The Bad News? Trump Is President.
The Good News? The Eagles Are Your Super Bowl Champions! Me? I’m opting for a day of Bread And Circuses.
How they got there. No, no spoilers. I really like this piece. Click, take your time. Savor it.
The Chiefs never had a chance:
Before long, they stopped looking like plays. The barricade had broken down and the poor souls left in the backfield were grabbing collars, hurling their shoulders into chestplates and trying to pick themselves off the ground.
The Kansas City Chiefs’ backfield looked like one of those pencil illustrations of the Revolutionary War. Individual portraits of agony and confusion. Some kind of echelon, phalanx or wedge that, once orderly, had been bludgeoned and discarded.
In reality, for the first time since Super Bowl LV, the Super Bowl was not a game whatsoever. It was a demolition derby. Pure ruin. It was insects under the magnifying glass of your favorite detention frequent flyer. It was reminiscent of Super Bowl XLVIII, when the Legion of Boom plastered a rickety Peyton Manning because a young, wunderkind defense had completely decoded all of the frantic hand motions and backfield theatrics of a quarterback.
Super Bowl LIX was different in that no amount of game planning would have changed the outcome. No amount of Navy SEAL training and subterfuge would have stopped what we knew but refused to acknowledge: The Eagles were bigger and badder. They were stronger and faster. They were younger and edgier.
A More Analytical Breakdown. One hard-to-believe stat:
On Sunday, the Eagles didn’t blitz once on Mahomes’ 42 dropbacks. (They had a couple of plays that would technically qualify as blitzes when the Eagles sent Zack Baun, but they dropped a lineman off into coverage as part of the snap.) Fangio rushed four players 39 times and three players three times. The Eagles still managed to pressure Mahomes on nearly 45% of his dropbacks through three quarters before Fangio gave his backups some run in the fourth. They sacked Mahomes six times with a four-man rush, something that has never happened to the future Hall of Famer in his career. He had never been sacked more than four times by a three- or four-man rush in a single game.
Some excellent by-the-numbers analysis, including this not-to-be-overlooked reason for this year’s success:
In the offseason, Philadelphia made some massive changes. It started with the coaching staff. Offensive coordinator Brian Johnson was replaced by Kellen Moore, who had served just one season with the Los Angeles Chargers under Brandon Staley, who was fired before the season ended. More importantly, the combination of Matt Patricia and Sean Desai was replaced by Vic Fangio, who had an uneven season on and off the field in Miami.
Two coordinators who would not typically be available were swooped up and inserted to help turn around units that had tanked during the second half of the season. The Eagles went from fifth to 26th in offensive EPA per play and 26th to 30th. The vibes were bad.
Moore came in and modernized some of the offense. The Eagles used more motion, had better-designed passing concepts, and reliably had answers to beat the blitz.
Fangio, known for putting together great defenses but not historically known for flipping that switch immediately in Year 1, turned the Eagles into one of the best defenses in the league.
It was his best coaching job.
The Best Philly Team Of All-Time?:
There was no point, as the confetti feathered to the Superdome turf, as the Eagles and everyone who loves them let waves of euphoria wash over them Sunday night, to be anything but direct and succinct and true: What happened here was the greatest victory in the greatest season in the history of Philadelphia sports.
They played 21 games and won 18 of them. They did more than avenge their loss to the Chiefs two years ago in Super Bowl LVII. They did more than get the better of their old head coach, Andy Reid, and the best quarterback in the NFL, Patrick Mahomes. They did more than prevent the Chiefs from becoming the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls. They made the Chiefs look foolish for even daring to think that a “three-peat” was possible. They made the league’s reigning dynasty look like a bad high school team.
This setting, these stakes, the popularity and reach and resonance of professional football in modern America — they are what separate the 2024-25 Eagles from the 1973-74 Flyers, from the 1982-83 76ers, from the 1980 or 2008 Phillies, even from the 2017-18 Eagles. From Nick Foles to the Philly Special, for winning the franchise’s first Super Bowl, that team was a better story. This team is simply better. What’s more, it was better in all the ways that aligned with the still-accurate clichés about its city, all the sensibilities that Philly people want in a football team.
I dunno about that. That 1980’s Phillies World Series win was a catharsis unlike no other. With a roster dotted full of future Hall-Of-Famers. However, why argue? This team is also dotted with future Hall-Of-Famers, and last night’s game was immensely satisfying–to me, at least.
So, take a day away from worrying about our fascist President (who was there last night and rooting for the Chiefs) and just enjoy the aftermath.
What do you want to talk about?