Crossing Broad
That, my friends, was the greatest win in Philadelphia Eagles history, completing the greatest season in Philadelphia Eagles history.
Not only did the Birds defeat the Chiefs to avenge the heartbreaking Super Bowl 57 loss, but they ran Kansas City off the field entirely. Just totally whipped them, belt to ass. They jumped out to a 24-0 lead, bullied KC’s offensive line, and had Patrick Mahomes seeing ghosts. Sack after sack, with a pick-six and a strip sack thrown in for good measure. The league’s best defense somehow found an extra gear on the biggest stage of all.
It’s hard to put into words what we all just watched, and it’s definitely one of those things where the reality might not set in until some point in the future. Did that actually happen? Did they really throttle the Chiefs that badly? Yes. Yes, they did. Years from now we’ll ask each other where we were when the Eagles held Mahomes and the Chiefs to garbage time stat padding in the Super Bowl. You could sense the confidence in the fan base going into the week, and a lot of people predicted a Birds win, but no one predicted this.
What makes it especially enjoyable is the specific way they did it, juxtaposed with Super Bowls 52 and 57, in which Jim Schwartz and Jonathan Gannon’s defenses gave up almost 1,000 yards and 71 total points. The Brandon Graham strip sack won it 2018, in iconic fashion, but how many times did we talk about the 2022 team needing to make one play, just a single big play, to win a second Super Bowl in five seasons? They couldn’t do it, but this team did it, and more. They sacked Mahomes six times, picked him off twice, and forced a fumble as well.
What’s more is that Saquon Barkley didn’t even have his best game on Sunday night. He finished with 57 rushing yards on 25 carries and did more of his damage catching short passes. But Jalen Hurts did a job, coming up just shy of 300 total passing and rushing yards. It’s poetic considering how much criticism Hurts received this season, the constant doubting of his passing chops despite the reality that the Eagles were able to win games by running the ball and playing stout defense. To cap it off with big passing performances in the NFC title game and Super Bowl is a nice way to silence the haters forever.
It’s also funny to go back to the offseason and recall that the big question to begin training camp was whether or not Hurts and head coach Nick Sirianni hated each other’s guts. Then you had a bunch of people ready to fire Sirianni after the 2-2 start, and writers accusing him of bringing his kids to the podium for the purpose of a “human shield.” What happened next was a 10-game winning streak, a fluke loss to the Commanders in which Hurts was concussed, then a...
