Unlike last year, there wasn’t a sea of Eagles green at the biggest sporting event of the year, but instead, two seas of red, as the 14-6 Kansas City Chiefs defeated the 14-5 San Francisco 49ers at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, this past Sunday.
Despite this matchup being a lose-lose scenario for most Philly fans, in the world of the NFL, this game had a plethora of exciting storylines.
The QB Matchup
Everyone who is familiar with the NFL is familiar with Chiefs’ Quarterback Patrick Mahomes. His success has been well-documented, and he made his fourth Super Bowl start in just six NFL seasons as a first-string quarterback. During the regular season, Mahomes threw for 4,183 yards and hurled 27 touchdowns. While those numbers do not jump off the stat sheet for Mahomes’ standards, he stepped up during the postseason, ranking second in total passing yards since the first round of the playoffs, trailing only Jared Goff, the slinger for the Detroit Lions.
Brock Purdy, the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, had a slightly different narrative than Mahomes in 2023. As the 49ers’ seventh-round draft pick in 2022, Purdy has had a challenging task to legitimize himself as a star; however, winning a Superbowl ring in his first full season as QB1 might do the trick. Throughout the course of the season, critics have failed to give him credit for his success, claiming that his weak rushing skills will eventually devalue him; others have even credited Purdy’s success to other members of the 49ers’ coaching staff and roster. Nevertheless, the ball has to get to the receivers somehow, so discrediting Purdy is certainly an injustice.
Despite the 49ers’ loss, Purdy still put up a solid game, and falling three points short to the perennially successful Chiefs is nothing to dismiss. “It just hurts. We have the team obviously to do it—to win the whole thing—and come up short like that,” Purdy said according to reporters at heavy.com. “The way things have been the last couple of years here, everyone wanted it so bad. So, I think we’re still trying to sort of gather our thoughts and everything right now.”
Swiftys in the House
The Swiftys had their dream come true–Travis Kelce played on the biggest stage in America. For all the Swiftys out there who only know Kelce as “Taylor’s boyfriend,” it turns out that he, just like Taylor, is pretty solid at his job. In the AFC Championship, Kelce racked up 116 receiving yards and had three touchdowns in his last two games prior to the Super Bowl.
Explaining Eagles Fan’s Dismay
Needless to say, the expectations were high for the 2023 Eagles. There is no reason to rehash their disappointing ending to the season, but the downbeat tone ahead of Super Bowl weekend is certainly understandable. The Chiefs delivered a heartbreaking Super Bowl loss to the Eagles in February of 2023, and the 49ers blew out the Eagles during the regular season, serving as the first domino in the Eagles’ late-season decline.
Seeing the Chiefs take home another Super Bowl ring is hard to swallow, especially as the future of the Eagles is uncertain. Pro-Bowl center Jason Kelce has decided to reconsider his retirement, but no final decision has been made about whether he will truly return for a farewell season. Other rumors about potential trades and disgruntled players have been floating around in recent weeks, leading to a “he-said, she-said” situation in the Eagles’ locker room.
“I am very concerned [about the Eagles],” said Jack Cuffitelli, a sophomore at Hatboro-Horsham and an avid Eagles fan. “They aren’t going down a great path, and our coach seemed to have lost his team throughout the season.”
But as Travis Kelce parades around the streets of Kansas City, Eagles fans will watch from home wondering what the future holds for the 2022 NFC Champions.
