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Will the greatest football player of his generation lead his team to an historic third consecutive championship? Or will Patrick Mahomes be foiled by the NFL’s best defence and its most dominant offensive player?
Those are the central questions as Kansas City and Philadelphia square off in the Super Bowl for the second time in three years. Here’s some more stuff to know for the big game on Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET in New Orleans:
It’s pretty much a coin toss.
Kansas City is favoured by one point, implying they have around a 52 per cent chance of winning. Which seems about right, given that these are probably the two best — and hottest — teams in the NFL.
K.C. went 15-2 in the regular season, but that includes a meaningless loss to Denver in the regular-season finale as the back-to-back Super Bowl champs rested their starters. The only team to beat them at full strength was Buffalo, and Kansas City avenged that mid-November defeat by taking out the Bills in the AFC championship game after getting past Houston in the previous round. K.C. is 8-0 in meaningful games since its regular-season loss at Buffalo.
Philadelphia went 14-3 in the regular season, a game behind Detroit for the NFC’s best record. But the Lions imploded in a playoff loss to underdog Washington, who the Eagles then trounced 55-23 in the NFC title game. Before that, Philly eliminated a pair of good teams in Green Bay and the Los Angeles Rams. Since their Week 5 bye, the Eagles are 15-1, with their only defeat coming by a field goal at Washington.
Kansas City can make history.
No team has ever won three consecutive Super Bowls. Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers captured three straight NFL titles in the 1960s, but the first one came before the Super Bowl was created for the NFL and AFL champions to square off for pro football supremacy (the leagues eventually merged in 1970).
Win or lose on Sunday, it’s been an incredible run for Mahomes and his team. This is their fifth Super Bowl appearance in six years, and Mahomes has a chance to win his fourth ring and fourth Super Bowl MVP trophy at just 29 years old. The latter would move him ahead of Joe Montana for the second most Super Bowl MVPs of all time and put him one away from Tom Brady’s record of five.
Brady, a rookie colour commentator for the Fox network, will be calling the Super Bowl for the first time on Sunday alongside veteran play-by-play man Kevin Burkhardt.
Yeah, K.C. has been lucky. But they’re also extremely good.
Kansas City’s critics (when they’re not complaining that the team gets all the calls) like to argue that they’re not as good as their record suggests. They’ll point to K.C.’s unimpressive point differential (it ranked 11th in the league) and the fact that they narrowly avoided upsets to lowly Carolina and Las Vegas while needing a last-second blocked field goal to win their first matchup with Denver.
The K.C. doubters may also note that, over the last couple of years, Mahomes’ passing numbers have come way down from his statistical heyday. And that star tight end Travis Kelce can no longer dominate consistently at age 35, as reflected by his paltry three touchdowns this season.
But Kansas City is the craftiest team in football, with one of the game’s best play-callers in head coach Andy Reid and its top defensive co-ordinator in Steve Spagnuolo. Also, Mahomes’ relatively lacklustre stats could be a feature, not a bug. Rather than chase big numbers and individual glory, the NFL’s best quarterback is laser-focused on winning championships, and he’s willing to do exactly what it takes to beat whoever he’s facing on any given Sunday (or Monday or Wednesday or Thursday or Saturday). That’s the main reason — not dumb luck — that K.C. has won 15 straight games that were decided by a touchdown or less.
This Eagles team is better than the one K.C. beat two years ago.
In 2023, Mahomes, playing on a sprained ankle, rallied his team from a 24-14 halftime deficit for a thrilling 38-35 win decided by a Harrison Butker field goal with eight seconds left.
Much of the cast of characters from that day remains the same — including Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, who rushed for three touchdowns and threw for another while exceeding 300 passing yards. Talismanic centre Jason Kelce (Travis’ older brother) has since retired, but dynamite receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith remain in the fold for Philly.
Any good sequel needs a compelling new character, though, and in this case you can consider Saquon Barkley our Frank Pentangeli.
Signed away from the moribund New York Giants last March, Barkley instantly rediscovered the explosiveness that made him the NFL’s Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2018. He rushed for 2,005 yards — just 100 shy of Eric Dickerson’s decades-old single-season record — before going off for 119, 205 (!) and 118 with a total of five touchdowns in Philly’s three playoff games.
Besides Barkley, the Eagles now also boast the NFL’s top-rated defence. Credit savvy GM Howie Roseman, who brought in several Pro Bowl-calibre players last off-season to surround defensive-line anchor Jalen Carter.
That old-school formula — run the ball and play great defence — has helped Philly go 15-1 with an average victory margin of almost two touchdowns over its last 16 games. And it might just be enough to dethrone Mahomes.
And for those interested in more than the football…
The halftime act is Kendrick Lamar, the American rapper who has feuded with Canadian rival Drake.
Commercials, some of which you won’t see on Canadian TV, were reportedly selling for upwards of $8 million US for the prime 30-second spots.
And, yes, Taylor Swift is expected to be there to cheer on Kelce.
