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Super Bowl 2025: How the Eagles dominated the Chiefs, Mahomes | ESPN
They won over and over again on third down against the league’s best third-down offense. While the Chiefs struggled on first and second down consistently throughout the season, Mahomes usually bailed them out by converting on third downs. The Chiefs picked up 50% of their third downs during the regular season with Mahomes on the field, the best rate of any offense, and were at 45% during the postseason before this game.
On Sunday, they failed to convert on their first nine attempts on third down through three quarters, before finally picking up a third-and-7 with 1:25 to go trailing 34-0. It’s just the fourth time in the Mahomes era the Chiefs have gone an entire first half without converting a third down. (One of the other three was Super Bowl LVII against the Eagles, but that was on only three attempts.) Reid’s offense finished 3-of-12 on third and fourth downs.
Through those first nine third-down attempts before the initial conversion on a throw to Kelce, the Eagles won with pressure on six. The three that didn’t include pressure were a quick snap in which Mahomes threw low to Kelce, a designed rollout on the pick-six to DeJean and a quick third-and-13 throw to Kelce for 9 yards to set up a manageable fourth down. Six of those nine plays came with 9 or more yards to go, and as good as Mahomes is, the Chiefs didn’t want to live in third-and-long against this defense.
After Super Bowl meltdown, is window closing for Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs? | FOX Sports
Kelce isn’t who he once was. We saw that in this game, with the tight end catching four balls for 39 yards on six targets. And on the whole, his yardage totals and touchdowns this season were the lowest of his career. As Chiefs assistant head coach Dave Toub told me before the game, Kelce isn’t ”The Guy” anymore. And while this game might leave Kelce wanting more (and, in turn, mean that his retirement isn’t imminent), the Chiefs will still need to figure out how to replace him — even if he’s still there.
And then when he retires? Mahomes has never had to live NFL life without Kelce.
What about Andy Reid? He is 66. With Bill Belichick coaching (in college) at 72 and Pete Carroll getting a job this offseason at 73, it’s totally possible Reid isn’t going anywhere. But know this: Belichick won his final Super Bowl at 66.
Mahomes has never had to live NFL life without Reid.
If there’s any stat that reminds us how fragile dynasties are, it’s that the Patriots — with Belichick and Tom Brady — went 10 years between winning their first three Super Bowls and their next three. It’s not a given that Kansas City will be back perennially.
“It hurts. It’s gonna hurt for a while. But how can you respond from it?” Mahomes asked. “How can you get better? How can you not just be satisfied with getting here? That starts with me.”
Getting to three straight Super Bowls is a real achievement.
But it won’t feel like one — not with this scoreline.
Chiefs’ bid at historic three-peat ends miserably in Super Bowl LIX: Three things that went wrong for K.C. | CBS Sports
Jalen Hurts is Steve Spagnuolo’s kryptonite
Spagnuolo’s defense has been a key reason why the Chiefs have been able to build a dynasty. Since hiring him in 2019, Kansas City had gone 16-2 in the postseason heading into Super Bowl LIX. If Spagnuolo had one kryptonite in his career, it’s figuring out how to stop Jalen Hurts.
In the lead up to the Super Bowl, you may have heard that Mahomes was 8-0 against Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, but the fact that Hurts had already experienced some major success against Spagnuolo flew seemed to be forgotten.
The best passing game of Hurts’ regular-season career going into the Super Bowl? That came against the Chiefs when he threw for 387 yards in a 2021 game against Kansas City.
The best passing game of Hurts’ postseason career? That also came against the Chiefs when he threw for 304 yards in Philadelphia’s 38-35 loss to the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVII.
The Eagles lost both those games, so they did not get acknowledged, but Hurts definitely didn’t fly under the radar in New Orleans: He took home Super Bowl MVP after a wildly impressive game in which he totaled 293 yards and three touchdowns.
Xavier Worthy Sets NFL Super Bowl Rookie Record in Chiefs’ Loss to Eagles | Bleacher Report
It is likely of little solace following a 40-22 loss in Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX, but Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Xavier Worthy at least put his name in the records book.
Worthy tallied eight catches for 157 yards and two touchdowns in the loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, which Bryan DeArdo of CBS Sports noted was a rookie record for receiving yards on the sport’s biggest stage.
He surpassed the 109 receiving yards that Chris Matthews finished with for the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX and Torry Holt finished with for the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV.
The University of Texas product was the only bright spot for a Kansas City offense that was missing in action when the game was still hanging in the balance.
This Was a Super Bowl for the Haters, and the Eagles Were the Perfect Antagonists | The Ringer
In the two weeks between the AFC championship game and the Super Bowl, a major story line was the brilliance of Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, whose signature corner blitz came at just the right moment against Buffalo to help Kansas City get to New Orleans. Spagnuolo’s blitzing style is exotic, sudden, and flashy. On the other side, Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio had a different strategy. He didn’t call a single blitz. His defense played mostly quarters coverage to tamp down the Chiefs’ passing game, and then beat them up front with four pass rushers. In the second quarter, Josh Sweat sacked Mahomes on back-to-back plays, then Cooper DeJean picked off Mahomes’s third-and-long pass and returned it for a touchdown. The game felt over then. There were seven minutes left before halftime.
Defensively, the Chiefs’ strategy was to contain Saquon Barkley and focus on making Jalen Hurts and the Eagles passing game beat them. Hurts’s numbers weren’t spectacular, but he was up to the challenge in a way that will redefine his career. Hurts got benched in one college national championship game (and lost another), and despite playing one of the best games of his career in his first Super Bowl appearance, he lost. The Eagles passing game was seen as a weakness for much of this season, which is probably why Kansas City decided to test it.
2025 NFL Season: One Bold Prediction for Every Team | SI
31. Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs will miss the Super Bowl next season, and each of the next two seasons. The Patriots had several gaps between Super Bowls amid their two-decade dynasty, and so will Kansas City. This isn’t an anti–Andy Reid or Patrick Mahomes take, but it is an acknowledgment that good players get old and great role players are difficult to keep around when there are so many clubs with deep pockets in free agency. Relief is on the way for those who would like to see some new blood in the big game.
NFL Mock Draft after Super Bowl LIX: Predicting every team’s first-round pick after Eagles dismantle Chiefs | CBS Sports
Round 1 – Pick 31
Josh Simmons OT
Ohio State • Sr • 6’5” / 310 lbs
Josh Simmons’ midseason patellar tear is the only thing keeping him from being around 20 spots higher on this list. If he ticks all the boxes, though, he could be the Day 1 starter the Chiefs are desperate for. His early-season tape was nearly flawless.
Around the NFL
2025 NFL free agency: Six franchises with the toughest tasks this offseason | NFL.com
1 – Miami Dolphins
2024 record: 8-9
Salary cap space: -$11.6 million
Like the Falcons, the Miami Dolphins are coming off a disappointingly “mid” season and are a concerning $11-plus million in the red. They’ve stalled out somewhere in the middle of the AFC, coming off a fifth straight season with somewhere between eight to eleven wins and zero playoff success, and they’re in big trouble on the impending free agents front.
Defensive stars Jordan Poyer, Jevon Holland, Emmanuel Ogbah and Calais Campbell are all on expiring contracts. Full-time starting offensive linemen Robert Jones and Liam Eichenberg are in the same boat. This franchise cannot just return some semblance of the 2024 roster if it wants to climb the ladder in the AFC. As Tyreek Hill pointed out in his passionate postseason memorandum on the state of the team, the Dolphins need to “add some [expletive] dogs,” if they want to fix this stretch of late-season failure.
Those “dogs” are going to be expensive, and Miami might not have the space to pay for them. Head coach Mike McDaniel and GM Chris Grier are both returning for 2025, but this squad could remain lost in the quagmire of the wild-card race without some inspired moves in the months ahead.
In case you missed it on Arrowhead Pride
Chiefs News: Reid, Mahomes take responsibility for Super Bowl LIX loss
His two first-half interceptions proved especially costly. Both led to Philadelphia touchdowns, and the Chiefs quickly found themselves in a demoralizing 24-0 hole by halftime.
“When you give a team 14 points, especially a really good football team, a Super Bowl football team, then not a lot of good things,” Mahomes explained. “That’s why I take ownership in this loss more than probably any loss in my entire career because I put us in a bad spot. Even though we put up some stats at the end of the game, those stats didn’t really matter because we had already lost the momentum.”
With their offensive struggles in the first half, Mahomes began to press, forcing throws that weren’t there in an attempt to spark his team. While his ability to create something out of nothing is one of the defining traits of his greatness, he admitted afterward that he must learn to take what the defense gives him, even if that means throwing the ball away and avoiding unnecessary risks.
“When defenses are going to play in the shell coverage and stay back and play man on third down, I can’t make bad plays worse,” Mahomes admitted. “That’s something that you saw today is that there’s times when guys aren’t open, and I need to throw the ball away or check it down and let the other guys make plays happen. Sometimes I get where I want to make a big play to spark us, and that’s something that I’ve dealt with my entire career. If I don’t show that I will take what’s there in the game, then the defenses are going to stay in the coverages that they’re in.”
