Super Bowl LIX recap: Chiefs outclassed by Eagles in three-peat attempt
The Kansas City Chiefs (15-2) routed in Super Bowl 40-22 by the Philadelphia Eagles (14-3) after offense stalls, turns it over three times.
While the Kansas City Chiefs took two-time defending championships further than anyone had ever gone before, they ultimately fell short of the prize they set their sights on for the 2024 season. It was really a no-contest, too, after getting routed out of the Super Dome in New Orleans, losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 40-22.
“They all (losses) hurt,” head coach Andy Reid said. “You get this far; you battled your tail off to get this far. Very, very hard to do and you know we spent a lot of time doing this and it's not a hobby, right? So, we were in it the whole way and spent a lot of hours doing it as players, as coaches so, it's going to hurt. They all hurt when you get to this level and these things happen. Three-peat aside or any of that stuff, you get this far, and you don't play as well as you want to, it hurts.”
They fought till the end, showing life after being down 34-0 till seconds were left in the third quarter, but it was too late. The Eagles played the perfect game, taking advantage of what had been the Chiefs' biggest weakness before their late-season surge. Through three quarters, the Eagles pressured Patrick Mahomes on 45 percent of his drop backs, sacking him six times with the Philadelphia defensive coordinator Vic Fangio not even calling a single blitz all night.
“Their defensive line did a nice job,” Reid said. “That happens you know, in these games. Those lines get magnified there a little bit.”
The game script went about exactly how the Eagles wanted it to, but not in the way that you would have expected. Heading into the game, the prevailing thought was that the Eagles needed to get a lead on the Chiefs so they could showcase their 2,000-plus yard back, Saquon Barkley. Philadelphia built up that lead, but defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s unit sniffed out Barkley’s runs all night long, holding him to possibly his worst game of the season, 25 carries for 57 yards and zero touchdowns, good for 2.3 yards per carry.
Instead, Philadelphia used their big lead and put such massive pressure on Mahomes that the Chiefs finished the rest of the first half pressing. Kansas City gained a first down on the first drive of the game with a run-pass-option to JuJu Smith-Schuster, but that would be the last first down the Chiefs would get throughout the entire first half.
It was not as if this thing unraveled that quickly either. After the Chiefs' first punt, the Eagles drove down the field for a 69-yard drive that ended with a tush-push touchdown after cornerback wide receiver Jahan Dotson beat Jaylen Watson to get them down to the one. After a quick three-and-out by the Chiefs, the Eagles were driving again when Chiefs safety Bryan Cook intercepted Super Bowl LIX MVP Jalen Hurts in the red zone, seemingly switching the momentum.
Unfortunately, the Chiefs were unable to capitalize and were forced into another three-and-out inside their own 10. Philadelphia was then able to convert a field goal on just a 27-yard drive.
To get things going, head coach Andy Reid decided to move Mahomes out of the pocket, swinging him to the right on a bootleg, where a pressing Mahomes never saw rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean, who returned it for a touchdown, giving the Eagles a 17-0 lead. That is where it all went bad for Kansas City, who had a negative-six-yard drive to answer the pick-six.
The Chiefs defense then did what the defense did for most of the night and bottled up the Eagles' offense when they were given an entire field to defend against and forced Philadelphia to punt. On the next Chiefs drive though, the Eagles wound up getting their 14th point off of the 17 they scored off of Mahomes turnovers after he threw an interception inside their own red zone. This led to a touchdown pass to A.J. Brown just two plays later. The Chiefs followed that up with another negative yardage drive to allow Hurts to kneel it out with a 24-0 lead heading into the half.
“Too many turnovers, too many penalties,” Reid said. “Against a good football team, you just can’t do that.”
The Chiefs got the ball coming out of the half, but their three-minute drive ended with a Mahomes eight-yard scramble on a third and 17. What happened next was what led to Hurts earning himself his first Super Bowl MVP. He led a field goal drive where he rushed for 30 yards and passed for 32 on a 12-play, nearly seven-minute drive that killed any hopes of a comeback after leaving only five minutes left in the third quarter at the end of it. If that was not enough, the Chiefs turned it over-on-downs on their ensuing drive before Hurts completely nailed the coffin shut with a one-play 46-yard drive on a bomb to Devonta Smith to make it 34 unanswered to start the game with over two minutes to go in the third quarter.
It was not until then that the Chiefs got going, striking quickly for a 24-yard touchdown pass to rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy before a failed two-point conversion. The Eagles did not slow up at that point either. They then went on a near-six-minute field goal drive before strip-sacking Mahomes and kicking and kicking through an additional field goal to make it 40-6. It was Mahomes’ third turnover, and the Eagles scored on every single one of them, putting an end to the Chiefs' magical season.
“I was proud of how my team fought this entire season with the expectations that we had onus but we came up short and 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 in order to try to make a run at another Super Bowl, Mahomes said.”
Kansas City did score touchdowns on their final two possessions, but the first one took over five minutes off the clock. That long drive ended with DeAndre Hopkins’ patented boundary-contested catch along the sidelines of the endzone in his Super Bowl debut. Justin Watson came out of the other side on a successful two-point conversion attempt to make it 40-14.
If there was one bright spot in this one, it was Worthy, who had a monster eight catches on eight targets for 157 yards and two touchdowns. He started the Chiefs’ scoring and finished it late in the game, with the second one being a 50-yard beauty in the back of the endzone to make it 40-22 after Hopkins high-pointed another one on a two-pointer.
Statistically, Mahomes did not have the worst game of his career, posting eight yards per attempt, 257 yards through the air and three touchdowns, but the two interceptions told the story. While they only had three yards on three carries in the first half, Reid never committed to running the football even though it was just a seven-point game midway through the second quarter, which did not help aid the pressure off of the struggling offensive line or Mahomes. Kareem Hunt finished with three carries for nine yards, Samaje Perine one carry for eight and Isiah Pacheco three carries for seven. Mahomes led the team in rushing with four for 25.
In the passing game, there was nothing to write home about other than Worthy either. Fangio succeeded in not letting the Chiefs get the quick passing game going that had been working so well for them late in the season with the pressure from the front four and the back seven that played sticky in coverage.
“They played great,” Mahomes said. There's no way around it. I mean, they played great. From start to finish, they got after it. Defensive line played really well, the DBs played well to compliment them and linebackers as well … I can't turn the ball over early in the game when it's not going our way, and I'll have to learn from that and try to be better the next opportunity that I hopefully get.”
In what could possibly have been Travis Kelce’s last game, he finished with four catches for 39 yards. Hopkins brought in two for 18 and a touchdown, while Smith-Schuster hauled in two early but was blanketed the rest of the game. Hollywood Brown was only able to bring in two on six targets, one of which was on the second interception that all-pro linebacker Zach Baun picked off after Mahomes was hit as he threw by a bull rusher on left tackle Joe Thuney.
Enough cannot be said about the performance of the Chiefs defense, who only allowed 23 points on drives not off turnovers while losing the time of possession nearly 37-23 minutes. They completely stuffed Barkley all night and held Brown to three catches for 43 yards. Smith was Philly’s leading receiver with four catches for 69 yards. Eight of the Chiefs' 13 drives ended on a three-and-out, turnover or turnover on downs and two others were a combined nine-play drives for four minutes and 14 seconds, putting the defense in an incomprehensible position.
They were put in a worse-than-awful position against one of the league’s best offenses and held the Eagles to just 4.9 yards per play, which was even worse than even the Chiefs' 5.9 yards per play. The Eagles were three of 12 on third down and zero for one on fourth down. The issues they did have were putting a cap on Hurts’ rushing ability, they gave Philadelphia three first downs on penalties and they did not get quite as much pressure as they needed to on obvious passing downs.
They only hit Hurts three times, bringing him down two of those times with sacks by Drue Tranquill and George Karlaftis. Linebackers Nick Bolton and Tranquill were all over the place, leading the Chiefs in tackles with 20 combined between the two. Kansas City tallied 10 tackles for a loss with two each from Bolton, Tranquill and safety Chamarri Conner. Linebacker Leo Chenal and defensive ends Charles Omenihu and Felix Anudike-Uzomah each got one too.
It is fair to wonder how close this game could have been if Kansas City had played a 2024 Chiefs brand of football, which is to not turn the ball over after going eight straight games without one to end the season, the longest such stretch in NFL history. Make no mistake about it though, they were thoroughly outplayed for the entirety of the game.
Similar to when the Chiefs lost Super Bowl LV to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Mahomes had no time in the pocket and it will be very interesting to see what general manager Brett Veach has up his sleeve to get the Chiefs back to the mountaintop. It was definitely a bitter end to such a sweet season that had Kansas City winning the most games in franchise history. Mahomes likened this game to the Bucs' loss in the 2020 Super Bowl season.
“Both sucked,” Mahomes said. “I mean, there's no there's no way around it. Anytime you lose a Super Bowl it's the worst feeling in the world. They'll stick with you for the rest of your career. These will be the two losses that will motivate me to be even better for the rest of my career because you only get so few of these and you have to capitalize on these and they hurt probably more than the wins feel good.”
The message in the locker room after the game was simple for a team that has a host of players who had never lost a playoff game, given that this was their first time tasting defeat since the 2021 season.
“It's going to hurt for a while but how can you respond from it,” Mahomes said. ”We have a great football team, we still have a young football team. A lot of these guys it will be their first time having defeat in a season and how can you get better, how can you not be satisfied with just getting here and taking your game to the next level? And that starts with me and the other leaders on this team, but it'll feed throughout the entire team and hopefully, we can come back next season and put up a better effort.”
