After some very controversial National Football League (NFL) Conference Championships, we have this year’s Super Bowl matchup. The Kansas City Chiefs will be facing off against the Philidelphia Eagles. Personally, I think it can be a fun matchup. The Eagles have an all-around really good team and the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes. Before getting into predictions, let’s talk about how they got here. 

The Eagles got so lucky. This is not an exaggeration. In the regular season, the Eagles had the fourth easiest schedule. That allowed them to go 14-3 and get a first round bye. Yes, the team was overal good. Quarterback Jalen Hurts had a great all around season. He’s a finalist to win the Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award after throwing for 3701 yards and 22 touchdowns and running for 760 yards and 13 touchdowns. This all happened while missing two games. The receiving core was also great. Philadelphia traded a first round pick for wide receiver A.J. Brown. In his first season with the team he had 1496 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns. This was enough for fourth in the league in receiving yards. The rushing attack may have been even better than that. Running back Miles Sanders had 1269 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns. Then you add what Hurts did and you have a deadly rushing attack. The offensive line was probably the best in football. Almost every player was great. Even though the offensive was one of the best in the league, the defense was almost even better. The secondary was great and led by cornerbacks Darius Slay Jr. and James Bradberry. Linebacker T.J Edwards was one of the best off ball linebackers in football. Don’t get me started on the pass rush. Linebacker Haason Reddick had 16 sacks, defensive tackle Javon Hargrave had 11 sacks, defensive end Josh Sweat had 11 and defensive tackle Fletcher Cox had seven. The Eagles had the most sacks in the league by 15. Sacks are not everything, but leading the league by that many is ridiculous. 

Now back to how the Eagles reached the Super Bowl. They faced the New York Giants in the Divisonal Round. Let’s be real, the Giants were never a serious contender. I was impressed by their season, but they weren’t a real contender for the Super Bowl. Then came the San Francisco 49ers. This I thought was going to be a great matchup. I originally believed that the 49ers were going to win the Super Bowl. The 49ers had the best defense in the league and quarterback Brock Purdy looked like the next Joe Montana. So what happened? Purdy got injured early in the game and all of a sudden the 49ers had to play journeyman Josh Johnson. Already the Eagles were getting bailed. After getting evaluated by the training staff, it seemed like Purdy could not throw the ball. So it was Josh Johnson or nothing. If the Eagles weren’t lucky enough for the Purdy injury, Johnson also then got injured. It came down to running back Christian McCaffrey. Obviously, he can’t really throw the ball considering he’s running back. The 49ers offense was very predictable from there and there was nothing that they could do on offense. It was a disaster. It was over after the first half and the Eagles were going to the Super Bowl in the easiest way possible. 

Then there’s the Chiefs. The Chiefs had a rollercoaster of a season but they had Mahomes so they were always in the running to win the Super Bowl. They were consistently winning games but some of them were closer than they probably wanted. Although Mahomes was the main story of the season, as always, the team is actually better than people care to admit. On offense, they lost wide receiver Tyreek Hill to the Miami Dolphins, however they replaced him with wide receivers Marquez Valdes-Scantling and JuJu Smith-Schuster. They weren’t nearly as good, but Smith-Schuster especially was solid enough. Of course they still had tight end Travis Kelce, who cemented himself as the in his position with 1338 receiving yards. He was eighth in receiving yards as a tight end. Obviously, they had Mahomes who is probably going to win the MVP award after throwing for 5250 yards and 41 touchdowns. The defense was surprisingly not terrible. Defensive tackle Chris Jones cemented himself as one of the best if not the best defensive tackle in football with 15.5 sacks and 17 tackles for a loss. The team as a whole had the second most sacks in the league behind the Eagles. Again sacks are not everything, but it’s safe to say that the pass rush isn’t a problem for the team. 

With this in mind we can look at how the Chiefs got to the Super Bowl. They faced the Jacksonville Jaguars in the first round and it was a pretty close game. The Jaguars are a young team led by quarterback Trevor Lawrence and they put up a fight against the Chiefs. It was by no means an easy win for them. Then came the Cincinati Bengals. There was a lot of trash talk in this game. Bengals cornerback Eli Apple was on Twitter going crazy with the trash talk. To be fair they had some reason to back it up since quarterback Joe Burrow was 3-0 against the Chiefs. This trash talk did indeed come back to bite them as the Chiefs scraped a 23-20 win against them with a last second field goal. Yes, the Chiefs won and were headed back to the Super Bowl, but there was some controversy in that game. At one point in the game they somehow got two attempts at third down. There was some reasoning to it but still it was strange. Then there was a questionable unnecessary roughness penalty called on Bengal Joseph Osai that helped the Chiefs get into field goal range to win the game. Fans were complaining that the game was rigged and the Chiefs paid off the refs. However every game has poor refereeing and the Chiefs were not the only team getting calls. Anyways, the Bengals had multiple opportunities to win that game and they didn’t so the Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl. 

Who is going to win the Super Bowl between these two teams? The obvious pick is the Eagles. Most betting sites have the Eagles as the favorites to win. This totally makes sense considering the Eagles are definitely the more well rounded team. The Eagles have the better offensive line, running backs, wide receivers, pass rushers, secondary and probably linebackers. On the other hand, the Chiefs have the better quarterback and tight end. Even though everything is telling me to just say the Eagles, I have to go with the Chiefs. I think even though the Eagles have one of the best defenses in the league, it is entirely possible that the game becomes a shootout considering Mahomes is at quarterback. If the teams are going back and forth trading points I have to favor the Chiefs because Mahomes is a significantly better passer than Hurts. Mahomes is slightly injured but I recently saw a quarterback list that I agreed with. It was Mahomes, Buffalo Bill Josh Allen, Los Angleles Charger Justin Herbert, Burrow, Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers, injured Mahomes and Hurts. Yeah Mahomes is that good. So there you have it, even though the Eagles are the better team, I am still going with the Chiefs. I am still riding the Mahomes train and I will continue to do so until he absolutely fails me.