Second Time’s The Charm: After a Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs two years ago, coach Nick Sirianni and the Eagles got their revenge on Sunday in New Orleans.
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Nobody could have argued with the Kansas City Chiefs’ credentials as an NFL dynasty, with five trips to the Super Bowl in six years and a league-best 90 regular-season victories since Patrick Mahomes took over as their quarterback in 2018. And on Sunday in New Orleans, as the Chiefs stepped onto the field as 1.5-point favorites, they had history in their sights, seeking the first Super Bowl three-peat ever.
Then their latest coronation ran into a guillotine.
With an MVP performance by quarterback Jalen Hurts and a dominant showing on defense, the Philadelphia Eagles usurped the crown, trouncing the Chiefs, 40-22, to claim the franchise’s second Super Bowl title, and first since the 2017 season.
“Oh, man, she looks prettier in person, I’ll tell you that,” Philadelphia running back Saquon Barkley said of the Lombardi Trophy after the game. “It’s better in person than it is in Madden, I’ll tell you that, playing as a kid. It’s everything you dream of. I’m just happy to be able to hold it, give it a kiss and be world champs.”
It was a lopsided result—and remarkably, for a Kansas City team coming off a 15-2 regular season and on one of the most successful runs the league has ever seen, it could have been even worse. Before scoring two touchdowns late in the fourth quarter, when the outcome was all but assured, the Chiefs trailed by 40-6—a 34-point deficit that, had it held up, would have been the fifth-worst margin of defeat in a Super Bowl.
Under Pressure: Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes spent much of Sunday’s game trying to evade Brandon Graham and the Eagles’ defensive line.
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“I was proud of how my team fought this entire season with the expectations that we had on us, but we came up short,” said Mahomes, who threw for 257 yards and three touchdowns, with two interceptions. “So now it’s how you respond, and hopefully, we can learn from this like we learned from the last loss that we had and try to continue to get even better because it’s going to take better football, especially for me, to try to make a run at another Super Bowl.”
The Eagles had fallen just shy against the Chiefs in the Super Bowl two years ago, and star wide receiver A.J. Brown acknowledged after the game that that result provided some extra motivation on Sunday. This time around, however, Kansas City appeared at a talent disadvantage against a Philadelphia squad stacked with offensive playmakers and disruptive defensive tackle Jalen Carter, alongside its obvious financial shortcomings, with the Chiefs worth $1.75 billion less than the Eagles, according to Forbes estimates.
Still, no one was willing to count out Mahomes, who led a miraculous Super Bowl comeback just last year and always seems to finish on top in a close game. In fact, Kansas City had won 17 straight in regular-season and postseason games decided by a single possession—four longer than the next-longest streak in NFL history—with all of them coming since December 2023.
Philadelphia made sure that would not be an issue.
The Eagles took the lead on their second possession of the game, scoring a touchdown with a “tush push”—the short-yardage quarterback plunge they have made virtually unstoppable. And after the Chiefs momentarily stalled the momentum when safety Bryan Cook made an acrobatic interception at the start of the second quarter, Philadelphia quickly regained the upper hand. Across the Chiefs’ next five possessions to end the half, they punted three times and threw two interceptions, one of them returned for a touchdown by Philadelphia rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean. The Eagles, meanwhile, added a field goal and a 12-yard touchdown pass to Brown.
Going into halftime, Philadelphia led on the scoreboard, 24-0, and had nearly double Kansas City’s time of possession. The Eagles had piled up 179 offensive yards; the Chiefs, by contrast, had 23, across 20 plays.
As the second half began, “we definitely felt like the game wasn’t out of hand yet and that we had an opportunity to come back,” Kansas City defensive end Charles Omenihu said. After all, the Chiefs had rallied from a 20-10 deficit in the 2020 title game against the San Francisco 49ers with 21 fourth-quarter points, had edged Philadelphia in 2023 with another late rally and had triumphed last year in overtime. And of course the Chiefs could count on Mahomes, who at 29 was the youngest quarterback in NFL history to make his fifth Super Bowl start.
But his magic vanished against the Eagles’ defense, which led the NFL in yards allowed this season and was second in points. Mahomes, who was sacked six times in the game and lost a fumble early in the fourth quarter, was under pressure on seemingly every drop-back, with even All-Pro guard Joe Thuney overmatched against Philadelphia’s fearsome front four. The Eagles’ fans, who significantly outnumbered the Chiefs faithful in the Superdome, added insult to injury with a third-quarter chant of “we want Wentz,” referring to Mahomes’ backup and former Philadelphia starter Carson Wentz.
“Just couldn’t figure it out,” wide receiver Xavier Worthy, who provided a rare highlight for the Chiefs offense when he hauled in a 24-yard pass for a third-quarter touchdown that left the score at 34-6, said of the Eagles’ defense.
Barkley, the Eagles’ star running back, broke the NFL’s single-season (including playoffs) records for rushing yards and yards from scrimmage—finishing with 2,504 and 2,857 yards, respectively—as Philadelphia set a league mark with 145 points across this postseason. But Barkley was held to a modest 57 yards on 25 carries, plus 40 yards on six receptions.
Hurts So Good: Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts earned MVP honors by running for 72 yards and throwing for 221.
Matt Slocum/Associated Press
Hurts picked up the slack, throwing for 221 yards and rushing for 72 while accounting for three touchdowns, against one interception. He was able to take a well-deserved breather at the end of the game as his backup, Kenny Pickett, came in to run out the clock.
Nearly an hour after the final whistle, hundreds of Eagles fans remained in the stands, chanting: “MVP! MVP!”
The Superdome’s speakers, meanwhile, had been blasting fight song “Fly, Eagles, Fly” and other thematically appropriate music. Perhaps most fitting, at least in title: the theme song to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
“I’ve been dreaming of this since I was a kid,” said DeJean, playing on his 22nd birthday. “Now it’s here, and now I get to wear a big old ring on my finger whenever we get it, hold that trophy—it’s amazing.”
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