Super Bowl LVII is upon us. Tomorrow night, Patrick Mahomes will lead the Kanas City Chiefs into war against Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles in Glendale, Arizona. Patrick Mahomes was awarded the 2022 MVP earlier this week. Jalen Hurts was the runner-up but would have had a serious case to win it if he hadn’t been hurt to end the season. Both teams went 14-3 in the regular season. Both teams got the #1 seed in their respective conference and were awarded with a bye. Simply put, these have been the two best teams for most of the 2022 NFL season. This is the matchup that always should have been.

Here’s a quick look at how each team has gotten to this point.

Philadelphia Eagles
NFC Divisional Round: Eagles 38, Giants 7
NFC Championship: Eagles 31, 49ers 7

Kansas City Chiefs
AFC Divisional Round: Chiefs 27, Jaguars 20
AFC Championship: Chiefs 23, Bengals 20

The Eagles have been absolutely dominant. The Chiefs have barely squeaked by. At least one of these trends must come to an end.

One of the top storylines of this game revolves around Andy Reid, the man, the myth, the legend. Andy Reid landed his first head coaching job at the age of 41. In 1999, the Eagles tabbed Reid as the man to lead the franchise forward. Reid did just that for 14 years in Philadelphia, compiling a 130-93-1 record and appearing in one Super Bowl. Following a 4-12 campaign in 2012, the Eagles parted ways with Reid. The Kansas City Chiefs wasted no time naming Reid the head coach. He was on the Chiefs sideline as the head honcho the very next season, and he’s still going strong 10 years later. With the Chiefs, Andy Reid has a record of 117-45 and has a Super Bowl ring. In Super Bowl LVII, Reid will be coaching against his former team. Nobody wants to win this thing more than him. How would he celebrate beating his former team in the biggest game of them all? With a cheeseburger and beer, naturally. Andy Reid is one of us. Please never change.

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It’s time to dive into our previews and predictions.

Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona

Kansas City Chiefs vs. Philadelphia Eagles

Sunday, February 12, 2023 at 6:30pm EST on FOX

Ryan: The best ability that any man can have is to be able to admit their mistakes. That is where I would like to begin today. I was the conductor of the San Francisco 49ers train. That was my Super Bowl pick from the moment they acquired Christian McCaffery, and nothing since his acquisition had made me even second guess it. I did not see them losing. I most certainly did not see them getting absolutely throttled. Sure, losing Brock Purdy in the first quarter hurt the Niners, but that was far from the difference in the game. The Eagles just absolutely dominated every facet of the game. The Eagles were able to implore their will against the best defense in the league.

One of the best players on each defense happens to be a man coming after the quarterback. Mahomes and Hurts better be ready, because they will both have an absolute beast of a man in their face all day on Sunday. For the Eagles, Hassan Reddick tallied 16 sacks in the regular season, and he has tacked on 3.5 more in the postseason. He has also recorded 13 tackles for loss, deflected 3 passes, and forced 6 fumbles. The 6th year pro out of Temple is having a career year, one that he will be looking to put a stamp on by getting to Mahomes a time or two on Sunday. On the opposing sideline stands Chris Jones, the 7th year pro out of Mississippi State. On the season (regular and post combined), Jones has 17.5 sacks, 20 tackles for loss, 4 passes deflected, and 2 forced fumbles. The Eagles will have to run the ball to the edges, because running at Jones usually doesn’t end up going too well for the offense. These types of games are so often decided by which team can get to the quarterback. Sacks are such drive killers. One of these two is going to make the play in the fourth quarter to more or less seal the deal for their team.

Let’s talk injuries real quick. Patrick Mahomes isn’t going to be at 100%. I’m sure he has improved since we last saw him two weeks ago, but I really doubt he see him scramble like we have become accustomed to. His one big scramble last week came on the play that sealed the fate of the Bengals. He wasn’t explosive, but managed to dig deep and get the corner, and topped it off with a 15-yard penalty via a late hit. And yes, it was a penalty. Can you argue that the refs shouldn’t have called it in that spot? Sure. Can you argue that it wasn’t a penalty? No. Anyways, Mahomes wasn’t very mobile in the Bengals game, and I doubt we see a significant improvement in just 2 weeks. He injured his ankle 3 weeks ago and was diagnosed with a high ankle sprain, an injury that takes at least 6 weeks to fully recover from. If he is out there scrambling around like nothing ever happened, he is either injected with more pain killers than what is humane, or he is just the greatest football player of all time. Both options are very plausible. On top of Mahomes’ injury, Travis Kelce was a surprise late addition to the injury report ahead of the AFC Championship Game. He played well and is off the injury report heading into Sunday, but is he at 100%? Mecole Hardman was injured in the Bengals game and will not play tomorrow. On top of that, Chris Jones was under the weather this week and reports came out that there is a bug going through the Chiefs locker room. An illness isn’t going to keep any of these guys out of the game, but it certainly would make them less than 100%. The Eagles enter Sunday as healthy as could be.

Patrick Mahomes is the best player in this game, even at less than 100%. The Eagles, however, are the better all-around football team. They have the better rushing attack and the better pass catchers (as a whole, obviously Kelce is the single best pass catcher). The Eagles also have the superior defense, a defense that got to the quarterback 70 times in the regular season, a number that led the league by a wide margin. The second-best team at getting to the QB? The Chiefs, but with 15 fewer sacks than the Eagles. This is an Eagles defense that has allowed just 14 total points in 2 playoff games. The Eagles have the better units all over the field, but not at quarterback. Jalen Hurts is darn good, but Patrick Mahomes is better (even at less than 100%), and Mahomes will keep them in this football game. Will he win it for the Chiefs? I really don’t think so. I want to be clear on this following point: I am not picking the Eagles because of Mahomes’ health. Mahomes’ ankle gives the Chiefs less of a chance, but I would be picking the Eagles even if Mahomes were at 100%. The Eagles are just the superior team top to bottom. Hammer Eagles -1.5. Hammer it with a sledgehammer.

Score Prediction: Eagles 31, Chiefs 23

Ben: Super Bowl 57 between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles stacks up to be a very good game. These are the two best teams in the NFL, and their fanbases have known it since the very start of the season. Expectations will always be high in Kansas City as long as Patrick Mahomes is in town, but Philadelphia’s resurgence to the top of the NFC has been a result of Howie Roseman’s brilliant moves as the Eagles GM. This past offseason, Roseman brought in star wideout A.J. Brown to unlock Jalen Hurts’ potential, and the Eagles’ signal caller has repaid the front office’s trust in him with a career-best season. In fact, Hurts came in second for the AP MVP vote. Signing Haason Reddick and James Bradberry has paid instant dividends for the Eagles defense, as they have both balled out in the playoffs thus far, with Reddick in particular coming up big with a strip sack against the 49ers. As a result of other shrewd moves from Roseman, the Eagles are set to contend in the present and future, and they even own the 10th overall draft pick for the 2023 NFL Draft (via the New Orleans Saints) to show for it. The Eagles are an incredible group who have been dominant all season, and they have talent at every position across the field with no significant weaknesses to speak of. They’re fully healthy, firing on all cylinders on offense behind an underrated rushing attack of Miles Sanders and Kenneth Gainwell (that is, when Hurts isn’t rushing for himself), and have one of the best defenses in all of football.

Here’s the part where I convince you that none of that matters, and the Kansas City Chiefs are going to win the Super Bowl.

– The Chiefs have had the best offensive line in the entire league during the playoffs despite playing against two fearsome defenses in the Jaguars and the Bengals. It’s not up for debate that the Chiefs have had a more difficult path to the Super Bowl than the Eagles have had (beating a Giants team that wasn’t expected to even make the playoffs and destroying a 49ers team without a capable QB due to injury). According to basically every metric out there, the Chiefs O-Line, led by standout center Creed Humphrey, is tops in both pass protection and run blocking as well.

– The Chiefs defense is finally getting pressure on the Quarterback. Under DC Steve Spagnola, the Chiefs have utilized a blitz-heavy scheme which has mitigated the damage that opposing QB’s can cause outside of the pocket. By collapsing the pocket with their arsenal of fearsome pass rushers – Frank Clark, George Karlaftis, Chris Jones, and Willie Gay – the Chiefs have been able to prevent opposing signal-callers from escaping the pocket. This helps disguise the Chiefs’ shoddy secondary due to the errant throws that result from their QB pressures. In their two playoff games thus far, Kansas City has recorded 3 interceptions and forced/recovered 1 fumble.

– The Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes, the most talented quarterback the NFL has ever seen. At just 27 years old, he just took home his second MVP award after winning his 10th career playoff game against the Bengals. In that game, Mahomes threw for 326 yards and 2 touchdowns on a bum ankle.

The Eagles may be the better team on paper, but football games aren’t won on paper. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and Patrick Mahomes is as tough as they come. I trust him to play the best game of his career under the bright lights of State Farm Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I refuse to bet against Patrick Mahomes. The Lombardi Trophy is coming back to Chiefs Kingdom in Kansas City.

Score Prediction: Chiefs 34, Eagles 31

Which team is going to lift the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday? Give us your prediction down below!

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Authors: Ben Pawlak and Ryan Macdonald

Published: 2/11/23 at 5:55pm EST

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Sources/Works Cited:

Google Images, Google, https://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en.

Sports Reference LLC. Pro-Football-Reference.com – Pro Football Statistics and History. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/. 11 February

2023.

StatMuse, https://www.statmuse.com/.