hollow points. Patrick Mahomes DeAndre Hopkins for a 7-yard touchdown. With a successful two-point conversion, that made it 40-14. A few minutes later, Mahomes tossed a beautiful 50-yard long bomb into the end zone which was caught by Xavier Worthy. Another successful two-point conversion made it 40-22, which would end up being the final score.
While still a blowout, those two late KC touchdowns made the score appear closer and more respectable than it actually was. In fact, this game felt more lopsided than that. Philadelphia holding that 40-6 lead until KC's flurry of touchdowns in the final three minutes felt more indicative of how this game actually played out.
The reality was that the Eagles defense was flaying all over the field. They applied heavy pressure on Mahomes, sacking him six times and constantly, relentlessly pressuring him and forcing him into making costly mistakes. That included those two key interceptions late in the first half, from which Philadelphia got 14 points (the pick six and the other INT which gave the Eagles the ball deep in KC territory). That was a huge part of the story in this particular game.
How effective was that Philly defense? Kansas City became the first team in Super Bowl history not to cross midfield at any point during their first nine possessions. They had exactly one first down and a total of 23 yards of offense by halftime. Also, Mahomes never saw a blitz by the Eagles, becoming the sixth quarterback in Super Bowl history never to see one. Yet, they managed to sack Mahomes six times, which was the most in his career.
Just an incredible job, A perfect game plan. Clearly, the players believed in it, and executed with stunning efficiency. They disrupted KC's offense all evening long.
On offense, the Eagles were equally as spectacular. While the KC defense clearly focused on trying to contain Saquon Barkley, ultimately holding him to 57 yards on 25 carries, they seemed to almost be daring Philadelphia quarterback Jalen Hurts to beat them. And beat them Hurts did, as he completed 17 of 22 passes for 221 and two touchdowns, with one interception. In addition, hurts ran for 72 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries, as well. It was a stellar performance, and earned Hurts the well-deserved distinction of being this year's Super Bowl MVP.
In a losing cause for KC, Patrick Mahomes completed 21 of 32 passes for 257 yards, with three touchdowns and two interceptions. Statistically, it looks impressive, but the stats do not tell the whole story. Most of the impressive stats that he compiled came when the game was already really out of hand. In other words, it was largely garbage time points and production to make the game appear closer and more competitive than it actually was in reality. Case in point, Mahomes also led his team on the ground, with just 25 yards on four carries.
Xavier Worthy also had impressive stats for the Chiefs, producing 157 yards and two touchdowns on eight catches. Tight End Travis Kelce 39 yards on four receptions, but like Mahomes and the rest of his team, he was unable to be productive until the outcome was no longer in any doubt.
Yeah, it was that kind of a night for Kansas City. Their ground game was pretty much ineffective. And their passing game really only got seriously going when the game was already well out of their reach.
You have to wonder just how seriously the Chiefs took the Eagles. True, they had beaten them already in the biggest game, and just two years ago. But that was then, and this is now. Despite how badly they were being outplayed, Kansas City only attempted three designed running plays. It was like they forgot all about having a balanced approach to the game. And while Andy Reid and the other coaches usually make decent adjustments during halftime, that hardly seemed to be the case this time around. What it felt like, then, was that maybe the Chiefs began to believe that all they would need to do is show up and do what they usually do, and that other teams would have to react to that. It almost felt like the idea that they might get badly outplayed, or that they might have to make adjustments to what the Eagles were doing, did not occur to them. I'm not saying that was necessarily the case. But there are times when you have to recognize that what you are doing just is not working. By the time that KC seemed to fully realize that, it was halftime, and they were already down 24-0.
Kansas City should be given a lot of credit. They have enjoyed a historical run in recent seasons. They have won nine straight AFC West division titles, and reached the AFC Championship Game seven straight times (hosting it all but once during that stretch)..They qualified for the Super Bowl five times in a six year span, more than any team in NFL history. They won three Super Bowl titles, and last year, became the first team in two decades to clinch back-to-back titles. This year, they entered this Super Bowl having really only lost one meaningful game all season, up in Buffalo, and they beat the Bills in the rematch two weeks ago in the AFC title game to reach this Super Bowl. That gave them the distinction of being only the fourth franchise to qualify for three straight Super Bowls, and the first back-to-back Super Bowl champions to earn their way to the Super Bowl, which gave them a chance to earn the obviously elusive "three-peat." But they simply ran into a green brick wall today when they faced the NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles.
It is difficult to say how the Chiefs will recover from this humbling loss. In retrospect, it feels to me that despite all of their success this season, maybe all of that pursuit of history stuff finally caught up with them. What this loss reminded me of were other times when teams which seemed on the cusp of making history suddenly saw everything collapse all around them, and all at once. Like the New England Patriots pursuing the perfect season in Super Bowl XLII, or the Denver Broncos smashing all sorts of offensive records and appearing to be the greatest offense in NFL history entering Super Bowl XLVIII, these Kansas City Chiefs were aiming for the elusive "three-peat." It was a chance to be known forever as at least arguably the greatest, and certainly the most decorated, dynasty in modern NFL history. They sure played like a team distracted, and not focused on their opponents as much as they were focused on history, and their own place in it.
Had this been a more normal football game, it might have served to wake the Chiefs up. A rude awakening, a splash of cold water in their face, waking them up from their own reveries of greatness. Since this was the Super Bowl, however, they played what certainly felt like their worst game as a team during the Mahomes era in front of everyone, and at the worst possible moment. Their offense looked off, their highly ranked defense looked flustered and beaten. They appeared down, deflated and largely defeated long before the halftime show got going.
Nothing seemed to work for KC on offense. That was never as obvious as when Mahomes scrambled enough to finally have some time to throw a pass that was actually on target, intended for DeAndre Hopkins very late in the first half. The Eagles were up, 24-0, and the Chiefs desperately needed something positive to happen, and if completed, it would have given KC the ball at midfield, with at least a chance to get into scoring position, even if they had to settle for decent field goal position. I am not saying that would have been enough to turn things around, but at least the offense would have done something positive in the first half, and might have gotten a bit of a boost or confidence from that. But Hopkins dropped the pass, and the Chiefs yet again produced nothing on a drive that really meant everything to them. And that 24-0 deficit, with both their offense and their defense playing poorly, was all that the Chiefs had to think about in the locker room during halftime.
So given an opportunity in pursuit of history which would have elevated them to rank among the truly elite and great teams in sports history, the Chiefs failed completely and spectacularly. This game was basically over before halftime. Philadelphia scored the 34 points unanswered before the Chiefs finally got on the scoreboard, which was the second most in Super Bowl history (behind Seattle's 36-0 lead against the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII). As it turns out, they apparently never had a chance, and failed in a way that will likely be remembered for a long, long time. Most likely, it will haunt these Chiefs for a very long time to come.
Give the Philadelphia Eagles a ton of credit. They put together an amazing gameplan, and then executed it almost to perfection. The defense in particular hit hard and played fast, and proved to be way too much for the Chiefs, who looked confused and unable to adjust in any meaningful way. Philadelphia usually relies more heavily on their running game offensively, but they adjusted, with quarterback Jalen Hurts settled in and delivered in a huge way for his team. He won the MVP honors, and deserved it, although I also believe that an argument could be made that someone on defense also might have deserved it, since that was truly where it felt the Eagles won the game.
This game was pretty much decided in the first half, and certainly was out of control in favor of Philly by midway through the third quarter. They never let KC back in this thing, and did not give the Chiefs any breathing room until the final minutes, by which time they began to play prevent and were just trying to milk the clock and ice the win. Ultimately, the Eagles clearly deserved to win the second Super Bowl championship in franchise history.
My pick: Wildly Inaccurate!
Super Bowl LIX Champions: Philadelphia Eagles
Fly Eagles, Fly!!
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