Three keys to an Eagles Super Bowl LIX victory: Can Hurts handle the blitz?
The Eagles are the last team that stands between the Chiefs and history. Kellen Forrest identifies three keys to the Eagles stopping a Chiefs three-peat in Super Bowl LIX.
The Kansas City Chiefs have become the very thing they swore to destroy.
Once the great threat to Tom Brady and the big-bad New England Patriots, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs have taken over the title as the league’s most notorious villains.
And it seems only fitting that the hopes of many football fans around the world now lie with the Philadelphia Eagles — the very team the Chiefs’ quest for the first three-peat in NFL history started against.
Like many others, the Eagles fell short against the Chiefs two years ago, losing 38-35 in Super Bowl LVII.
But here they are again, with a better overall roster than two years ago and a chance to stop history in its tracks on Sunday.
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With no disrespect to the Eagles team from two years ago, or the San Francisco 49ers squad from last season, this is the toughest test the Chiefs have faced in any of their three Super Bowls.
Top-to-bottom, the Eagles have arguably the most talented roster in football. They certainly have a more talented roster than the Chiefs. But they don’t have Mahomes, and love him or hate him, you can’t deny his ability to always show up in the biggest moments.
Eagles GM Howie Roseman has gone on record by saying the Chiefs have been “in his head” ever since the Super Bowl loss two years ago. “But I think that you have to think about how to beat the best,” Roseman added.
Roseman built this team specifically to dethrone the Chiefs. The Eagles will get another chance Sunday, but as always against Mahomes, it won’t come easy.
What do the Eagles need to do to make sure red and yellow confetti doesn’t rain from the roof for a third straight year? We’ve identified three keys to an Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX victory.
Find success against the blitz
It’s no real secret that the Eagles’ offence starts and stops with Saquon Barkley. The Eagles know it, the Chiefs know it, the whole world knows it.
Barkley needs just 30 yards to break Terrell Davis’s all-time record for most rushing yards (regular season and post-season combined) in a single season. As alluded to in our keys to a Chiefs’ victory, Kansas City’s defensive game plan will revolve around stopping (containing?) Barkley.
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But as we saw in the NFC Championship, the Eagles are at their most dangerous when they have their pass game clicking as well with their talented WRs A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Against the Washington Commanders two weeks ago, QB Jalen Hurts went 20-of-28 for 246 yards and a TD to help the Eagles put up 55 points.
Hurts said the game felt like Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni “let (him) out of (his) straitjacket a little bit.”
That was against a middling Commanders defence, however, and now he’s up a Chiefs defence run by one of the league’s best and most aggressive coordinators in Steve Spagnuolo.
Spagnuolo not only loves to bring pressure (blitzed 34.9 per cent of the time this season), but he is probably the best in the league at bringing chaotic blitzes at the opportune moment. Just ask Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen.
Don’t expect Spagnuolo to change his tune against Hurts and the Eagles. In fact, Chiefs star DT Chris Jones told The Athletic’s Vic Tafur this week that the Chiefs D had a “what the (expletive) moment” when going over the game plan for Sunday.
That’s not good news for Hurts, as one of his major weaknesses is avoiding sacks. Despite the Eagles having one of the best offensive lines in football, Hurts took sacks on 9.4 per cent of his dropbacks this season, the third-highest rate in the league.
If Hurts and the Eagles can’t find a way to counter Spagnuolo’s aggressiveness through the air, even a monster game from Barkley won’t be enough to save them.
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Make Mahomes uncomfortable
To force Mahomes into some mistakes might seem like an impossible task, but if any group could do it, it’s this Philly defence.
In the last Super Bowl meeting, despite having 70 regular-season sacks, the Eagles barely put a finger on Mahomes. They finished the game with zero sacks and just five quarterback hits.
That can’t happen again.
The Eagles aren’t a heavy blitzing team this season and rely more on sticky coverage on the back end to allow a four-man rush to get home. DT Jalen Carter has the ability to single-handily blow up any given play, and emerging edge rusher Nolan Smith has four sacks in three playoff games.
And while this Philadelphia team might not have the same sack numbers as two years ago, where they are significantly better is in the secondary.
Since DC Vic Fangio inserted rookie Cooper DeJean into the slot corner role in Week 6, the Eagles have allowed a league-low 171.9 passing yards a game. They also boast talented corners in rookie Quinyon Mitchell and veteran Darius Slay Jr.
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Fangio will almost certainly look to bracket Chiefs TE Travis Kelce any chance he gets and make Mahomes beat him with his supporting cast.
If the Eagles DBs can hold up in single coverage, and limit the quick strikes to Kelce, Carter and the rest of Philadelphia’s pass rushers have the talent to speed Mahomes up.
He’s still Patrick Mahomes and is going to scramble and make his plays. But the alternative of letting him sit back in the pocket and dissect their defence is something the Eagles can’t afford to do.
Don’t gift the Chiefs any freebies
Rewind to the last Super Bowl meeting between these two, and the Eagles were actually in full control of the game.
With 10 minutes left in the second quarter, the Eagles were up 14-7 and were at midfield with a chance to make it a two-possession game.
The whole game then flipped after a — stop us if you’ve heard this before — well-designed pressure by Spagnuolo resulted in a strip-sack of Hurts that Nick Bolton returned for a TD to tie the game at 14.
In what ended a 38-35 win for the Chiefs, the Eagles could only left be wondering what could’ve been if they just avoided that one big mistake.
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But that’s what makes the Chiefs so special. They have the uncanny ability to make game-altering plays in the biggest moments, and even one mistake is usually too much against them. If you give Mahomes a short field, or a free six points while he’s sitting on the sidelines, it’s going to cost you.
If the Eagles want to be the ones to finally stop the reign, they can’t make any back-breaking mistakes like they did two years ago.
After all, we’ve seen that to beat Andy Reid’s squad in the post-season, you have to be pretty much perfect.
We’ll see if the Eagles are up to the task a second time around.
