NEW ORLEANS — The Philadelphia Eagles perhaps did not vanquish the Kansas City Chiefs’ NFL dynasty for good. But they emphatically placed it on pause and left absolutely no doubt that they, not the Chiefs, were football’s best and most complete team this season.
The Eagles dominated from the start, scoring the first 34 points on their way to beating the Chiefs, 40-22, on Sunday night in Super Bowl LIX before a Superdome crowd that included President Donald Trump.
The Chiefs failed in their attempt to become the first NFL team to win three straight Super Bowl titles. They were denied what would have been a fourth Super Bowl triumph in six seasons with Coach Andy Reid, quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce in collaboration.
And it wasn’t competitive. The Eagles raced to a 24-0 lead during a first half in which Mahomes threw two interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown by rookie cornerback Cooper DeJean. The Eagles’ Jalen Hurts scored on a push-play quarterback sneak and, following an interception by linebacker Zack Baun, threw a touchdown pass to wide receiver A.J. Brown.
Hurts added a second-half touchdown throw to wideout DeVonta Smith in a 17-for-22, 221-yard passing performance. He also ran for 72 yards and was named the game’s MVP.
“I do it to win,” Hurts said. “This team approaches it just to do the same thing. That’s what it’s about.”
Jake Elliott provided four field goals. Philadelphia sacked Mahomes six times and forced him into a fourth-quarter fumble. Mahomes connected on 21 for 32 passes for 257 yards. He threw three touchdown passes, two of them to rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy. But those were cosmetic — the Chiefs were shut out until the final minute of the third quarter. Kelce was limited to a quiet four catches for 39 yards.
“They played better than us from start to finish,” Mahomes said.
No one is calling the Eagles a dynasty, but they are thriving as a highly effective dynasty buster. They played in their third Super Bowl in the past eight seasons, and they won for a second time. Their previous victory came in 2018 over the New England Patriots, whose two-decade reign over the NFL preceded the Chiefs’ dynastic run.
“The Gatorade got dumped on Coach [Nick Sirianni] with like 2½ minutes left,” Baun said. “That’s crazy. … We were trying to stay locked in the whole game, though, because Kansas City has come back in so many games like that. But I think we all knew pretty early.”
The Eagles defeated the Chiefs in the Super Bowl two years after losing to them in the Super Bowl. Their triumph followed an offseason in which owner Jeffrey Lurie and General Manager Howie Roseman decided to retain Sirianni after the Eagles unraveled late in the 2023 season. Roseman had an offseason as good as they come, signing tailback Saquon Barkley and Baun and drafting DeJean and fellow cornerback Quinyon Mitchell.
Barkley had the ninth 2,000-yard rushing season in NFL history as the Eagles reestablished their supremacy in the NFC East. They led the league in total defense during the regular season under newly hired coordinator Vic Fangio. They overwhelmed the Washington Commanders in the NFC championship game to get back to the Super Bowl. And they ended Sunday with confetti falling all around them while they held a Lombardi Trophy, much as Roseman had told Barkley to envision when the two spoke during the offseason.
“You’ve got to keep faith, and you’ve got to have people around you that believe in you,” Barkley said. “From Howie to Nick, the [offensive] line, the love that they poured on to me throughout the whole year, it just helped me.”
Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. He was on the field before the game and drew a loud reaction from the crowd when he was shown saluting during the national anthem before kickoff.
The game was played amid tight security, a little more than a month after the New Year’s attack in New Orleans. The NFL honored the victims in a pregame ceremony.
The Chiefs could not add to their collection of Lombardi Trophies and now must regroup to see whether they can resume their reign. They have gone from fresh-faced Super Bowl newcomers to tiresome-to-some mainstays, from the adored next greatest thing to the NFL’s supposed evil empire, from a budding dynasty to one trying to repair the cracks in its foundation that the Eagles exposed.
“Today was a rough day,” Reid said.
It was a year in which the Chiefs often appeared vulnerable but just kept winning, with a series of improbable escapes during the regular season. Mahomes no longer puts up attention-grabbing numbers or vies for MVP awards. The offensive line had its issues and the No. 1 wide receiver, Rashee Rice, suffered a season-ending knee injury in September. The defense did much of the heavy lifting.
But the Chiefs had a well-honed knack for winning, going 15-1 during the regular season until Reid rested Mahomes and other key starters in the Week 18 finale. They rolled through the AFC playoffs with victories over the Houston Texans and the Buffalo Bills. But they could not match up with the Eagles.
“They were the better team today,” Worthy said. “They came out juiced, and we came out flat.”
Still, the end to this dynasty may not be immediately in sight. Reid turns 67 next month but is set to coach on. Mahomes is only 29. Kelce is 35. He said last week that he hopes to play several more seasons, although he reportedly could reconsider and opt to retire this offseason.
The crowd was pro-Eagles from the outset as the Chiefs took the field to boos. The Eagles were greeted by loud cheers and an “E-A-G-L-E-S!” chant. The fans even booed when pop superstar Taylor Swift, who has become a prominent Chiefs fan based on her relationship with Kelce, was shown on the stadium video boards.
The Eagles had a fourth-and-two conversion on their opening drive nullified by an offensive pass interference call made against Brown for pushing off, leading Sirianni to complain to referee Ron Torbert. But on their second possession, the Eagles benefited from a penalty called on the Chiefs for an illegal hit on tight end Dallas Goedert on an incompletion.
Hurts’s 27-yard completion to wideout Jahan Dotson got the Eagles to the Kansas City 1-yard line. Hurts reached the end zone on the Eagles’ signature push-the-quarterback sneak, the polarizing play that returned to the Super Bowl stage amid a renewed debate over whether it should be banned.
Hurts threw a third-possession interception to Chiefs safety Bryan Cook. But the Eagles increased their lead to 10-0 on Elliott’s 48-yard field goal midway through the second quarter. They made it 17-0 when DeJean, on his 22nd birthday, snagged a pass by Mahomes for his first NFL interception and raced 38 yards to the end zone. Mahomes, throwing out of his own end zone, was intercepted for a second time on a diving grab by Baun.
“They played with really good effort,” Chiefs center Creed Humphrey said. “It was their night.”
The Eagles quickly cashed in with Hurts’s 12-yard touchdown pass to Brown 1:35 before halftime. In their seven first-half possessions, the Chiefs ran 20 plays and managed just one first down and 23 yards. Mahomes completed 6 of 14 passes for 33 yards and had a first-half passer rating of 10.7.
Elliott’s 29-yard field goal pushed the Eagles’ advantage to 27-0 in the third quarter. The Chiefs failed on a fourth-and-four attempt, and the Eagles followed immediately with Hurts’s 46-yard touchdown strike to Smith for a 34-0 lead.
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