Chiefs vs. Eagles: Most crucial 2025 Super Bowl coaching matchup isn’t between Andy Reid, Nick Sirianni​on February 8, 2025 at 8:08 pm

NEW ORLEANS — Andy Reid is one of the greatest head coaches in NFL history, and is on his way to becoming one of the greatest ever with this Kansas City Chiefs dynasty. Thanks to the Chiefs’ foresight in trading up to draft Patrick Mahomes back in 2017, Reid finally got to show how great of a head coach he was.

Three Super Bowl championships later, Reid is in the midst of a dynasty the NFL possibly hasn’t seen since Vince Lombardi was roaming the sidelines (yes, that’s including Bill Belichick’s New England Patriots). The Chiefs can become the first team to win three consecutive championships since the 1965-1967 Green Bay Packers with a win Sunday — and the first team to win four Super Bowls in six seasons since the 1974-1979 Pittsburgh Steelers. 

Nick Sirianni, meanwhile, is having one of the greatest starts to a coaching career in NFL history. He’s the first head coach to lead the Philadelphia Eagles to two Super Bowls, and joined Joe Gibbs and Mike Tomlin as the only coaches to take a team to two Super Bowls in his first four seasons. Sirianni is 48-20 in his career as the .706 win percentage is the fifth highest in NFL history (minimum 50 games coached). The Eagles head coach is one win away from putting himself in the conversation of being considered amongst the best head coaches in the NFL. 

While Reid and Sirianni is a rematch of Super Bowl LVII, this coaching matchup is a bit different than the showdown two years ago. Sirianni has two different coordinators in this one, with Kellen Moore running the offense (and his system) and Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator. 

The matchup in Super Bowl LIX is Reid vs. Fangio, the chess match that is going to determine the winner of this latest Chiefs-Eagles bout. 

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Will Brinson

Reid vs. Fangio

Reid’s strength as a head coach is his preparation for games, especially when he gets an extra week to do so. In his career coming out of the bye, Reid is 22-4 in the regular season, 8-1 in playoff openers and 3-2 in the Super Bowl. That combined record of 33-7 (82.5%) shows how well Reid’s teams perform when they prepare for an opponent. 

He’ll get an extra week to prepare for a Fangio defense that has transformed the Eagles this season. There’s an argument to be made Fangio is the real MVP for the Eagles in 2024, after how the team became the best defense in the NFL since their Week 5 bye. The Eagles were first in the NFL in points allowed per game (15.9), yards allowed per game (251.5), pass yards allowed per game (154.5), yards per attempt allowed (5.6) and quarterback rating allowed (79.0). While the offense didn’t turn the ball over (just seven times since the bye week), the +17 turnover margin was tied for the best in the NFL and the 24 takeaways were the third most in the league. 

The Eagles defense was even better in January, allowing 18.3 points per game and having 10 takeaways (three via special teams), the best of any team in the playoffs. This is a unit that was 30th in points per game allowed (25.2), 26th in yards per game allowed (356.1), 31st in pass yards per game allowed (252.7) and 29th in opponents’ passer rating allowed (97.6). Fangio is the first coach to take a defense from 22nd or worse the previous season to first the next season in his first year on the job. 

Then there’s the Patrick Mahomes factor that comes into play. Mahomes is 8-0 against Fangio defenses (whether he’s a head coach or coordinator, but there is a twist to that statistic. Neither the Miami Dolphins nor Denver Broncos had a top-10 defense in any of those matchups and the Chiefs offense is actually worse against Fangio compared to all other teams.

Mahomes vs. Fangio compared to rest of NFL 

Mahomes is also 7-0 against top-five scoring defenses in the playoffs, as the Chiefs have averaged 29.3 points per game. He has 17 touchdowns to four giveaways in those games. Plenty of that has to do with Reid’s preparation and Mahomes’ ability to adapt to the game, a strength that makes the duo 17-3 in 20 playoff starts — including nine straight playoff wins. 

How Reid and Mahomes prepare and adjust against Fangio will be the key to Super Bowl LIX. If the Eagles build a halftime lead again, how Mahomes and Reid use that 30-minute halftime could be the deciding factor in who hoists the Lombardi Sunday night.