Super Bowl Picks – Can the Eagles Slay the Dragon?

by Thomas Quaynor for Wannamakeabet.com

The Kansas City Chiefs (15-2, AFC Champions) take on the Philadelphia Eagles (14-3, NFC Champions) in Super Bowl LIX (59) at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. The game kicks off at 6:30 PM eastern on Fox. Kansas City is aiming to become the first team in NFL history to win three straight Super Bowls. They are also the fourth team in NFL history to appear in three straight Super Bowls joining the Miami Dolphins (1971-1973), the Buffalo Bills (1990-1993) and the New England Patriots (2016-2018). Kansas City is a 1.5-point favorite and the total is 48.5.

Kansas City advanced to the Super Bowl after slipping past the Buffalo Bills 32-29 in the AFC Championship game on Jan. 26 at home. Patrick Mahomes completed 18 of 26 passes for 245 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions. He added 43 rushing yards on 11 carries with two rushing touchdowns. Rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy added six receptions for a team-high 85 yards and a touchdown. Kansas City beat Buffalo in the playoffs for a fourth straight time since the 2020-21 season.

Philadelphia advanced to the Super Bowl after pounding division rival Washington 55-23 in the NFC Championship game on Jan. 26. Saquon Barkley rushed for a 60-yard touchdown on Philadelphia’s first play from scrimmage which set the tone of the game as the Eagles tied an NFL postseason record with seven rushing touchdowns. Barkley rushed 15 times for 118 yards and three touchdowns for the Eagles. Quarterback Jalen Hurts added three rushing touchdowns while completing 20 of 28 passes for 246 yards and a touchdown through the air. Wideout A.J. Brown produced 6 receptions for a team-high 96 yards and a touchdown. The Eagles 55 points were the most scored in an NFC Championship game in NFL history.   

This will be a Super Bowl rematch as Kansas City and Philadelphia met in Super Bowl LVII (57) almost two years ago to the day on February 12, 2023 in Glendale, Arizona. Kansas City eked out a 38-35 win over Philadelphia after Harrison Butker kicked a 27-yard field goal with eight seconds left in the game. The Chiefs overcame a 10-point halftime deficit (24-14) to pull out the win. Patrick Mahomes was named Super Bowl MVP after he completed 21 of 27 passes for 182 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. It was the second time Mahomes was named Super Bowl MVP. 

Super Bowl XIL will also be the third Super Bowl rematch involving the same starting quarterbacks. The two previous instances saw Terry Bradshaw (Pittsburgh) defeat Roger Staubach (Dallas) in Super Bowl X (1975-76) and Super Bowl XIII (1978-79) and Troy Aikman (Dallas) beat Jim Kelly (Buffalo) in Super Bowl XXVII (1992-93) and Super Bowl XXVIII (1993-94). This bodes well for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

GAME STORYLINES: KANSAS CITY

On April 27, 2017, the Kansas City Chiefs made a decision that ended up altering their franchise and possibly the course of NFL history when they traded up 17 spots in the NFL draft to select Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes with the 10th pick. Drafting Mahomes seemed like a perplexing move when you consider Kansas City had then 33-year-old quarterback Alex Smith who was playing the best football of his career. One season later, Alex Smith was jettisoned to Washington, Patrick Mahomes was named Kansas City’s starting quarterback prior to the 2018 campaign and the rest is history.

Since being named the starter for the 2018 season, Patrick Mahomes has had one of the great careers of any player in NFL history. In his first season as a starter (2018) Mahomes was named the NFL’s Most Valuable Player after passing 5,097 yards with 50 touchdowns to 12 interceptions. He became the second quarterback in NFL history (Peyton Manning – 2013) to surpass 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns in a season. Over his 7 full seasons as a starter, Mahomes accolades include 3 Super Bowl wins, 3 Super Bowl MVP’s, and 2 NFL MVP’s. He already has a strong case of being the greatest quarterback in NFL history at the age of 29.

The Chiefs 2024 season got off to somewhat of an inauspicious start due to injuries. Newly acquired wideout Hollywood Brown went down with a separated shoulder in the first preseason game. Star running back Isiah Pacheco (935 rushing yards, 7 touchdowns in 2023) fractured his fibula in Week 2 and second-year wideout Rachee Rice (938 receiving yards, 7 touchdowns in 2023) tore his ACL in Week 4. Kansas City added running back Kareem Hunt — who previously played for Kansas City in 2017 and 2018 — as a free agent and traded for former Pro Bowl wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins during the season as injury replacements. Both players — particularly Hunt — did excellent jobs as fill-in replacements. 

The key injuries on offense led to another pedestrian performance from that unit for most of the regular season. Patrick Mahomes finished the year passing for 3,928 yards with 26 touchdowns to 11 interceptions across 16 games. His passing yards were the lowest of his career while his touchdown passes were tied for the lowest of his career. The offense failed to score more than 31 points in a regular season game this season. Kansas City also won 11 games by one score (8 points) or less. Despite the slight shortcomings of the offense and what could be perceived as being lucky, Kansas City still produced a dominant regular season in which they finished as the top seed in the AFC with a 15-2 record. 

While the Chiefs offense isn’t quite as explosive as it was during Patrick Mahomes first five years (2018-2022), the defense has been excellent over the past two seasons. The emergence of the Chiefs defense has more than made up for the shortcomings of the offense. The defense ranked 9th overall this season and 4th overall in points allowed. Kansas City no longer needs Patrick Mahomes to have stellar statistical performances for them to win games now due to the vast improvement of the defense.

The defense is led by the foursome of superstar All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones (37 tackles, 5 sacks, 1 forced fumble in 15 games), All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie (59 tackles, 2 interceptions, 13 passes defended, 1 forced fumble in 16 games), defensive end George Kalafatis (35 tackles, team-high 8 sacks in 16 games) and linebacker Nick Bolton (106 tackles, 3 sacks, 1 interception, 1 forced fumble in 16 games).

GAME STORYLINES: PHILADELPHIA

The last two seasons for the Philadelphia Eagles have been a whirlwind as they went 14-3 and advanced to the Super Bowl during the the 2022-23 season. The Eagles followed that up with a late-season collapse in 2023-24 that saw them start 10-1 and then finish 11-6 with a humiliating 32-9 playoff loss at Tampa Bay in the Wild Card round. The stunning end to the 2023 season led to a lot of scrutiny for Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni and quarterback Jalen Hurts.

During the offseason, Philadelphia made what ended up being one of the best free agent signings in recent history when they inked running back Saquon Barkley to a 3-year, $37.7 million contract. Joining the Eagles represented a homecoming for Barkley who grew up in Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania which is about an hour from Philadelphia. The 27-year-old Barkley spent the first six years of his career starring on mostly mediocre and dysfunctional New York Giant teams after being selected second overall in the 2018 NFL draft. Those lean years in New York may have caused many to forget the immense talent that Barkley possesses and overlook the contributions he could make on a talented team like the Eagles.

Saquon Barkley’s first season with the Eagles has been spectacular as he went on to have one of the greatest seasons for a running back in NFL history. Barkley finished the season rushing for an astonishing 2,005 yards with 13 touchdowns, along with 278 receiving yards and 2 touchdowns in 16 games. He became the 8th running back in NFL history to surpass the 2,000 yard mark. Barkley was 101 yards shy of breaking the all-time single-season rushing record held by Eric Dickerson — 2,105 rushing yards in 1984 — but he elected to sit out of the Eagles regular season finale against the New York Giants since the game did not have any significance in terms of playoff scenarios.

The rest of the Eagles offense features quarterback Jalen Hurts (2,903 passing yards, 18 TD to 5 INT, 630 rushing yards, team-leading 14 rushing touchdowns in 15 games) along with wideouts A.J. Brown (67 catches for 1,079 yards, 7 touchdowns in 13 games) and DeVonta Smith (68 catches for 833 yards, 8 touchdowns in 13 games). All three are holdovers from the Eagles last Super Bowl appearance against Kansas City and can be just as effective as Saquon Barkley if its needed. 

The Eagles defense finished ranked #1 in the NFL during the regular season. They’ve also been dominant in the playoffs. In their 22-10 Wild Card win over Green Bay, the Eagles intercepted Packers quarterback Jordan Love three times and sacked him twice. The following week they sacked Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford five times in their 28-22 Divisional Round victory. The Eagles defense then forced 3 fumbles and sacked star rookie Jayden Daniels three times in their 55-23 rout of Washington in the NFC title game.

Among the standouts on the Eagles loaded defense is linebacker Zack Baun (151 tackles, 3.5 sacks, 1 interception, 5 forced fumbles), safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson (59 tackles, 6 interceptions, 1 Pick-Six, 1 forced fumble), linebacker Josh Sweat (41 tackles, team-leading 8 sacks), a pair of excellent rookie cornerbacks in Cooper DeJean (51 tackles, 1 forced fumble) and Quinyon Mitchell (46 tackles, 12 passes defended) and a trio of former University of Georgia Bulldogs — who won the 2021-22 BCS National Championship — in inside linebacker Nakobe Dean (128 tackles, 3 sacks, 1 interception, 1 forced fumble), outside linebacker Nolan Smith Jr. (42 tackles, 6.5 sacks, 1 forced fumble) and defensive tackle Jalen Carter (42 tackles, 4.5 sacks, 2 forced fumbles).

Unfortunately, star linebacker Nakobe Dean suffered a torn patellar tendon in his right knee during the Eagles Wild Card win against Green Bay and was ruled out for the remainder of the postseason including Sunday’s Super Bowl. The Eagles defense was still formidable without him against the Rams and Commanders in the following rounds of the playoffs. 6-foot-6, 336 pound defensive tackle Jordan Davis — who is also a former Georgia Bulldog that played alongside Dean, Smith and Carter — will be counted on to step up in the absence of Dean. He did have a sack against Washington in the NFC title game.  

THE PICK: EAGLES (+1.5)

Its tough to go against the Mahomes, Andy Reid and the Chiefs since they’ve won 13 of their last 14 playoff games but I don’t think they’ve matched up against a running back like Saquon Barkley and an imposing defense like the Eagles. Take the point(s)…Eagles 34, Chiefs 28