The Philadelphia Eagles Dethrone the Defending Champions!

February 20th, 2025 by Andrew Ciofalo

by Andrew Ciofalo, host of After The Whistle

The Eagles defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in blowout fashion, winning Super Bowl LIX by a score of 40-22. Although this looked to be a high scoring game, the Eagles won in old school ways that we might be learning is still the most important part of football. The key to this game was dominating and winning in the trenches. This has been and looks to continue to be the key to win football games in the NFL. Both teams have very great and stout defensive lines that were going to be key in this matchup. It was just a matter of which of its counter parts could hold up the most.

But a big question you may have, how did this go so wrong for the Chiefs and so right for the Eagles? To start with the Eagles defense, it all starts with their defensive line, which probably is the best D-Line unit in the NFL. Their line rotation includes Jalen Carter, Milton Williams, Moro Ojamo, and Jordan Davis. Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis are both first-round picks of the last few years, both from Georgia. On top of the Defensive Tackle room, the Eagles’ edge rushers are slouches either. Eagles’ edge rusher Josh Sweat had 8 sacks on the year and had 2.5 sacks in the Super Bowl on top of that. The Eagles defense sacked Patrick Mahomes 6 times, the most he has ever been in his entire career. He was also pressured on nearly 40% of his drop backs. All day long the Eagles had Mahomes under duress, and even more impressively, this was without blitzing a single time. All game long the Eagles comfortably generated pressure with just a 4-man rush which was huge in helping the rest of the defense.

With the help of the hugely affective 4-man rush Eagles could do, the rest of the defense would also torment Mahomes and the Chiefs, the leading rusher for Kansas City was Patrick Mahomes with 25 yards, their 3 running backs only had a combined 7 rush attempts for 24 yards. Passing wise, the first half of this game was particularly bad for Mahomes. His first half ended going 6 for 14 on passing attempts, he threw 2 interceptions, one being a pick-six, and a whopping 33 passing yards. The pick-six was made by Eagles Rookie Cornerback Cooper DeJean, who cut in front of a throw intended for Chiefs Wide Receiver DeAndre Hopkins and returned it 38 yards for an Eagles touchdown. This happened in the middle of the second quarter and put the Eagles up 17-0. Two drives later with less than 2 minutes to go in the first half, the Chiefs had another opportunity to put much needed points on the board. The drive started, and ended quickly after the first play was intercepted by a diving Zack Baun for the Eagles, giving Philly the ball at the Kansas City 14 yard line. Philadelphia would capitalize once again on a turnover, scoring a touchdown that would put them up 24-0 at the half.

The second half was a lot of the same, the Eagles had 4 scoring drives in a row coming out of the half while the Chiefs ended the shutout when Xavier Worthy caught a touchdown pass with less than a minute left in the 3^rd quarter. Not only did it take this late in the game for the Chiefs to score, this was scoring drive was their first time having a play in Eagles territory. With a score of 34-6 in favor of the Eagles entering the 4^th quarter, the Chiefs would put in some effort for pride, scoring 2 touchdowns at the end of the game, bring their total to 22.

This was truly a dominant performance by the Philadelphia Eagles who beat and dethrone the Kansas City Chiefs, 40-22. There has been one constant of the Chiefs’ two Super Bowl loses under Patrick Mahomes; generating a lot of pressure will cause issues. But this is where the old adage remains true: Defense wins championships.