Four Takeaways From the Chiefs' 38-35 Win Over the Eagles
The Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles had plenty of hype building for their Super Bowl LVII matchup and on Sunday evening, both sides helped deliver on that.
In a game that was competitive from the beginning and featured a good deal of drama, it was the Chiefs that ultimately came out on top by a final score of 38-35 thanks to some fourth-quarter heroics in multiple facets of the game. With the win, Kansas City is the champion of the NFL for the second time in the past four seasons and Andy Reid is back to .500 as a head coach in the Super Bowl.
Here are four takeaways from Sunday's game as it progressed.
1. The Eagles got just about whatever they wanted in the first half
Aside from a scoop-and-score by Nick Bolton that stemmed from an awkward fumble by Jalen Hurts, the Eagles' offense was able to perform at a high level in the first half. Running a whopping 44 plays, Jalen Hurts and company held the ball for 21:54 compared to the Chiefs' 8:06. They also more than doubled up the Chiefs' offensive output, recording 270 total yards to Kansas City's 128. Jalen Hurts was responsible for three touchdowns in the opening 30 minutes of the game putting his team in the driver's seat at the halftime break. The Chiefs made things more difficult than needed on defense to begin the game and when looking past that one bad rep by Philly, the NFC's Super Bowl representative was in control early and often.
2. With that said, speaking of Bolton...
The Chiefs' offense simply wasn't on the field often enough to make as big of an impact as it would've liked in the first half, but Bolton's fumble recovery for a touchdown was perhaps the biggest play for Kansas City in those two frames. On Philadelphia's seventh drive, it was Bolton again who had a fumble recovery but this time saw it get overturned. A handful of plays later, he made a huge stop on a 3rd-and-1 and then later in the drive (after a conversion), the 2021 second-round pick brought down Hurts to force a field goal that kept the Chiefs within one score. Bolton is a polarizing player in Chiefs circles, but it's hard to view him as anything other than perhaps the team's best defensive player in the Super Bowl based on one watch of the game.
3. Kansas City's wide receivers stepped up after a rough start
In the first half of Super Bowl LVII, the Chiefs' wideouts combined for a grand total of five targets, two catches and 11 yards. When on the field, Kansas City relied on Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce to make things happen and it didn't always work. In the second half, however, three different non-Kelce pass-catchers stepped up in major ways. JuJu Smith-Schuster went over the 50-yard mark for the game, Kadarius Toney scored a fourth-quarter touchdown and Skyy Moore followed suit on a similar play on the following drive. On top of that, Toney had a 65-yard punt return — the longest in Super Bowl history — that set up Moore's score. A question all season long was whether the Chiefs would have enough outside of Kelce to win and while it didn't look like it initially, it ended up being true when it mattered the most.
4. Patrick Mahomes is still from another planet
After tweaking his ankle injury late in the first half, Mahomes came back out for the second half and reminded the NFL of why he's the best player in the world. Kansas City scored on every possession in half No. 2, and Mahomes's brilliance was the driving force. His raw box score stats (21-of-27, 226 total yards and three touchdowns) are more than solid, yet they still don't do justice to just how well he played on the biggest stage. The regular-season and Super Bowl MVP showed voters that their decision was justified and against the adversity of being down by 10 at halftime, Mahomes led the team all the way back and has his second ring at just 27 years of age. The alien once again showed that he isn't really from this planet.
