History was on the line Sunday night, and it only took a half for Kansas City’s dominant run to be extinguished
History was on the line Sunday night, and it only took a half for Kansas City’s dominant run to be extinguished
NEW ORLEANS — The Kansas City Chiefs entered Super Bowl LIX looking to become the first team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls. What they found out Sunday is that there’s a reason such a feat has never been accomplished before.
At some point, every team runs into a challenger designed to beat them, and that’s exactly what happened in the Caesars Superdome. The Chiefs did not just get beat by the Eagles, they got beat down in a 40-22 blowout that was the second largest Super Bowl loss by any team over the past 10 years. (Kansas City owns the biggest loss, a 31-9 trucking at the hands of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV.)
The Chiefs played Sunday night like they spent 24 straight hours on Bourbon Street before kickoff. They got shut out in the first half totaling just 23 yards and one first down. The only reason this didn’t turn into one of the worst routs in Super Bowl history is because Kansas City was able to score 16 garbage-time points in the fourth quarter.
So, what exactly went wrong for the Chiefs? In one word: everything. But that’s a vague description, so let’s take a look at three areas in which Kansas City screwed the proverbial pooch.
The offensive line got bullied
Coaches always say: If you’re going to win in the NFL, you have to win in the trenches. That’s exactly what the Eagles did in this game. The Chiefs offensive line got manhandled for basically the entire game, and because of that, it took the Chiefs completely out of rhythm offensively.
When an offensive line gets beat up to that degree, sometimes it’s because a defense throws something new at them like Bill Belichick did in a 13-3 win over the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII. That wasn’t the case in this game. Kansas City was ready for what Philadelphia was going to do, according to Chiefs center Creed Humphrey, but it wasn’t able to stop the NFC champions from doing it.
“They didn’t show any different looks; they didn’t show anything un-scouted,” Humphrey said after the game. “It just came down to them coming out and playing harder.”
That’s not what you want to hear your center say after a game, let alone a Super Bowl, but that’s the best description of what happened. This was an old-fashioned butt-kicking with the Eagles generating pressure on 38.1% of snaps — despite not blitzing the entire game — according to NFL’s Next Gen Stats. The Chiefs couldn’t stop Josh Sweat (2.5 sacks) or Milton Williams (2 sacks), two defensive players who blew up Kansas City multiple times.
Mahomes was sacked six times in the game, the most he’s ever been taken to the ground during his career in a game — regular or postseason. The Chiefs have some talented players on the offensive, such as Joe Thuney, but Sweat had no issue blowing by him on most plays. It did not go much better for Mike Caliendo, Jawaan Taylor or Trey Smith, who were the other three starters along with Humphrey.
Teams in the AFC might want to start taking notes: If you want to beat Mahomes, the secret is not to outscore him, it’s to beat him up.
Mahomes had one of his worst games, ever
Even though the Chiefs offensive line got beat up by the Eagles, you can’t pin all of the blame on them. That’s because Mahomes had one of the worst performances of his career. The three-time Super Bowl winner turned the ball over three times, including two costly interceptions in the first half on extremely poor throws.
The first pick came midway through the second quarter, and it was a backbreaker: Mahomes threw a pick-six to Cooper DeJean.
Mahomes rolled out of the pocket and had plenty of time to throw, so the only person you can blame for this pick-six is Mahomes. That interception put the Eagles up 17-0, and from there, it was clear that Mahomes was going to have harness some of his patented magic if the Chiefs were going to get back in the game, but there was no magic to be bad.
Later in the second quarter, Mahomes threw another pick, and once again, it was his fault.
Yes, Zack Baun made a great play, but it was also a risky throw and with the Chiefs sitting at their own 6-yard line with under two minutes left to play in the half, it was risk that Mahomes probably didn’t need to take. Two plays after that interception, the Eagles scored another touchdown. At that point, the rout was on with the Eagles up 24-0.
The Chiefs totaled just 23 yards during a nightmare first half where Mahomes finished with a 10.7 QB rating. When Mahomes is at his best, the Chiefs are almost impossible to beat, but when he’s at his worst, this game is what happens.
Jalen Hurts is Steve Spagnuolo’s kryptonite
Spagnuolo’s defense has been a key reason why the Chiefs have been able to build a dynasty. Since hiring him in 2019, Kansas City had gone 16-2 in the postseason heading into Super Bowl LIX. If Spagnuolo had one kryptonite in his career, it’s figuring out how to stop Jalen Hurts.
In the lead up to the Super Bowl, you may have heard that Mahomes was 8-0 against Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, but the fact that Hurts had already experienced some major success against Spagnuolo flew seemed to be forgotten.
- The best passing game of Hurts’ regular-season career going into the Super Bowl? That came against the Chiefs when he threw for 387 yards in a 2021 game against Kansas City.
- The best passing game of Hurts’ postseason career? That also came against the Chiefs when he threw for 304 yards in Philadelphia’s 38-35 loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
The Eagles lost both those games, so they did not get acknowledged, but Hurts definitely didn’t fly under the radar in New Orleans: He took home Super Bowl MVP after a wildly impressive game in which he totaled 293 yards and three touchdowns.
It’s almost like the Chiefs’ defensive game plan was to stop Saquon Barkley at all costs and make Hurts beat them. If that was the case, it backfired spectacularly. Particularly for a coach in Andy Reid who entered 33-7 in his career with a week of extra preparation for an opponent.
Early in the first quarter, it became clear Hurts was going to be a problem: On Philly’s second drive, he threw two passes of at least 20 yards, including a 28-yarder to Jahan Dotson.
After Dotson took the Chiefs down to the 1-yard line, Hurts did what he does best: He scored on a tush-push to give the Eagles and early 7-0 lead.
In the second half, he essentially iced the game with a 46-yard touchdown pass to Devonta Smith.
That came one play after the Chiefs had failed on a fourth down, and it felt like a dagger that ended the game (even though it was only the third quarter). Hurts was nearly perfect throwing the ball going 17 of 22 for 221 yards and two touchdowns. With this performance, he became the second quarterback in Super Bowl history to complete at least 70% of his passes with three or more total touchdowns in multiple Super Bowls, joining Tom Brady.
As good as Hurts was throwing, he was even better running. He only took off when necessary and made the most of each rush. Hurts ended the game as the Eagles’ leading rusher with 11 runs for 72 yards, which set the record for most yards rushing by a quarterback in Super Bowl history, a mark he originally set in Super Bowl LVII against — yup, you guessed it — Spagnuolo’s defense.
Spagnuolo and the Chiefs got hurt bad by Hurts, and even if the Chiefs offense had been able to function Sunday night, there’s no guarantee Kansas City would have won. Hurts was playing well enough that Philadelphia easily could have won Super Bowl LIX in a shootout.
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