Super Bowl
round in 1968.
“I couldn’t wait as a fan for the NFL to see what this guy could do, rolling to the left and throwing left, rolling to the right throwing right, extremely talented. He never got a chance because the Raiders had some really good players ahead of him, and he became a receiver. But I’ve always believed that the best athletes over the last several years and going forward are on the defensive side of the ball. And unless you can have some degree of mobility, it’s hard to have a sustaining elite offense.
“It can be done you know if you’re Tom Brady or Peyton [Manning] but in today’s world, all the good young quarterbacks in the league, you know from Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, the outstanding quarterback we’re gonna play on Sunday, Patrick [Mahomes], and the list goes on and on. They have some degree of mobility. So you know, it’s I felt it was important to us to have that triple-threat quarterback.”
Both quarterbacks figure to be under heavy pass-rush pressure. The Eagles led the NFL with 70 sacks and are looking to become the sixth team to lead the league in that category and win the Super Bowl in the same season. Kansas City’s defense, anchored by All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones, was second with 55 sacks. The 125 combined regular-season sacks are the most ever by Super Bowl opponents.
A football game is more than quarterback versus quarterback, of course, but the spotlight will be trained on Mahomes and Hurts.
“When you talk about the history of a league founded in 1920, this is a monumental moment,” said sportswriter Jason Reid, author of “Rise of the Black Quarterback: What It Means for America.”
“In so many ways, the story of this game talks about not just the story of this league, but the story of this country. When people are given opportunities, any one of us can rise up based on our merit and our ability.”
The Chiefs are playing in their third Super Bowl in four years, going 1-1 in the previous two. And their head coach, Andy Reid, is facing his former franchise. He was a fixture with the Eagles from 1999 to 2012 and is the only coach in league history to win 100 or more games with two different clubs.
This Super Bowl is also the first in which brothers are playing on opposite sides. Jason Kelce is the All-Pro center for the Eagles, and his younger brother, Travis, is an All-Pro tight end for the Chiefs.
This is the fourth Super Bowl appearance for Philadelphia, which lost its first two before winning the Lombardi Trophy five years ago. The Eagles were 5-0 against AFC teams this season.