For The Win
The Philadelphia Eagles have a chance to rewrite history. With one more win, they can avenge their Super Bowl 57 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2023.
Patrick Mahomes ultimately earned his second world title thanks in part to a late holding call and a game-winning Harrison Butker field goal with eight seconds remaining. Super Bowl 59 will be their chance to prove a rebuilt secondary and revamped offense is truly championship caliber.
Or it could be the backdrop for disaster.
There are several ways the biggest season of the year could go wrong for a team that opened as a betting underdog in New Orleans. Let’s break down the three most likely ways the Eagles could struggle in Super Bowl 59.
SUPER BOWL PREDICTIONS: How the 2025 Super Bowl could go terribly wrong for Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs
Hurts’s inconsistency has dogged him since the Eagles’ 2022 Super Bowl run. While capable of dizzying highs, he’s also prone to frustrating lapses that blank easy opportunities and cost his team points. See his safety against the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round for recent evidence.
SAFETY ALERT
: @NFLonNBC | #RamsHouse pic.twitter.com/qGobKx6PNL
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) January 19, 2025
Dallas Goedert is open for an easy checkdown to set up third and short and provide some relief from the Philadelphia goal line. Hurts even appears to be staring right at him!
Philadelphia understands this and has planned around it. A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Saquon Barkley all arrived to make Hurts’s life easier. As such, the Eagles have the league’s leading rusher AND are the only team in the NFL with two players in the top 10 when it comes to expected points added (EPA) when targeted (Brown and Smith combined for 109.4 EPA in 2024. The entire New England Patriots offense clocked in at 67.6).
But Hurts is a glitchy quarterback facing a defense that prides itself in creating lapses in judgment through disguised pressures. Take the fourth-and-five play that ended the Buffalo Bills’ season in the AFC title game. Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo disguised his intentions so well Tony Romo, adding play-by-play for CBS, told viewers at home Josh Allen would have plenty of time to throw as Kansas City dropped seven men into coverage.
Whoops!
Spags sends the corner blitz, Josh Allen has to backpedal 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage, still manages to get a back-foot throw to Dalton Kincaid annnnnnd he can’t finish the miracle
— Christian D’Andrea (@trainisland.bsky.social) January 26, 2025 at 8:45 PM
This is why head coach Nick Sirianni is going to ride Barkley heavily early in drives to avoid obvious passing situations against a defense that does a great job looking innocuous before unleashing hell. There are worse strategies than seeing pressure and chucking the ball in Brown’s direction,...
