Eagles’ title hopes crash thanks to lousy defense

The Chiefs call it “church mode” because it typically begins and ends with a kneeldown.

On Sunday the lategame plan worked to perfection although it was capped by a Super Bowl-winning 27-yard field goal by Harrison Butker.

It was a masterful example of clock management by Chiefs head coach Andy Reid, who during his head coaching tour with the Eagles was ripped at least once in virtually every news conference for misusing his timeouts or failing manage the clock properly.

First and foremost, the Eagles couldn’t get a stop in the second half. Not one lousy stop. And Mahomes appeared to reinjure his ankle in the first half. Serious or not, the Eagles bit into the bait. The vaunted Eagles pass rush with transcendent statistics didn’t get one sack of Patrick Mahomes.

“Boy, it stings. You can taste it,” Eagles veteran Brandon Graham said. “You can feel it. All we had to do was make a play on defense. We’re all together, but we know that it sucks that we couldn’t get off the field and make a stop for the offense because the offense put us in a position. They just got us in the end. All credit goes to Kansas City. They had a great year. We’re just going to feel this one for a minute, but it will definitely make me stronger for this comeback.”

While everyone except Birds cornerback James Bradberry (pleaded guilty as charged) wanted to blame the officials for his hold giving the Chiefs a first down at the 11-yard line of the Eagles with 1:48 left, they overlooked the play made by running back Jerrick McKinnon who on the next snap ran to the two-yard line and took a knee with the score tied at 35.

With the “church mode” offense, that effectively meant the Chiefs would win in regulation or the contest would go to overtime.

“We relay that to Patrick, Patrick relays it to the huddle,” Reid said at his presser Monday. “We knew they didn’t have timeouts. We knew we could run the clock down to eight seconds if we did it right and still stay within that five, six-yard area where your field goal percentages are 99 percent. And we’ve got a good field goal kicker. And then you don’t really give (the Eagles) much of an opportunity to get the ball back. We practice this every Friday. You don’t get to use it very often but on the biggest stage we were able to use that.”

Eight seconds it was before the Eagles got the ball back, and that barely was enough time for Jalen Hurts to launch a desperation heave that fell incomplete. It was the second Super Bowl title for both Reid and Mahomes, the latter named the game’s MVP.

Watching that was like dying 1,000 deaths for the Eagles, who were fixated on the clock and the scoreboard.

“Obviously it’s situational football and they are well-coached in that,” Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert said. “They had a game plan for a situation like that and they executed it perfectly. He went down. We would’ve done the same thing in that situation. It’s tough, I can’t say I was fully defeated at that time because I knew we would get the ball with a little bit of time and give ourselves an opportunity. But it’s a bummer we didn’t have more time on the clock. The Chiefs have a great team. They played incredibly well today.

Sometimes you wish there was a fifth quarter.”

The Chiefs flashed further coaching brilliance on Mahomes’ last two touchdown passes to Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore, who walked into the end zone with no Eagles in sight.

“Coach Reid and Coach Bieniemy and all the coaches had a good feel for how they passed off their motions going across the field,” Mahomes said at his MVP presser. “We knew that since they didn’t have that guy staying in man coverage on the guy in motion and that we would get a chance of maybe outflanking them or get a guy into the end zone. The first one was a great call by Coach Reid and Coach Bieniemy to get the touchdown. And the second one we actually messed up the formation a little bit, but we were able to still utilize how the play worked. I think you saw me look to the right first and then look back to the left because Skyy was probably supposed to be on the other side. But he was able to do the motion and get in the end zone. And so, at the end of the day, his first touchdown is in the Super Bowl. That’s a memory that he can have.”

There you have it, the Chiefs are so well coached that even when a player lines up on the wrong side of the formation, it’s a winner.

And so, too, is Big Red. “Well listen, it never gets old standing here,” Reid said at the day-after presser. “The game was a great tribute to the NFL, a great tribute to the Kansas City Chiefs. That was a heck of a game. I know Philly is hanging their head a little bit, but nobody really lost. I mean it was two great teams playing each other, and two great cities. I’m fond of my time there and I’m fond of my time in Kansas City.

“Times yours.”