The impact of this Super Bowl will make waves through all of sports history. Victory for the Kansas City Chiefs this Sunday would make it impossible to deny the franchise's identity as a true dynasty. That feeling of greatness affects every citizen of Chiefs Kingdom every day, but the consequences of this particular Big Game will mean something almost inexplicable to Patrick Mahomes. For Mahomes, this Sunday's game represents a certain threshold of greatness that only a handful of athletes in sports history have ever crossed. Winning this much this early in his career would push Mahomes past the realm of debates involving names like Allen and Burrow and bring him into the orbit of talks involving names like Montana and Brady. A win this Sunday means people will be comparing Patrick Mahomes to Tua Tagovailoa less often than they compare Mahomes to Michael Jordan.
A win today keeps Mahomes in the conversation of the best athletes ever, with names like Brady, Jordan, LeBron, Serena, Gretzky, Babe Ruth, Muhammad Ali - names that bring to mind unprecedented greatness. The phrase "greatest athlete ever" has such weight that it echoes back through thousands of years of human history. Human beings have been engaging in some sort of organized, athletic competition that can be defined as a team sport for over three millennia, and winning a football game today could be part of Patrick Mahomes' journey to becoming the best to participate in that activity over that entire period of time.
That's a lot of superlative-laden, big-picture stuff I'm talking about. The thing is, it's all true, because Patrick is just that good. Whoever's writing their own blog about the Vikings sure as hell doesn't talk like this about Kirk Cousins, so I feel unbelievably lucky just to experience this. There's always two sides to the Super Bowl story, however, and the Eagles' resume suggests that they're capable of breaking countless hearts in Chiefs Kingdom today.
Philly started the year 8-0 and plowed through their first two playoff opponents, both of which lost by over three touchdowns and only scored seven points. The Eagles lost one game this season in which Hurts played and wasn't injured. Philly had the most sacks in the regular season by a wide margin, but at least the Chiefs allowed the third-fewest sacks in the NFL. Haason Reddick led the league in sacks with 19.5 this season, but the entire Eagles defense knows how to hunt the quarterback. No other team had more than one guy ranked 12th or better in sacks this season. Philly had four. That's four different Eagles from three different positions that had 12 or more sacks.
To put that in perspective, the Chiefs' runner-up for sacks is Frank Clark. His seven sacks puts him in an eight-way tie for 40th place. Philadelphia's ability to pressure the QB without sending a blitz resulted in them allowing the league's lowest passing yards per game in the regular season and postseason.
That studly Philly defense paired with one of football's best offenses may make the Eagles the most complete team in the NFL. While KC's offense is the best in football, Philly's isn't far behind. KC and Philadelphia ranked 1st and 3rd respectively in both total yards and total points per game in the regular season. The offensive lines are important, underrated factors for both the teams that reached this year's Super Bowl. The centers in particular deserve credit, as Creed Humphrey and Jason Kelce are rated the #1 and #2 centers in the league by Pro Football Focus.
Mahomes deserves his exorbitant share of attention in moments like this, but several Chiefs that garner far less acclaim will decide who finishes this season as a champion. The aforementioned young center and all his partners on KC's offensive line will have their work cut out for them trying to limit the penetration of Philly's impressive defensive front-line. The improvement to KC's rushing defense also seems understated. The growing greatness of Chris Jones and the improvements at middle linebacker thanks to Willie Gay and Nick Bolton resulted in KC ranking eighth in rushing yards allowed per game in the regular season. Last season, KC ranked 21st in this statistic. The Chiefs also improved their rushing yards allowed per attempt from 30th last season to 19th this season.
I truly believe that in a game that looks this close on paper, the result will still be decided by the superior quarterback-head coach duo. Nick Sirianni and Jalen Hurts seem to have a bright future ahead together, but their two strong playoff performances pale in comparison to the monumental list of achievements credited to the legendary duo of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. I'm predicting that the Chiefs win today, 27-24, and the first ever Kansas City sports dynasty is born. Enjoy it with people you love as much as you can.
