The ease with which the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chief scored in the first attack of their respective conference finals was the preview of their comfortable victories. The LIX Super Bowl, which will be held in New Orleans on February 9, will be a repeat of the one from two years ago. Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce’s Chiefs then took the Vince Lombardi Trophy with a field goal in the final minutes of a very close final. The Eagles will seek revenge and this time they have, along with their quarterback Jalen Hurts with the addition of running back Saquon Barkley, who arrived from the New York Giants and has been a star all season. The Chiefs will try to extend their streak and become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls.
The victory of the Eagles (55-23) in the National Football Conference (NFC) championship this Sunday began to be cemented with a touchdown of Barkley after a 60-yard run on his team’s first drive. The runner ended up scoring three times, the same as Hurts himself, also in the race, in a game that the Philadelphia team won on the ground against a fragile Commanders defense.
The Washington team had not reached a conference final since 1991, when they were still the Redskins. The team has undergone a change of ownership and a profound transformation. They reached the NFC final with a quarterback rookie, Jaylen Daniels, who signed the most spectacular play of the season in October. Daniels could not break the curse: a team with a rookie leading its attacking game has never reached the Super Bowl, although six, including him, have been one step away.
The Commanders had been able to defeat the Detroit Lions at home the previous week, the first seed in the NFC regular season and the only team that has never played in a Super Bowl. However, this Sunday they were continually dismantled by the lethal combination of Hurts, Barkley and AJ Brown, the main receiver in the passing game.
The physical superiority of the Eagles, with a powerful defense and a versatile attacking game, prevailed over the Commanders’ game on almost all fronts. Even so, the story of the championship could have been different without the four turnovers by the Washington team forced by the pressure of the Eagles, which they took advantage of to score and mark the distance.
In addition to his three rushing touchdowns, Hurts passed for 246 yards, including one touchdown. He did not suffer from the knee injury from a week earlier in the victory against the Los Angeles Rams, which caused him to miss several training sessions this week.
The match left several records. The Eagles’ 55 points are the most scores in an NFC final in history. The three notes of Hurts in career are a maximum for a quarterback in the postseason. Additionally, Barkley becomes the ninth player in NFL history to have more than 2,000 rushing yards in a single season. Barkley himself extended an NFL record on Sunday with his seventh touchdown with a run of more than 60 yards in a season, including the playoffs.
The Eagles reach the fifth Super Bowl in their history. They only won it in 2018. Now they face each other again against their executioner from two years ago, Patrick Mahomes’ Kansas City Chiefs. That game was dramatic for those from Philadelphia. They seemed to have the final on track with their 24-14 in favor of halftime and 27-21 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but they succumbed to Mahomes’ attack in the final stretch. They will seek to redeem themselves from that failure.
The Chiefs, favorites
The Chiefs start as favorites due to their performance in recent seasons. It is his fifth appearance in the Super Bowl in six years. Of them, they won three, the last two consecutively. With three titles in five years, Patrick Mahomes, 29, has become the generational replacement for Tom Brady, considered the best American football player in history, who retired with seven victories in his 10 appearances in the Super Bowl . Mahomes has 17 postseason victories, only behind Brady’s own 35.
The Kansas City team had an almost flawless regular season, with 15 wins and two losses. The Chiefs dispatched the Houston Texans without complications in the divisional round, but suffered this Sunday against the Buffalo Bills in the American Football Conference (AFC) final. They reached the beginning of the last quarter trailing 21-22 after an exchange of blows without a clear dominator.
Mahomes, who had already scored in the first half, did so again in the fourth quarter and, in addition, they scored two extra points by hitting a new try instead of throwing between the sticks. The Bills hit back thanks to two good passes from Josh Allen, their quarterback. The score was tied (29-29) with less than four minutes remaining. The Chiefs stood in the vicinity of the scoring area, but missed their three opportunities and settled for a field goal that put a provisional 32-29 on the scoreboard with four and a half minutes remaining.
The Buffalo Bills failed at the moment of truth. They took a chance on their next attack, but the Kansas City defense gritted their teeth and didn’t let them advance. The decisive pass on fourth down slipped out of Austin Johnson’s hands. Mahomes regained control of the game in the final minutes, in which you grow. He managed the game, ran the clock and when he achieved a first down With just over a minute left, he began to sing victory. The match was won.
The Chiefs will face a renewed Eagles on February 9. Team legends like Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox retired, but their successors, Cam Jurgens and Jalen Carter, have filled their positions well. It is Barkley’s presence, however, that makes their attack more fearsome, so those from Kansas City face a more powerful rival. The same team has never won the Super Bowl three consecutive times, so the Chiefs are also measured against history.
